Garnik Asatrian

Garnik S. Asatrian (Armenian: Գառնիկ Ասատրյան; born March 7, 1953 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-born Armenian professor who studies and teaches Kurdish culture at Yerevan State University in Yerevan, Armenia.

Asatrian became well-known for his extensive research in the field of the study of Kurdish tribal and linguistic tradition and also for the establishment of the Center of Contemporary Kurdish Studies.[1][2]

Biography

Asatrian was born on March 7, 1953 in Tehran, and immigrated to Yerevan in 1968. In 1976, he graduated from the Department of Kurdish Studies at the Iranian Studies Branch of Yerevan State University.

From 1977 to 1986, he was a PhD student and then a senior lecturer at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Soviet Sciences in Leningrad in the field of ancient Iranian culture and languages (Avestan, Sogdian, Pahlavi, Persian, Kurdish, and Iranian ethnology). Asatrian earned a doctorate from the University of Leningrad in 1984 and an excellent doctorate in 1990 from the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow.[3]

He has drawn together 11 books and more than 125 scientific articles in Armenian, Russian, English, German, French, Turkish, and Kurdish languages.[4] From 1985–1999 he was a professor at the University of Copenhagen and participated in various international conferences in Berlin, Moscow, Copenhagen, Oslo, Aarhus, New York, London, Washington, Tehran, and Paris.

One of the best and effective works of Asatrian is "The Cultural Dictionary of Persian Etymology", which is written in Persian and contains all the original Iranian words with transcription. He is the founder of two magazines, Irannameh (A newspaper published in the USA in Persian language) and Acta Kurdica.[5][6]

Views and criticism

In a 1998 interview with Onnik Krikorian, Asatrian claimed that no Kurdish nation existed due to the linguistic and religious diversity among them.[7] He moreover claimed that no discrimination of Muslim Kurds and Yazidis existed in Armenia[7] which contradicts the findings of a United States Department of State report from the same year based on the complaints of Yazidi leaders.[8] In the 2000s, Asatrian urged the Armenian government to close all Kurdish organizations to prevent Yazidis in the country from taking part in Kurdish nationalist activities.[9]

Researcher and expert on Yazidis, Artur Rodziewicz, argued that it was difficult to not consider the divergent opinion of Asatrian on Kurds, Yazidis and the relationship between the two groups as politically motivated arising from 'the Armenians' attitude towards... Kurds.'[10]

Asatrian is a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.[7]

Works
  • Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, by Garnik Asatrian. This article appeared in the journal Iran and the Caucasus 13(2009), pp. 1–58.
  • The Origins of the Kurds and the Early Kurdish-Armenian Contacts, by Garnik Asatrian, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 5 (2001), pp. 41–74, in 35 pdf pages.
  • The Origins of the Kurds and Early Armenian-Kurdish Contacts, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 1 (1997), pp. 1–16
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica: Dimli (or Zaza), by Garnik Asatrian
  • Malak-Tāwūs: The Peacock Angel of the Yezidis, by Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, in 37 pdf pages. From Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 7, No. 1/2 (2003), pp. 1–36.
  • The Yezidi Pantheon, by Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, in 50 pdf pages. From Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2004), pp. 231–279.
  • The Holy Brotherhood: The Yezidi Religious Institution of the 'Brother and the Sister of the Next World', by Garnik Asatrian. From Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 3/4 (1999/2000), pp. 79–96
  • The Foremother of the Yezidis, from Religious Texts in Iranian Languages, Symposium held in Copenhagen May 2002, published 2007, pp. 323–328
  • Introduction to the History and Culture of the Talish People, edited by Garnik Asatrian (Erevan, 2011)
  • On the South Caspian Contact Zone: Some Talishi Folk Beliefs, by Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, from Iran and the Caucasus 18 (2014) pp. 135–146
  • Armenian Tracing Back an Old Animal-Breeding Custom in Ancient Armenia, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 2 (1998), pp. 63–65
  • "The Mothers of Night": An Armenian - East Iranian Parallel, by Garnik Asatrian and Tork Dalalian, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 3/4 (1999/2000), pp. 171–172
  • Iranian Miscellanea, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 3/4 (1999/2000), pp. 203–208
  • The Origin of the -ng Suffix in Kurmandji, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 3/4 (1999/2000), pp. 213–214
  • A Manual of Iranian Folk Magic in the Archive of the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies in Yerevan, by Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 3/4 (1999/2000), pp. 239–242
  • Āl Reconsidered, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 5 (2001), pp. 149–156
  • Blunt, Bald and Wise: Iranian kund (-), by Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 5 (2001), pp. 201–206
  • The Lord of Cattle in Gilan, from Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. 6, No. 1/2 (2002), pp. 75–85.
  • Kurdish Lō-lō, from Iran and the Caucasus 10(2006).
  • Iranian Notes III, from Iran and the Caucasus 13 (2009), pp. 319–330
  • Some Notes on the Ethnic Composition of the Islamic Republic of Iran, from Farhang-e mardom (Tehran, 2011), pp. 10–26
  • Marginal Remarks on the History of Some Persian Words, from Iran and the Caucasus 16 (2012), pp. 105–116, in 12 pdf pages. Twenty Persian words are examined, for: mandrake; excrement; types of prostitutes; lord; spear; thigh; crippled; slack; fenugreek; a kind of stew; types of baldness; frog; head; a water plant; first-born child; a medical herb.
  • The Festival of Throwing Stones, from Iran and the Caucasus 16 (2012) pp. 201–203.
  • The Ethnic Composition of Iran: From the "Expanse of the Aryans" to the Myth of Azerbaijan, Yerevan Series for Oriental Studies, vol. 2, edited by Garnik S. Asatrian (Erevan, 2012)
  • Armenian Demonology: A Critical Overview, from Iran and the Caucasus 17 (2013) pp. 9–25
  • 'Nose' in Armenian, from Iran and the Caucasus 18 (2014), pp. 147–152
  • Origine du système consonantique de la langue kurde, by Garnik Asatrian and Vladimir Livshits, from Acta Kurdica 1(1994), pp. 81–108
  • A Comparative Vocabulary of Central Iranian Dialects, with notes on dialectology and local toponymy, and a grammatical essay by Garnik S. Asatrian (Teheran, 2011).[11][12][13]
  • (with F. Vahman) Poetry of the Baxtiārīs: Love Poems, Wedding Songs, Lullabies, Laments, Copenhagen, 1995.

References
  1. Encyclopaedia Iranica IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS
  2. AN INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR GARNIK ASATRIAN Armenian News Network / Groong / June 8, 1998/ By Onnik Krikorian
  3. BRILL SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PROF. GARNIK S. ASATRIAN
  4. Academia.edu/ Iran and the Caucasus 13 (2009) 00-00 / Prolegomena to the study of the Kurds / Garnik Asatrian / yervan State University
  5. Victoria Arakelova, "IRAN AND THE CAUCASUS", in Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. XIII, Fasc. 5, pp. 485-486
  6. Studies on Iran and the Caucasus : presented to Prof. Garnik S. Asatrian on the occasion of his 60th birthday
  7. Krikorian, Onnik. "An interview with Professor Garnik Asatrian". Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  8. "Armenia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998". United States Department of State. 26 February 1999. Retrieved 25 January 2021. Yezidi leaders met with the new Government and the President's human rights commission in July to repeat long-standing complaints that their community (which speaks a Kurdish dialect and practices a traditional non-Christian, non-Muslim religion) is subject to discrimination by police and local authorities...
  9. Godfrey (9 December 2015). "Garnik Asatrian and Onnik Krikorian on Armenian-Kurdish ties; WikiLeaks-2006". ANI Armenian Research Center (ANIARC).
  10. Rodziewicz, Artur (2016). "The Armenian Portrait of the Peacock Angel: A polemical review of Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova's The Religion of the Peacock Angel. The Yezidis and Their Spirit World" (PDF). Fritallaria Kurdica. Kraków. 13–14: 156. ISSN 2353-4052.
  11. where is Iran? Who is Iranian? - Professor Garnik S. Asatrian
  12. Iranology in the region/ Professor Garnik Asatrian / 2012-2-6
  13. Mother tongue instruction (conversation with Garnik Asaturian)-2017.12.10 - iranchehr
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