“Vaspurakan” Compatriots’ Union, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of National Academy of Sciences, Armenia, in collaboration with the Institute of History and the Institute of Oriental Studies, NAS RA are organizing an International Conference dedicated to the Centennial of Van heroic defense, as well as to the 2870th anniversary of the first record about Van city.
As is known, the Armenian Genocide was accompanied not only by enormous massacres but by self-defense battles as well. The self-defense of Van (by old calendar: April 7 – May 3, 1915) ended in victory. The power, created later at the head of Aram Manukyan, and in 1917-1918 – by Kosti Hambardzumyan, was the first Armenian political formation of the 20th century.
