Tehran Celebrates Armenian Community’s Enduring Cultural Legacy
TEHRAN -- On an autumn evening in Tehran—soft light glinting off polished parquet floors, the faint scent of varnish and old paper in the air—the Iranology Foundation hosted a gathering that was, on its surface, a ceremonial event: the unveiling of a book, a retrospective of Armenian watercolorists, and a gesture of recognition for the Armenian community in Iran.
But beneath the formalities of speeches and flower arrangements, something more resonant unfolded: a celebration not only of artistic heritage but of an invisible architecture—centuries of cultural cohabitation.
Armenians in Iran are not, as Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranology Foundation, reminded the audience, “guests” of the nation. “They are of the house,” he said—a poetic turn of phrase, but also a recognition of fact.
For over two millennia, from the days of the Achaemenids through the silk-weaving guilds of New Julfa and the early printing presses of the Qajar era, Armenians have worked, taught, built, played music, died in wars, and painted—quietly, industriously—alongside their fellow Iranians.
The evening’s ceremonies, held on Tuesday, were orchestrated in the name of “coexistence”—a word that has become both overused and under-defended in much of the world. Yet here, in a formal hall warmed by intellectual and spiritual presence, it did not feel like a slogan. It felt like an affirmation.
The ambassador of Armenia, Grigor Hakopian, praised Iran’s respectful embrace of its Armenian population. He spoke of churches that dot the Iranian landscape, some of which—like the Saint Thaddeus Monastery—are inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
He mentioned the quiet endurance of the Armenian script, born in the 5th century by the hand of Mesrop Mashtots, and surviving not only in parchment and gospel but in graffiti on school desks, in the letters home to Yerevan from Tehran, in margin notes on scientific papers by Armenian academics in Iranian universities.
In another speech—at once poetic and anatomical—Professor Mir Jalal al-Din Kazzazi made a linguist’s case for the Armenians’ deep cultural kinship with Iran.
With that particular blend of scholarly certainty and mythological flourish familiar to readers of Persian literary criticism, he traced names, suffixes, and stories across time: Vartan, he noted, is no foreign name, but one with Iranian roots.
He compared the epic of David of Sassoun to Shahnameh’s Rustom and Sohrab. In his telling, Iran and Armenia are not neighbors but siblings separated by the slow tectonics of empire and map-making.
One by one, voices from the Armenian-Iranian community rose—not to demand recognition, but to reflect it back.
Aras Shaoardian, the sole Armenian representative in Iran’s Parliament, recounted his people’s history in education, industry, and the press.
Painter and musician Simon Ayvazian remembered his mother, her sketches, and the scent of turpentine in their family home. Professor Ara Tumanian of Tehran University gestured toward geography—both literal and intellectual—to remind us that maps of the past can’t be easily overlaid onto our present realities.
At the center of the evening—both thematically and physically—stood the book The Armenian Watercolorists of Iran, compiled by Amir Muhammad Davoudipour, the fruit of two decades of curation.
Contained within its pages: 114 works from 20 artists, stretching from the deft touch of Markar Qarabekian to the exacting delicacy of Ayvazian himself.
These were not flamboyant canvases; there was no grand nationalist gesture in them. Only quiet landscapes, old courtyards, half-seen figures. The kind of painting one might miss at a loud exhibition. The kind that asks to be sat with.
Davoudipour spoke with the enthusiasm of a man who knows the fragility of memory. He proposed—perhaps hopefully, perhaps defiantly—a joint Iran-Armenia watercolor festival on the banks of the Aras River, the border that has both separated and sustained these two worlds. One imagines this future scene: a few tents, the sound of brushes on paper, shared tea. An answer to centuries of geopolitics through pigment and patience.
As the evening drew to a close, the paintings were unveiled. The hall grew quieter. Viewers leaned in—not for the detail, but for the atmosphere each brushstroke evoked. In a world increasingly distracted by noise and novelty, it felt quietly radical to stand before work that asked nothing of us but to see.