The Presence of the Past | New Initiative by ‘Enlight’

“Enlight” Public Research Center NGO launches a new initiative, entitled “The Presence of the Past”.

“… History deals with the past indeed, but with the past in relation to the present alone. Every new generation questions the past stemming from its present, and the list and nature of the questions depends on the position of the presence – interesting is everything that answers to the questions of the present. Historical, then, is the past which interests, which is alive, which is connected to the present and which is relevant.

To present historical past means to bring it to the present, to make it present, to turn the seeming old into a new. There is no contradiction: if we view the essence of the phenomena, not the mere form, then the contradiction between the old and the new vanishes.”

        Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan

The project, as a databank of archival materials, aims to expand continuously. A databank, where digitized archival materials on the history of the social and political thought of the Armenians will be included, as well as documents regarding the public, political, social and cultural history, pictures, newspapers, magazines, journals, video tapes, photographs, etc.       

We start the project with the subsection entitled “Armenian Political Thought | 88 Movement”. The subsection “Armenian Political Thought” encompasses archival materials on the history of the Armenian social and political thought, interviews, articles, newspapers, flyers, etc. relative to Karabakh Movement of 1988, among them the archival materials of the former Hambardzum website {in memory of Hambardzum Galstyan and dedicated to Karabakh Movement}, provided by the former editor-in-chief of the website, Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan.  

The publications are yet to come…