Far Away from Mount Ararat [antikvár]

Foreword Mount Ararat as a permanent point of reference and a refuge for all times is a dual emblem of the exemplary respect the Armenians have for their tradition. Wliat the Armenian diasporas reveal all over the world is how community culture and identity can be retained even far from the homeland and despite the loss of the mother tongue. Besides the Caucasian region, where Armenian culture is endemic, its presence in the Carpathian Basin can also be traced back many centuries. This exhibition serves to foster the appreciation of the historical, cultural, and artistic values of the Armenians in the Carpathian Basin. Its main objective is to bear witness to the preserving power of culture and the fruits of Armenian and Hungarian coexistence. The exhibition was conceived a few years ago, afiier historian, armenologist Bálint Kovács met with the experts of the National Széchényi Library. The special pretext for the event was the fact that the first five Armenian printed books were produced 500 hundred years ago in Venice, 1512/13. In 2011, while the preparations were going on, the initial idea, focusing solely on books and history, was expanded to incorporate all fields of Armenian culture in the Carpathian Basin. As a result of the collaboration with the Budapest History Museum, the co-hosted exhibition was finally installed in the large temporary halls of the Casde Museum of the latter institute. It was in the 17 th century that the first major wave of Armenian immigration to the Carpathian Basin reached Transylvania, with primary setdements in Armenopolis (Gherla/Szamosújvár/Hajakalak/Armenierstadt), Gheorgheni (Gyergyószentmildós/Niklasmarkt), Elisabethopolis (Dumbráveni/Erzsébetváros/Yeiisabet'owpolis/ Elisabethstadt) and Frumoasa (Szépvíz/Sibviz); several towns were actually raised by the Armenians. In subsequent centuries, their diasporas spread all over the Carpathian Basin, merging the heritage of the Armenian fatherland with the local culture. Their cities, their constructed environment, as well as their book culture and the characteristic works of Hungaro-Armenian art are all worth showing to the broader Hungarian and international pubhc, to the exhibition visitors in Budapest. Furthermore, a valuable segment of the Armenian treasures from the Carpathian Basin here displayed has so far been inaccessible not only to lay art-lovers but even to the scientific world. This exhibition hosts a number of artworks and documents that have before lain hidden in forgotten attics and parish archives, awaiting professional cataloguing and treatment. Therefore, the exhibition was realized with the active participation of a research programme launched by the GWZO Institute of the University of Leipzig, whose crowning achievement was the international scientific conference concomitant with the opening ceremony of the exhibition in the National Széchényi Library (April 5-6, 2013). The exhibition and the present catalogue, coming with additional explanatory papers written by expert researchers, has been fiinded by the two host institutions as well as the Hungarian National Cultural Fund and the GWZO Institute in Leipzig, with considerable sponsorship from the Armenian minority councils in Hungary. A substantial part of the exhibits were loaned from Armenian parishes in Transylvania as a result of the partnership with the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of Alba lulia. Furtirer items were provided by the Armenian Catholic Chaplaincy in Budapest and public collections in Budapest and Nyíregyháza. We wish to express our gratitude for all our partners' generous assistance, as well as for the contribution of Professor Stefan Troebst (University of Leipzig) and the two curators of this exhibition, historian Bálint Kovács and art-historian Emese Pál. Budapest, June 2013 László Boka Péter Farbaky Director of Research and Academic Affairs Deputy Director-General National Széchényi Library Budapest History Museum