Gerard Jirair Libaridian (, born 1945 in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

) is an

Armenian American Armenian Americans () are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. They form the second largest community of the Armenian diaspora after Armenians in Russia. The first major wave of Armenian immig ...

historian and politician.

Biography

From 1991 to 1997, he served as adviser, and then senior adviser to the former President of Armenia,

Levon Ter-Petrosyan Levon Hakobi Ter-Petrosyan (; born 9 January 1946), also known by his initials LTP, is an Armenian politician and historian who served as the first president of Armenia from 1991 until his resignation in 1998. A senior researcher at the Matena ...

, and was closely involved in the

Karabakh Karabakh ( ; ) is a geographic region in southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It is divided into three regions: Highland Kara ...

negotiations. In 2007, Libaridian was appointed the Director of Armenian Studies Program at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. He holds the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the

. He has provided occasional commentary on relations between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, including on the

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding occupied territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involvi ...

. In 2012, he had warned that Armenia would "remain weak" if it did not settle the Karabakh conflict. In 1995 the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent U.S. government agency created by Congress in 1975 to monitor and encourage compliance with the Helsinki Final Act and ...

wrote that Libaridian had been a member of the

Armenian Revolutionary Federation The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (, abbr. ARF (ՀՅԴ) or ARF-D), also known as Dashnaktsutyun (Armenians, Armenian: Դաշնակցություն, Literal translation, lit. "Federation"), is an Armenian nationalism, Armenian nationalist a ...

(ARF) for 25 years and was "intimately acquainted with its structure and methods."

Selected works

* 1984 (as editor): ''What Is to Be Asked''?, ed., Proceedings of Colloquium, Zoryan Institute, Cambridge, Mass. *1985 (as editor): ''A Crime of Silence. The Armenian Genocide.'' Zed Books, *''1988 (as editor) The Karabagh File. Documents and Facts, 1918-1988'' (ed.). Zoryan Institute, Cambridge and Toronto *''1990 (as editor) The Sumgait Tragedy: Pogroms Against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan,'' Caratzas and Zoryan Institute * 1991: (as editor) ''Armenia at the Crossroads: Democracy and Nationhood in the Post-Soviet Era: Essays, interviews, and speeches by the leaders of the national democratic movement in Armenia''. Blue Crane Books (Watertown, Massachusetts), *1999: ''The Challenge of Statehood. Armenian Political Thinking since Independence'' *2006 (as editor) ''Demokratizatsiya'' (Washington, DC) * 2007: ''Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State''. Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, New Jersey),

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Libaridian, Gerard 1945 births American people of Armenian descent Lebanese people of Armenian descent Living people Politicians from Beirut University of Michigan faculty