By Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan
KRAKOW, Poland — As a gift to the Mesrob Center on its jubilee, Prof. Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan received an invitation from the president of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prof. Jan Ostrowski, to participate in the academic board of the Research Center for Armenian Culture, which was formally inaugurated at the Collegium Majus (Jagellon University Kraków) on September 21.
The establishment of the center is the result of years of work by university professors Andrzej Pisowisz and Krzysztof Stopka, who have dealt with the Armenian language and cultural legacy in Poland, in the context of their studies in History and Indo-Germanic Philology.
The center was set up on the initiative of Minister of Science Dr. Jaroslaw Gowin, with the aim of conducting research into the history of Polish Armenians in their cultural specificity as well as in relation to the Armenian Diaspora in central and eastern Europe.
The inauguration of the new center began following a visit to the historic Czartoryski Library, where Armenian manuscripts and early prints are also preserved. The international guests from Hungary, Rumania, Russia, Switzerland, Italy and Germany then gathered in the library of the Collegium Majus, where Stopka, the designated director of the research center, gave his welcoming speech.
Prof. Andrzej Zieba introduced the program and the three staff members of the new research center. The keynotes were delivered by Dr. Harutyun Marutyan, director of the Genocide Museum in Yerevan, and Vahan Vardapet Ohanian, representative of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Venice.