Death of Hamo Ohanjanian (July 31, 1947)

Hamo Ohanjanian was a remarkable name in the history of the Armenian revolutionary movement, as well as the short-lived first independent Republic of Armenia, of which he was its third Prime Minister for six months.

His actual first name was Hamazasp. He was born in Akhalkalak on February 1, 1873, the date more generally accepted. He studied at the local school, and then graduated from the Russian school of Tiflis.

He entered the University of Moscow, where he studied medicine. However, due to his involvement with revolutionaries and his participation in student agitations, he was forbidden from continuing his studies and staying in Moscow, and he was forced to return to Tiflis. Her girlfriend from the student years, Olga Vavilevna, a Russian revolutionary, joined him. They married in 1897 and would have three children: two boys, Monik and Arik, and a daughter, Galia. Around this time, he entered the ranks of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

In 1899 Ohanjanian traveled to Switzerland and specialized in medicine at the University of Lausanne until 1902. Simultaneously, he continued his revolutionary activities, which did not end after his return to Tiflis. He became one of the leaders of the popular movement against the June 12, 1903 law of the imperial government that established the confiscation of the properties of the Armenian Church and one of the driving forces behind the “Caucasian Project” that was part of the turnaround of the A.R.F. to expand its activities into the Caucasus.

He participated in the third (Sofia, 1904) and fourth general assemblies (Vienna, 1907) of the ARF, and became a member of the Eastern Bureau of the organization. He played an important role in the maintenance of the internal discipline and ironclad structure of the organization, and also remained active during the wave of democratization that followed the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Armeno-Tatar conflict spurred by the Czarist regime of Russia.

Ohanjanian was arrested by the imperial government in 1908 along with 200 party members and sympathizers as part of a strong attempt to weaken the A.R.F. He was jailed in the infamous prison of Metekh, in Tiflis, where he was often subjected to torture to confess the “sins” of the party. His powerful defense during the “A.R.F. trial” of 1912 did not avoid him a sentence of four years of forced labor, but raised his profile and prestige among both Armenians and Russians.

He was first sent to Kharkov, in Ukraine, and then to Siberia, and Rubina Areshian, the close collaborator of the late Kristapor Mikayelian, one of the ARF founders, went after him to follow his steps and make continuous efforts for his liberation. They would marry during those years.

After the beginning of World War I, the Russian government made a crucial turnaround and approached the ARF in order to launch the Armenian volunteer movement. Among many others, Hamo Ohanjanian was liberated and returned from Siberia directly to Tiflis. As a doctor, he was at the Russian-Turkish battlefront helping the Armenian soldiers, and in Van became the right hand of Aram Manoukian, who was the governor during the brief period of liberation following the self-defense of April-May 1915 against the Ottoman troops.

Ohanjanian participated actively in the battle of Gharakilise (May 1918), where his son Monik gave his life for the defense of the homeland. After the independence, he devoted himself to consolidate the grounds of the newly created republic. He had an active role in international relations as a member of the delegation of the Republic in Europe. He was elected member of the A.R.F. Bureau in 1919, after the ninth general assembly of the party held in Yerevan, and became Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 1920.

In May 1920, after the failure of the Bolshevik rebellion, the cabinet of Prime Minister Alexander Khatisian resigned, and the political acute crisis forced the A.R.F. Bureau to become government. From May –November 1920, in the period of the “Bureau-government,” Hamo Ohanjanian was both Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. His son Viken (1920-2009) was born in this period.

After the Sovietization of Armenia in December 1920, Ohanjanian was arrested by the Soviet regime and imprisoned in Yerevan. The popular rebellion of February 1921 saved him and hundreds of prisoners from certain death, and after its end in early April, Ohanjanian went to Tabriz (Persia) via Zangezur. In 1923 he moved from Persia to Cairo, where he would live the rest of his life.

He was one of the founding members of the Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational Society in 1928 and president of the Society until his death. He had an important contribution to the foundation of the Armenian Lyceum (the Jemaran) in Beirut and its consolidation during its first decades. He was also re-elected member of the A.R.F. Bureau.

Hamo Ohanjanian passed away in Cairo on July 31, 1947. He was buried in the Egyptian capital. His tombstone was engraved with the following legend: “He lived in the way that he preached.”

Birth of Levon Shant (April 6, 1869)

Levon Shant was perhaps the most important playwright in the history of Armenian theater, but he was primarily a seasoned and accomplished educator. He was also an active participant in the Armenian liberation movement. 

Shant was born Levon Nahashbedian on April 6, 1869, in Constantinople. He lost his parents at an early age and adopted the last name Seghposian after his father Seghpos. He attended the Armenian school of Scutari (now Uskudar) until 1884, and then the Gevorgian seminary at Holy Etchmiadzin for the next seven years. He returned to Constantinople in 1891, where he worked as a teacher. He published his first literary piece in the local daily Hairenik in the same year. In 1893 he departed to Germany, where he studied science, child psychology, education, literature, and history in the universities of Leipzig, Jena, and Munich. Meanwhile, he started his literary career with the poem The Mountain Girl (1892), published under the pen name Levon Shant (shant/շանթ means “lightning”), but soon shifted to a series of novellas (Dreamlike Days and The Outsiders, 1894; Vergine, 1896; The Return, 1896, and The Actress, 1898). After finishing his university studies in 1899, he taught for more than a decade at the Gayanian Girls School in Tiflis and the Diocesan School of Yerevan. He became a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in the 1890s.
The turn of the century brought in him a different literary persona: the playwright. He wrote his first play, The Egoist, in 1901, followed by For Someone Else (1903), and On the Road (1904). After this string of plays inspired in contemporary life, he turned to the historical past and wrote his masterpiece Ancient Gods (1909), published in 1912, which made a huge impact on the Armenian literary world when it was premiered in Tiflis (1913). This was the first of several successful historical dramas he would write over the next two decades: The Emperor (1916), The Enchained One (1918-1921), The Princess of the Fallen Fortress (1922), Oshin the Bailiff (1932).
In Tiflis, Shant participated actively in the gatherings of the literary circle “Vernadun” (Վերնատուն), held at the attic of poet Hovhannes Tumanian’s home, and was in close contact with other writers of the group, like Ghazaros Aghayan, Avetik Isahakian, and Derenik Demirjian. In 1909 he published, together with Hovhannes Tumanian and Stepan Lisitsian, the series of Armenian textbooks Lusaber.
In 1911 he returned to his birthplace, Constantinople, and taught at the Central (Getronagan) and Esayan schools until 1914. By that time he was already married and moved with his family to Lausanne in Switzerland. He returned to the Caucasus in 1915 to supervise the publication of textbooks, but was unable to go back to Europe and remained in Tiflis until 1917, when he returned to Switzerland. However, after the independence of Armenia, he returned to Yerevan, where he became a vice-president of the Parliament of the first Republic. In April 1920 he led a delegation to Moscow to carry out negotiations with the Soviet regime, which would fail in the end. He was imprisoned by the new government after the Soviet takeover, but freed following the uprising of February 1921. In April 1921, after the end of the uprising, he left Armenia.
For the next thirty years of his life, Shant would live abroad, first in Paris, then in Cairo, and finally in Beirut. He wrote political essays, like Nationhood as the Basis of Human Society (1922) and Our Independence (1925). In 1928, together with educator and literary critic Nikol Aghbalian, theater director Kaspar Ipekian, and former prime minister of the Republic, Dr. Hamo Ohanjanian, as well as a group of less known A.R.F. members, he was one of the main founders of the Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational Society in Cairo. In 1930, together with Nikol Aghbalian, he settled in Beirut, where they founded the Armenian Lyceum (Jemaran) of Hamazkayin in 1930, later known as the Nishan Palanjian Lyceum and currently as Haig and Melanchton Arslanian Lyceum. Shant was the school principal for the next twenty years, while at the same time he taught pedagogy and psychology. He created a unique pedagogical atmosphere in the Jemaran, focused on his belief that the school should educate a humanistic education also linked to the preservation and development of national identity.
Engaged as he was in education and school management, Shant continued with the task of preparing school textbooks. He did not leave literature. In 1945 he published the novel The Thirsty Souls, and from 1946-1951 he published an edition of works in eight volumes, which included a yet unpublished history of Armenian literature. He passed away on November 29, 1951.
His name was banned in Soviet Armenia, as were many other writers who were A.R.F. members or sympathizers. Nevertheless, a monograph about him was published there in 1930, and a collection of his plays appeared in 1968. After the second independence, a school in Yerevan was renamed after him in 1994.

Opening of the “Djemaran” of Hamazkayin (March 3, 1930)

The Hamazkayin Cultural and Educational Union was founded in 1928 in Egypt. One of its main goals was to promote education among Armenians in the Diaspora.

Less than two years after the creation of Hamazkayin, the Armenian College (Hay Djemaran) was opened in a rented building in Beirut, on Kantari Street, with fifteen students. It was March 3, 1930. In the fall of the same year, when the academic year 1930-1931 started, the number of student had quadrupled, becoming 63.

The first school building.

Levon Shant

The goal of the Djemaran (an institution of secondary education) was to offer general education to the new generation, with an emphasis on Armenian education, language, and culture, and prepare the next generation of Armenian intellectuals. The first principal of the school was the noted writer, educator, and public figure Levon Shant (1869-1951), with the collaboration of another noted literary critic, educator, and public figure, Nikol Aghbalian (1873-1947).

Nikol Aghbalian

The Djemaran soon moved to a more ample and comfortable building on the street Wadi Abu Gemil, until the donation of the Palandjian sisters and the fundraisers in the United States allowed the purchase of a property in the area of Zokak el Blat, which was inaugurated in May 1950. The Djemaran took the name of Nshan Palandjian, a founding member of Hamazkayin in Syria and the late brother of the donors.

After the death of Levon Shant in 1951, the position of principal was taken by Simon Vratzian (1882-1969), writer, editor, and last prime minister of the first Republic of Armenia. He was assisted by the writer Mushegh Ishkhan (1913-1990) and educator Karnig Panian (1910-1989) as vice principals. The second and third buildings of the Djemaran were built in 1953 and 1957.

Vratzian fell ill and Hratch Dasnabedian replaced him as principal in fall of 1968. New floors were added to the three buildings to accommodate the growing number of students.

The student body passed 1,000 in the academic year 1974-1975, and the space of the school was insufficient, despite constructions and additions. The Central Board of Hamazkayin decided to build a new school complex and a large piece of property was purchased in the area of Mezher. However, the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 initially slowed down all projects, and forced important changes. The internal movement of the Armenian population in Beirut was followed by the division of the student body in two buildings. Together with the headquarters, part of the student body was relocated for two years in Dubbaya and afterwards, for eight years, at the Shaghzoyan Center in Bourj Hammoud (the current headquarters of the Aztag Daily), which became a six-floor building.

The war, however, did not stop the project. Construction of the Mezher complex started in 1986. Thanks to the huge donation of Melankton Arslanian, followed after his death by his brother Haig Arslanian, as well as donations flowing from Lebanon and other countries (especially Kuwait and the Gulf States), the first two buildings of the complex were built, the same as the Norsigian Kindergarten thanks to the homonymous will.

The campus today.

The Djemaran moved to its new building in 1987 and the grand opening was held in the fall of 1988. The small kindergarten and elementary school remaining at the historical building of the Nshan Palandjian Djemaran were also moved in 2001, and the entire school was reunified in the Melankton and Haig Arslanian Djemaran. Currently, the school has three sections: pre-nursery and nursery, for 1-3 year old children; the Norsigian Kindergarten (three years), and the school proper, with elementary, primary, junior high, and high school sections.

After the death of Hratch Dasnabedian in April 2001 and a short tenure by a three-member Executive Council, the position of principal was entrusted to Dikran Jinbashian, with a current student population of 700 children.