Antranik Dakessian

ANTRANIK  DAKESSIAN 

Associate Professor in Armenian studies, researcher, Ph.D. in Political Science, Editor-in-Chief. 

Antranik Dakessian received his primary education at the Armenian Evangelical Gertmenian School in Nor Hadjin Quarter (Beirut) and then continued his studies at the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Hovagimian-Manoogian Secondary School. He graduated from the Department of Armenian Philology of the Yerevan State University in 1983. He was an editor of the Cultural Section of the Zartonk Daily while simultaneously teaching at various educational institutions. In 1989, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the American University of Beirut. From 1990 to 1993, he held various positions at the AGBU Melkonian Educational Institution in Cyprus, initially starting as a High School teacher and later becoming itսacting principal. In 1993, he returned to Beirut and was invited to serve concurrently as the Executive Secretary of the Haigazian Armenological Review and a lecturer at Haigazian College (now Haigazian University). From 1993 to 2010, he directed the Student Life at the University. In 2011, Antranik Dakessian defended his doctoral thes is in the field of Political Science on the topic “Democracy and Integration in Multicultural Communities: The Armenians and the Kurds in Lebanon” at Swansea University, Wales, UK. Since 2012, he has assumed the position of Director of the then-newly established Armenian Diaspora Research Center (2012) and since 2018 Antranik Dakessian has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Haigazian Armenological Review. Dakessian is a member of the editorial boards of Armenological Issues (2014), The Journal of Genocide Studies (2018), Bazmavep (2019), and Bulletin of Armenian Archives. As the Director of the Armenian Diaspora Research Center, he organized several international conferences dedicated to the Armenian communities of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Cyprus, Greece, and Arab states of the Gulf area. He compiled and edited the proceedings of these conferences. Dakessian’s literary arsenal includes volumes featuring the testimonies of the Armenian Genocide survivors. He compiled and published the book titled “Barsegh Kanachian (1885-1967): A Life of Music,” published in 2017, compiled and edited the proceedings of the conference dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the heroic selfdefense of Hadjin (2013); translated, annotated and published Alice Keep Clarke’s “Letters from Cilicia,” compiled “The Lebanese Armenian Book: A Bibliography, 1894- 2012” (2020), “The AGBU Hadjin Orphanage: 1919-1920” (2020). He authored “The Armenian Community of Lebanon: Crossroads of Integration (1920-2005), Book I,” published in 2015. Dakessian’s scope of research and academic interests revolve around issues of democracy and human rights, national identity, Armenian cultural preservation in the Diaspora, and the Armenian communities in the Middle East. Antranik Dakessian’s wife, Alina Dakessian (roots in Zeitoun, Cilicia) is a musician and piano teacher. Their son, Arek Dakessian (1989) is a cultural anthropologist with a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Edinburgh University.