Ashot Voskanyan (Armenian: Աշոտ Ոսկանյան; born April 24, 1949)[1] is an Armenian philosopher, former diplomat and member of parliament.
Biography
Voskanyan is a graduate of the faculty of philosophy of the Yerevan State University. He was a member of the Communist Party.[1] He was elected to the Armenian parliament (then still called the Supreme Soviet) in 1990 as a member of the pro-independence Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh), led by Levon Ter-Petrosyan. He was re-elected to parliament (now called the National Assembly) in 1995. He was the Chairman of Standing Committee on Ethics in the parliament.[1][2] He was also a senior member of the HHSh.[3] He speaks fluent German.[4]
In 1995 Voskanyan was appointed Armenia's Ambassador to Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia (stationed in Vienna)[5] and as Armenia's Permanent Representative to Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations Office at Vienna. In 1998 he was appointed Ambassador of Armenia to Germany, a position he held until 2002.[6] He then worked in different positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,[7] including adviser to the Foreign Minister,[8] and Head of Asia-Pacific and Africa Department at the Ministry.[9]
He is the founder and president of the Armenian Research Center in Humanities (ARCH) since 1993.[7] As a scholar, he is particularly interested in methodology of social sciences, hermeneutics, theories of rationality and social modernization, and national identity.[7] He currently teaches at the American University of Armenia and Russian-Armenian University.[10] He formerly lectured at the Yerevan State University as well.[1][11]
Views
Voskanyan, himself an active participant of the Karabakh movement, argues that it was the end of something, while the 2018 Armenian revolution was the beginning of something.[12] On May 2, 2018 he was among the faculty of the American University of Armenia that signed a public statement supporting "the Armenian people's peaceful movement to restore social democratic values and fair, transparent elections."[13]
Publications
Voskanyan has authored more than 50 publications, in Armenian, Russian, German, English and French.[7] His monograph The Inevitability of Understanding: Essays on the history of philosophical hermeneutics and deconstruction (Հասկացման անխուսափելիությունը. Դրվագներ փիլիսոփայական հերմենևտիկայի և կազմաքանդման պատմությունից) was published by the Yerevan State University Press in 2015 (ISBN 978-5-8084-1971-1).[14][15]
In 2017 his The Time of Charents (Չարենցի ժամանակը) was published in which he analyzes the thought of Yeghishe Charents, the prominent Armenian poet, and that of Goethe.[16]
Selected publications:
References