Yesayan Association, which focuses on Western Armenian language and culture, aims to make Istanbul’s Armenian cultural memory visible in the digital sphere through its new project, Hantes (“Ceremony/Journal”).
Focusing on Istanbul’s past and future, the public memory of Western Armenian, and the Turkish Armenian community’s cultural history of 100 years, the project is supported by the Hrant Dink Foundation’s Civil Society Strengthening Grant Program, funded by the European Union. The project traces the history of Armenian cultural life in Istanbul from the founding of the Republic in 1923 through 2023. It covers a range of activities, from concerts and theater performances to dance shows and exhibitions.
Armenian culture from 1923 to 2023
The newspapers Nor Or and Baykar, along with the magazine Kulis, as well as the collections of Payline-Yervart Tomasyan, Nurhan Baharyan, and Arshag Yeğigyan, constitute the project’s primary sources. The project will also be enriched by oral-history interviews with participants of certain events and witnesses of the period in question. As a result of searches through periodicals and archives, at least 200 events will be entered into the digital database.
In this way, a significant part of a community’s cultural life of a century will be brought to light.
First talk on October 1
As part of the project, three experts in their respective fields, all coming from abroad, will visit Istanbul to give talks and conduct workshops on archives. The first of these talks will be given on Thursday, October 1, by Leontien Talboom, who works as a technical analyst at Cambridge University Libraries.
The central question of the talk is how we preserve not only the material itself, but also the information that gives it meaning. Leontien Talboom will explore this question with participants.
The talk will be hosted at Havak Hall in the Anarad Hığutyun Building and will begin at 5:00 p.m. Registration for the event is available through kayit.yesayan.org.
