November 7, 1922: Inauguration of the National Library of Armenia

The biggest repository of Armenian literature in the world is the National Library of Armenia, founded in 1921, but officially inaugurated on November 7, 1922.

The beginning of its history is linked to the foundation of the library of the Boys Gymnasium of Yerevan, in 1832. (“Gymnasium” was the name of Russian schools that emphasized strong academic learning, similar to U.S. preparatory high schools.) During the first independence of Armenia, this library, with a collection of 18,000 volumes, became the main state library after a decree was passed by the Council of Ministers of the Republic. The first director of the library was Stepan Kanayan, between 1919 and 1921. His efforts were instrumental to collect and buy the libraries of various Armenian organizations and schools in Tiflis, Baku, Akhaltskha, and Kars, and transfer them to Yerevan.

Various private and public collections were assembled and became the basis for what was known, during the Soviet period, as the Yerevan Public Library. Alexander Miasnikian, chairman of the Soviet of Popular Commissars (Council of Ministers) from 1921-1925, was instrumental in its foundation and initial growth. After his death in an airplane accident in 1925, the library was named after him and maintained that name until 1990 when it became the National Library of Armenia. Since 1999, July 4 is celebrated as day of the National Library of Armenia.

The library has four buildings. The oldest is the main building designed by architect Alexander Tamanian (1868-1936), who designed the master plan of Yerevan, and finished in 1939.

 

 

 

The number of daily visitors to the library is about 900. An annual average of 1.5 million pieces is delivered to library users. The library collection encompassed more than 6.3 million units as of January 1, 2014, including books, journals, newspapers, maps, posters, dissertations, musical notes, postcards, stamps, calendars, ex libris, banknotes, audiovisual and electronic supports (CDs, DVDs), etcetera. The library has the first printed book in Armenian, Urbatagirk (Venice, 1512); the first newspaper in Armenian, Azdarar (Madras, 1794); and the first map printed in Armenian, Համատարած աշխարհացոյց (Worldwide Map; Amsterdam, 1695). Its current director is Tigran Zargaryan.

Birth of Alexander Tamanian - March 16, 1878

Alexander Tamanian was the founder of Armenian modern architecture. His vision for Yerevan was going to turn the village-like capital of Armenia in the 1920s into a modern city. 

Tamanian was born in Krasnodar (Northern Caucasus). He graduated from the Arts Academy of St. Petersburg in 1904. His first work was the reconstruction of the Armenian church of St. Catherine in St. Petersburg in 1904-1906. Following the excavations of Nikolai Marr in Ani, he projected the museum of Ani in 1908, which was not realized. 

He would develop a very successful career as architect in Russia. His blueprints for different building in various cities of Russia from 1907-1913 (the house of Scherbatov in Moscow, in 1911-1913, won the golden medal of the City Duma) applied the forms of classicism and Russian architecture of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was elected full member of the Russian Art Academy in 1914 and became president of the Council of the Russian Art Academy, with status of vice-president of the Academy, in 1917.

The independence of Armenia in 1918 opened a new page in his life. He moved to Yerevan in 1919 to serve his country. He designed the coat-of-arms of the Republic, together with painter Hakob Kojoyan, which was restored as Armenia’s national coat of arms in 1992. Following the sovietization of Armenia, he left for Iran in 1921 and accepted the invitation of the Soviet Armenian government to return in 1923. 

Thereafter, and until his death on February 11, 1936 in Yerevan, he developed a very active professional life. In 1923 he was designated deputy chairman of the State Planning Committee. He became chairman of the Committee for Conservation of Monuments in 1924. 

In the same year, he created the master plan of the city of Yerevan, which signaled the beginning of Soviet city construction in Armenia. It was conceived for a city of 150,000 inhabitants (Yerevan had 25,000 at the time of the first Republic) and became the basis for the subsequent blueprints of the city. In 1934 he started the project for “Great Yerevan” (500,000 inhabitants), which remained unfinished. 

He also designed the plans for various cities between 1925 and 1933, including Gumri, Vagharshapat, Stepanakert, Gavar, and Hrazdan among others. He designed and built in Yerevan the morgue of the Medical Institute (1926-1933), the astronomical observatory (1930-1933), the National Library (1932-1938), and others, and his talent as a great architect was recognized particularly with his master plan of Yerevan, and the buildings of the Government House (1932-1941, State Prize of the USSR in 1942) and the Opera and Ballet Theater and Concert Hall (1926-1953). 

These two buildings predetermined and conditioned the architectonical solutions for

the most important urban points of Yerevan: the ensemble of the Republic Square (State Prize of Armenia in 1970), the area adjacent to the Opera Theater (the blueprint won the Great Golden Medal of the World Exhibition of 1937 in Paris), and the construction of the Northern Avenue, recently executed. Tamanian’s creations reinterpreted the principles of classical Armenian architecture with new quality, and opened new ways to develop their traditions in what has been called the “Tamanian School.” In 1936, Poet Yeghishe Charents wrote his poem “Vision of Death,” the third one with this title, in memory of the recently deceased architect. He started with the following lines:

“He saw a solar city...

As a sundial, drawn upon the blue side of pure marble,

here is the map of the city.

Avenues, streets, extending in circles,

and in the center, a granite altar reaching to the sky.”