DEATH OF REV. FR. HOVHANNES HUNKEARBEYENDIAN

Hunkearbeyendian was a teacher in various Armenian schools of Constantinople in the neighborhoods of Gedikpasa, Haskeuy and Pera (nowadays Beyoglu). He married in 1849 and Patriarch Hagopos Seropian (1839-1840, 1848–1856) consecrated him priest in 1852. The future dictionary author was born on November 25, 1818, in the Ottoman capital. His given name was Tateos. His father was also a priest and called Hovhannes Hunkearbeyendian too. He was educated at the school of the Armenian Cathedral of …

DEATH OF IDA KAR

Ida Kar was a photographer active mainly in London after 1945. She made a significant contribution to the recognition of photography as a form of fine art with her solo show in 1960. Kar was born Ida Karamian in Tambov, Russia, on April 8, 1908. Her father was a professor of mathematics and physics. The family moved to Iran in 1916 and to Alexandria, Egypt, in 1921. She studied at the Lycée Français there and went to Paris in 1928 to study chemistry and medicine, but soon …

BIRTH OF VIGEN KHECHUMIAN

Vigen Khechumian was one of the most original and less known prose writers of Soviet Armenian literature. His lengthy career in contact with old Armenian manuscripts gave Khechumian the opportunity to get acquianted with many episodes of the past that had remained on the margins of the texts and colophons. He also wrote on contemporary issues, but his most successful works were devoted to medieval times: “What I write is a dialogue of day and night with the ancient Armenian manuscripts, a book of books about them…

BIRTH OF FRIEDRICH WINDISCHMANN

Friedrich Windischmann, a Roman Catholic theologian, was noted as one of the best authorities on Armenian linguistics in Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century. He was very well-versed in the Armenian and Old Persian languages, and in the various Sanskrit dialects. Besides many articles, he published the books Explanation of the Letter to the Galatians (1843), Mithra: A Contribution to the Religious History of the Orient (1857), and the posthumous Zoroastrian Studies (1863).

DEATH OF LOUISE NALBANDIAN

Louise Nalbandian was born in San Francisco on September 12, 1926. She taught junior high and high school, and she was a lecturer of Armenian history at UCLA (1960-1961). She had completed her doctorate at Stanford University (1959), where she wrote her thesis on Armenian political parties, which was later published by the University of California Press under the title The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Development of Armenian Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century …

BIRTH OF VARAZDAT HARUTIUNIAN

Varazdat Harutiunian was one of the best-known names in the study of Armenian architecture in Armenia during the second half of the twentieth century. He was born in Van on November 29, 1909. The Harutiunian family emigrated from Van after the heroic resistance of April-May 1915 against the Ottoman army during the Armenian Genocide. They first went to Etchmiadzin and then to Tiflis (nowadays Tbilisi). Varazdat Harutiunian studied at the local Armenian high school from 1919 to 1927 and then taught in two …

DEATH OF LEVON MIRIJANIAN

Poet Levon Mirijanian had a wide literary and public activity in Armenia from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Mirijanian was born on January 22, 1933, in Yerevan. He finished the Khachatur Abovian high school in 1950 and the School of Armenian Language and Literature of Yerevan State University in 1955. In 1962 he passed the courses and exams for the Ph.D. program of the Institute of Literature Manuk Abeghian of …

DEATH OF MIHRAN TOUMAJAN

Mihran Toumajan, one of the five disciples of Gomidas Vartabed, continued the work of his master for about forty years in the United States.
He was born on October 21, 1890, in the town of Gurin (province of Sepastia). He moved to Sepastia with his family in 1895 and pursued there his studies. Then, after moving to Constantinople in 1909, he entered the Law School of the University of Constantinople and graduated in 1913.

BIRTH OF ROUBEN GREGORIAN

Violinist and conductor Rouben Gregorian was a prolific name both in Iran and the United States, where he lived for the last half of his life.
Rouben Grigorian was born to a family of musicians in Tiflis, Georgia, on October 23, 1915. His family moved to Iran a year later and settled in Tabriz. He studied at the Armenian Central School in Tabriz and then at the Tehran Conservatory, where he later became an instructor of violin. His studies also included classes in composition with celebrated composer

DEATH OF JAMES G. MANDALIAN

For more than three decades, James Mandalian was a dominant name in the Armenian American press as the founding editor of two longstanding publications, Hairenik Weekly and The Armenian Review. James Mandalian was the first editor of Hairenik Weekly, a position that he maintained for thirty-six years until his retirement in 1970. He also was was the first Executive Secretary of the Armenian Youth Federation (originally known as A.R.F. Tzeghagron until 1941) and authored its booklet Highlights of Armenian History (1938).