Tag Archive for: This Week in Armenian History

DEATH OF FR. ALEXANDER MADIKIAN

Fr. Alexander Madikian was a distinguished member of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Vienna with remarkable contributions to Armenian Studies, yet whose life was cut short prematurely. He was born Taniel Madikian on 18, 1886, in the village of Krman in the Khodorchur region of Western Armenia. At the age of fifteen, he went to study at the Mekhitarist School of Smyrna (Izmir), and a year later he left for Vienna with four schoolmates to continue his studies. In 1906, he became a member of the Mekhitarist Congregation and took the name Alexander. After completing his studies, he was ordained a celibate priest in 1910.

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BIRTH OF PAVEL LISITSIAN

Pavel (Boghos) Lisitsian was born on November 6, 1911, in Vladikavkaz (Northern Caucasus). His father was a mine worker, and he first worked in diamond drilling and then as a welder apprentice, hoping to follow in your father’s footsteps. He entered the world of music by singing in a church choir, and then he moved to Leningrad to study cello in 1930.

His strong baritone voice turned him into the soloist of a local amateur group, and thus he entered the Leningrad Conservatory. He started his vocal career in the Leningrad Opera State Theatre and then in the Alexander Spendiarian Opera and Ballet Theatre of Yerevan, where he performed the leads for three years. …

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DEATH OF HAKOP KHACHATRYANTZ

Hakob (Iakov) Khachatryantz was one of the most accomplished translators of Armenian literature into Russian in the 1920s-1950s.

He was born in December 1884 in Yerevan and spent his childhood in Baku. He graduated from the gymnasium of Baku and then the Faculty of Philology of the University of St. Petersburg. He taught Latin and History at the Armenian Seminary of Nor Nakhichevan (Rostov-on-the-Don). In the 1920s, he returned to Yerevan and worked as the director of the Armenian Telegraphic Agency (now Armenpress). In 1929, he moved to Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg) and then to Moscow. ..

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DEATH OF ANGELO EPHRIKIAN

Musicologist Angelo Ephrikian was one of the rediscoverers of the work of Antonio Vivaldi in Italy.

He was born on October 20, 1913, in Treviso, Italy. His father, Sukias-Hagop Ephrikian (1873-1952), was a former member of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice and author of a valuable Illustrated Dictionary of the Homeland in two volumes (1902-1903), who worked at a local printing shop. Angelo Ephrikian received training in violin and composition but attended law school and started working as a lawyer, until he gave up his legal carer during World War II to join the partisan forces in the resistance to the fascist regime.

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BIRTH OF RAFAEL DE NOGALES MÉNDEZ

Rafael de Nogales Méndez was a soldier of fortune, adventurer, and witness of the Armenian Genocide.

He was born in San Cristóbal, Venezuela, on October 14, 1877. His father sent him to study in Europe, where he attended universities in Germany, Belgium, and Spain, and learned several languages. He was attracted to the military profession, and he began to travel where the news of war took him. He fought on the Spanish side during the Spanish–American War of 1898.

In 1902, he participated in a failed attempt to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Cipriano Castro involving an expedition aboard the schooner La Libertad.

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DEATH OF CHARLES AZNAVOUR

Statues, parks, and special coins in France, Armenia, and other countries have remembered French Armenian chansonnier Charles Aznavour since his death in 2018, including a monument built in Stepanakert (Republic of Artsakh) in 2021 in front of the cultural center named after him, which has become a victim of Azerbaijani vandalism after the forced evacuation of Artsakh in 2023. He recorded more than 1,200 songs in various languages and wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs, which made him a familiar name worldwide

Charles Aznavour was born Shahnour Vaghinak Aznavourian in Paris on May 22, 1924. His parents ran a small Armenian restaurant until the Depression.

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DEATH OF KEVORK PAMUKCIYAN

Kevork Pamukciyan was a prolific Turkish Armenian writer, historian, and biography researcher.

He was born on February 23, 1923, in Üsküdar, Istanbul. He completed his primary education at the Nersesyan-Yermonyan School in 1937 and continued his education at the Saint-Joseph French College until the tenth grade and dropped out in 1945. He published his first article in 1943 in the Armenian weekly newspaper Nor Lur in Istanbul. In 1949, another article in the New York magazine Hayastani Gochnag brought him into contact with the Armenian press abroad. Between 1942 and 1956, he researched and compiled approximately 2,000 tombstone inscriptions found in the Üsküdar, Edirnekapı, and Balıklı Armenian Cemeteries.

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DEATH OF QUEEN MELISENDE

Melisende was the first queen of Jerusalem, and her rule represented the apogee of royal power in the Latin kingdom during the twelfth century.

Melisende, the eldest of four sisters, was born around 1105. Her father Baldwin of Bourcq, Count of Edessa, had married Morphia, a daughter of the Armenian prince Gabriel of Melitene, a Greek Orthodox Armenian. Although the reasons for the marriage were political – Baldwin benefited greatly from the support of the Armenian nobility and the great dowry Morphia brought with her – the spouses became close allies over time.

When Baldwin became king of Jerusalem as Baldwin II in 1118, he moved his wife and four daughters to the holy city. He campaigned …

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DEATH OF NIKOGHOS TAHMIZIAN

Nikoghos Tahmizian was the foremost name of Armenian musicology in the second half of the twentieth century.

He was born in Athens (Greece) on May 9, 1926. He received elementary education at the local Armenian school, followed by high school at the Melkonian Educational Institute in Cyrpus on a merit-based scholarship. After graduation in 1945, he received a fully funded fellowship for a seven-year academic course at the Music Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium.

The repatriation movement of 1946-1948 changed his plans. He moved to Soviet Armenia and in September 1946 he was admitted to the Romanos Melikian Musical College of Yerevan, graduating in 1950. He was third French horn in the orchestra of the Yerevan Opera House (1947-1956).

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BIRTH OF VAGHARSHAK ELIBEKIAN

Painter Vagharshak Elibekian reconstructed the picturesque image of old Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in his art. He founded a dynasty of artists: his sons Henry and Robert also became painters.

He was born in Tiflis (Tbilisi) on August 23, 1910. He studied at the art studio attached to the House of Armenian Art, directed by G. Sharbabchian, in 1925-1927. He was director of the Armenian Youth Theater of Tbilisi (1936–1956) and he was also chairman of its artistic council and stage designer. He earned the title of Emeritus Figure of Culture of Georgia (1968). He moved in 1970 to Yerevan, where he passed away on May 5, 1994.

He had solo exhibitions in Yerevan, Tbilisi, London, and Los Angeles, and participated in numerous exhibitions in Armenia, other countries of the Soviet Union, and abroad. The central theme of his painting was the detailed representation of old Tbilisi.

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