THE DREAM MUST BE CONTINUED

October 23, 2015 by admin

“The Dream Must be Continued”

Richard Hovanissian on Genocide and Denial

at Marquette Law School

By David Luhrssen

 

(Milwaukee, Wis.) Prof. Richard Hovanissian opened his Oct. 18, 2015, talk at Marquette University Law School by reflecting on this year’s centennial observation of the Armenian Genocide. The UCLA professor emeritus commented on the amount of good press and academic conferences the Armenian cause received in 2015, Pope Francis’ proclamation, and the unity shown by the Armenian community. But the events of a century ago and their ongoing implications, rather than the commemoration, were the primary subject of his talk. The event, sponsored by the Wisconsin Armenian Genocide Centenary Committee, drew an overflow audience.

 

Speaking extemporaneously from a deep well of emotion as he articulated the horror of the Genocide, Hovanissian recounted memories of growing up in California as the child of survivors. When he began his academic career he had no thought of becoming one of America’s foremost authorities on the Genocide and focused instead on Armenia’s First Republic. “I backed into this field because my father was called a liar,” Hovanissian said, referring to his work of refuting Genocide deniers. He denounced the Turkish Coalition of America, funded by a Turkish-American industrialist, for “expending millions of dollars to silence the Armenian case. It may be discouraging but one doesn’t stop. The dream must be continued.”

 

Hovanissian asked the question: “What have we learned after 100 years?” He began his answer by citing “utter admiration” for the resilience shown by the survivors. “After seeing such cruelty, how could they ever sing and dance and joke again? But most did recover and recreated an existence—a new space.”

 

The initial strategy of the Kemalists, not to deny as much as prevent discussion, crumbled after 1965 when Armenians from around the world from Yerevan to New York, took to the streets in protest on the 50th anniversary of the Genocide. He added that the trial of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann “opened the door. The Holocaust is now not just part of Jewish history but part of human history. The Armenian Genocide should be remembered as the prototype for the mass killings of the 20th century. It set the model.”

Prof. Richard Hovanissian speaks at Marquette University Law School

Prof. Richard Hovanissian speaks at Marquette University Law School

 

Hovanissian suggested ideology and technology as the causes of such mass killings. In the case of the Genocide, the ideology was the extreme nationalism of Turkism and the technology was the telegraph, which allowed Talaat Pasha to wire instructions to subordinates across the Ottoman Empire and to expect detailed reports in return. The outbreak of World War I gave the Turkish regime its opportunity. Without the cover of war, Hovanissian suggested, the Genocide might never have occurred.

 

He added that in every story he has collected of Genocide survivors, “there was a good Turk, or a good Muslim, who sheltered Armenian victims.”

 

Although the war against the memory of the Genocide continues to be waged by the present Turkish government and its lobbyists, Hovanissian sees reason for optimism. “There is a crack in the wall,” he said. “Young Turkish intellectuals are challenging the official narrative and using the ‘G’ word, which even the President of the United States is afraid to use.”

Posted in History, News | Tagged |

TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF ARMENIA

October 23, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

 

 

Terrorist attack on the National Assembly of Armenia

(October 27, 1999)

The election of Karekin II as Catholicos of All Armenians had just been held on October 27, 1999 in the afternoon when the news of a terrorist attack on the building of the National Assembly in Yerevan came to Holy Echmiadzin.

 

At around 5:15 p.m., five men led by journalist Nairi Hunanyan, armed with AK-47 assault rifles hidden under long coats, stormed into the building while the government was holding a question-and-answer session. The group included Hunanyan’s brother Karen and uncle Vram, as well as Derenik Bejanyan and Eduard Grigoryan.

 

The main target was Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan (1959-1999). According to reporters who witnessed the shooting, the men went up to Sargsyan and said, “Enough of drinking our blood,” to which he calmly responded, “Everything is being done for you and the future of your children.” The Prime Minister was shot point blank several times. Seven other people were also shot dead. The list included National Assembly Speaker Karen Demirchyan and two Deputy Speakers, Yuri Bakhsyan and Ruben Miroyan; Minister of Emergency Affairs Leonard Petrosyan, and MPs Henrik Abrahamyan, Armenak Armenakyan, and Mikayel Kostanyan. Some 30 people were injured.

 

The group claimed they were carrying out a coup d’état in a “patriotic” act. They claimed that Armenia was in a “catastrophic situation” and that “corrupt officials” were not doing anything to find a way out. The gunmen held around 50 hostages inside the building, surrounded by policemen and army forces personnel positioned on Baghramyan Avenue. After overnight negotiations with President Robert Kocharian, the gunmen released the hostages and, after a standoff that lasted 17-18 hours, they gave themselves up on the morning of October 28.

 

President Kocharian declared a three-day mourning period.  The state funeral ceremony for the victims of the parliament shooting took place from 30-31 October 1999. Their bodies were placed inside the Yerevan Opera Theater, with high-ranking officials from some 30 countries attending the funeral.

 

According to a poll carried out by the Center for Sociological Studies of the National Academy of Sciences on October 30-31, 56.9% of respondents said that the October 27 events were a crime against statehood and the country’s authorities, and 63.4% believed that the terrorist group consisted of assassins–traitors and enemies.

 

Armenian American journalist Garin Hovannisian described the aftermath of the attack in the following terms: “For weeks the Armenians mourned in silence, but from their grief a startling theory began to evolve. The assassinations had been pinned on the terrorist leader, an ex-journalist named Nairi Hunanyan, but the public was not satisfied. The fact was that Prime Minister Sargsyan and Speaker Demirchyan had recently created in parliament an alliance for democratic reform, and they were the only men who commanded the resources and popularity to challenge the president one day. Of course, there was no actual evidence that Robert Kocharyan was complicit in this monstrous crime against the Armenian people, but it was clear that he emerged from the bloodbath with absolute power.”

A stamp commemorating the victims of the terrorist attack on the Armenian Parliament on October 27, 1999 issued by the Republic of Armenia in 2000.

A stamp commemorating the victims of the terrorist attack on the Armenian Parliament on October 27, 1999 issued by the Republic of Armenia in 2000.

 

From early June to late October 1999, the Unity alliance forged by Demirchan and Sargsyan, which controlled the military and the legislative and executive branches, had become the pillar of the political system in Armenia. Their murder disrupted the balance of power and the political arena was left in disarray for months. The assassination hit Armenia’s international reputation and resulted in a decline in foreign investment. Political power was transferred to President Kocharyan.

 

The motives behind the attack were never fully explained. While the gunmen claimed to have acted on their own initiative, no convincing evidence was disclosed to suggest that any political leader or party was behind the attack, although abundant conspiracy theories flourished to prove that there had been a sabotage of a Karabagh peace deal. Aram Sargsyan, who briefly succeeded his elder brother Vazgen as Prime Minister from 1999-2000, stated in March 2013 that, “I have never accused this or the former authorities in being responsible for October 27. I have accused them in not fully disclosing October 27.”

 

The five men were charged with terrorism aimed at undermining authority on October 29. The investigation was led by Chief Military Prosecutor Gagik Jhangiryan. At its end, the case was sent to court on July 12, 2000. The trial began on February 15, 2001, in Yerevan’s Kentron and Nork-Marash District Court. The judicial case was transferred to the jurisdiction of Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan and his office, which finally closed the case for lack of evidence. Nairi Hunanyan and his co-conspirators were sentenced to life in prison on December 2, 2003.

Posted in the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC) | Tagged |

DEATH OF SAYAT-NOVA

September 19, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

 

Death of Sayat-Nova
(September 22, 1795)


For almost three centuries, the songs composed by troubadour Sayat-Nova have been among the favorites of the Armenian people. Despite being written in the dialect of Tiflis, with a mix of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, their lyrics have always spoken to the heart of the listener.

 

Sayat-Nova’s life is involved in a cloud of mystery. It has been reconstructed to a certain level by the work of several generations of scholars, but there are many details that are still a matter of controversy.

 

It has been traditionally held that Sayat-Nova was born in Tiflis, the capital of the kingdom of Georgia, in 1712, and the 250th anniversary of his birth was celebrated throughout the Armenian world with great pomp in 1962. However, poet and scholar Paruyr Sevak was the first to demonstrate in his doctoral dissertation defended in 1966 and published in 1969 that there were more than enough grounds to date the poet’s birth in 1722.

 

Most likely, Sayat-Nova’s ancestors were born in Cilicia, and the birthplace of his father was either Adana or Aleppo. The future poet and troubadour spent his childhood and youth in Tiflis, his birthplace, where he learned to write and read Armenian and Georgian, and he also knew the Arabic alphabet.

 

At the age of 12 he became an apprentice of weaving and in a short time became a very capable weaver. However, his actual love was songs and music, perhaps influenced by his parents.

 

Sayat-Nova perfected himself in the art of the ashugh (troubadours) until the age of 30. He learned melodies and different metrics. At the same time, he created poems, which he interpreted during popular gatherings. It is likely that he traveled through the Near East and visited Persia, India, and the Ottoman Empire. He later was acknowledged as a poet-singer and baptized with the name of Sayat-Nova (from Persian, meaning “hunter of songs”).

 

Sayat Nova wrote in three languages: Armenian, Georgian, and (Azerbaijani) Turkish. More than 230 of his poems have reached us, which were collected in manuscript books that he wrote by his own hand or that his son Ohan compiled and copied, in various collections of folklore, or remained in the memory of the people and were gradually written down and published.

 

The earliest poem is dated 1742, even though there may be earlier compositions. The last poem was the famous “The World is a Window…” («Աշխարըս մե փանջարա է…»), written in April 1759. Sayat-Nova was the first who created and sang Georgian poems using the motifs of Persian poetry. This innovation was well received and he was appointed musician in the court of King Irakli II of Kakheti (one of the Georgian kingdoms). For some ten years the poet was in the court and produced some of his best works in this period. His poems spoke of justice and nobility, condemned deceit and villainy, and social and moral flaws. His love poetry expressed the most delicate and sacred feelings with images that were unusual.

The monument to Sayat Nova in central Yerevan.

The monument to Sayat Nova in central Yerevan.

 

His life was not peaceful. There were conspiracies against him and he was expelled from the palace at least twice, in 1753 and 1759. The last one was the final, and his life as poet, composer, and musician ended there, at the age of 37. He would still live for more than three decades.

 

In 1759 Irakli II forced him to become a priest, with the name of Der Stepanos, and he was sent to the port of Enzeli (Persia), on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. He “repented” here and copied the poem Book of Lamentations, by Gregory of Narek, in 1760. In 1766 he was a priest in the small town of Kakhi, on the road from Zakatala to Shamakhi, where he copied another manuscript, a compilation of biblical fragments. Both manuscripts are kept today in the Matenadaran of Yerevan.

 

Sayat-Nova’s wife, Marmar, passed away in 1768 and left four small children (Hovhannes or Ohan, Melkiset, Sarah, and Mariam). In 1768 or 1769 Der Stepanos, the former Sayat-Nova, moved to Tiflis, where he served in the prelacy of the congregation of Haghbat, which had settled in the Georgian city. In 1778, when the monastery of Haghbat was rebuilt, he was designated sacristan of the church of Surp Nshan. He returned to Tiflis with the congregation later, probably in 1784.

 

On September 22, 1795, during the Afghan invasion of Georgia, led by Agha-Mahmad Kajar, Sayat-Nova was killed when he refused to renege his religion. He was buried in the courtyard of the church of Surp Kevork. There, by initiative of poet Hovhannes Tumanian, the memory of Sayat-Nova has been observed since 1914 every May with popular festivities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MASSACRE OF BAKU

September 11, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY

(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC)

 

Massacre of Baku
(September 14-15, 1918)

 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Baku was, after Tiflis, the second Armenian city of the Caucasus. By the end of the same century, the Armenian population of the city had been practically wiped out.

One of the chapters of that ethnic cleansing was the massacre of September 1918. While the Third Ottoman Army Corps was stopped in its advance in the battles of May 1918 that allowed Armenia to become an independent state, the Second Army Corps continued its advance through the line Gharakilise-Dilijan-Ghazakh (Ijevan)-Elizavetpol (Gandzak, Ganja) towards Baku.

 

Azerbaijan had proclaimed its independence on May 27, 1918 with Elizavetpol as its capital. Baku, the richest city in the country with its oil fields, had been governed since April 1918 by a Soviet (council) led by Bolshevik Stepan Shahumian. The Baku Soviet collaborated with the local branch of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation to establish control over the city and its environs. While the Bolsheviks had the revolution in mind, the Armenians were primarily concerned with physical survival. However, by the beginning of summer, the Soviet found itself under increased threat by the Ottoman army, which had been enthusiastically received by the newly created Azerbaijani government, presided by M. Fatali Khan-Khoyski. Both sides clashed in June and July, but the joint Ottoman-Azerbaijani offensive could not be stopped by the forces loyal to the Baku Soviet, which, with no promise of material support from Moscow, was forced to turn to a British expeditionary force stationed in Persia under the command of Major-General Lionel C. Dunsterville. Although Shahumian had been ordered by Moscow to deny entry to the British, he was overruled by his peers in the Soviet, which formally requested help in late July. On July 31 Shahumian and the other Bolshevik members resigned from their posts and the Centro-Caspian Dictatorship assumed control of the city.

 

The size of the British force, however, proved to be too small to make much of an impact. In August, the Ottoman military, led by the so-called Army of Islam headed by Nuri Pasha (Ottoman War Minister Enver Pasha’s half-brother), launched a new assault against the frontline positions, which were primarily manned by Armenians, who were forced to retreat despite some initial victories. In the first week of September, a joint Ottoman-Azerbaijani force composed of 15,000 men advanced without much resistance toward Baku and reached the suburbs by September 13. Meanwhile, the Muslim population of Baku prepared to welcome the entry of the Ottoman army. The Armenian troops were too ill-prepared to halt the advance and Dunsterville refused to retain his force, which evacuated from Baku on September 14 and sailed to Enzeli, in Persia, leaving the city virtually defenseless.

 

A terrible panic ensued once the invaders entered Baku. The Armenians crowded the harbor in a frantic effort to escape the fate that they knew very well. Regular Ottoman troops were not allowed to enter the city for two days, so that the local irregulars (bashibozuks) would conduct the usual looting and pillaging. Despite this order, regular Ottoman troops participated alongside the irregulars and the Azeris of Baku in the plundering, and then turned their fury against the Armenian population. Calls by German officers attached to the Ottoman command staff to treat the local population with leniency were ignored.

Massacre of Baku

Armenians fleeing the massacre through the Azerbaijani countryside.

 

On September 16, the Ottoman divisions formally entered the city in a victory parade reviewed by the Ottoman High Command. Baku would subsequently be proclaimed as the capital of the newly established Azerbaijani Republic.

 

According to a special commission formed by the Armenian National Council of Baku, a total of 8,988 Armenians were massacred, among which were 5,248 Armenian inhabitants, 1,500 Armenian refugees from other areas of the Caucasus, and 2,240 Armenians whose corpses were found in the streets but remained unidentified. Other estimates range up to 30,000 people.

Posted in the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC) | Tagged |

PAUL CHATER

September 8, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

 

 

Birth of Paul Chater

(September 8, 1846)

Sir Paul Chater is regarded as the man who placed the footprint of Hong Kong down and allowed the city to become one of the leading economies of the world today. In 1902 he represented Hong Kong at the coronation of King Edward VII of England, even though he was neither Chinese nor even born in Hong Kong.

 

Catchick Paul Chater was born Khachik Poghos Astvatzatoor (Khachik Pogose Astwachatoor) in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, on September 8, 1846. He was one of the thirteen children of Chater Paul and Miriam Chater. His father was a member of the Indian civil service.

 

The young Khachik, orphaned at the age of seven, entered La Martiniere College. In the early 1910s he would become a benefactor of the desperately struggling school by making his single biggest donation to any institution or organization while still alive. It allowed his alma mater to avoid certain closure.

 

Chater moved in 1864 to Hong Kong and lived with the family of his sister Anna and sister’s husband Jordan Paul Jordan. He was an assistant at the Bank of Hindustan, China, and Japan. Later, with the aid of the Sassoon family, he set up business as an exchange broker, resigned from the bank, and traded gold bullion and land on his own account. He took sea-bed soundings at night and was thus instrumental in the reclamation of Victoria Harbour. He is credited with a fundamental role in the colonial government’s success in acquiring lands then held by the military.

 

In 1868 he and Sir Hormusjee Naorojee Mody formed Chater & Mody, a largely successful business partnership in Hong Kong. In 1886 Chater entered the Legislative Council, taking the place of another Armenian, F. D. Sassoon. In 1889 he partnered with James Johnstone Kewsick to establish Hong Kong Land. The following year, the company commenced the land reclamation project under the Praya Reclamation Scheme. They secretly acquired an old graveyard, where they built one of the earliest electricity power stations in the world. The Hong Kong Electric Company went into production with Chater’s help as an informal member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong. He was appointed to the Council in 1896 and served until 1926.

 

Chater was knighted in 1902. The year before, he had built a very fine home with imported European marble, which he named Marble Hall. He housed there his collection of fine porcelain. In 1904 Chater financed the construction of St. Andrew’s Church.

PAUL CHATER

PAUL CHATER

 

The Armenian businessman held many titles and positions, including those of senior justice in Hong Kong and consul for the kingdom of Siam (Thailand).

 

Chater died on May 27, 1926 and bequeathed Marble Hall and its entire contents, including his unique collection of porcelain and paintings, to Hong Kong. The remainder of his estate, besides generous bequests to nephews and members of his family, went to the Armenian Church of the Holy Nazareth in Calcutta, which runs a home for Armenian elderly, named The Sir Catchick Paul Chater Home. He was interred at the Hong Kong cemetery.

 

His wife lived in Marble Hall as a life tenant until her death in 1935. Ownership then passed to the government. It became the official residence of the naval commander-in-chief, and was commandeered by the Japanese during their occupation. It accidentally burned down in 1946, and government buildings occupied the site since its demolition in 1953. Government residences named “Chater Hall Flats” are today located on the site of Marble Hall.

 

Chater gifted to Hong Kong his large collection of historical pictures and engravings relating to China (430 pieces). The Chater Collection was dispersed and largely destroyed during the Japanese occupation, and only 94 pieces, now at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, are known to have survived.

 

His name is also preserved in other places of Hong Kong, such as Chater Road, Catchick Street, Chater House, and Chater Garden. In 2009 the company he cofounded, Hong Kong Land, commissioned a bust of him on the 120th anniversary of its foundation, which is permanently displayed in Chater House.

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SOAR-WISCONSIN REPORT

August 28, 2015 by admin

SOAR-Wisconsin Field Trip to Armenia
April 19-29, 2015

 

Our Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR) Wisconsin chapter delegation included the two chapter co-presidents (Dr. Chuck and Mary Kay Hajinian), the vice president (Harry Aghjian), and the treasurer (Leon A. Saryan).   SOAR is a charitable organization recognized by the US government under applicable law. The purpose of our visit was to visit an orphanage to which our chapter has provided assistance and to evaluate the economic, historical and social makeup of the people to better understand the orphan situation in Armenia.

 

On our first day we met with the SOAR representative in Armenia, Siranoush Hovannesian.  She escorted us to the Mari Izmirlian orphanage in northeast Yerevan, which we first visited in 2013 and which our chapter has supported financially in the past.  This facility cares for children who are handicapped, disabled, or otherwise have special needs.   The number of children being cared for has climbed to 110 from 90 two years ago.  Staff salaries and basic essentials are covered by the government’s Ministry for Social Services, but very little money is allotted to capital needs and facility upgrades.

SOAR-Wisconsin vice president Harry Aghjian and his wife Casey at Lake Sevan, Armenia

SOAR-Wisconsin vice president Harry Aghjian and his wife Casey at Lake Sevan, Armenia

 

We were able to observe several improvements from our visit two years earlier, made possible in large part by donations from our SOAR chapter and other diaspora organizations.   Sinks now had faucets, toilets had seats, and damaged walls were painted.  Fire-damaged areas were repaired.  Medical and kitchen refrigerators donated by our chapter two years earlier have been installed.  Also, many children have been provided with new beds, mattresses, and closets for their clothing.  We noted that bronze plaques have been mounted acknowledging the Wisconsin and Chicago chapters of SOAR for their donations.

 

We met with the orphanage staff and found them deeply appreciative and committed to the care of these children. This is a government sponsored home where workers are not highly compensated.  To do this work of caring, cooking, cleaning up these kids requires a special heart.  This staff seems to have that.

 

We were also able to assess additional needs:  another forty new beds and mattresses, kitchen equipment (commercial blenders, a commercial bread slicer, food processors, large pots and pans etc.) are needed.  Another large commercial refrigerator is also needed (estimated at $5000) as well as some additional new washing machines and clothes dryers.

 

During our meeting with Siranoush, we delivered 14 large bottles of multi-vitamins for orphan children donated and carried to Armenia by the SOAR-WI chapter.  We also gave her over 5000 custom-prepared prayer cards in English and Armenian. These prayer cards were designed by Wisconsin SOAR members and Father Yeghia Hairabedian of Glendale, California thru Renewal in Christ Ministries. The cards have a picture of Christ with children and an encouraging spiritual prayer for the children to recite.  Some cards were also given to a pastor to take to Jordan and Syria for refugees and orphans.

 

We also delivered over $2000 worth of dental supplies to support the establishment of dental clinics in Armenia’s orphanages.  Partially at our initiative, the Mari Izmirilian Orphanage has a new two-operatory dental clinic operated by a Polish dentist who comes to Armenia twice a year to care for all the children at that orphanage.  Siranoush was instructed to distribute the dental supplies as she saw fit.

 

We also met with several Armenian institutional directors to discuss synergy with SOAR, including Vahram Kazhoyan (vahram@rocketmail.com).  Vahram wears multiple “hats” for the government and helps oversee NGO’s.  He is the hospitality spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry and works as a Goodwill Ambassador.  He was instrumental in working with businessman James Tufenkian in setting up a shelter for battered women in Yerevan.  We also met James Tufenkian and stayed at his hotel.

Casey Aghjian with SOAR sponsored orphans

Casey Aghjian with SOAR sponsored orphans

While in Yerevan, we also met with an NGO for Syrian-Armenian refugees. This “New Aleppo” group are relocating families and orphans. These numbers are as high as 16,000 people.  We met with families whose ancestors operated ran orphanages during the Genocide. Dr. Hajinian was interviewed on Armenian H3 television, a Danish newspaper and the New York Times published my comments.  Others in our group were also interviewed.

 

During the visit the Wisconsin SOAR officers were able to observe the general status of living conditions that make orphanage institutions essential for the social fabric of the country.

 

We returned with a new list of needs for the Mari Izmirlian Orphanage and introduced many to the work of SOAR.

 

Document prepared by Dr. Chuck Hajinian, President, SOAR-Wisconsin, and Dr. L. A. Saryan, Treasurer, SOAR-Wisconsin.

June 1, 2015

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DEATH OF NERSESS SHNORHALI

August 13, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

Death of St. Nerses Shnorhali

(August 13, 1173)

One of the saints of the Armenian and the universal Church, Nerses Shnorhali, is also one of the most revered names in the Armenian Christian tradition. He was known with the appellative of Shnorhali (“Graceful”) due to his multiple talents: he was theologian, poet, musicologist, composer, and historian, and excelled in all those endeavors

Nesess Shnorhali

Nesess Shnorhali

Nerses Glayetsi was born in the castle of Tzovk, in the district of Tluk, in the Armenian Mesopotamia (the area around the city of Edesa or Urfa) in 1102. He belonged to the princely Pahlavuni family. His great-grandfather was Krikor Pahlavuni or Magistros (990-1058), a famous writer, scholar, and public official.

After the early death of his father, Prince Apirat Pahlavuni, Nerses and his older brother Krikor were placed under the guardianship of their maternal great uncle, Catholicos Krikor II Martyrophile (1066-1105), who placed them in the monastery at Fhoughri. Later, Krikor’s successor, Barsegh (1105-1113) sent them to the school of the monastery of Karmir Vank, headed by Bishop Stepanos Manouk, a highly regarded scholar and theologian.

Nerses’ brother Krikor became Catholicos at the age of 21, in 1113. Nerses was ordained a celibate priest in 1119 and consecrated a bishop at the age of 35, in 1137. He was one of the best educated men of his time.

He assisted Catholicos Krikor III in moving the Catholicosate to Dzovk, on the property of their father, in 1125. This move was brief, as in 1151 the Catholicosate moved its headquarters to the fortress of Hromkla, near the Euphrates River (Nerses’ surname “Glayetsi” was derived from the name of the fortress). In 1165 hostilities broke out between Toros II, Prince of Cilicia, and one of the strongest princes of the country, Oshin of Lambron. Krikor III sent his brother to mediate.

On his way to the mediation, Nerses met Byzantine governor Alexios and discussed the strained relations between the Armenian and Greek churches since the Greek Orthodox Church had declared that the Armenian Church and the Jacobite Church were heretics in 1140. This discussion impressed the Byzantine governor to the point that he urged the Armenian bishop to write an exposition of the Armenian faith. Nerses stressed in his letter that, as both the Armenian and Greek churches accepted the statements of the first Council of Ephesus (431), there was no clear reason for them not to be in agreement, and did not make any polemical statements about the later Council of Chalcedon and its Confession.

On Nerses’ return from his successful mediation effort and the death of his brother shortly thereafter, he was made Catholicos of the Armenian Church. He convened a council with emissaries selected by Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenos to discuss how they might be able to reunite the two churches (1171). The terms the emperor offered were, however, unacceptable to both Nerses and the Armenian Church, and the negotiations collapsed.

Nerses Shnorhali passed away on August 13, 1173 and was buried in the fortress of Hromkla. The Armenian Church celebrates him as a saint on October 13, during the feast of the Holy Translators, while the Catholic Church also celebrates him, but on August 13.

His prolific literary output included long poems like Lament of Edesa (1145-1146), Jesus the Son (1152), and others, such as the cosmological poem About the Sky and Its Ornaments. He refined and completed the Sharaknots (collection of liturgical hymns) and the Divine Liturgy, enriching it with his own songs, whose number amounts to more than a hundred. One of his best sharakans is the well-known Morning of Light (Առաւօտ լուսոյ, Aravod luso). He also composed some 300 riddles, extracted from Armenian folklore. His Universal Epistle, written in 1166 and addressed to the entire Armenian people, was particularly influential in Armenian medieval thought.

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Birth of Stepan Lianozov

August 7, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

 

 

Birth of Stepan Lianozov

(August 9, 1872)

John Reed, the American Communist militant who witnessed the October Revolution that would give birth to the Union Soviet, called Stepan Lianozov the “Russian Rockefeller.” Both Lianozov and Rockefeller competed for the oil of Baku in the early twentieth century, at the time when Armenians like Lianozov had an important share in its production and exploitation.

Stepan Lianozov (Lianosian) was born on August 9, 1872 in Moscow. His father, Gevorg Lianozov (1835-1906), descended from an Armenian family that had been deported from Eastern Armenia by Iranian Shah Abbas III at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  He was a dominant name in the production of caviar from the Caspian Sea, and would inherit the interests in the oil of Baku that his brother, also called Stepan, had built since 1872.

Gevorg Lianozov’s son Stepan graduated from high school and in 1894 entered the School of Natural Sciences of the University of Moscow. He changed his career and graduated from the School of Law four years later. He worked for two years as an assistant to a magistrate in the court chamber of Moscow.

Stepan Lianozov

Stepan Lianozov

In 1901 Stepan left to his brothers Martin and Levon the caviar business and entered the growing and lucrative field of oil to assist his father.

After the death of his father, Stepan Lianozov founded the oil company G. M. Lianozov and Sons in St. Petersburg (1907), with a statutory capital of 2 million rubles. He transformed the family business into a corporative activity, attracting big investors, and engaging the biggest players in Baku: the Nobels, the Rothschilds, and the Shell Company. Between 1907 and 1910, G. M. Lianozov and Sons multiplied its production almost nine times.

 

The company owned oil fields, as well as subsidiaries in Baku that produced kerosene and refined petroleum, a pipeline in the Caspian shore, and others. Lianozov was elected member of the Baku City Council and the Baku Stock Exchange council.

On July 28, 1912 the Russian Main Oil Union, also called Oil, was founded in London. It united three Armenian and one Russian oil companies, several big Russian banks and representatives of British business, with a founding capital of 2.5 million sterling pounds. Stepan Lianozov became director-manager of the new company, which soon bought twelve big oil companies (including Mantashov and Co., Mirzoyev Brothers and Co., A. S. Melikov and Co., and Aramazd), and became the third biggest oil company in the world, after Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell.

G. M. Lianozov and Sons paid 18% to its shareholders in 1913. It had representative companies in Great Britain (British Lianosoff Wite Oil Company), France (La Lianosoff Français), and Germany (Deutsche Lianozoff Mineralöl Import Act.Ges).

In the spring of 1914 Lianozov and the Mantashov brothers (sons of the late Armenian oil magnate Alexander Mantashov or Mantashiants) made a big investment in the movie company Biochrome, founded by Sergei Prokudin-Gorski. The headquarters of the company were in Moscow, in one of the houses of the Lianozovs, which would become the offices of the Ministry of Cinematography after the Russian Revolution. The company filmed several movies until 1918, when the movie sets were burned by a fire: “No Exit,” “The God of Revenge,” “The Eternal Tale of Life.”

Lianozov’s business activities continued successfully after the beginning of World War I, but the Russian Revolution ruined the oil magnates of Baku. Unlike many other businessmen, Stepan Lianozov actively entered politics and participated in the civil war that followed. After migrating to Finland, in May 1919 he participated in a meeting organized by the counterrevolutionary forces (the Whites), which decided to create the Northwest Republic with center on the north of current Estonia. Lianozov was designated head of government, and took the positions of Prime Minister, Minister of Finances, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. General Nikolai Yudenich, who had been one of the main Russian commanders in the Caucasian front, and was one of the military leaders of the counterrevolutionary movement, together with Generals Kolchak and Denikin, took the position of Minister of War and commander in chief of the Northwest Army.

Oil rigs around a pool of crude in Baku around 1900

Oil rigs around a pool of crude in Baku around 1900

One of the first measures by Lianozov was to recognize the independence of Estonia on August 11, 1919, followed by the recognition of Latvia (September 3) and Finlandia (September 23). He also issued rubles of the Northwest Republic, signed by Yudenich and himself.

In October 1919 Yudenich headed an attack against St. Petersburg. However, the White offensive failed to occupy the capital of Soviet Russia, and, as a result, the Northwest Republic self-dissolved on December 5, 1919 and Lianozov moved to Paris.

In 1920 Stepan Lianozov founded TorgProm (Russian Trade-Industrial and Financial Union), together with the brothers Poghos and Abraham Ghukasian, and some Russian emigré businessmen, to protect the interests of Russian businessmen in Francia. He worked as a film producer in 1925, which became his main source of income for several years. Meanwhile, in 1926 he was the representative for France of the Russian Congress Abroad. This organization published its own newspaper from 1925 to 1940, called Renaissance.

Stepan Lianozov passed away on August 10, 1951 in Paris and was buried in the cemetery of Passy. He left one son, called Nikolai.

 

 

Posted in the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC) | Tagged , |

HAMO OHANJANIAN

August 2, 2015 by admin

THIS WEEK IN ARMENIAN HISTORY
(Prepared by the Armenian National Education Committee)

[ANEC]

 

 

Death of Hamo Ohanjanian

(July 31, 1947)

Ohanjanian was a prominent member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in the first half of the twentieth century and also served as Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia.

 

He was born in Akhalkalak (Javakhk, nowadays Georgia) in 1873. After his elementary studies in his birthplace, he moved to Tiflis, where he graduated from the Russian lyceum. He entered medical school in Moscow (1892), where he joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and because of his participation in student agitation, he was left out of the university. He returned to Tiflis, and in 1899 he continued his studies in Lausanne (Switzerland), which he finished in 1902. He returned to Tiflis in 1902, where he became a leading figure of the party, and in 1905 was elected a member of the Eastern Bureau of the A.R.F. He would coordinate the popular action that opposed the confiscation of the properties of the Armenian Church in 1903 and he established relations with Russian and Georgian revolutionaries during the revolutionary movements of Russia in 1905-1907. He played an important role in the crucial A.R.F. Fourth General Assembly (Vienna, 1907), where he helped preserve the unity of the party by stopping extreme-left and extreme-right wing dissension.

Hamo Ohanjanian

Hamo Ohanjanian

 

In 1908 the Czarist government launched a persecution against revolutionary parties, including the A.R.F. Ohanjanian, together with 160 party members, was arrested. He was sentenced to hard labor in Siberia during the infamous “Trial of the Tashnagtsutiun” in 1912. Roubina Areshian, one of the organizers of the failed attempt against Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1905, followed him there and married him.

 

In 1915 Ohanjanian was set free thanks to the intercession of Catholicos Kevork V and Caucasus viceroy Ilarion Vorontsov-Dashkov. He returned to Tiflis and assisted the volunteer battalions as a physician, as well as the refugees from Western Armenia.

 

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he departed to Petrograd and Kharkov to exhort Armenians to bring their help to the refugees. In May 1918 he participated in the battle of Gharakilise, where his elder son (born from his first marriage to Olga Vavileva) was killed.

 

After the birth of Armenia, Ohanjanian became a member of the Delegation of the Republic presided by Avetis Aharonian to participate in the Peace Conference in Europe. He remained in the West until the beginning of 1920. In October 1919 he was elected member of the A.R.F. Bureau during its Ninth General Assembly held in Yerevan.

 

He returned to the Armenian capital in January 1920 as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Alexander Khatisian. Following the failed Bolshevik uprising of May 1, 1920, Khatisian resigned, and Ohanjanian was charged with forming a new government on May 5, 1920. It was called the Bureau-Government, because all of its members were members of the A.R.F. Bureau.

 

Ohanjanian’s premiership coincided with the most crucial period of the Republic of Armenia, which would practically lead to its demise. The Treaty of Sevres was signed on August 10, 1920, but the following Armeno-Turkish war, started in September, ended with the defeat of the Armenian army. Ohanjanian resigned on November 23, 1920. Simon Vratzian would become the fourth and last prime minister, and ten days later the Soviet regime was established.

 

Ohanjanian, with other A.R.F. leaders, was imprisoned in January 1921 during the wave of terror that followed the Sovietization. The prisoners were saved by the popular rebellion of February 1921. After the end of the rebellion in April 1921, Ohanjanian moved to Zangezur and then to Iran. In the end, he settled in Egypt, where he would live until his death.

 

Besides his political activities as a party member, Ohanjanian, well-aware of the importance of language and culture for the preservation and development of the Armenian identity in the Diaspora, became a founding member of the Hamazkayin Cultural Association in 1928 and its chairman for the next 18 years. He also provided important support for the establishment of the Armenian Lyceum of Beirut in 1930.

 

The former prime minister of the Republic of Armenia passed away on July 31, 1947 in Cairo, where he was buried.

 

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“I AM ARMENIAN”

July 26, 2015 by admin

David Luhrssen at UCLA 

 

On July 1, Milwaukee Armenian Community member David Luhrssen was the guest speaker at UCLA’s “I Am Armenian” program. A film series marking the centennial of the Genocide, “I Am Armenian” features Armenian films and discussion between guests and host Carla Garapedian. Luhrssen was invited on the strength of his recent book, Mamoulian: Life on Stage and Screen, the most complete account of director Rouben Mamoulian’s work in theater and film. The discussion between Luhrssen and Garapedian took place after a screening of Mamoulian’s final film, the Fred Astaire musical Silk Stockings, in the Billy Wilder Theatre at UCLA’s Hammer Museum. 

 

Luhrssen is the author of several books and is arts editor and film critic for Milwaukee’s weekly newspaper, the Shepherd Express. Garapedian was the anchor for BBC World News and is an award-winning filmmaker best known for her documentary on the band System of a Down, Screamers. 

For a video of their conversation, go to: http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2015/07/silk-stockings/

http://livestream.com/hammermuseum/silkstockings/videos/91947438

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