But... Why Are You Here? A US Scholar in the Armenian Archives

Eli Feiman, a 2010-11 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow, writes about his experience researching in the Armenian archives. The following is part of a series of blog pieces from our US scholars, who are conducting research in the field.

I have been in Yerevan since the end of August conducting research for my dissertation which examines the formation, survival, and collapse of pro-presidential political parties in the South Caucasus. As part of my fieldwork, I have spent a good deal of time searching for newspaper articles and archival documents in an effort to plot the rise and fall of these parties, and to gather names and accounts of key events to discuss during interviews.

After a few months of regular visits to the National Library of Armenia, the National Archive of Armenia, and its separate party division, I am struck by the continued bafflement of librarians and archivists at my presence in their midst. Though I have dutifully presented letters of introduction and affiliation, obtained passes with photos and official stamps, and explained in clear terms who I am and what I am doing in Armenia, I am still regularly asked, “but… why are you here?”

Fellow patrons seem puzzled too. Watching me snap digital images of newspaper articles, protocols from past elections, and records of parliamentary proceedings, a number have tapped me on the shoulder and wanted to know who exactly I was taking these pictures for. “Myself, of course,” I would chuckle, to which they would reply, “then who is paying you for these photos?”

Though these questions carry a tinge of suspicion, I think that they stem less from mistrust than they do from a different conception of what doing research looks like, and why people do research.

I think that it is a cognitive leap to the people I meet at libraries and archives that someone would choose to come to Armenia from the United States to conduct research when so many people here are doing everything possible to study abroad. When I state that I am an independent researcher and am not enrolled at a local university, their puzzlement grows. Who, then, is telling me what information to look for? And what possible use could there be of interest in dusty old newspapers that may not even capture the real story behind events here.

Turning the telescope around, I too am puzzled by the pace and appearance of the research taking place around me. The National Library of Armenia, the largest in the country has only about 100 patrons per day, according to the estimate of the guards; less than 20 visit the National Archives. The archives and libraries operate entirely without computers; the National Library’s card catalog takes up half of the first floor of the building, whereas the National Archive’s catalog is spread among thousands of skinny bound volumes of lists, many handwritten, that line the reading room, and whose system of organization only the head archivist seems to know. Work for most of the patrons seems to crawl along as they often copy entire documents or articles by hand. At the archives, most patrons seem to be examining Imperial Russian property deeds; at the periodicals reading room, most patrons seem, actually, to be catching up on the latest news. And I find myself wondering, “but… what are they doing here?”

Now that the staff and some of the regular patrons recognize me, we have started to chat a little. I hope that on one of my coffee breaks soon, I’ll be able to sit down and find out more about who these mysterious patrons are and what they are researching. Maybe they will have some tips for me or some insight into my topic; and maybe I’ll be able to return the favor by taking a few photos for them.