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The Newspaper of the California State University~ Fresno Armenian Studenrs Organizatioo & Armenian Studies Program Non-Profit Fresno~ CA 93740 U.S. Postage Address Correctioo Requested PAID Permit No. 263 Fresno, CA. oom December 1992 Vol.14, No.2 (42) Supplement to the Daily Collegi.an Kouymjian lecture discusses Armenian social change and survival during the time of Columbus origins which are not clear." He menian dark ages. As a nation it By Barlow DerMugrdechian said that some historians said he struggled to survive. The period is Advisor and was Armenian, some Italian, and · either ignored in standard histories Armen Aghishian yet others claimed he was Jewish. or relegated to a page or two. Ar­ Staff Writer "All of us, young.and old, hav~ at menians lived in quite a depressed leastthoughtofthe ----------- state. There Dr. Dickran Kouymjian, Haig recent SOOth anni- "Armenia in the Age was wide­ and Isabel Berberian Professor of versary of Colum- of Columbus is full of spread suf­ Armenian Studies at CSU Fresno, bus' discovery of fering in­ discussed the oppression and un­ America" paradoxes ... The period was cluding star­ stable political environment that Kouymjian also one of great distress but also vation, Armenia experienced during the heavy taxa­ said that Colum- oifcontinuance." time <)f Columbus and throughout bus' life spanned tion, and de- history, as part of the Columbus two centuries, the portation. Quincentanary lecture series. His 15th and 16th (1451-1506) and · .. Life was difficult for Arme- Dr. Didau Kouymjiu speaks OR "Armenia in the Age fl Comnbus." lecture, titled, "Armenia in the Age simultaneously, during this "off­ nians during the Age of Colum­ of Columbus" was presented Endowed Chair given by the chair the Age of Columbus is full of shoot of European colonialism," bus," emphasized Kouymjian. "Ar­ Thursday evening, December 3, holder. paradoxes ... The period was one of there was a radical transformation menians endured foreign conquests 1992 and was sponsored in coop­ Kouymjian's main thesis cen­ great distress but also of continu­ of Armenian society beginning during these centuries but ulti­ eration with the Departments of tered on the momentous social ance. The radical transfot:mation when the last Armenian kingdom mately survived." Geography and History, and the change which took place in Arme­ of Armenian society from a medi­ of Cilicia under King Levon, was The depredations of the rival Aq School of Social Sciences. nian society in the fifteenth and eval to a modem one resulted. " seized by the Mamelukes in 1375. Koyunlu and Kafa Koyunlu tribes The lecture also acted as the sixteenth centuries. Kouymjian Kouymjian characterized Co­ For Armenians the Age of Co­ See COLUMBUS, page 8 Annual Lecture of the Berberian began by stating that "Armenia in lumbus as a "shadowy man with lumbus was the middle of the Ar~ ASP Annual Fund the most successful of all time at CSUF By Barlow DerMugrdechian Advisor :!:!:!:~=r~:=:~:~:}~:~:::::!:!:!:!:!:::~ : !:!:!:!:~!:!:!: !:~:!:!:}}}f?t!ty:~:~:~:::~:~:::::::::::::r:::=r~:!tt:::~:::~:t:=:::=?:::::::::::::::::::=::}::::t::::t::::::::::::r~:~:::~:::~~=~=~=~=~=~ ::=:::::::::=~:::~=::::~:::}:::: Last July, the Annehum Studies Program joined a small group of academic departments at California State University, Fresno which conduct an annual support program. Such an effort, part of the Academic Annual Funds, is usually conducted to benefit a school. .. We felt there was an identifiable constituency that would be interested in and able to support the program," said Richard K. Francois, Director of University Development, in explaining the strategic decision. .. And the Advisory Board for the Kalfayan Center for Armenian Studies was willing to back the effort-another important factor." The results were gratifying-more than 170 gifts were received totalling $22,742 and some requests to foundations are still being discussed. The results made the Armenian Studies Academic Annual See ANNUAL FUND, page 8 r . I . I =~~~f:=1===~=====================================~========~==~::=~===================::~======~===~::=~~::====:..=?>.i;~=::======:..==:==~========:..=-,;,::;,:;:;:~==~~=:=:==== ~=:===:=:~=:==::;:;:.,:;:;: ;:;:;:;:;:~===:=:=======:~==::,:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;::Uit:;,~h.a."!'ll!!lfl:m,,:,:;:; ::.~==:.=~=:. ::;:;:;:;:;:;:;:~=:=-:::::::::;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;::::::=======:.::::::::::::::::::;:;:::=:~:.=====~:;:;:;::.:===:.=====::::: ::::;: :::::: ::::;:;:;::.:=~=:::;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;.;.;:;:;.;:;:;:;.;:;:;:;::f!.!ff.:r::,~~:!~:::;:;: Karabakh,Continuea his automatic assault rifle as if he ters and rock slides and dead trees their faces and necks. In the grass the convoy. He put down his AK- ''They ran away," he said, had held it 1,000 years. "I am tired. in the way. It was always the same: nearby was a painting Lenin with 47 rifle and picked up a machine sounding disappointed. ''They were I want to go home. I have lost many the road vanished and appeared in bullet holes in the canvas between gun. He checked the big clip of just here. This is where they lived." friends. When will the war end?" a continual corkscrew dance be­ his eyes. bullets in the gun and put another He came out of the cave. There The convoy stopped often in the fore the headlights, the yellow "He was as bad as the clip in a pocket. He started cliiJ!b­ was eagerness on his face. Ht; fin­ mountains. There were many de­ beams sWinging wildly through Azarbaijanis," a soldier said, and ing the slope alone. gered the big gun hopefully. He lays. No one knew why. "Maybe to dust clouds in the blackness. Edges laughed. It was' steep with loose dirt, stared at the tree line above and keep the stragglers from· falling of the road had crumbled down the In mid-morning the convoy brush, boulders, and scrub tr:ees.ln listened to the wind. Nothing. Only too far behind," said an old m~ cliffs. The drivers held on as the stopped at a small bridge across a the ridges running across the moun­ the dry weeds moving and birds driving a gas truck. "An attack trucks bucked and twisted and stream. The bridge was half col­ tain face. He climbed quickly, eyes singing and the smell of the moun­ could happen anytime." poundedon. · lapsed with an Azerbaijani-truck up, searching,kneespumping,half­ tains. Nearly all the men were civil­ A fire burned far away in the hanging in the middle over the running, half-climbing, leaning "The Karabagh is our land. ians-truck drivers, construction hills. The convoy twisted down deep ravine. The truck carried into the mountain for balance. He We will never surrender it. It is workers, factOry laborers, students, into a gorge and emerged. Ahead cookies and bazooka-type shells _cradled the heavy gun in one arm. ·linked with Armenia forever," he fanners-who volunteered to<Ieliver were the flames; it was a campfire packed with arrow-shaped nails. A crucifiX dangled at his throat said. " I did not want to come up suppli~. They did not like stop­ at an Arm~nian road post. Three Its drivers were gone. Two tanks ·Pop, pop, pop. here; 0 am not crazy. But I am not pirtg and sitting in clearings; they soldiers stood by the crumbled were abandoned in the ravine. A He· stopped, saw no o_ne, no frightened because I am ready to felt like targets. -· muzzle flashes, kept going, some­ die if I have to for freedom." "The last last time I came was times zig-zagging, sometimes go­ He started quickly down the ing straight up, sure-footed like a slope. The convoy had been roll­ a year ago," a big man said, steer­ 0 Miles 100 Caspian Sea ing his truck loaded with flour up mountain goat. He glanced back at ing for half-an hour. His men were the nanow road. "I have a family the road The convoy looked small. waiting. They were supposed to be in Yerevan. My wlfe is worried. It was m·ov1ng on. Something ahead of the convoy scouting for She did not want me to come again. moved in the brush above. He trouble, andhelVas eager to get out But the people in the Karabakh are turned and pulled the trigger-clang, front again. our brothers and they need our clang, clang, clang-empty car- . help." He downshifted around a tridges jumping from the big gun hend ai)d the enJtine groaned. bucking in his hands, bullets chip­ "The last time I was in the ping the rocks, dirt spurting up like Karabakh, I gave my last piece of bubbling grease. He went over and' bread to alittle girl and said. 'Don't looked. No one. He kept going up. -.. STAFF worry. We will be back.' So, you Pop, pop, pop. see, I have no choice. I must go He came over a rise into a EDITOR back." · clearing and squinted in the sun­ After midnight the convoy light His face was flat and dirty. Cynthia Baxter stopped at the Armenian border Sweat dripped from his wild black with Azerbaijan. Over the ridge stone houses, their faces flickering burned-out school bus was down­ beard. There were cookie crumbs ADVISOR in the light. They were very young stream. was a narrow strip of Azerbaijan, in his beard. He wiped the long Barlow DerMugrdechian thenKarabakh. Armenia controlled and their faces haggard. No one seemed to know how harr from his eyes. The air was an east-westcorridor, several miles Dawn came onto the moun- • to get around the bridge. The men cold. He breathed deeply. wide along the highway, through tains. It was blue-gray and misty stood in the road and ate the cook- "You sons of bitches, where STAFF WRITERS which the trucks would travel: • I and cold in the forest. The convoy ies and admired the nail bombs, An are you?" he said. Armen Aghishian The night was cold. There rolled on. A mans~ on a horse, hourpassed.Anorderfmallycame He stood in the o¢n now ~ were many stars. The moon shone tending his herd of cattle grazing to try to drive the trucks through impatient, eyes darting over the Nicole Kasabiari on the blackened fields and pine along the road the ravine.

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