The
Lazarian family had an important role in the history of the Armenian
liberation movement from the eighteenth century. Hovhannes Lazarian
(1735-1801) worked to that end through his connections to the Russian
court. He bequeathed a big sum of money to the foundation of a high
school in Moscow for Armenian children, designating his brother Hovakim
as executor of the will. The Lazarian College, founded in 1815, would
become an education beacon for the Armenians in the Russian Empire.
Hovakim
Lazarian’s younger son, Khachatour, continued the family work. He was
born on June 1, 1789. The details about his early life are sketchy. In
1819 he married the daughter of Manuk bey Mirzayan (1769-1817), a
well-known trading partner of his father in Moldavia (Moldova), who had
been very active during the Turkish-Russian war of 1806-1812.
The
obstacles put by Russian high-level bureaucracy, particularly the
Ministry of Education, to the activities of the Lazarian College led the
Lazarian family to take an unprecedented step. In 1824 Hovakim Lazarian
addressed the Council of Ministers to ask that the College be taken out
of the ministry’s orbit and put under the direct supervision of the
council. Brothers Hovhannes and Khachatour Lazarian, together with two
members of the Committee of Educational Institutions, prepared the
bylaws of the College, which were approved. The Lazarian College was
renamed Lazarian Institute of Oriental Languages in 1828.
Meanwhile,
Khachatour Lazarian had been actively involved in the last phase of the
Russo-Persian war of 1826-1828. Along with Prince Konstantin Arghoutian
and scholar Alexander Khoudabashian, Lazarian prepared a project of
autonomy for the Eastern Armenian territories that would be annexed to
Russia after the war. The project, entitled, “A Series of Proposals for
Georgia and Adjacent Territories,” called for an ample autonomy of
Armenia within the Russian Empire and the restoration of the Armenian
kingdom with Czar Nicholas I adding “King of the Armenians” to his
titles. The project also anticipated the immigration of Armenian
population from Persia to Eastern Armenia. Lazarian also lobbied the
Russian authorities to incorporate the province of Maku, beyond the
border of the Arax River. The idea of Archbishop Nerses Ashtaraketsi
(future Catholicos of All Armenians) was to turn its mountains and
valleys into a natural protection for the country. However, Lazarian
failed in his purpose due to the obstinate refusal of General Ivan
Paskevitch, who had fought and won the war. The autonomy project was
also rejected, but it contributed to the initial creation of the
Armenian Province (1829-1840). He was also a member of the committee
that prepared the reforms in the administration of Eastern Armenia. The
project, known as
Polozhenye,
was approved by Nicholas I on March 11, 1836.
To
confront the matter of insufficient income for the Lazarian Institute
–the family covered the deficits from their own pocket—Lazarian
presented a project in 1837 that proposed to unify the five Armenian
churches of Moscow and St. Petersburg with the Institute and establish a
synergia between them, with the units mutually covering their deficits.
He also suggested the creation of a religious section in the Institute
for the education of the clergy. The project was approved by Catholicos
Hovhannes Karbetsi and the Synod of Etchmiadzin in 1840, and then
approved by the czar in 1841. Another project approved in 1848 by
Nicholas I turned the Institute into an eight-year educational
institution, instead of the previous six-year period.
Khachatour
Lazarian’s only son, Hovhannes, passed away at an early age in 1850.
His parents and uncle donated 60,000 silver rubles in his memory to
establish a preparatory section for the children of Armenian poor
families that lacked knowledge of the Russian language to enter the
Institute. As an exception, the czar agreed to this donation.
In
1860 Lazarian, a man of progressive ideas in education and always ready
to have the best possible level, made a huge donation of 200,000 rubles
from his own fortune to improve the educational level of the
Institute—now divided into two sections, gymnasium and Oriental
languages—and allow the graduates to pursue higher education without
additional exams. Czar Alexander II (1855-1881) decorated him with the
order of the White Lion. The intervention of the Minister of Education,
Count Dmitri Tolstoy, another man of progressive ideas, established a
new reform, which reunited both sections while keeping their high
educational level. The new curriculum remained unchanged from 1872 to
1918, when the newly established Soviet government closed the Lazarian
Institute.
Besides
his support for education, Khachatour Lazarian continuously sought to
support Armenian Studies among Russian scholars and convince wealthy
Armenians of throwing their support “in favor of the Church and the
Armenian people, which demand and are thirsty for education and
science.”
Lazarian
passed away in Moscow on October 10, 1871. A marble bust was installed
in the hall of the Lazarian Institute in the same year thanks to the
fundraising of Russian Armenians.
