Snow-covered Yerevan hosted the third Post-Socialist Memory in Times of Crisis and Speculation
(PoCoMoS 2026) conference from January 22 to 24. Organized by anthropologist Gayane
Shagoyan and YSU researcher Alexander Aghajanyan, the international gathering brought together
120 scholars from 82 institutions worldwide to examine how memory survives, transforms, and
confronts new challenges amid crises, ongoing conflicts, and digital disinformation. The
conference was co-organized by the Memory Studies Association, marking the first time this
globally recognized academic organization has held a conference in Armenia- a fact that gave the
event particular symbolic weight in a country where memory is deeply lived and experienced.
Over three days, researchers explored contested memory landscapes, demonstrating how physical
spaces - urban and rural alike - function as silent witnesses to historical trauma, rupture, and
displacement. Within this broader framework, the participation of Dr. Karen Jallatyan and Dr.
Konrad Siekierski from the Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPCU) Armenian Studies
Department was especially significant. The two scholars are currently involved in the project “Lost
but-found: Armenian Capital Ani at Contested Crossroads.” Drawing on their ongoing research,
they examined how ruined sites such as Ani carry multiple layers of collective memory across time
and space, and how diasporic Armenians engage with those layers. They also reflected on how
rituals, historical narratives, literature, and film reveal the tightly entangled fragments of the past -
- sometimes through scattered traces, and sometimes through the symbolic experience of absence
itself.

Dr. Jallatyan’s presentation, titled “On the Fringes of Collective Memory,” described three
different “lives” of Ani across distinct temporal lenses, which he conceptualized as “ruin-images.”
His research highlighted the complexity of these images, showing that they are never fixed in the
past but instead exist in a dynamic space between memory, national and diasporic imagination, and
multimedia representation. Drawing on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, he adapted the distinction
between the movement-image and the time-image in cinema to reinterpret the representation of
Ani. In this framework, the ruin-images of Ani continually unfold through new literary and
cinematic forms, often conveying absence rather than presence. Dr. Jallatyan further introduced the
notion of the “loss of loss” — the impossibility of fully reimagining a catastrophic past when
memory itself becomes fragmented or inaccessible. As he noted, “the ruins of Ani generate an
interrogative diasporic collective memory that not only registers loss but also approaches
catastrophe: the loss of loss, the impossibility of integrating memory itself.” In this sense, the ruins
of Ani do not simply function as sites of diasporic return or mythmaking. Rather, they operate as
mediating spaces where diaspora and memory co-create one another, exposing what he described
as an “absent presence.”

Following this presentation, anthropologist Dr. Siekierski introduced his research, “Memory on
Foot: Armenian Pilgrimages to the Lost Homeland.” His approach emphasizes memory as lived,
embodied, and performed in motion, rather than purely conceptual or textual. Based on
ethnographic research on pilgrimages to the lost ancestral homeland, he demonstrated how
diasporic memory is mediated through shared storytelling and collective witnessing along the
journey. The presentation also served as a tribute to Armen Aroyan, a pioneer of these organized
pilgrimages. Dr. Siekierski illustrated how Aroyan’s carefully designed itineraries — including
visits to ancestral villages, ruins, and sites of historical trauma — allowed participants to reconnect
with vanished homelands through sensory and embodied experience. As one pilgrim reflected,
“Walking where my grandparents walked, hearing their stories, touching the stones of their
homes… memory became something I could feel in my body, not just recall in my mind.” In this
way, the presentation functioned as a microhistory of Aroyan’s initiatives, using his life and
itineraries to illuminate broader patterns of diasporic memory, loss, and attempts to reconnect with
ancestral spaces that in many cases no longer physically exist.

The panel concluded with a talk by PPCU doctoral student Lilit Saghatelyan. Her paper,
“Intergenerational Transmission of Narratives of Nakhijevani Armenians after 1988,” explored
memory in the context of forced migration. Focusing on Armenians who fled Nakhijevan during
the escalation of anti-Armenian violence in 1988, she traced how narratives of displacement and
hardship are transmitted across generations. Drawing on oral histories, Saghatelyan showed how
second-generation Nakhijevani Armenians inherit not only memories of trauma, but also
attachments to a homeland known primarily through familial storytelling. These inherited
narratives shape their perception of Armenia as a present homeland while simultaneously
preserving the memory of what was lost. As she emphasized, comparing generational narratives
reveals different understandings of home and homeland, as well as fragile - sometimes imagined
ties to a place left behind.

The panel was well attended by conference participants and invited guests. After the presentations,
YSU professor and anthropologist Yulia Antonyan offered her remarks and provided a thoughtful
overview of the discussion. In closing, Dr. Jallatyan and Dr. Siekierski thanked the audience and
announced that, as a continuation of their ongoing project on Ani, they are co-editing a collected
volume on Armenian lost cities. They are also organizing the exhibition “Ani: The One Thousand
and One Afterlives of a Medieval Armenian Capital” at the Petőfi Museum of Literature. The
exhibition will open on March 19 and will be followed by a two-day conference. 

Written by Anna Galstyan, PPCU MA Armenian Studies