Samvel Karapetyan (author) facts for kids
Samvel Karapetyan (born July 30, 1961 – died February 27, 2020) was an Armenian historian and researcher. He was an expert in old buildings from the Middle Ages. He spent his life studying historical sites in Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh, and other parts of the Southern Caucasus.
His Research Work
For over 20 years, Samvel Karapetyan explored and listed thousands of old Armenian historical items and buildings. He was the head of the Yerevan branch of an organization called Research on Armenian Architecture (RAA). This group works to study and protect Armenian historical sites.
Karapetyan was also known for speaking up about how Armenian monuments were treated in Turkey. He believed that some historical sites were being ignored or even destroyed on purpose. He also shared information that suggested Armenian historical monuments in Georgia and Azerbaijan were being damaged. He presented his findings to the US Congress in 2007. He also shared them with the European Court of Human Rights in 2008.
In 2007, Samvel Karapetyan received the Armenian Presidential Humanitarian Sciences Prize for his important work. After he passed away in 2020, he was given the Movses Khorenatsi medal by the President of Armenia.
Some people had different views from Karapetyan. For example, in his 2003 book Black Garden, a British journalist named Thomas de Waal disagreed with Karapetyan's ideas about the town of Kalbajar in Azerbaijan. De Waal questioned how Kalbajar could be called "Armenian" when Armenians had not lived there for nearly a hundred years. He felt that for Karapetyan, the past was more important than the present.
Books He Wrote
Samvel Karapetyan wrote many books about Armenian history and architecture. Here are some of them:
- Armenian Lapidary Inscriptions in Caucasian Albania Proper (1997)
- Georgian State Policy and Historical Armenian Monuments, 1988–1998 (1998)
- Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh (2001)
- The Historical Monuments of Javakhk (2001)
- The Armenian Collection of the Caucasian Museum (2004)
- Northern Artsakh (2004)
- The Armenians of Kakhetia (2004)
