Death of Panos Terlemezian (April 30, 1941)

Both an artist and a patriot, Panos Terlemezian made a remarkable contribution to Armenian fine arts in the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in Van, in the Armenian-populated suburb of Aygestan, on March 3, 1865, the son of a farmer. His love for painting was born during his studies in the local elementary school and then in the Central College of Van (1881-1886).

He graduated with honors and, afterwards, he taught drawing, aesthetics, and geography in the schools of Van from 1886-1889. Meanwhile, he became a member of the first Armenian political party, the Armenagan Organization, formed in Van. In 1890 he was arrested on charges of political activities against Sultan Abdul Hamid II, but was freed six months later for lack of evidence. In 1891 he was arrested again and sentenced to death, but two years later he was able to escape prison and go first to Persia and then to Tiflis. After doing menial jobs, in 1895 he went to St. Petersburg to follow studies at an art society school with a scholarship granted by Catholicos Mgrdich I (Khrimian Hayrig).

His studies were interrupted in 1897, when the Russian police arrested him in Reval (now Tallinn, the capital of Estonia) upon a request of the Ottoman government. He was transferred to half a dozen prisons until he was secretly exiled to Persia in 1898. He managed to escape again to Batum, in Georgia, and leave for Paris. In Paris he entered the famous Julian Academy, from which he graduated in 1904.



Upon his return to Eastern Armenia, Terlemezian, who had already participated in collective exhibitions in Paris, created various paintings inspired by his visits to Etchmiadzin, Sanahin, and other places. He settled in Tiflis, where he taught at the Nersessian and Hovnanian schools, and participated actively in cultural life from 1905-1908.

He traveled to Egypt and Algeria in 1908, and then resided in Paris for the next two years, where he continued painting. In 1910 he settled in Constantinople, where he would live until the beginning of World War I. Here he befriended some of the most prominent intellectuals of the period, and shared his residence with Gomidas Vartabed. In 1913 he gave his first individual exhibition in Constantinople and won the golden medal at the international exhibition of Munich. Returning to Van, he was one of the leaders of the resistance of April-May 1915 against the attack of Turkish regular troops. After the retreat of the Russian troops, he went to Etchmiadzin with the Armenian refugees and then to Tiflis. In 1916-1917 he became one of the founding members and organizers of the Society of Armenian Artists in Tiflis and its branch in Rostov-on-the-Don.

Terlemezian went abroad in 1920. He lived for a few years in Constantinople, Italy, and France, and in 1923 he settled in the United States, where he lived and presented individual exhibition in New York, Fresno, San Francisco, and Los Angeles during the next five years. He also participated in the Biennial of Venice (1924).

In 1928 he was invited by the government of Soviet Armenia to return. He would live in Yerevan until his death. He gave individual exhibitions in Yerevan and Tiflis. In 1930 he was given the title of Emeritus Artist of Soviet Armenia and became a member of the Society of Painters of the Soviet Union in 1932.

Panos Terlemezian passed away on April 30, 1941. The art school established in Yerevan in 1921 was posthumously named after him. 

Death of Khrimian Hayrig (October 29, 1907)

Khrimian Hayrig remains one of the most popular names in the history of the Armenian Church, as shown by the use of the endearing name hayrig (“papa”) along his name.

Mgrdich Khrimian was born in the Aikestan quarter of Van on April 4, 1820. He lost his father at an early age and was brought up by his uncle, a merchant. He was educated at the parochial schools of the islands of Lim and Gduts in Lake Van and the monastery of Varak, where he studied Classical Armenian. In 1842, after returning to Van, he embarked on a journey across the region and made a pilgrimage to Holy Etchmiadzin.

From 1844 to 1846, Khrimian lived in Constantinople, where he made connections with Armenian intellectuals. In 1846 he returned to Van and married Mariam Sevikian. In 1847 he visited Persia and the Russian Caucasus, and sojourned in Alexandropol (today Gyumri) for six months. He moved again to Constantinople and lived there until 1853, teaching at an all-girl school in the quarter of Hasköy. He published his first books in 1850 and 1851.

Khrimian returned to Van in 1853, but finding that his mother, wife, and daughter had all died, he decided to enter the Armenian Church. He was ordained vartabed at the Cathedral of Aghtamar in 1854 and appointed dean of a church in Scutari, near Constantinople, a year later. He started publishing the periodical Artsiv Vaspurakan.

He returned to Van in 1857 and established a seminary at the monastery of Varak. He founded a publishing house there and resumed the publication of Artsiv Vaspurakan (1859-1864). In 1862 he was appointed abbot of the famous monastery of Surp Garabed near Mush. He was instrumental in the foundation of a school and a journal there, called Artsvik Tarono, and transformed the monastery into a flourishing center. In those years, he earned the name of Hayrig.

Ordained as a bishop in Etchmiadzin (1868), Khrimian was elected Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in September 1869. He cleared the patriarchate's debt and sought to increase the provincial representation in the Armenian National Assembly. He presented a detailed report to the Ottoman government documenting instances of oppression, persecution, and miscarriage of justice in the Armenian provinces. He used the position to advance the interests and conditions of Armenians in the provinces.

His outspokenness annoyed not only the Ottoman authorities, but some of the Armenian wealthy elite as well. The government compelled him to resign in 1873. Afterwards, Khrimian dedicated his time to literary pursuits until 1878 (he published four books from 1876-1878), when he led the Armenian delegation at the Congress of Berlin. The delegation's memorandum to the great powers concerning the implementation of reforms in the Armenian provinces was dismissed, and the Treaty of Berlin, signed in July 1878, failed to force the Ottoman government to implement real reforms.

 After returning to Constantinople, Khrimian delivered a well-known sermon in which he called Armenians to use arms to win over their rights. He told his flock that Armenians, unlike the Christians in the Balkans, had not won autonomy because “no Armenian blood had been shed in the cause of freedom.” Famous for its allegories, such as the analogy of a ladle and cauldron with the sword and freedom, the sermon is considered one of the forerunners of the Armenian revolutionary movement.

After his return from Europe, Khrimian was appointed Prelate of Van in 1879. He opened new schools, including the first agricultural school in Armenian lands. In the 1880s he supported the Armenian secret societies devoted to the cause of national liberation. The Ottoman government, which looked unfavorably on his activities, suspended him in 1885 and had him sent back to Constantinople. Following the Kum Kapu demonstration of July 15, 1890, four representatives of the Armenian National Assembly, including Khrimian, issued a report criticizing the government for the treatment of the Armenian peasantry. Khrimian was exiled to Jerusalem in December 1890 and lived in the St. James monastery of the city’s Armenian Quarter.

On May 5, 1892, Khrimian was unanimously elected Catholicos of All Armenians. Sultan Abdul Hamid II initially did not allow him to travel to Etchmiadzin. He was granted permission to travel, only if he did not set foot in Turkey, after Russian emperor Alexander III’s request. He was finally enthroned as Catholicos Mgrdich I in September 1893. He had his Ottoman citizenship revoked and became a Russian subject. During the Hamidian massacres of 1894–96, Khrimian provided material assistance to the Armenian refugees. He also implemented the renovation of many ancient monasteries and churches. He collaborated with the Armenian Revolution Federation to organize mass demonstrations against the June 1903 edict of the Russian government that closed down Armenian schools and confiscated the properties of the Armenian Church. Popular resistance led to the revocation of the edict in August 1905.

Catholicos Khrimian remained active until the end of his life, on October 29, 1907. He was buried in the courtyard of Holy Etchmiadzin. He was revered for his progressive and nationalist views. A school in Yerevan founded by him in 1906 and renamed for the 26 Baku Commissars during the Soviet period was renamed after Khrimian in 1989. A school in Buenos Aires (Argentina) has carried his name since 1930.

Birth of Rafael Nogales Méndez (October 14, 1879)

Among the many sources about the Armenian Genocide, the memoirs of Venezuelan soldier Rafael de Nogales Méndez occupy a particular place. Firstly, Nogales served in the Ottoman army, and secondly, his writings
did not show him as particularly appreciative of Armenians. This makes his testimony more compelling and trustworthy.

 

Nogales (his birth name was Rafael Inchauspe Méndez) was born in San Cristóbal, state of Táchira, on October 14, 1879. His father sent him to Europe, where he studied in Germany, Belgium, and Spain, and spoke German, French, and Italian fluently.

 

The thirst for adventure and the attraction of the military profession turned him into a soldier of fortune from the late nineteenth century. In 1898 he fought with Spain during the Spanish-American War. He returned to Venezuela in 1901, but he was critical of Cipriano Castro’s dictatorship. In 1902 a revolution started and Castro tried to have him arrested, but Nogales escaped to Nicaragua, where President Zelaya supported him in a failed expedition to overthrow the Venezuelan dictator. After spending time in Mexico, where he enjoyed the protection of another dictator, Porfirio Díaz, he went to China and then he was involved as a double spy in the Russo-Japanese war. In 1904-1905 he mined gold in Alaska. Then he returned to California, where he fought along the forces of Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magón. After the military coup of Juan Vicente Gómez in Venezuela, which overthrew Castro’s dictatorship, Nogales returned to his homeland (1908). He was appointed governor of the state of Apure, but two months later he made himself an enemy of the new president and had to go into exile.

 

He tried to join the French army at the outbreak of World War I, but he refused to renounce his Venezuelan nationality. In the end he enlisted in the Ottoman Army and was assigned to the Caucasus Front, where he reached the rank of major. During the siege of Van in April-May 1915 he led gendarmerie troops, but asked to be relieved for what he characterized as “unjustified massacres of Christians.” He wrote that the massacres were executed by Halil Bey, the commander and chief of the expeditionary army he had volunteered to serve. (Halil Bey was Minister of War Enver Pasha’s uncle.).

In his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent (1924), Nogales recounted the massacres perpetrated against the Armenian population of Van by order of Governor Jevdet bey (Enver’s brother-in-law): “Supported by the Kurds and the rabble of the vicinity, they [the civil authorities] were attacking and sacking the Armenian quarter. I succeeded at last, without serious accident, in approaching the Beledie reis of the town, who was directing the orgy; whereupon I ordered him to stop the massacre. He astounded me by replying that he was doing nothing more than carry out an unequivocal order emanating from the Governor-General of the province to exterminate all Armenian males of twelve years of age and over.”

 

Nogales visited Diarbekir (Diyarbakir) in June 1915, and was a witness to the widespread massacres of the local Armenians. According to his conversation with Governor Mehmet Reshid, the orders to massacre had been sent by Interior Minister Talaat Pasha.

 

The Venezuelan soldier was transferred from the Caucasus and continued fighting in Mesopotamia and Palestine. He was awarded the Iron Cross by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and earned several Ottoman medals.

 

After the end of the war, Nogales worked with Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César Sandino and wrote Spanish books, including his memoirs of World War I, Four Years beneath the Crescent (1924), translated into English and German, The Robbery of Nicaragua (1928), and Memories of a Soldier of Fortune (1932). After the death of Gómez, he returned to Venezuela and was appointed to study the army of Panama, but died in Panama City on July 10, 1936.