Tag Archive for: This Week in Armenian History

BIRTH OF FLORA ZABELLE

Flora Zabelle, a Broadway star, was born Zabelle Mangasarian in Constantinople on April 1, 1880. Her father, Dr. Mangasar Mangasarian (M. M. Mangasarian, 1859-1943), was a prominent pastor and theologian. She appears to have moved to the United States at a very early age, for her father studied in Princeton around 1880 and then moved to Philadelphia (1882-1885) and later New York and Chicago. Her sister, Christine Mangasarian, was also an actress in Broadway. Zabelle Mangasarian attended Wellesley College and decided upon an acting career, which was particularly ambitious and brave for a woman so young and especially at that time. At the age of 19, she moved to New York and adopted the stage name Flora Zabelle.

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DEATH OF BERTHA MORLEY

An American educator and relief worker, Bertha B. Morley headed schools and orphanages in the Ottoman Empire and rescued children from the Armenian Genocide, writing down journals that became an important eyewitness account.
Bertha Morley was born on June 21, 1878, in Mentor, Ohio. She attended Oberlin College (1895–1898) but did not complete her studies due to poor health. From 1898 to 1900, she attended Lake Erie Conservatory of Music and joined the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (1904). She was appointed teacher at the American Missionary Association boarding school (Pleasant Hill, Tennessee) from 1905 to 1910.

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BIRTH OF MESROVB J. SETH

Mesrovb Jacob Seth (Setiants) was a pioneering scholar of the history of Armenians in India who also fell in love with Classical Armenian and continued its use as a medium of expression until the end of his life. He was born on March 15, 1871, in New Julfa near Isfahan, Iran. His father was the brother-in-law of noted writer Mesrop Taghiadiants. Seth received his primary education at the local Protestant missionaries’ school. He showed exceptional qualities, which led his father to the decision of moving to Calcutta (nowadays Kolkata), India, in 1889…

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OPENING OF THE YEREVAN SUBWAY

The Karen Demirchian Yerevan Subway, colloquially known as the Yerevan Metro, seems to have been around forever, but it started barely forty years ago. It is a government-owned company overseen by the City of Yerevan. Yerevan experienced substantial growth after World War II. The city’s very uneven landscape only left an underground system as the real alternative to moving large numbers of people in an efficient manner. The first plans for a rapid transit system began to be formed in the late 1960s,

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BIRTH OF BOHDAN GEBARSKI

Bohdan Gebarski was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the family of a Polish railway engineer, on February 27, 1905. He received his education in Russian schools and graduated in 1923. A year later, he moved to Warsaw (Poland) with his family. He studied at the Institute of Oriental Living Languages of Warsaw. He fought actively against Nazism during World War II and was a leading force in the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. He was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where he remained …

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DEATH OF LOUIS DARTIGE DU FOURNET

Louis Dartige du Fournet was the French officer who completed the epic resistance of Musa Dagh by rescuing the Armenians that had taken to the mountain to fight the Turkish order of deportation in 1915. He was born in Putanges-Pont-Écrepin on March 2, 1856. He entered the French Naval Academy and graduated as his class valedictorian. He served in various ships from 1874 and 1885, while climbing the ranks to lieutenant (1883).

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DEATH OF PATRIARCH HOVHANNES GOLOD

Hovhannes Baghishetsi (Golod), Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, was one of the pioneers of Western Armenian renaissance with his religious, public, and cultural activities. He was born in the village of Khoghts, in Baghesh (Bitlis), in 1678. He was called Golod because of his short height. He received his educate in the university of the monastery of Amerdol, and after graduation, in 1689 he was ordained celibate priest. He became a member of the congregation of the monastery of …

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DEATH OF AHARON DADOURIAN

Aharon Dadourian, who frequently signed with his first name, was a poet who started his career in the years before the genocide and continued writing for the next half a century in the Diaspora, but was little known outside of a narrow circle. He was born in Ovajik (province of Ismit, in Asia Minor) on September 19, 1887. He initially studied at the Mekhitarist School of Constantinople and then at the Moօrat-Raphaelian Lyceum of Venice (1907-1909), where he met the great poet, Taniel Varoujan.

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DEATH OF JAMES BRYCE

The first visit of Bryce to historical Armenia was in 1876 to climb Mount Ararat, after which he published the book Transcaucasia and Ararat (1877), a narrative of travel notes with several political observations and conclusions. After his trip to Armenia, in 1878 Bryce established the Anglo-Armenian Association, with Lord Carnarvon as president and Bryce as secretary. In 1880 he traveled to historical Armenia for the second time, visiting also Smyrna and Constantinople. In 1893, Bryce initiated the formation of the new Anglo-Armenian …

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DEATH OF HAIK ASATRIAN

Haik Asatrian was an Armenian political theorist and an associate and close friend of Garegin Nzhdeh who became a victim of Stalinism.

He was born in the village of Yerits, in the district of Alashkert (Western Armenia) on February 5, 1900. His father was the head of the village and passed away when he was eight. He remained under his mother’s care along with his siblings…

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