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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DEATH OF MAGHAKIA [MALACHIAH] ORMANIAN

Archbishop Maghakia Ormanian was a remarkable figure of the Armenian Church in turbulent times at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.

Boghos Ormanian was born on February 23, 1841 in Constantinople. After learning the first letters, in 1851 he was sent to Rome, where he pursued studies at the convent of St. Gregory, belonging to the Antonine Congregation, and then at the Vatican. He returned to Constantinople in 1866 and became secretary of the Antonine Congregation, while a year later he was designated principal of the Antonine School in Rome. In 1868 he obtained a master degree in philosophy, theology, and Church law, and became a member of the Theological Academy of Rome, as well as teacher of Armenian at the College of the Propaganda Fide.

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DEATH OF GRIGORI ARUTINOV

Grigori Arutinov (known as Grigor Harutiunian in Armenian) was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia for sixteen years (1937-1953), the longest tenure in the history of Soviet Armenia, coinciding with the Stalinist repression and World War II.

Arutinov was born in Telavi, in eastern Georgia, on November 7, 1900. He was admitted to the local Russian gymnasium in 1911 and joined the Bolshevik party in 1919.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia (1921), he became the head of the propaganda department of the Telavi district committee of the Communist Party. He studied at the Karl Marx Institute of National Economy in Moscow (1922–1924).

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DEATH OF ASHOT NAVASARDIAN

Ashot Navasardian was a Soviet Armenian dissident who founded the Republican Party of Armenia on the eve of the second independence of Armenia.

He was born in Yerevan on March 28, 1950, and graduated from the Faculty of Law of Yerevan State University. In 1968 he became a member of the underground National Unity Party, which advocated for the secession of Armenia from the Soviet Union. He was imprisoned three times for his criticism of the Soviet regime and the promotion of his ideas and sentenced to a total of 17 years of prison and 5 years of exile, of which he spent 12 years in prison and exile, having been released before the sentence terms of his second and third imprisonments. He was finally freed in 1987, and he continued his activities as a member of the council of the Union for National-Self Determination (1988-1989).

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BIRTH OF HOVHANNES PARSEGHIAN

He was born on October 25, 1920, in the village of Mastara (Aragatsotn province). After graduating from the seven-year school in Mastara and the high school in Talin, he was admitted to the Linguistics and Literature Faculty of Yerevan State University in 1938.

He was drafted into the army in 1941 and participated in World War II until 1943, when he was seriously injured for the first time and demobilized. He graduated from the university in 1944 and completed his post–graduate studies in 1948. Barseghian defended his candidate (first Ph.D.) thesis in 1952 and his second Ph.D. thesis in 1981. He became an associate professor in 1981 and full professor in 1984.

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DEATH OF LUTHER SIMJIAN

Լuther Simjian was born in Aintab (Cilicia) on January 28, 1905. He lost his mother when he was only a few months old; his father later remarried and had two daughters. The family fled to Aleppo during the Genocide and only returned to Aintab in 1920 during the brief French mandate over Cilicia. Simjian’s stepmother and half-sisters were killed in Marash. Eventually he escaped to Beirut and then came to the United States via France at the end of 1920. He first settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where he lived with an uncle and graduated from Booth Preparatory School.

Simjian began working as a technician at the photography lab of the Yale School of Medicine. In 1928 he founded and became the first director of the photography department, which he headed until 1934.

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BIRTH OF ZAREH KHRAKHOUNI

Zareh Khrakhouni (pen name of Arto Jumbushian) was born in Constantinople on October 16, 1926. After starting his education at Kapamajian School, in 1935 he continued his studies at the Mekhitarian Secondary College of the Viennese Mekhitarists, from which he graduated in 1945. He studied philosophy, law, and literature at Istanbul University, graduating in 1951. He followed a course in literature and art history in Paris.

He published his first poem in 1948. From 1952-1958, he taught philosophy, psychology, and Armenian language at Esayan School in Constantinople. He also taught at the Getronagan Lyceum, where he was also the vice principal.

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DEATH OF ARMAN KOTIKIAN

Arman Kotikian, a poet and translator, was mainly known as an actor with a half-century on Armenian stages.

He was born Arakel Kotikian in Trabzon (Trebisonda) on September 27, 1896. After elementary studies in the nearby village of Elevi, where his family lived, he moved to Trabzon to live with his brother and continued his studies at the local Armenian school. Only him, his brother and sister, out of their huge family, survived the Armenian Genocide.

After the occupation of Trabzon by Russian forces in 1916, Arman Kotikian was devoted to the gathering of orphans, participated in the creation of an orphanage-school in the building of the Girls’ School in Trabzon,…

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DEATH OF SARKIS DARCHINIAN

There are lesser-known names who do the hard work of documentation to construct the building of history. Sargis Darchinian took that role for the Armenian community of Georgia.

Sargis Darchinian was born on September 5, 1947, in Tbilisi (Georgia). He graduated from school in 1966 and, simultaneously, from sculpture and modeling at technical school. In 1967 he started working at the jewelry factory as designer and engraver.

He started photography during his adolescence, and gradually went into documentary photography, contributing to various Georgian publications. In the early 1970s, he met Alexander Arutiunov, a well-known Armenian photographer of Tbilisi, and, following his advice, focused on photography of architectural and historical type, as well as օf “urban types.”

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