"By 1959, however, we were celebrating our successful initiative with a banquet in Memorial Hall. A lot of us were very proud to have made it," Young said. Professor James R. Russell currently holds the position endowed by Young and his colleagues, the Mashtots professorship of Armenian studies.

Since 1959, NAASR has banded with Harvard and 19 other universities to further the study of Armenian language and civilization.

"All of us at NAASR thought it was critical to start educational chairs because many Armenian-Americans were craving a knowledge of our civilization that was becoming more difficult to remember," Young said.

Many Armenian-Americans felt that their culture was slipping away because it had been years since they had left their country.

In Young's case, because he had not been born in Armenia, his entire knowledge of his homeland depended on oral histories.

"These folk histories are always a little suspicious. Sometimes people just don't remember things as they really happened," Young said. "That's why we started NAASR."

Religious Life

In addition to NAASR, religion is another base in the community to which many Armenians turn for support and group membership.

Saint James Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown is one of the three oldest predominantly Armenian parishes in Boston. It is the parish that serves a large portion of the Belmont and Watertown parishioners that also frequent the NAASR reading room.

According to Rev. Dajad Davidian, a pastor at Saint James, churches and schools play an important role in maintain and strengthening Armenian life in the U.S.

Davidian perches on his desk in the austere church office at 465 Mt. Auburn St., alternately fielding phone calls and answering questions.

Davidian is a gregarious man, and the respect accorded to him by the church office personnel and the favorable descriptions of him at NAASR make it clear that Davidian's zeal is reflected in the enormous amount of work he invests in his parishioners.

On one side of the desk sits an organized clutter, and on the other, a leaflet that describes the New Year's Eve Extravaganza 2000 that the church is preparing.

"Armenian culture has always had a strong social component," Davidian says. "As there is a tendency for Armenian-Americans slowly to become assimilated into American culture, churches like Saint James carry a big responsibility for providing ethnic resources and programs."

"It takes 150 to 200 ethnic families in a community to sustain the sense of belonging and ethnic identification," Davidian says.