Or, how the Azerbaijani event failed to distract the public attention from the presentation of a book by an Armenian scientist dedicated to the Armenian Genocide
On October 20, the Central Chamber of University of Ca’Foscari, Venice, hosted a book presentation “The Theme of the Armenian Genocide in the Italian Literature” authored by Ph.D., a professor at the University of Venice, Sona Harutyunyan (YSU Publishing, 2015). In the book, the author presents and from literary, linguistic and psychological aspects, thoroughly analyzes the testimonies of the Armenian Genocide survivors, eyewitness’ memories and the fiction published in Italy. “This is the first comprehensive work addressing Italy and, as such, it has a significant role in expanding our understanding about the experience and memories of the Armenian survivors and foreign witnesses settled in this country,” writes an honorary Professor of political sciences at the Royal Canadian Military University, Alan Whitehorn, in the preface of the book.
The study was conducted in the framework of the program “Applied research having basic and key importance for scientific and scientific-technical activities”, supported by the grant of the RA Diaspora Ministry. The first chapter of the book examines the memoires and some fiction book about the Armenian Genocide published in Italy. The analytical parts of the research are in Eastern Armenian, the citations from the memoires are translated from Italian to Western Armenian to convey both the genuineness to the words and to once again pay tribute to the survivors and martyrs thru reviving the language of the generation of the Armenian Genocide.
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“The memoires of the Armenian community in Italy are the tortured evidence of the horrors, thru which the survivors and their families have passed. These memoirs, among others, are essential for keeping alive the memories of the tragic events that have left their mark not only in the history of the Armenian people but also the whole of mankind and on the century known as the century of genocides,” said Sona Harutyunyan in her speech. The second chapter of the research discusses the literary genre as a means of making the historical memory of the Armenian Genocide more remarkable, giving a particular attention to the famous Italian-Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s works dedicated to genocide.
The chapter emphasizes also the power of translation as an intercultural and inter-language bridge, and the translations of “The Lark Farm” novel in multiple languages are presented, as well as exclusive interviews with the translators. At the end of the monograph, there is a reference to the screened version of “The Lark Farm” novel filmed by Italian film directors Taviani brothers. The answers to “The Lark Farm” novel and similar films received from the film critics and students as a result of numerous discussions of the author in various universities of the world are presented for the first time.
On the same day of Sona Harutyunyan’s book presentation on “The Theme of the Armenian Genocide in the Italian Literature”, Azerbaijanis had organized a parallel event in another hall of the same University Chamber entitled “Azerbaijani and Italian views on multiculturalism”. However, they failed to distract the public attention from the book presentation dedicated to the Armenian Genocide, which was widely elucidated being classified in the line with the most important events of the University.
Private reporter,
“Aravot” daily
