AGMI Director Edita Gzoyan with Vice-President JD Vance and the Second Lady, Usha Vance on Feb. 10

BY GEVORG VARDANYAN

Gevorg Vardanyan

Recently Armenia’s Education Minister Zhanna Andreasyan dismissed Dr. Edita Gzoyan from her position as Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. This strange decision has confused and bewildered Armenia’s academic community. It appears arbitrary, ignoring and trampling over the opinion of the AGMI staff, who had collectively opposed it. Moreover, the scholar members of the Board of Trustees firmly stood against it. In protest, the chairman of the board, prominent French Armenian historian Raymond Kevorkian resigned, followed by board members Harutyun Marutyan, Hranush Kharatyan, and Stephan Astourian.

The young and ambitious scholar Edita Gzoyan had been elected to the position two years ago. Earning a doctorate in International Relations from Yerevan State University, a master’s in law from the American University of Armenia, and training in numerous professional courses at prestigious Western universities, the new director had implemented noticeable reforms in the museum’s scientific and administrative management.

The scientific achievements were revolutionary. Not only in terms of productivity per researcher, but also in terms of quality. The AGMI became unmatched. For the first time in the history of the Republic of Armenia, a scientific institution began systematically producing results that met elite Western standards.

Additionally, nearly a year ago the official website of the Ministry of Education proudly announced that the museum’s journal, “International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies”, had been included in the Scopus database, becoming the first historical/social science journal from Armenia to do so. Research into the many details of genocide, studies on the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, professionalization of museology were among a few of the numerous unprecedented achievements. Many history departments at Western universities would dream of such productivity.

This would not have been possible without Gzoyan’s exceptional managerial abilities. Strategic planning and proactive leadership were accompanied by an attitude that respected academic freedom and political pluralism. From hosting official delegations at a high level to working with schoolchildren from the provinces, everything was done with dedication and care. Sensing the spirit of teamwork was easy and all were appreciated and valued for their abilities.

After listing all this, the simple question arises: why was the director dismissed? Common sense seeks rational answers, in vain. Answers circulating in the media are frightening, yet more frightening is their validity.

According to these accounts, the dismissal is connected to the visit of U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance. While presenting the memorial complex, the director dared to speak about massacres and violence against Armenians committed by the Azerbaijani authorities, showed the khachkars commemorating them, and also presented Vance with a book describing these events. Gzoyan’s action was allegedly not forgiven by Armenia’s leadership and the Minister of Education. Gzoyan has long had a scholarly interest in the Artsakh issue and has continuously published astute articles in leading international journals. Her article on the massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijan was recently published in the International Criminal Law Review, the most influential legal analysis of the topic to date.

Many believe that for the Minister of Education, this could have been a convenient opportunity to get rid of Gzoyan, as before the elections, she was trying to shift responsibility for the “sloppily” renovated Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex away from the ministry and herself and onto the museum’s director.

This article is not simply the story of Gzoyan, a dignified patriotic Armenian scholar. Nor is it merely another example of failure by Armenia’s leadership and Minister Zhanna Andreasyan. This story is also about the abandonment of one’s rights and homeland, about the assassination of academic independence in Armenia, and about the vulnerable nature of scientific and cultural institutions. It proves that whether one is a director or an ordinary researcher, one is vulnerable. There is no effective protection from the whimsy of superiors.

I write this as a professional whose biography was significantly shaped by the museum, where I worked from 2008 to 2018. In 2017–2018, serving as director, the museum’s legal status changed from a state non-commercial organization to a foundation. At the time, there was hope this change would increase academic freedom. But those were illusions, and the shackle on freedom only further tightened.

In 2018, I left to teach and write my doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina. When I returned in 2024, the newly elected director, Gzoyan, warmly welcomed me into the museum. At first, it was difficult to trust one another, but gradually we became a powerful team and overcoming challenges, achieved successes in a short time. That was no coincidence, as our visions, values, and commitment to principles were near identical. For a moment, I believed we were unstoppable…

About two months ago, I moved to UCLA. Learning about what happened here and looking with a kind of envy at the academic environment, I once again reflect not only on the AGMI but also on the broader crisis of social sciences in Armenia. I remember my conversations and discussions with Gzoyan. She had an unshakable belief that something could be changed in Armenia—that it was possible to create a Western-quality scientific environment—and with her optimism, she inspired the entire museum.

History shows that in Armenia, bright minds like Gzoyan are usually pushed out and marginalized, and in many cases, they emigrate. Our tragedy is not that we are in a swamp; our tragedy is that we feel comfortable in it.

If Armenia wants to have a scientific environment that meets international standards, the priority should not only be to encourage productivity but also to create institutional protection. Intellectuals with their own opinions must be protected from the encroachments of power. Without that, academic successes will remain temporary, while systemic problems will persist.

If we don’t change, we will bring about our own destruction.

Gevorg Vardanyan is a PhD from the University of North Carolina and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

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Tereza Yerimyan delivers address at DC protest marking Sumgait Pogroms

EDITOR’S NOTE: ANCA Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan delivered these remarks at the AYF DC Ani Chapter protest marking the Sumgait-Baku pogroms, held at the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, DC, on February 28.

Today we gather in remembrance — and to recommit.

We remember the community in Sumgait, persecuted for being Armenian in February 1988 — when Armenians were hunted in their homes while authorities looked away. We remember Kirovabad, where Armenians were driven out by violence and terror. We remember Baku, January 1990 — a community that helped build that city, erased in presence and in footprint. And we remember Maragha, April 1992 — civilians murdered, a village destroyed, families shattered.

These were not isolated outbursts. They were not spontaneous riots. They were part of a systemic and systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing — the revival of a familiar method: dehumanize, terrorize, expel.

For Armenians, that method is not new.

In 1915, Turkey sought to solve what it called the “Armenian question” by eliminating Armenians from their ancestral lands — through massacre, deportation, starvation, and exile – blatant genocide.

In 1988, that same logic resurfaced in Sumgait. Armenians were again targeted not for what they had done, but for who they were. Again, mobs were incited. Again, authorities stood aside. Again, the goal was clear: make Armenian life impossible.

The pogroms of 1988–1992 were not an aberration of Soviet collapse. They were the reappearance of genocidal intent — testing whether Armenians could once again be removed with impunity.

However, the pogroms, much like the Armenian Genocide, did not shatter our people. They ignited them.

Our fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, in Artsakh saw what was happening in Sumgait and understood that living under a dictatorial government like Aliyev senior’s regime fueled by anti-Armenian hatred meant eventual annihilation.

And so, on February 13, 1988, the Artsakh Liberation Movement was born.

A movement grounded in democratic will.

Calling for union with Armenia.

Calling for independence to ensure survival.

It was driven by the valor of thousands who fought not for conquest, but for existence — for the right to live freely on their ancestral land, to worship openly as the first Christian nation, and to pass their identity to their children.

No one spared sacrifice.

EVERYONE believed in the fight for independence.

And they won.

Many here know this history.

But it warrants repeating — because genocide does not always arrive at once. It advances in stages. It tests the silence of the world.

And when our people faced destruction, death, and deportation, they did not cower. They did not bend. They did not break.

They fought.

They defended their homeland — and their VERY existence.

And yet the pattern did not end.

What began in 1915 continued in 1988.

What began in 1988 reached its next chapter in 2023.

The Aliyev Jr. regime, behind me, completed what pogroms began: the removal of an entire Armenian population from Artsakh.

Months of blockade.

Hunger used as a weapon.

Medical supplies denied.

Children rationing bread.

Then military assault.

Then forced exodus under threat.

When 150,000 Armenians are emptied from their ancestral homeland because their presence is deemed unacceptable — that is not merely a military outcome.

It is a chapter of genocide.

Genocide is not only mass killing. It is the intentional destruction of a people’s ability to exist in their homeland — through starvation, terror, forced displacement, and cultural erasure.

And we have seen this before.

The world said “never again” in 1915.

It looked away in 1988.

And in 2023, it watched.

This is what happens when the international community treats evil lightly — when it mistakes appeasement for “peace.”

And yet – the valor and courage of our brothers and sisters in Artsakh did not cease to exist, despite what Azerbaijan desired. After the war in 2020 Davit Babyan, foreign minister and advisor to the president of Artsakh flew to DC and met with every single politician – raising the alarm and providing eyewitness testimony to the war crimes Azerbaijan committed. Arguing that impunity would lead to further destruction.

On the last days of the genocidal exodus, Davit Ishkhanyan, President of the Artsakh National Assembly and a leader of the ARF, secured transport for every Artsakh Armenian that needed help. And he not only made sure human life was saved but he rescued as much cultural heritage he could, sending paintings, taraz, and Khatchkars along with the caravans.

Ruben Vardanyan — who came to Artsakh with a vision for its flourishing future, who from his jail cell and sham trails fearlessly continues to proclaim that Artsakh was, is, and will be again. 

All these brave men and more are today imprisoned for life in Azerbaijan – they are prisoners of war for their belief and actions to stand courageously against the aggressor.

They did not bend, they did not break, and their survival is their resistance movement. 

As Armenian Americans, we must understand this: indifference, ignorance, and fear are the three allies of injustice. If we do nothing, aggression grows. If we do not learn, we cannot act. If we are afraid to speak, the persecutor wins without resistance.

We are not generations removed from our ancestors who survived genocide. We are living their truth in this moment. I am the granddaughter of genocide survivors, the niece of Baku pogrom survivors, and the wife of an Artsakh refugee who fought for his homeland and would do it again in a heartbeat.

We are today the frontline to the survival of our nation.

Armenian Americans have power, not just sentimental power, but civic power. We vote. We advocate. We educate. We organize. We build coalitions. We demand that American leadership be measured not by speeches, but by deeds.

So let us speak honestly about what we are witnessing — not only in Artsakh, not only in Azerbaijan or Turkey, not only in Syria and Jerusalem — but in the mounting pressures within Armenia itself. When faith is targeted, when the Armenian Apostolic Church is attacked, when journalists and political opposition are silenced, the message is unmistakable: control the conscience, and you control the nation.

Turkey and Azerbaijan are not only pressuring Armenia from the outside; they seek to shape its future from within – imposing demands, rewriting priorities, unlawfully dictating the constitution and history of our nation, presenting submission as “peace.”

But a peace built on the erasure of a people and the demise of Armenian statehood is not peace.

It is surrender disguised as diplomacy.

To my fellow Armenian Americans: we must never become complicit —

Not through silence.

Not through exhaustion.

Not through the temptation to move on because it’s too painful.

Complicity is what allows genocidal policies to mature from rhetoric into reality.

So today we recommit ourselves: to speak for the victims of Sumgait, Kirovabad, Baku, and Maragha — and for the displaced Armenians of Artsakh.

We recommit to demanding:

• The unconditional release of Armenian POWs and civilian hostages held in Baku.

• The safe and dignified right of return for the Armenians of Artsakh with their fundamental rights intact.

• The protection of Armenian cultural and religious heritage — because destroying churches and cemeteries is not collateral damage; it is an attempt to erase evidence that we were ever there.

• Real accountability — because impunity is the oxygen of genocide.

Let our message be unshakeable:

The Armenian Genocide did not end in 1915.

It evolved.

It resurfaced.

And in 2023, it revealed itself again.

But so too did Armenian resistance.

We are not here to transfer ashes.

We are here to transfer fire.

May the memory of our martyrs strengthen our courage.

May the pain of our people sharpen our clarity.

And may our unity turn remembrance into action — until justice is secured and Armenian survival is never again treated as negotiable. And until the future of the Armenian nation is secured.

Tereza Yerimyan is the Government Affairs Director at the Armenian National Committee of America, where she leads federal advocacy efforts advancing Armenian American policy priorities. A dedicated community advocate, she works to promote human rights, strengthen U.S.–Armenia relations, and mobilize civic engagement on issues impacting the Armenian people. Yerimyan earned her MBA from Georgetown University and her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UCLA.

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