Nina Garsoïan

Nina G. Garsoïan was born in Paris on April 11, 1923,[8] to Armenian parents from Nakhichevan-on-Don (Rostov-on-Don) and Tbilisi. She moved to New York in 1933. She received a Bachelor of Arts in classical archaeology from Bryn Mawr College in 1943 and both Master of Arts degree and PhD from Columbia University in Byzantine, Near Eastern, and Armenian history.[9] She received Fulbright Fellowship to study at the Mekhitarist monastery of San Lazzaro degli Armeni on San Lazzaro Island in Venice.[6]

Garsoïan began teaching at Smith College in 1956[6] and Columbia in 1962.[4] In 1969 she became the first female professor to receive tenure at Columbia's Department of History.[4] Garsoïan became the first female dean of the Princeton University Graduate School when she was appointed to the position in 1977.[10] She served in that position until 1979.[5][6]

In 1979, she became the first holder of Gevork M. Avedissian Chair in Armenian History and Civilization at Columbia University.[9] She retired in 1993 and was subsequently professor emerita of Armenian History and Civilization.[4]

Garsoïan was the director of the Paris-based Revue des Études Arméniennes and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.[9][11] She participated in a Byzantine Studies Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, twice serving as a co-director.[6]

Garsoïan died on August 14, 2022, at the age of 99.[12][13]

Garsoïan published numerous books and journal and encyclopedia articles on Armenian, Byzantine, and Sasanian history.[9] In her publications she emphasized the Iranian/Persian influence on Armenian history.[4][9]

Books

• The Paulician Heresy. Mouton, 1968.
• Armenia between Byzantium and the Sasanians. Variorum Publishing. 1985.
• L'Église arménienne et le grand schisme d'Orient. Peeters Publishers. 1999.
• Church and Culture in Early Medieval Armenia. Ashgate, 1999.
• De Vita Sua. Mazda Publishers, 2011. (memoir)[6][4]

Articles

• "Byzantine Heresy. A Reinterpretation." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 25 (1971): 85–113.
• "Secular jurisdiction over the Armenian church (fourth-seventh centuries)." Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983): 220–250.
• "Byzantium and the Sasanians." Cambridge History of Iran 3.1 (1983): 568–592.
• "The problem of Armenian integration into the Byzantine empire." Studies on the internal diaspora of the Byzantine Empire (1998): 53–124.

Translations

• The trade and cities of Armenia in relation to ancient world trade by Hakob Manandian. 1965
• Armenia in the Period of Justinian by Nicholas Adontz. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. 1970.
• The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia by Aram Ter-Ghevondyan. Livraria Bertrand. 1976
• The Epic Histories Attributed to Pʻawstos Buzand: (Buzandaran Patmutʻiwnkʻ). Harvard University Press, 1989.