Resigned members of AGMI Board of Trustees issue statement

During March 3–10, 2026, the following statement was issued by scholars who resigned from the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI): We, the undersigned, have resigned from the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute due to the forced resignation of Director Dr. Edita Gzoyan. Considering the significant controversy and public reaction caused by this event, we find it appropriate to explain why we individually resigned at different times. On March 2, 2026, one day before our board meeting, the minister of education, science, culture and sports of the Republic of Armenia informed, for the first time, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, Harutyun Raymond Kevorkian, that in the ministry’s opinion, Director Gzoyan had shortcomings in managing the institution and that it was necessary to replace her with another director. First, we declare that this came as a surprise to us. In previous years, we had not heard any complaints regarding Dr. Gzoyan’s work — neither from the ministry, nor from any board member, nor from the AGMI staff. On the contrary, the board had evaluated her work as excellent. Second, the justification presented on March 2 to the chairman, and on March 3 to the board members, claiming that Dr. Gzoyan failed to properly oversee the renovation work at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, is unfounded. At a prior board meeting, it had been clearly stated that oversight and management of the renovation work were the responsibility of the ministry. Third, the AGMI charter clearly stipulates that the dismissal of the director is the exclusive authority of the Board of Trustees. Our board had neither reason nor intention to dismiss Dr. Gzoyan. Requesting her to submit a resignation letter was not within the authority of either the minister or, especially, the prime minister. Notably, the agenda of the March 3 board meeting included only one item: “Presentation and discussion of the landscaping and improvement project of the ‘Tsitsernakaberd’ park.” The issue of the director’s resignation was introduced unexpectedly after discussion of the agenda item. On March 5, the media reported the forced resignation of the AGMI director, which was followed by various explanations and conflicting public discussions. Shortly afterward, on March 12, the prime minister revealed that he himself had demanded Dr. Gzoyan’s resignation. The reason was connected to a private visit by U.S. Vice President JD Vance to the AGMI and memorial complex. Dr. Gzoyan had spoken with him about the massacres of Armenians in the South Caucasus and later in Azerbaijan during the early and late 20th century, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, and the Armenian Genocide. She also presented him with five books, one of which was a collection of American newspaper articles about the massacres of 1905–1921. This was part of the traditional protocol for hosting official delegations visiting AGMI. However, the prime minister characterized it as a “provocative” action contradicting the foreign policy of his government. State officials, he stated, must align with Armenia’s foreign policy, and since he had determined that there is no such thing as a “Karabakh movement,” giving a book related to the Artsakh issue was unacceptable. The immediate reactions following the prime minister’s remarks were far from positive. Therefore, a new “explanation” for the forced resignation was put forward by members of the ruling party in the National Assembly — for example, Lusine Badalyan and Maria Karapetyan — during television interviews, and later by the Vice Speaker of the National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan. Badalyan’s interview appears to have been the first in this series, given on the night of the prime minister’s comments to the press. According to her, the reason for the forced resignation was not Artsakh or the content of the book gifted to the U.S. vice president, but rather the “protocol.” Here is the idea she expressed in her interview with Factor.TV: Badalyan insisted that the issue was not the content of the book but specifically a breach of protocol. “This is not about the book, not about the topic. This is a deviation from protocol.” If the issue was indeed protocol, then the officials responsible for protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or perhaps in the prime minister’s office should bear responsibility for what Badalyan considers a protocol violation. If the initial justification for the forced resignation was meant to conceal something, then this new explanation represents a diversion aimed at softening criticism of the prime minister’s remarks and shifting attention away from the Artsakh issue. However, the chain of “explanations” did not end there. Given that the situation had turned into a public scandal, the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, presented a fourth explanation for the forced resignation five days after the prime minister’s remarks. Denying that she had ever told the staff of the Genocide Museum-Institute that Dr. Gzoyan’s dismissal was related to poor organization of renovation work at the memorial complex, she instead pointed to “management” as the reason for the resignation imposed “from above.” Here is an excerpt from her interview with Radio Azatutyun: “The Minister of Education claims she did not tell the staff of the Genocide Museum-Institute that the director was being dismissed for poorly organizing construction work at the memorial complex.” “I did not say such a thing,” she emphasized. Formally, the minister was right — she presented the “shortcomings” related to construction work as grounds for resignation not to the museum-institute staff, but to the members of the Board of Trustees during the extraordinary session on March 3. In response to Azatutyun’s question, the minister said that there had been one meeting with the staff, which took place yesterday. “We discussed all the issues in great detail, and I conveyed the relevant information to the staff and addressed the questions they had raised. From the very beginning, I raised the issue from a governance perspective and continue to approach it from that angle,” she noted. The Board of Trustees has not only never identified such governance problems, but has never even been informed of their alleged existence. Moreover, some members of the Board objected to the minister’s arguments during the meeting. As for the staff, of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, each of them signed a letter supporting Dr. Gzoyan. It can be assumed that they, too, did not observe any governance issues. Conclusion From our perspective, what happened at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute raises a number of serious concerns: The actual decision to dismiss Dr. Gzoyan was made by a single individual — Prime Minister Pashinyan — without any consultation with the Board of Trustees. Pashinyan chose to publicly signal to leaders of countries interested in Armenian issues, at least at the regional level, that political decisions are made solely by him. Since the exclusive authority to dismiss the director of the museum-institute belongs to the Board of Trustees, institutional procedures were bypassed and the decision was imposed on that body. The prime minister’s public reaction and the dismissal of the museum director for sharing historical facts with the U.S. vice president appear to be part of a broader pattern aimed at “reshaping” or “repackaging” historical facts to serve political expediency and the reproduction of power. This is not the place to list examples of the superficial and careless interpretations of the origins of the Armenian Genocide or Armenian-Azerbaijani historical interactions that have recently been voiced by the prime minister or members of his ruling party. What happened to Dr. Gzoyan, and the way it was carried out, raises serious concerns about academic freedom. If the government has put an end to the Karabakh movement and the issue of Artsakh, does that mean that scholarly research into their history undermines foreign policy? Ultimately, most academic and research centers in Armenia are state noncommercial organizations, and most universities are state-run — does that make their researchers public officials? If so, does this mean that their research must align with the prime minister’s foreign policy? By what criteria and where would such alignment be determined? Finally, in what way was Dr. Gzoyan advancing an alternative foreign policy? Where is the evidence? What happened to Dr. Gzoyan and the manner in which it was implemented also raise concerns about tendencies toward authoritarianism. In no European country would it be acceptable to require all public officials to conform to and support the government’s foreign policy. Such demands are reminiscent of Soviet practices. What happened to Dr. Gzoyan, and the way it was carried out, have damaged the international reputation of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute at a time when, under his leadership, it had been gaining increasing international recognition. As former members of the Board of Trustees and as scholars, we wish to draw attention to several points: Even the most persistent, state-sponsored attempts to rewrite or erase history — such as Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide — ultimately fail. National memory and identity are strategic assets, especially for small nations; a blurred national memory and identity constitute a vulnerability that cannot be compensated for by any weapon. Finally, such abrupt and unjust decisions are unlikely to contribute to the establishment of genuine and lasting peace. The signatories of this statement act solely in their personal capacity as former members of the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute; their workplaces are not related to the content of this text. Stepan H. Astourian, Doctor of Sciences, Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, American University of Armenia, Director of the Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences, Raymond H. Kévorkian, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Emeritus Professor at Paris 8 University (Saint-Denis), Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Hranush S. Kharatyan, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Head of the Applied Anthropology Research Group at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, NAS RA, Harutyun S. Marutyan, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Social/Cultural Anthropologist, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, NAS RA, Head of Department at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute

Resigned members of AGMI Board of Trustees issue statement

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