A small portion of the history of Shirak Armenological studies has also been closely associated with the activities of the Shirak Centre for Armenological Studies of the RA National Academy of Sciences in Gyumri over the last TWENTY years. In the 1970s and 1980s, in addition to the Institute of Geophysics and Engineering Seismology of the Academy of Sciences, the establishment of a humanitarian academic structure in the Republic's second city was a pressing issue. The existence of those two branches of science provided the city authorities with the most feasible possibility of establishing the Northern branch of the Academy of Sciences in Leninakan. Furthermore, the problem was already being practically discussed at the presidency of the Academy, the issues of the building and leadership selection of the Department were addressed, and, additionally, the top officials of the republican government began to talk about the matter. However, soon, in the middle of the 1980s, the question was closed all at once, and all the discussions about it came to a halt. Afterwards, our country appeared amid the disaster, its north at the epicentre, with numerous innocent victims, demolished settlements, and hundreds of thousands of homeless people. The dire as well as the heroic times had come. When the most difficult political decisions, economic cataclysms, and complex and unprecedented public unrest arrived, there was a forced war - the Artsakh Heroic War - in the face of the preservation and survival of our identity and species. As strange as it may seem, the semi-destroyed Gyumri was where they initially discussed Armenology in those days, and it was not by any chance. In the autumn of 1994, a small group of young scientists from the Geological Museum invited several dozen famous Armenologists of the republic to Gyumri to discuss the state of the scientific study of the historical and cultural heritage of Shirak despite all the difficulties, the dark, the cold, ignoring complications and all kinds of inconveniences.

The republican Armenological minds warmly responded to it, much to the honour and respect of modern-day cultivators of domestic science. The conference was a success. Gyumri first proved to itself, and then to everyone else, that neither the light of science nor the faith of tomorrow has died out. The scientific debates that went on for three days in the gloomy and cold meeting hall of the once luxurious palace of the textile workers, the dignified behaviour of the hundreds of participants who were shivering in their coats but ignored the cold and darkness, and the unmistakable awareness of the importance of what was done, are unforgettable. The second analogous conference, held in 1996, came as no surprise. It was even more representative. Following the first scientific conference, new achievements in the study of Republic material and spiritual relics of Shirak were presented for scientific appreciation. It was also significant that by demonstrating the level of Armenological research in the province and by highlighting the real possibilities of the great scientific potential of the region, these conferences significantly contributed to the "revival" of the long-standing and neglected issue of the Academy in Gyumri to have a humanitarian structure. The Presidum Members of the National Academy of Sciences responded with understanding to the request of the academic community of the city and the mediation of several prominent researchers of the republic (V. Barkhudaryan, S. Hambardzumyan, A. Kalantaryan, G. Jahukyan, L. Hakhverdyan, S. Harutyunyan, A. Melkonyan and others), presenting the discussion to the Government the proposal to establish an Armenian studies structure in Gyumri. There were multiple explanations for this, including the presence of outstanding scientific potential (particularly young staff members) and providing it with the opportunity to take action and create, and the vision of the cultural wealth of Shirak and the injured spiritual revival of the city. Hence, in the middle of 1997, the Shirak Armenological Research Centre, which started as a branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography but has been independent since 2002 and is the only academic humanitarian structure outside of the capital in our country, began to function. Attempts to establish a similar scientific structure in one or two regions later did not succeed. The first twenty years of The Shirak Armenological Centre were filled with self-assurance and accomplishments. First, the priorities in scientific research of archaeology, architecture, old and new history, ethnography, and folklore of the historical province were clarified in the centre; it was regarded as a matter of honour to ensure the high quality of research work in the thematic programmes implemented with state funding, which were eighteen during these years and are carried out with the utmost integrity and responsibility.

They are significant archaeological studies devoted to the ancient tomb and settlement in Beniamin, the recently discovered cave suburb of Ani, Haykadzor, and the Early Bronze Age temple complex of Mets Sepasar. They are science-based bold questions about the ethnic groups of the ancient population of the Shirak and Akhuryan basins, their worship, mythical ideas, beliefs, Indo-European spiritual heritage, and the problems of establishing tribal countries in the first millennium BCE. They are also an in-depth investigation of the most recent period of Alexandropol province, the 19th to 20th centuries, concerning the historical population situation and socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and educational-cultural life. They are remarkable and detailed studies on the traditional folklore of Shirak, the ceremonial system and its contemporary transformations, modern problems of disaster psychology, the development of psychological regulation mechanisms for disaster populations, homemaking, crafts, economic occupations, and auxiliary forms of the economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Shirak; in the frame of historical-ethnographic study of Alexandrapol-Leninakan-Gyumri: the city with rich ethnographic material, lifestyle, livelihood, ethno-demographic and cultural developments over the last two centuries; the history of popular and specialised music, its genre, linguistic and prosodic problems, urban traditions, and the development of folk song of Shirak in the context of the historical-ethnographic study on current events, and so on. The Centre has always emphasised the importance of having its own printed word. It was decided to publish a collection of articles entitled "Scientific works" once a year, with a volume of 16 publishing presses, of high quality and appropriate scientific level. Today, twenty volumes of that paper are in the public eye, which has a good reputation and is expected by republican scientific circles, consists of approximately 380 published articles and publications dedicated to the old and new history, archaeology, ethnography, folklore studies and philology of Shirak.

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