It was not simply a wonderful concert, but a rare and delightful musical encounter. The Wiesbaden Staatstheater opened its sumptuous foyer on November 11 to a Lieder-Soiree (evening song recital), where guests, served with a glass of wine, took their places at small tables in an atmosphere that evoked images of intimate gatherings of music lovers at the beginning of the 20th century. 

The annual Frankfurt Book Fair represents a cultural highpoint in Germany, as authors, publishers, booksellers, literary agents, and booklovers from around the world gather to honor one country’s literary contributions, and explore the vast offering of new titles in every language culture. This year’s guest country was Italy, which presented its new selections under the rubric “Roots in the Future.”
As always, the Republic of Armenia is present...

Das geopolitische Schicksal Armeniens:Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Armenian’s Geopolitical Fate: Past and Present). The book is the result of a collaborative effort by Norwegian geologist and ethnologist Winfried K. Dallmann and German sociologist, genocide researcher and human rights proponent Tessa Hofmann.

On September 7, the Armenian Cultural Association (AKV) in Hesse proudly celebrated its 55th jubilee, one of the oldest immigrant communities in the state. While presenting various facets of the uniqueness of Armenian culture, the festive gathering focused on the integrative function of cultural exchange. The event was entitled, “55 Years of Culture, Integration, and Language Diversity.” 

Although there are five months to go before the scheduled opening of the UN climate summit COP29 in Baku, November 11 to 22, human rights groups in Germany have been mobilizing to demand that the Berlin government act to release political prisoners held in the Azerbaijani capital.

If you mention “Eurovision” in Germany, or any other European country, what comes to mind for most people is the Eurovision Song Contest for popular music. This year’s event took place in May, with Swiss musician Nemo winning.
Not everyone knows that there is also a Eurovision contest held for classical artists, which this year will take place in Norway on August 17.
And a musician from the Republic of Armenia will be among the contestants.

It was our long-awaited trip to Armenia, the first since 2019. The Coronavirus pandemic, then repeated, escalating conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), culminating in the mass expulsion of Armenians in September 2023, had interrupted our happy routine of yearly trips to Yerevan.
In April this year we finally returned for a week-long visit to the capital, several villages nearby, as well as the cultural capital Gyumri.

Garen Garibyan does not give up. Although he has been forced to leave Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) twice, his opera studio project for children will continue to grow and thrive. His story is a demonstration of courage, and an inspiration.

Every year on April 24, Armenians and Germans gather in the historic St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt and the French Cathedral in Berlin to pay homage to those who perished. Representatives of the government, the Armenian ambassador and other diplomats, local political leaders, and leaders of the religious communities speak, and a special guest holds a keynote address.

On February 28-29, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met with her counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, respectively.
The two-day discussions held in the foreign ministry’s guest house, Villa Borsig, in Berlin were characterized in official releases as “negotiations” centered on perspectives of the draft bilateral Agreement on Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between the two nations.

On February 3, over 65 people gathered in Zvartnots, Vagharshapat for the festive inauguration of a new IT center for youngsters. Presiding over the ceremonies were Lilia Totalyan, who is president of the Social Support Computer Center NGO in Echmiadzin and...

What better way to honor a great artist than to foster development of art in youngsters? That is the idea behind the International Art Festival and Competition hosted by the Armenian Cultural Society in Hessen (Armenische Kulturverein in Hessen AKV) at the end of 2023. 

In recent years, numerous governments and public institutions have devoted increasing attention to promoting harmony among diversity in society. While political bodies may have established legal guidelines for integrating persons of different backgrounds, cultures and personal capabilities, creative approaches by therapists in the cultural realm have developed exciting results in theater. Drama therapy has proven to be an effective means for individuals to interact on a metaphorical level, to play roles in fictional narratives that allow them to deal with difficultie, swhether real disabilities or emotional, psychological barriers to healthy social interchange.

As the fireworks rang in the New Year 2024, few people thought there was much to celebrate anywhere in the world. But in the German city of Cologne, there was indeed: the memorial stele that honors the victims of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians was not going to disappear, as had been planned by the city authorities, but would stay put in its place along the Rhine river, not far from a statue of Germany’s last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Humanitarian aid continues to flow from generous German organizations into Armenia, to help alleviate the suffering of those among the 100,000 people forced to flee their homes in Artsakh. Among them is the Berlin-based human rights organization, Against Genocide, for International Understanding (AGA), which raised $28,000 to support a vital initiative launched by the church.

In the lead up to and then after the remarkable acts of aggression by Azerbaijan which led to the forced expulsion of Armenians from Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), analyses by various experts, politicians and scholars have focused on the ethnic, religious and geopolitical causes. A long history of conflict documents all three aspects, and during the 2020 war, the racist character of Baku’s military campaign was blatant. 

“This pain affects all of us.” So reads the text borne by a monument in the German city of Cologne along the Rhine River. It refers to the genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk regime during World War I against the Armenian population. But the words take on further meaning in light of the fact that, after a long political battle for and against the monument, a decision has been made to remove it.

In response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by Azerbaijan’s forced expulsion of over 100,000 Armenians from Artsakh, Armenians in Germany have been working with German organizations to supply urgent relief. In the forefront of efforts has been the Armenian Embassy in Berlin, working with Armenian-German groups and church communities.

Germany is known for its culture of remembrance, manifest in official acknowledgement of heinous crimes committed by previous governments in history, from the massacre of the Herero and Nama in 1904-1908 in Namibia, to complicity in the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians and other Christian minorities, to the Holocaust.

Reportedly 2,800 police were deployed in Berlin on Friday, November 25, to protect Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was making a short visit. Members of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) and the Syrian Kurdish Diaspora Network gathered in front of the residence of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeyer, who welcomed the guest. The GfbV’s banner read: “No Red Carpet for Islamist Erdogan!”

Despite crises at home and abroad, several representatives of Armenia’s rich literary culture and publishing enterprises travelled to Frankfurt for this year’s book fair, which took place from October 18 to 27. Receiving visitors at the large Armenian stand were Arevik Ashkharoyan, founder of ARI Literary and Talent Agency, Zara Hakobyan, from the National Library of Armenia, and Ani Musheghyan, researcher and librarian from the Komitas Museum-Institute. And featured in the Armenian presence were two authors, both women: Lusine Kharatyan and Susanna Harutyunyan.

Armenia is famous for its musical culture, and the excellence of musical education. As my husband and I learned during our first visit there several years ago, the teaching staff of the numerous schools and conservatories pride themselves on training world-class musicians. It is almost proverbial to note that in the best orchestras, operas, and music academies anywhere, you can usually find an Armenian.

Three days after Azerbaijan’s military aggression, which led to the expulsion of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, demonstrations took place not only in Berlin and Frankfurt. Organized by the Armenian Cultural Association in Hessen (AKV).

The demonstration in Berlin on September 23 had been organized weeks earlier; the Diocese of the Armenian Church in Germany, the Central Council of Armenians in Germany, along with two leading human rights groups, the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) and Against Genocide, for International Understanding (AGA), had joined forces to awaken German public opinion to the impending genocide against Artsakh Armenians under Azerbaijan’s blockade.

“Wars may come to an end, but traumas last for a long time thereafter. All wars present the same forms of horror, and they leave survivors with weighty handicaps, both visible and invisible.” These are the words of Eugénie Alecian, a leading French-Armenian musician and composer.

On September 2, Armenians in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt were joined by local human rights groups in demonstrations to protest the threatened genocide in Karabakh (Artsakh), and demand effective humanitarian and political intervention.

A century ago, when the Young Turk regime committed genocide against the Armenians and other Christian minorities, Germany, its wartime ally, could have intervened, but did not. Single individuals, like Johannes Lepsius, Consul Walter Rössler, and General Liman von Sanders, to name a few, did what they could to protect the targeted groups.

About 10 kilometers from the center of Yerevan in a village called Zovuni a new cultural initiative has come into being, which merits the attention of artists and art lovers. It is the home and studio of Arman Hambardzumyan and his wife, Lusine Sargsian, designed and built by the artist himself. Not only is it a residence and atelier, but also an active cultural center which will host exhibitions, discussions about art, and other activities.

On June 18, 2023, a historic concert took place in the Gyumri branch of the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan. It was the first time in the Conservatory’s 25-year history that it had showcased a harp concert. The solo concert featured Hasmik Mkrtchyan, a second-year student in the string department. The talented harpist, who studies under Prof. Gayane Harutyunyan, performed in the small hall of the Conservatory.

The name of the competition may be “Small Step,” but the voices of the singers were big and beautiful. This year the event, which has previously brought together participants from Armenia and Artsakh, is to be international, with contestants invited from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Georgia and the Russian Federation.

During World War I it was not only the Armenians who fell victim to genocide under the Young Turk regime; other Christians, Greeks and Syrian Orthodox, Aramaeans, were targeted as well, deported, and massacred. On the weekend of May 19-21, in Berlin and Munich, members of these communities joined to pay tribute to the Pontic Greek victims of the Ottoman genocide.

 It was in the historic Paulskirche (Church of St. Paul) in Frankfurt that the first National Assembly met in 1848 and worked to produce the first constitution for a German republic. This year again it hosted the International Day of Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on Sunday, April 23.

When artists Van Soghomonyan and Nona Gabrielyan moved back to Yerevan in 2022 after thirty years’ activity in Wiesbaden, Germany, some may have thought they were going to retire. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

After two years of pandemic restrictions, Germans were able to resume Carnival celebrations again this February. Carnival here is an age-old tradition, especially in the Catholic areas of Bavaria and the Rhineland. Large crowds gather in bright costumes and high spirits for festive sessions characterized by political cabaret and music. As the season comes to a close just before the beginning of Lent, cities like Cologne and Mainz host festive parades, again featuring huge, politically satirical floats, marching bands and costumed jesters.

A decade and a half after the assassination of Hrant Dink, Xenophobic hatred and violence are being fomented by right-wing extremists, targeting newcomers, whether immigrants or refugees. 
This was the subject of a discussion on January 21, moderated by Raffi Kantian, chairman of the German-Armenian Society (DAG), in the course of a meeting in Cologne, commemorating the anniversary of the death of Dink.

For weeks, political forces in Germany have turned a blind eye to the ongoing Artsakh crisis, while mainstream press organs have observed a complicit silence. Now, as the humanitarian crisis created by Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor worsens, public opinion in Germany and Europe is slowly waking up. 

Two seminal studies of the Armenian genocide have recently appeared in Iran, in Farsi (Persian) translations. The first is Wolfgang Gust’s monumental collection of documents from the German Foreign Ministry archives, which detail what Imperial Germany knew or did not know, did or did not do, while the Young Turk regime leadership of its wartime Ottoman allies was carrying out the Genocide against the Armenians and other Christian minorities. Gust’s book, first published in German in 2005, was released in English by Berghahn in 2014, titled,
The Armenian Genocide in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany in 1915-16.

Scholars and human rights proponents who came together earlier this month for a conference on “Genocide and Denial,” were continuing a discussion process begun in January this year. As Lepsiushaus director Dr. Roy Knocke recalled, the first conference, addressed by Prof. Taner Akçam and German Holocaust historian Wolfgang Benz, dealt with the denial of the Shoah and the Armenian Genocide as viewed from the historical perspective, whereas the second session would “develop the theme further, from a philosophical, sociopsychological and juridical perspective, with reference to human rights practice.”

The Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest and most important worldwide, is something I look forward to every October. This year, after two years of limitations imposed by the Covid pandemic, the fair opened as an in-person event, and people came in droves. Though the numbers still do not reach those of pre-pandemic years, there were a good 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries and 180,000 visitors. In the first two days, reserved for trade visitors, there were 93,000 in attendance, and from Friday to Sunday, that figure was augmented by another 87,000 private visitors.

“The Smyrna horror is beyond the conception of the imagination and the power of words.” This is how an American physician, Dr. Esther Clayson Pohl Lovejoy (1869-1967), characterized the events she witnessed in the city of Smyrna in September 1922.
In the German capital, diplomats, political figures, representatives of the Greek and Armenian communities, civil society and clergy, as well as citizens gathered to commemorate the victims of The Great Fire of Smyrna.

On August 10, after three years of hard work, Dr. Tessa Hofmann announced the launch of a new website, The Virtual Genocide Memorial.
Hofmann is a pioneer of genocide research in Germany, one of the first scholars here to publish scientific research on the Armenian genocide.
Active for many years at the Free University of Berlin, she has produced scores of books and articles on the fate of the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire, not only the Armenians, but also the Greeks and Syrian Orthodox (Aramaeans).

When Mesrob Mashtots arrived in Echmiadzin with his alphabet, he was happier (in the words of his biographer Koriwn) than was Moses descending with the holy tablets from Mount Sinai. Truly, his invention of the Armenian alphabet in 405 A.D. marked the beginning of a new era for the nation and the people. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. The saying has become a cliché, and for good reason: it holds true. Nothing could prove this more convincingly than an exhibition that opened on June 16 in Dresden, Germany. Organized by the “Haytun” Armenian Cultural Association in Dresden together with the Armenian Information and Documentation Center (IZDA, Berlin), the vernissage took place in the Martin Luther Church.

April is World Autism Awareness Month, a time to learn about autism. Organizations offering help to people with autism use the opportunity to educate the public on their work and many, like the My Way center in Yerevan, invite the public to join them in celebrating their achievements. The My Way Socio-Rehabilitation and Vocational Training Day Care Center is a leading institution for helping children, youngsters and young adults with autism, not only in Armenia, but throughout the region.

It is not only his family and friends who have reason to congratulate Helmut Donat on his 75th birthday; members of the Armenian community everywhere should join in as well. As a publisher, he has done more to educate the reading public on Armenia, its people and history, its tragedies and achievements, than any other German publisher.

On March 10, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on “Destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh.” The vote tally was 635 in favor, 2 opposed and 42 abstentions. It stands out for its clarity of purpose and demands for forceful, effective action.