Mesrob
Taghiadian was a writer and traveller who led a colorful life in the
first half of the nineteenth century, bringing a mixture of progressive
and conservative ideas to Eastern Armenian culture, particularly in
India and Iran.
He
was born on January 2, 1803, in the neighborhood of Tsoragiugh, in
Yerevan. He studied at the monastery of Holy Echmiadzin, at the time
when Eastern Armenia was still under Persian domination and educational
methods were not very enlightened. However, he had the good fortune to
study for a couple of years (1818-1819) with a good teacher, the
archimandrite Poghos Gharadaghtsi (ca. 1790-ca. 1860). He collected
popular songs and legends in the villages of the area. He became a
deacon, but did not take the habits.
Taghiadian’s
inquisitive mind and adventurous spirit led him to Calcutta (nowadays
Kolkatta), where he studied at Bishop’s College from 1826-1830. While
studying, he published a number of translations from English and Latin
into Armenian, with an eclectic choice of authors (William Shakespeare,
John Milton, John Locke, and Alexander Pope, among others). On the year
of his graduation, he published his first book, Mythology (1830).
Leaving Calcutta, he went first to New Julfa, where he founded a
school, and then to Echmiadzin, where he worked for a year as director
of the print shop and the library, as well as secretary of Catholicos
Nerses V. Afterwards he went back and forth between New Julfa and
Echmiadzin, later to Constantinople, and then, after many adventures, he
settled in Calcutta around 1840.
He
first took a job at Bishop’s College as director of the Armenian
section of the print shop. He published two textbooks in 1840. In
addition to other textbooks published later, he also published some
books of scholarship: History of Ancient India from Immemorial Times to the Invasion of the Mohammedans (1841), Humorous Persian Fables (1846), History of the Persians (1846), and The Martyrdom of St. Sandukht (1847).
In 1847 he wrote an extensive travelogue of his trips through India,
Persia, and Armenia. He also tried his hand at fiction, with two novels,
The Story of Vardgues (1846) and The Story of Varsenik (1847),
which figure among the earliest examples of modern Armenian fiction. In
1847 he published a collection of his poetry, entitled The Taghiadian’s Parrot, and a love poem based on an Indian tale, Sos and Sontipi. All his works were written in Classical Armenian, which was still the standard language of writing at the time.
In 1845 he published the periodical Azgaser, renamed Azgaser Araratian in
1848, where he wrote about many current issues (religious, economic,
social, cultural, educational, and literal), making his own share of
criticisms and offerings his viewpoints. The paper ceased publication in
1852.
Meanwhile,
in 1846 he had opened a co-ed school named after St. Sandukht, with
educational methods based on modern European methods and not on the old
scholastic system. He extolled those methods in a book, Discourse on the Education of Girls (1847). He maintained that education provide moral characteristics, rather than innate traits.
In
1858 Taghiadian decided to return to Armenia and spend the rest of his
life there. However, he fell ill in Shiraz (Persia) and passed away on
June 10, 1858.
It
is interesting to note that Archbishop Mesrob Ashjian of blessed memory
was prelate of Ispahan from 1973 to 1977, before coming to the Eastern
Prelacy and at the time, he collected extensive unpublished material on
Mesrop Taghiadian, which he published in a thick volume of more than 600
pages, entitled Archive of Mesrop Taghiadian, in 1979.
