Oliver Baldwin's Six Prisons and Two Revolutions

In the second episode of Treasures From The Library, our librarian Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian explores the nuanced value in Oliver Baldwin’s Six Prisons and Two Revolutions, which lends itself as an account of Armenia at the turn of the 1920s. A newly independent state still fearful of nearby powerful regimes, Baldwin’s eye-witness reports describe the socio-political context of the time and provide great insight that can be corroborated in Leon Surmelian’s memoir I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Zanazan Sounds is also available on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts.

Hrachya Acharian's Etymological Dictionary

In our debut episode of Treasures From The Library, our very own librarian Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian details the history, contents and current relevance of Hrachya Acharian’s etymological dictionary, hand-written in the twentieth century after decades of studying the root of Armenian words and compiling an ever-growing list. It lists around 11,000 detailed entries of the definition, declension/conjugation, history, and theory of origin and historic development of each word. It is no surprise that Acharian is still, almost a century after its publication, considered the father of Armenian linguistics.

Zanazan Sounds is also available on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts.