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Armenia In Place Of Honour

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  • Armenia In Place Of Honour

    ARMENIA IN PLACE OF HONOUR

    ArmeniaDiaspora.com
    Sept 28 2006

    France, September 28, /FranceDiplomatie/. 30 September 2006 marks the
    start of Armenia Year in France. Under the title "Armenie mon amie"
    [My friend Armenia], it celebrates a longstanding relationship between
    the two countries.

    A people that has been a standard bearer of civilisation For several
    hundred years the Armenians and the French have maintained a special
    relationship. At a meeting in Spring 2004, Robert Kotcharian, President
    of the Republic of Armenia, and the President of the French Republic,
    Jacques Chirac, expressed the joint wish to celebrate the links that
    unite the two peoples with an Armenia Year. Cultural events will take
    place both in that country and in France from the end of September
    2006 to July 2007.

    This friendship dates back to the Crusades ten centuries ago, and has
    developed over the course of history. "The last Armenian prince was
    a Frenchman, Leon V, in the 14th century, and the word "baron" means
    "sir" in present day Armenian", explains Nelly Tardivier, the general
    organiser of the event. "This Year is an invitation to an old friend,
    to a remarkable culture and a people that has been a standard bearer
    of civilisation." With its own alphabet and enriched by a unique
    Christian culture - several sacred texts now exist only in their
    Armenian version - this civilisation is three thousand years old.

    A people that has been a standard bearer of civilisation The advisors
    to the French kings, Mazarin and Richelieu, studied Armenian,
    19th-century intellectuals pondered the "Armenian question" and
    trading links between the two nations were already considerable.

    It is even said that it was an Armenian who brought coffee to France.

    Today there are almost 450,000 French citizens of Armenian origin,
    largely the children of refugees who landed in Marseille at the
    end of the First World War, fleeing the genocide perpetrated by the
    Ottoman Empire.

    Armenia Year will start with a visit to the country by Jacques Chirac
    together with a series of French cultural events in the capital,
    Yerevan, and other towns in the Republic, from September to November.

    A concert in Yerevan by the most famous French Armenian, Charles
    Aznavour, will mark the start of the festivities. Also on the programme
    will be readings from works in the French repertoire or related to
    Armenia by actors from the Comedie Francaise in Yerevan and Gumri,
    a production in Armenian of Les Caprices de Marianne [The Moods of
    Marianne] (1833) by Alfred de Musset and the arrival in Yerevan of
    one of the Louvre's major works, Bonaparte au pont D'Arcole (1798)
    by Antoine Gros.
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