LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The Ararat-Eskijian Museum and Research Center (AEMRC), in collaboration with the Armenian Genocide Research Program (AGRP) of the Promise Armenian Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Armenian Film Foundation, is pleased to announce the official launch of the Vahakn N. Dadrian Digital Archive on Sunday, November 15, at 4:00 p.m. at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum in Mission Hills, California, with online participation via Zoom.
Professor Dadrian (1926–2019) was a pioneering scholar of the Armenian Genocide and played an instrumental role in establishing the broader field of genocide studies. Throughout his distinguished career, he devoted decades to uncovering and documenting the history of the Armenian Genocide, conducting research in archives across the world. He assembled an exceptional collection of historical evidence from Ottoman, German, British, French, American, Armenian, and other sources. His archive includes official documents, correspondence, newspapers, unpublished manuscripts, research notes, and other materials of immense scholarly value.
For the first time, this extraordinary collection will be freely accessible worldwide through a pioneering AI-powered digital platform. Going far beyond conventional digitization, the platform transforms the archive into an interactive research resource, opening new possibilities for historical investigation.
At the heart of this innovation is “Ask Dadrian,” an AI-powered feature that allows researchers to ask questions directly of the archive in natural language, as though consulting Professor Dadrian himself. Users can explore historical questions, locate relevant documents, and discover connections across thousands of pages through an interactive dialogue with the collection.
The digital archive represents a breakthrough in the preservation and accessibility of this historical collection. Comprising more than 100,000 pages organized in hundreds of folders and over 660 gigabytes of digitized material, it is the result of sixteen years of dedicated work. Transported from upstate New York to Los Angeles over ten cross-country trips, the collection underwent an extensive process of preservation, organization, scanning, and digitization.
The initiative began in 2009 under the leadership of the Ararat-Eskijian Museum and Research Center, following Professor Dadrian’s decision to entrust his personal archives to the Museum. Recognizing the historical importance of the collection, Museum Chairman Martin Eskijian initiated the preservation effort, with Museum Director Maggie Mangasarian Goschin overseeing the long and demanding process of transporting, organizing, and digitizing the materials.
