“Lehahayer”

website: journals.akademicka.pl/lehahayer
e-mail: lehahayer@armenopolonia.pl

 

The annual academic journal “Lehahayer” was first issued in Kraków in 2010. Its Armenian title Լեհահայեր means ‘Polish Armenians’. Not only does it precisely convey the publication’s core idea, which is to publish studies and other work on the history of the Polish Armenians, it also refers to a term that has long been alive in Armenian to describe the specific cultural community of the Armenian diaspora, which arose and developed around towns and cities such as Lwów, Łuck, Jazłowiec and Kuty, that is, beyond the present borders of Poland. The community bore that particular name rather than any other because it was shaped by two factors: the inheritance of Armenian antiquity and the culture of Old Poland. At the moment we used it, Լեհահայեր was something of a forgotten term. But since then it has entered general circulation and been accepted by the new, contemporary Armenian diaspora in Poland. We consider this as an unforeseen and welcome success: after all, it was a word that was worth disinterring. It resounds with dignity through the ages and contains important historical content. For us it is the watchword that encapsulates our work.

The idea of publishing a specialist journal of this nature first gained support within the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University. Indeed the first two annual editions were published by Historia Iagellonica – a publishing association operating within that institute. Beginning with the third edition, though, it has been published by Księgarnia Akademicka in Kraków, which is now the largest publisher of Armenian material in Poland. From the time the fourth edition emerged, Lehahayer has enjoyed the support of an annual subvention from the Lanckoroński Foundation. The editors continue to be grateful for smaller grants from the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University and the Roman and Natalia Gumiński Foundation. Beginning with the sixth annual edition, Lehahayer has been edited from within the Research Centre for Armenian Culture in Poland, which operates under the auspices of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Two people have been editing Lehahayer from the very beginning: Krzysztof Stopka (editor in chief) and Andrzej A. Zięba. The following have performed, or are performing, a variety of editorial tasks: Jakub Osiecki, Hripsime Mamikonyan, Hayk Hovhannisyan, Piruz Mnatsakanyan, Tomasz Krzyżowski, Franciszek Wasyl, Dorota Jarząbek-Wasyl, Anzhela Kayumova and the team at Księgarnia Akademicka. The following have, at one time or another, sat on the editorial committee: Wartan R. Grigorian, Andrzej Janeczek, Raymond Haroutioun Kévorkian, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Halina Manikowska, Piruz Mnatsakanyan, Claude Mutafian, Andrzej Pisowicz, Günter Prinzing, Maciej Salamon, Andrea B. Schmidt, Krzysztof Stopka, and Andrzej A. Zięba.

In “Lehahayer” we strive to publish articles by authors from Poland and abroad that address all aspects of the history of the Armenians in Poland. We wish to preserve and maintain this interdisciplinary approach. We therefore invite contributions and cooperation from historians of all specialisms, including linguists, political scientists, musicologists, scholars of art, theatre and literature, sociologists, theologists, and anthropologists. Because the Armenian diaspora in Poland was formed and has existed in close connection with diasporas in neighbouring countries, we also wish to publish studies that embrace the Armenians in the entire central and east European region, and especially Crimea, Bukovina, Moldavia and Transylvania. We also welcome work that considers Armenian history and contemporary Armenia in terms of their relationship with Poland and of the reception of each other’s culture in the respective countries.

We print articles, editions of source materials, information about new findings and discoveries, and reports and reviews. Our editorial rules and the requirements for contributing authors can be found on the journal’s website ( journals.akademicka.pl/lehahayer ).

 

Individual volumes of the “Lehahayer” can be purchased from the publisher: