On the invitation of the Hamazkayin Paris chapter, on November 5, 2018, historian Claude Mutafian presented his book, La saga des Arméniens de l'Ararat aux Carpates (Paris, Belles Lettres, 2018; 448 pages). The event took place at the Demirian Hall of the House of Armenian Culture.
Hera Tosounian opened the event, noting that the subject of the book, the story of Armenians who moved to Carphathia from the Ararat plain, has received little attention before now from historians. The speaker knew about the migration of Armenians to eastern Europe only from Simon Vratsian’s multivolume Kyanki Ughinerov. Starting in the mid-eleventh century, many Armenians had relocated from the Caucasus to that region.
Professor Mutafian spoke for an hour and half, offering vignettes about Armenians in Carpathian Europe: When and why did Armenian communities get established in the region? What paths did they take there? What kind of relations did they have with other minorities? What did they contribute to local culture?
Armenian communities were established in Italy, Crimea, and Eastern Europe in the middle ages. The Carpathian region encompasses present-day Romania, eastern Ukraine (which was part of Poland until 1918), and western Poland.
At the conclusion of the event, copies of the book were sold. The first printing of the book (a print run of 1,000) has already sold out. A second printing is anticipated on November 20.