BIRTH OF RUPEN SEVAG

Rupen Chilingirian was born on February 28, 1885, in the village of Silivri (Eastern Thrace), near Constantinople. He received his elementary education at the Askanazian school and then at the lyceum of Bardizag until 1901, when he moved to Constantinople. He graduated from the prestigious Berberian School in 1905, when he published his first poem, “Parting Words,” and adopted the pen name Rupen Sevag (sevag meaning “black eyes”). He would become mostly known as a lyrical poet, characterized by freshness and precision of language. He contributed to many publications in the Ottoman capital and abroad.

Sevag pursued medical studies at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). The double massacre of Adana, with 30,000 victims in April 1909, influenced the work of the young poet, who also issued warnings about the impending danger over his compatriots. In 1910, he published his first collection of poetry, aptly entitled The Red Book, where he also touched upon the themes of social injustice, complaint, and rebellion.

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BIRTH OF MIKHAIL VARTANOV

Mikhail Vartanov is considered an important cinematographer and documentarian of his generation noted for his artistic collaboration with Sergei Parajanov and Artavazd Peleshian.
Vartanov was born on February 21, 1937, in Grozny (Chechnya, Russia). He graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (1965). He had a close relationship with filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. He was first acquainted with Parajanov’s work in 1964, when he was still a student, having watched Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and the test footage of the unfinished Kiev Frescoes. They met for the first time in 1967, in Armenia, where they discussed the screenplay of The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova) and struck a lifelong friendship.

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BIRTH OF HOVHANNES TUMANIAN

The popular long poems and folkloric short stories by Hovhannes Tumanian [Toumanian] turned him into a beloved author of Armenian literature for the past hundred years.

He was born on February 19, 1869, in the village of Dsegh [Tsegh] (province of Lori). His father, Der Tadeos, was the village priest and an offspring of a branch from the princely house of the Mamikonian. The future poet first attended the parochial school of the village (1877-1879) and then a school in Jalaloghli (nowadays Stepanavan) from 1879-1883. It was there he wrote his first poem at the age of 12.

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BIRTH OF DAVIT HOVHANNESS

Davit Hovhannes (Hovhannisian) was born on February 17, 1945, in Yerevan. He was the son of poet Hrachia Hovhannisian. He graduated from the Krupskaya high school in 1962 and then from the Faculty of Philology at Yerevan State University. He worked in Armenia’s periodical press and “ArmenFilm” studio and also lectured on history of ancient and foreign literature at several universities of Armenia. He was a member of the Writers’ Union of Armenia since 1975. In 1980-1990 he conducted the monthly literary program “Nork” at the first channel of Armenian TV, and the weekly program “Half Hour with Davit Hovhannes” in 2006-2008. He was the chair of the board of “Arevik” Publishing House. He translated works of Russian, Ukrainian, and American classical poets.

The author of around 25 poetry collections, including children’s literature, Hovhannes published his first poem in 1965 and his first collection, Crown of Songs, in 1974.

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DEATH OF GRIGOR KHALATIANTS

Grigor Khalatiants, historian and philologist, was an important name in Armenian Studies in the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th, even though some of his works have been rejected for their maximalist positions, while others have maintained their value until our days.

He was born on September 15, 1858, in Alexandropol (nowadays Gyumri). He studied at the Lazarian College of Moscow in 1868-1877 and, upon graduation, he entered medical school at the University of Moscow, but after three years, he made a complete shift to the School of History and Linguistics, graduating in 1884.

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DEATH OF HOVHANNES MIRZA-VANANDETSI

Hovhannes Mirza-Vanandetsi was one of the exponents of Armenian classicism in the nineteenth century.

Mirza-Vanandetsi, whose actual name was Amirzade Mirzayan, was born in Van in 1772. He became an orphan at the age of four and was placed in the care of the brotherhood of the monastery of the island of Gduts, where he grew up and received his early education. He was a gifted student and became and deacon. At the age of twenty, he moved to Constantinople to further his education. He studied at the Tbradun School, under the sponsorship of the Armenian Patriarchate, where he studied grammar, rhetoric, and logic. He graduated in 1798 and the following year he was appointed teacher at the recently opened Mesrobian School of Smyrna, where he taught until 1816. He was ordained a married priest in 1817 and remained in Smyrna for the rest of his life. He passed away on February 3, 1841, after a long illness.

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BIRTH OF MHER AMAGHIAN

Mher [Meher] Abeghian was a well-known in Soviet Armenian painting in the 1940s-1980s period.

He was born on January 26, 1909, in the city of Vagharshapat. He was the son of Manuk Abeghian, a renowned Armenian Studies scholar of the twentieth century. He received his professional education at the Yerevan Industrial and Technical School of Fine Arts (1922-1927), the Higher State Art and Technical Institute of Moscow (Vkhutein, 1927-1930), and the Institute of Proletarian Fine Art of Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg, 1930-1931).

Abeghian returned to Armenia and was a lecturer at the Panos Terlemezian Art College (1939-1945) and later at the Yerevan State Art and Theatre Institute (1954-1959). He was the president of the Board of the Union of Artists of Armenia in 1939-1945 and 1967-1968.

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DEATH OF BEDROS TOURIAN

It has been said that Armenian literature had two great foes whose names started with the letter թ (t): tuberculosis (թոքախտ, tokakhd) and Turks (թուրքեր). Five famous poets were among the victims of the terrible illness, related to poverty and malnourishment. One of them was Bedros Tourian, the great name of Armenian romanticism.

Tourian was born in Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople, on May 20, 1851 (Julian calendar, equivalent to June 1 in the Gregorian calendar). His father, Abraham Zmbayan, was a struggling blacksmith in a poverty stricken family, named after his profession (Turkish zımba “chisel”), from which his son derived the Armenian translation Tourian (Armenian դուր[tour]“chisel”).

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BIRTH OF ARNO BABAJANIAN

Arno Babajanian was one of the most important composers of Soviet Armenia, but also was very well-known in the Soviet Union, especially as a brilliant pianist.

He was born in Yerevan on January 22, 1921. His childhood friend, composer Alexander Harutiunian, recalled that at the age of five or six, the future musician attempted to play the old piano of the kindergarten. Babajanian himself used to tell about his first meeting with Aram Khachatourian: “When I was a kindergartener, a man once visited us and asked us to sing to get to know who had music ear among us. I was singing and kicking the floor at the same time. Listening to me, that man said that I should be engaged in music. In the future, I would learn that he was Aram Khachatourian.”

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BIRTH OF MANYA GHAZARYAN

Manya Ghazaryan, a prolific art historian, was born on January 20, 1924, in Tbilisi (Georgia). She graduated from the Institute of Art and Theater of Yerevan (now Academy of Fine Arts) in 1948. She worked at the National Gallery of Art of Armenia between 1953 and 1959, and afterwards became a researcher at the Institute of Art of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1983 she earned the title of Emeritus Worker of Art of Armenia, and in 1996 she defended her dissertation of Ph.D. in Art.

Manya Ghazaryan’s studies were devoted to plastic arts in the Middle Ages, and the modern and contemporary periods. She authored the following books in Armenian: Vardges Sureniants (1960), Armenian Plastic Arts…

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