It was with a heavy heart that I learned earlier today of Professor Richard G. Hovannisian’s passing and I wish to express my deepest and most sincere condolences on this very somber occasion to the entire Hovannisian family and to all those who loved and admired him. Professor Hovannisian was a formidable scholar and pathbreaking innovator in the field of Armenian history, and the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation’s Chair of Modern Armenian History at UCLA. In recognition of his towering accomplishments, the chair was renamed in his honor upon his retirement in 2011, following a storied, fifty-year career at UCLA. Dr. Hovannisian was a mentor to several generations of scholars and a recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including a distinguished Guggenheim fellowship. As the present holder of the chair, I am profoundly indebted to his distinguished contributions to the teaching of Armenian history and for establishing Armenian Studies in North America on a firm foundation—a legacy that will be carried forward in future generations.
Professor Hovannisian was the author of numerous foundational works, including Armenia on the Road to Independence (University of California Press, 1967), the trailblazing and monumental four-volume diplomatic history of the Republic of Armenia, a work of profound erudition and painstaking research in multiple languages across numerous archives. The publication of these groundbreaking volumes, from 1971 to 1996, traced the long arc of Professor Hovannisian’s biographical trajectory and helped define Armenian Studies as a professional field of scholarly inquiry and research unseen before his intervention in the field. During the last two decades of his tenure at the Department of History at UCLA, Professor Hovannisian tirelessly organized the “Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces” conferences, which not only made complex scholarly findings accessible to a broad audience, but also resulted in fourteen volumes of edited conference proceedings, culminating in the recent volume, Armenian Communities in Iran (2021). Especially noteworthy and indispensable, is the landmark two-volume collection of essays by the leading scholars of Armenian history, The Armenian People: From Ancient to Modern Times (New York: MacMillan, 1998), an expertly edited work that established a highwater mark for scholarship in the field and serves as a textbook of choice in Armenian Studies and World History courses across universities in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Professor Hovannisian was not only a monumental figure in Armenian Studies, but he was also a true pioneer in genocide studies in North America, a field that was hardly in existence before the early 1970s and owes an enormous debt to his contributions. His role as an indefatigable champion for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide will be remembered as one of the most meaningful and profound among his many accomplishments. Like many scholars of Armenian history, Professor Hovannisian’s dedication sprang from a deep desire to alleviate the incalculable losses and ineffable trauma caused by the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1918, during which much of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was systematically exterminated. During an interview he gave more than two decades ago, Professor Hovannisian spoke of how his survivor father, Kaspar Hovannisian, never spoke about the genocide. “He didn’t talk about it, but in his sleep he would call for his mother,” Hovannisian recounted. “That’s the way with the aftermath of genocides – it’s not there, but (is) there at all times.” This silence and grief that was passed down to survivors drove Professor Hovannisian to record as many testimonies of survivors as possible. In the 1970s and ‘80s, more than two decades before Stephen Spielberg’s establishment of the USC Shoah Foundation, Hovannisian worked tirelessly, often with his UCLA students, tape-recording and filming Armenian genocide survivors, aware that the chance to record their narratives was rapidly dwindling. “Of the 800 interviewees,” he stated in 2001, “no more than 20 or 25 are still alive…so it makes the effort all the more important.” His important collection is now part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s “Richard G. Hovannisian Armenian Genocide Oral History Collection.”
The whole of the Armenian Studies family has suffered an irreplaceable loss and will be forever in Professor Hovannisian’s debt for the many sacrifices he made to build the scholarly foundation of modern Armenian history, a truly magnificent feat, especially since he did so at a time when he was practically alone and had no shoulders to stand on.
May the extended Hovannisian family find consolation in his blessed memory and comfort in this time of mourning. Թող Աստուած հոգին լոյսերու մէջ պահէ եւ իր հայրական սիրով իր հարազատներուն մխիթարանքով պարուրէ իրենց ամբողջ կեանքի ընթացքին։
With deepest respect,
Sebouh David Aslanian
Professor of History and Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History,
UCLA Department of History
Inaugural Director of the Armenian Studies Center at the UCLA Promise Armenian Institute
