"The East Is Much Closer to Us Than It Seems" (continued) - Irina GAYUK

Irina Gayuk's article "'The East Is Much Closer to Us Than It Seems' (continued)" is devoted to the publication of another fragment of the "Encyclopedia of Armenian Culture in Ukraine" — a section narrating the families and outstanding representatives of the Armenian community of Lviv and Galicia in the 17th–20th centuries.

Introduction and Methodology
The material is a continuation of the publication of fragments of the encyclopedia begun earlier (in "ANIV" No. 3 (30), 2010). The author employs a biographical and genealogical approach, tracing the fates of Armenian families across several generations and linking them to the political, scholarly, and cultural history of the region.

Key Thesis
The central argument of the article is that Galician Armenians, while preserving their national self-identity, organically integrated into the social and cultural life of Lviv and Poland, becoming at the same time active participants in key historical events — from anti-Russian uprisings to the formation of scholarly and artistic schools.

Thematic Sections

• Patriotic activity: Józef Żuliński, Władysław Eminowicz, Kajetan Baronch, Józef Nikorowicz — participants in uprisings and creators of Poland's cultural heritage.
• The Augustynowicz family: archbishop-metropolitans, jurists, artists, represented in the holdings of the Lviv Historical Museum.
• The Antoniewicz family: from priest-poets to the outstanding art historian Jan Bołoz-Antoniewicz, who initiated the opening of a department of Armenian language at Lviv University (1904).
• The Baronch family: sculptors, actors, physicians, collectors of Oriental art, represented in Lviv museum collections.
• Special attention is given to the figure of Father Sadok Baronch (1814–1892) — a Dominican, historian, author of more than 100 scholarly works on the history of Western Ukrainian Armenians, whose scholarly activity was combined with ascetic seclusion in the monastery of Pidkamin.

Conclusion
The author notes that important spheres of activity of the Lviv Armenians — trade, diplomacy, arms-making and jewelry crafts, weaving, fine arts — remained beyond the scope of the essay and will be the subject of subsequent thematic sections of the encyclopedia. The tragic conclusion of the community's history is also noted: organized Armenian life in Lviv ceased with the arrival of Soviet power in 1939 and finally ended after the liquidation of the Armenian Catholic Church in August 1945. The key conclusion of the article is that the centuries-long presence of the Armenian diaspora in Galicia left a deep and multifaceted mark on the science, art, and social life of the region, requiring further systematic study.