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The Summer Intensive Course
of Armenian Language and Culture
and Parallel Activities
Since 1986 the Padus-Araxes Cultural Association, which was officially founded in 1987, has been organizing, every year in the month of August, a summer intensive course of Armenian language and culture for College and University students and for elder people at Ca’ Foscari University Venice.
The Course has been organzied in close collaboration with it, and especially with its Dipartimento di Studi Eurasiatici to which the Chair of Armenian Studies belongs, and for many years also with the Centro Linguistico Interateneo (CLA), and now, in 2009, with the Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio, as well as with ESU (Ente per il Diritto Universitario) of Venice, which provides lodging and food facilities.
To date the course has recorded a remarkable success in teaching Armenian on different levels, even to people who have no knowledge of the language and get their first contact with it here in Venice. The Armenian and armenological press has often spoken with much positive appreciation of this summer program, and most of the people who have attended the course leave with great satisfaction.
In 24 years of activity 810 participants from 31 countries, of whom some 129 without any Armenian linkage, have attended the course. Of these more than one third have come from the United States; the second country represented in percentage is France.
It is noteworthy that people come also from Armenia for the upper level, desiring to study classical Armenian, the grabar, which is not normally taught in the school programs of Armenia, and to deepen their knowledge of Armenian art and history, and especially of West Armenian and contemporary diasporan literature, and also to have a closer knowledge of the Spiurk, the Armenian diaspora, as well as of European cultural, artistic and everyday reality.
The other countries represented at the course are in alphabetical order: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey andUruguay. The total presence of students who have attended the course has surpassed 985, since many of them have attended more than once.
Parallel to the summer intensive course, the Padus-Araxes Association has produced, in collaboration with the technical support of Centro Linguistico Interfacoltà (then Centro Linguistico Interdipartimento) of Ca’ Foscari, an audiovisual course of the Armenian language on three videotapes of about two hours and fifteen minutes all together. This audiovisual course, realized from 1988 through 1993, required a great deal of work, and significant production expenses, about $ 70,000 US, of which almost 80% was covered by the University and the Italian Ministry for University research.
All these activities have always enjoyed a significant support from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. They are under the patronage of the cultural Association Padus-Araxes which has as its main purpose to promote and sustain activities for the study, the promotion and diffusion of the Armenian language and culture.
The Association has practically no other income than the input from its own members and some occasional donations. The University supplies us with a building where we hold lessons. It also helps us, through the offices of ESU, offering lodging at the University student hostel at accessible prices.
Another very important help of the University is its contribution in kind for meals giving our students the possibility of a complete Italian meal of a good quality at remarkably convenient prices. So our students can have a complete meal, now, at the very low price of 8 € instead of the normal market price, for the same meal, in city restaurants, of about 30 €. The expenses to organize the course are, however, high; and the summer course, even with all these occasional aids and some fixed grants for the students, can barely cover them since we cannot establish, for people wishing to come to learn Armenian, high registration fees, which are, in any case, contributions to the Association given by “attending members” (soci frequentatori).
At present we have four language levels, which we should like to extend to five levels. At present the course has 8 teachers for ordinary classes with two other teachers for collateral activities (as such teaching of duduk and traditional Armenian dance).
For all our staff we cover the travel expenses, food and lodging in Venice along with a modest contribution
for everyday expenses. They work effectively as volunteers.
Contributing to this course will certainly make it possible to expand its possibilities and assure its continuity.
Fr. Prof. Boghos Levon Zekiyan
President of the Padus-Araxes Association,
Director of the Summer Intensive Course
of Armenian Language and Culture of Ca' Foscari University, Venice
Associazione PADUS-ARAXES
c/o Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Dipartimento di Studi Eurasiatici – Lingua e Letteratura armena
S.Polo 2035 30125 Venezia
Tel-Fax: 041/5207737
EM: info@padus-araxes.com