Death of Edward Mirzoyan (October 5, 2012)

Composer Edward Mirzoyan was a noted name in the music of Soviet Armenia and president of the Composers Union for more than three decades. He was born in Gori, Georgia, on May 12, 1921. His stepfather was composer Mikayel Mirzayan (1888-1958).

Mirzoyan later moved to Armenia and graduated in 1941 from the creative section of the Yerevan Conservatory. By that time he had already composed his first works, including two popular songs based on Avetik Isahakian’s poems, “They Say That…” and “Dream.” He served in the Soviet army from March-November 1942, organizing army ensembles of songs and dances. From 1946-48 he continued his studies at the musical studio of the House of Armenian Culture in Moscow. Returning to Yerevan, he taught at his alma mater from 1948 onwards, becoming a full professor in 1965.

From 1950-1952 he was executive secretary of the Composers Union of Armenia and its president from 1956-1991, becoming honorary president in 1994, and president of the Peace Fund of Armenia from 1977-2009 (honorary president in 2009). He toured the United States and Canada in 1963. In the same year he earned the title of Popular Artist of Soviet Armenia, one among various awards and honorific titles he received throughout his life.

He wrote songs based on poems by Avetik Isahakian and Yeghishe Charents. Some of his works were characterized by their dynamism, such as “Symphonic Dances,” “Festive Prelude,” “Introduction and Perpetuum Mobile” (for violin and orchestra). His “String Quartet” is one of the interesting words of Armenian chamber music. His cantatas, like “Armenia,” “Festive,” and others, are suffused with patriotic spirit. He contributed several symphonic works of particular value such as the sonata for cello and piano” and the symphony for string orchestra and timpani. He also wrote “Album for My Grandchild,” “Poem for Piano,” “Poem-Epitaph for Chamber Orchestra,” and other works.

Mirzoyan has also written the music of several Armenian movies, such as Collapse (1959), Chaos (1974), The President of the Revolutionary Committee (1977), Exile No. 11 (1979), and The Pharmacy at the Corner (1988), and the documentary Today Is a Sunny Day (1975).

Some of Mirzoyan’s students were famous composers like Jivan Ter-Tadevosian, Constantine Orbelian, Avet Terterian, Vache Sharafian, Khachatur Avetisian, Robert Amirkhanian, and others.

Mirzoyan passed away in Yerevan, on October 5, 2012, at the age of ninety-one. He was buried at the Komitas Pantheon. The House of Composers of Dilijan was named after him 2013.

Death of Avetik Isahakian (October 17, 1957)

Avetik Isahakian was and remains a popular name in Armenian literature, particularly for the folkloric style of his poetry. Many of his poems have become songs.

He was born in Alexandropol (nowadays Gumri) on October 30, 1875. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the surrounding village of Ghazarapat, now called Isahakian after him. He studied at the Kevorkian Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin, and from 1893-1895 he was an auditor at the University of Lepzig, in Germany.

He started writing in his youth years, while he also delved into political activities. He returned to Alexandropol in 1895 and became a member of the local committee of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He was arrested by the Russian police in 1896 and spent a year imprisoned in the fortress of Yerevan.

He left the country after coming out of prison. In 1897 he went to the University of Zurich as auditor of history of literature and philosophy. A year later, he published his first book of poetry, Songs and Wounds. In 1902 he came back to the homeland and then settled in Tiflis. He published a second book of poetry, Poems, in 1903, followed by an enlarged edition of Songs and Wounds in 1908.

In 1908 the Russian government launched a repressive campaign against the revolutionary movements throughout the empire. Isahakian was among the 158 intellectuals arrested in the “A.R.F. case” and, after remaining for half year in the prison of Metekh, in Tiflis, he was liberated with a huge bail. The atmosphere was irrespirable and perhaps was one of the reasons besides the writing of the long poem Abu-Lala Mahari from 1909-1910. In 1910 the poet married Sofia Kocharian in the ruins of Ani. They moved first to Constantinople, where he published the poem in 1911, and then to Europe with their newly-born son, Vigen.

They settled in Berlin, where Isahakian would become one of the founders of the German-Armenian Society in 1914 together with a group of Armenian and German intellectuals. In 1916 the Isahakians moved to Geneva. The poet would actively follow the Armenian cause and reflect it in his writing, journal notes, and articles. He started writing a novel, Usta Garo, where he intended to present Armenian political life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which remained unfinished despite working on it for many years. He published two collections of poems in 1920 and 1922, as well as the first version of his poem Mher of Sassoon, based on the final cycle of the Armenian epic.

Isahakian moved to Paris in 1924 and, after fifteen years in exile, he visited Soviet Armenia in 1926 and remained there for four years. He returned to Europe in 1930 and lived in the French capital for the next six years, where he was an activist on behalf of Soviet Armenia until 1936. In this year, he returned definitively to the homeland with his family.

In Armenia, where he was familiarly known as varpet (“master”), a title that he only shared with painter Martiros Sarian, Isahakian was the dean of Armenian literature in the hard times of Stalinist repression. He continued writing and publishing. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia in 1943. He earned the State Prize of the USSR in 1946, and in this same year he was appointed president of the Writers Union of Armenia, a position he held until his death on October 17, 1957 in Yerevan.

Avetik Isahakian was buried in the “Komitas” Pantheon of Yerevan. His house-museum in Yerevan was opened in 1963 and another was later opened in Gumri. There are statues of him in both cities, as well as schools, streets, and libraries carrying his name in different towns of Armenia.