Tag Archive for: This Week in Armenian History

BIRTH OF HRATCH ZARTARIAN

Hrach Zartarian was one of the important yet lesser-known names of French Armenian literature in the past century.

He was born in Kharpert on January 15, 1897. He was the elder son of Rupen Zartarian (1874–1915), the talented writer and journalist who was among the first intellectual victims of the Armenian Genocide. He went from place to place in his childhood, following his father’s steps as teacher, activist, and editor, from Kharpert to Smyrna, Manisa, Plovdiv (Bulgaria), and Constantinople. He received his education at the famed Sanasarian School of Karin (Erzerum), where he was a boarding student for three years. After the school was moved to Sepastia (Sivas), Hrach Zartarian returned to Constantinople and studied at Getronagan School.

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BIRTH OF CHARLES DOWSETT

Charles Dowsett was the first person to hold a position in Armenian studies at a British university. His linguistic versatility and wide-ranging scholarship earned him an international reputation.

He was born on January 2, 1924, in London. He was educated at Barnbury Central School, and in April 1940 moved to Dame Alice Owen’s School. He went in 1942 to St. Catherine’s in Oxford for one year before military service (1943-1947), where he met Friedel Lapuner from Eastern Germany, whom he married in 1949. In 1947 he went to Peterhouse in Cambridge to read Modern and Medieval Languages and later turned to Comparative Philology.

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DEATH OF OSIP MANDELSTAM

Osip Mandelstam, one of the foremost Russian poets of the early twentieth century, was also celebrated for his memoirs and his cycle of poems dedicated to Armenia after his trip in 1930.
Mandelstam was born on January 14, 1891, in Warsaw to a wealthy Polish-Jewish family. His father was able to purchase the right to move his family to Saint Petersburg, where only a handful of Jews were allowed to live. In 1900, Mandelstam entered the prestigious Tenishev School. His first poems were published in 1907 in the school’s almanac.

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BIRTH OF ARSEN DERDERIAN

Arsen Derderian [Terteryan, Soviet spelling] was a prolific literary scholar who dominated the field of Armenian literature in Soviet Armenia until the mid-twentieth century.

He was born on December 22, 1882, in the village of Shosh, near Shushi (Artsakh). He studied at the Seminary of Shushi (1892-1902) and then graduated from the Gevorgian Lyceum of Holy Echmiadzin in 1905. He taught for two years at the Seminary of Shushi and in 1907-1909 he studied at the Psycho-Neurological Institute of St. Petersburg. Afterwards, he shifted to literature and taught history and theory of literature at the Diocesan School of Yerevan in 1909-1920.

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BIRTH OF HOVHANNESS BADALIAN

Badalian was born on December 15, 1924, in the village of Shavarin, near Hamadan (Iran). His parents were from the Armenian village of Gardabad near Urmia and had become refugees when the Ottoman army invaded northwestern Iran during World War I.

He attended the Armenian school in Baghdad, and in 1936 he returned to Iran, and started singing in composer Nicol Galanderian’s choir in Tehran. In the Iranian capital, he studied and performed with Hambardzum Grigorian. During the repatriation of post-World War II, Badalian left Iran and settled in Soviet Armenia to study music. He attended the Romanos Melikian Music College in Yerevan. In 1949 he joined the Tatoul Altunian Folk Dance and Song Ensemble (1949-1954) as soloist and in 1954 he went to the Folk Music Instruments Ensemble of the Public Radio, where he would perform as a soloist until the end of his life. He also taught at Gomidas State Conservatory (1982-2001).

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DEATH OF ARTEM MIKOYAN

Both brothers were famous for different reasons. Artem Mikoyan was a famous aircraft designer and the younger brother of Anastas Mikoyan, the statesman whose career encompassed fifty years of the Soviet regime.

Artem (Anoushavan) Mikoyan was born in the village of Sanahin (Lori, in Eastern Armenia), on August 5, 1905. He also had one other brother and two sisters. He started his elementary studies at the village school, and, after his father’s death, his mother sent him to Tiflis, where he graduated from a local Armenian school.

In 1923 he moved to Rostov-on-the Don, along his elder brother Anastas. He took a work as a machine tool-operator, but a year later he moved to Moscow, working in a similar position in the “Dynamo” factory until 1928 before being conscripted into military service.

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DEATH OF ABRAHAM ALIKHANIAN

Abraham Alikhanian is widely recognized as one of the leading Soviet physicists who specialized in particle and nuclear physics. He also joined the atomic bomb project and led the development of heavy water reactors.

Alikhanian (Abram Alikhanov in Russian) was born on March 4, 1904, in Elizavetpol, the historical Armenian city of Gandzak (today Ganja, in Azerbaijan). His father was a railroad engineer in the Transcaucasus Railway. His younger brother Artem (1908-1978) was also a noted physicist. They had two sisters. His family lived in Alexandropol (today Gyumri) in 1912–13, where Alikhanian attended a commercial college. Then they moved to Tiflis (today Tbilisi), where they stayed until 1918, and returned to Alexandropol until the Turkish-Armenian war of 1920. After another move to Tiflis, he graduated from a commercial college in 1921.

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DEATH OF ARIEL AGEMIAN

Ariel (Haroutiun) Agemian was born in Brusa, Turkey, in 1904. He was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, during which he witnessed the death of his father and was separated from his mother and brother. The Mekhitarist monks first took him to Rome and soon brought him to Venice where he studied at the Moorat Raphael College until 1922.

In 1926, he graduated from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts with a Gold Medal award from the Associazione Artistica. He worked and taught in Italy until 1931 and then in Paris until 1938.

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BIRTH OF ROSY VARTE

Rosy Varte was a French actress of Armenian descent. She made more than 100 film and television appearances during her career.

She was born Nevarte Manouelian on November 22, 1923, in Constantinople. She was a few weeks old when her family moved to France following the establishment of the Kemalist regime in Turkey.

Her career reflected her appetite for life and formidable curiosity. She started working with noted theater director Jean Vilar at the Theatre National Populaire (National Popular Theater, TNP), a major theatrical institution. Her performance in the play “Ubu Roi,” staged at the TNP in 1958, is considered a classic.

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BIRTH OF ONNIG AVEDISSIAN

Onnig Avedissian was born in Brusa (nowadays Bursa) on November 21, 1898. At the age of two, he moved to Constantinople with his family, where he acquired his primary and secondary education (1904–1915). During the summers of 1920-1921, he was tutored by painter Serovpé Kurkjian (1872-1924), who enhanced his inclination for art.

With the support of his parents, Avedissian decided to study art in Europe. In 1921 he was enrolled as a student in the School of Graphic Arts of Vienna, where he studied until his graduation as an expert in etching in 1925. He married in 1922 and had a son. He participated in the annual salon of the Viennese Association of Artists in 1923 for the first time. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (1925-1927).

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