Alice Sapritch (her name was originally spelled Sapric, the Turkish spelling of the Armenian word saprich/սափրիչ “barber”), was a French actress of Armenian origin with a forty-year career in cinema, theater, and television.
She
was born in the Istanbul district of Ortaköy on July 29, 1916, and had a
childhood that she qualified as unhappy. Her family had serious
financial problems due to the gambling debts of her father. She
abandoned Turkey at the age of thirteen with her family and continued
her studies in Brussels before moving alone to Paris. She entered the
Cours Simon, one of the oldest courses of theatrical formation for
professional comedians, and then the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique. Her
theatrical career, mostly in dramatic and tragic roles, would span over thirty-five years (1949-1984).
At
the end of the German occupation, she met writer and actor Guillaume
Hanoteau, whom she married in 1950. The same year marked her debut in
the movies with Le tampon du capiston (The Captain’s Buffer), on a
script written by her husband. For the next thirty-five years she would
appear in some 40 movies, including François Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianist (Shoot
the Pianist, 1960), where she played along Charles Aznavour. In the
1960s she had remarkable roles in several TV adaptations of novels by
French authors like Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Honoré de Balzac, and
François Mauriac. She divorced in 1970, and her great breakout came a
year later, at the age of 55, when she made a lasting impression with
two roles, one comic and the other tragic, in the feature movie La folie des grandeurs (Delusions of Grandeur), along with two great actors, Yves Montand and Louis de Funès, and the TV movie Vipère au poing. However, throughout the 1970s, she took roles in a series of French-style comedies qualified with the colloquial word nanar (movies
that were so bad that they were good). She mostly abandoned this genre
in the last years of her career and returned to dramatic roles in André
Téchiné’s Les Soeurs Brontë (The Bronte Sisters, 1979), as well as in a TV film, L’affaire Marie Besnard (The
Affair Marie Besnard, 1986), which earned her the prize “7 d’or” for
best fiction comedian. Her last role in cinema was in an American film,
Amy Heckerling’s National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985).
She
played her first and last role in TV films as Catherine de Médicis
(queen of France in the sixteenth century), both in 1961 and in 1989.
She wrote many autobiographical works (Alice, My Dinners in the City, Public Woman: My truth, and Unfinished Memoirs) and a novel (An Endangered Love, 1973), all in French.
She
remained quite close to the French Armenian community, and participated
in many of their gatherings. A year before her death, her life was the
subject of a documentary, Le passé retrouvé: Alice Sapritch (The
Past Retrieved: Alice Sapritch), by Mireille Dumas (1989). She passed
away in Paris on March 24, 1990, and was cremated in the cemetery of
Père-Lachaise, in Paris, with her ashes being spread over the Seine
River.
Stepanos Siunetsi was a very prolific medieval author and translator, as well as an important figure of the Armenian Church.
He
was the son of Sahak, a clergyman, and was probably born in 688. His
father was an archpriest in Dvin, the capital of Armenia and seat of the
Catholicosate, where Stepanos studied. Afterwards, he received his
religious education first in the monastery of Makenetsots (province of
Gegharkunik, near Lake Sevan) and then in the famous seminary of Siunik,
directed by Movses Kertogh. He was consecrated archimandrite and
replaced the latter as director of the seminary. A few years later, he
returned to Dvin, where he continued his intellectual activities.
In
710 Stepanos traveled abroad to pursue what we would today call
“graduate studies” in Athens and Constantinople, where he studied Greek
and Latin literature, learned musical theory, and deepened his knowledge
in theology and literary scholarship. He also produced translations
from the works of several authors, such as Pseudo-Dionysus the
Areopagite, Nemesius of Emesa, and Gregory of Nyssa.
Around
720 he returned to Armenia and settled in Dvin, where he continued his
literary and ecclesiastic work. He wrote biblical commentaries and,
above all, church hymns, which entered the Sharaknots (collection
of hymns) of the Armenian Church and are praised for their musical
quality and freshness. He also wrote a commentary of Dionysus Thrax’s Art of Grammar. During
his preaching, he met Prince Sembat Bagratuni, a staunch defender of
the resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon, who quarreled with Stepanos
and subjected him to persecution and death threats. The ecclesiastic
escaped to Constantinople in disguise and found refuge near an Orthodox
hermit to continue his theological and philosophical studies.
In
728 he went to Rome and brought the texts of several Fathers of the
Church (Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, and Epiphanius of
Cyprus) to Armenia. Catholicos David I received him with joy for this
important discovery, which was coincidental with the death of Bishop
Hovhan of Siunik. Stepanos was consecrated bishop and prelate of Siunik.
Upon the request of the Catholicos, he wrote the work Commentary on the Four Evangelists, which
is the only work of the old school of commentary of Siunik that has
reached us in a twelfth-century manuscript discovered by Bishop Garegin
Hovsepiants, future Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, in 1917. (The
Commentary was recently translated into English by Dr. Michael B. Papazian.)
Historian
Stepanos Orbelian (thirteenth century) described Stepanos Siunetsi as a
spiritual pastor of “sweet severity” and a careful guide, who both
“nurtured the children with the milk of Christ” and “stroke the vicious
ones like a sword.” Unfortunately, his severity towards the vicious ones
cost him his life.
In
735 the prelate made a pastoral tour of the twelve districts of Siunik,
where he redecorated the churches, preached the word of the Gospel and
advised and punished sinful people. He visited the town of Moz in the
valley of Yeghekis. He admonished a woman of lewd behavior to repent,
but she continued her indecent ways, and the bishop excommunicated her.
Seeking revenge, the woman persuaded her lover to kill Stepanos while he
slept. He was unable to carry it out, and the woman took the sword and
killed Stepanos. The unfortunate ecclesiastic was buried in the church
of St. Christopher.
According
to Stepanos Orbelian, a strong earthquake hit the area for forty days
in the same year, causing the death of some 10,000 people. Because of
the lamentations of the population (symbolized by the interjection vay/վայ in Armenian), the region was said to have taken the name of Vayots Dzor (valley of the vays).
The catastrophe was ascribed to a divine punishment for the tragic
murder of Stepanos Siunetsi. His body was reburied in the monastery of
Tanahat, where a small chapel was built over his tomb. In 1273-1279 the
chapel was replaced by a magnificent church.
Stepanos’
sister, Sahakdukht, was also a teacher and the first Armenian female
composer known as such. She renounced to worldly life and carried the
life of a hermit in a cave at the gorge of Garni, near the ruins of the
homonymous pagan temple. She taught children and composed church hymns.
Pierre
Quillard was a French poet and translator, but he is equally known for
his political engagement, especially to the Armenian Cause.
He
was born in Paris on July 14, 1864. He studied at the Lyceum Fontanes,
where he had a host of distinguished fellow students, including poet
René Ghil (1863-1925). He pursued higher education at the School of
Letters at the Sorbonne. He graduated in 1885 and then followed graduate
studies at École Pratique des Hautes Études and the École des Chartes.
He founded the literary journal La Pléiade in 1884 with two friends. A follower of symbolist poetry, in 1890 he published his first collection, La gloire du verbe (The Glory of the Word). He would reprint the book, including new poems, in 1897, with the title La Lyre héroïque et dolente (The
Heroic and Grieving Lyre). Quillard followed the fashionable current of
symbolism. Among other publications, from 1891 until his death he would
be a contributor to the famous literary magazine Mercure de France.
After
his academic studies, the poet had fallen in love with Hellenism. In
1888 he started publishing studies on Greek classical literature,
followed by several translations of Sophocles, Iamblichus, and other
authors in the 1890s. Some of them were performed in theater.
A
turning point in his life was his departure to Constantinople in 1893
to become a teacher at the Armenian catholic lyceum St. Gregory the
Illuminator. (Another poet, Taniel Varoujan, would become its principal
two decades later, until the fatidic date of April 24, 1915.) He
remained in his position until 1896, witnessing the oppression of Abdul
Hamid’s regime. In 1897 he followed the Turkish-Greek war as a
correspondent for L’Illustration. Upon
his returned to France in the same year, he took over the defense of
the Armenians and of other oppressed peoples. Together with poet Arshag
Tchobanian, he compiled a series of testimonies on the Hamidian
massacres of 1894-1896, which he published in a voluminous book in 1897.
He also organized many gatherings about the situation in Western
Armenia.
Quillard
was also engaged in the political scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair
and took the defense of Alfred Dreyfus, the French soldier of Jewish
origin unjustly condemned for treason. He adhered to the League of Human
Rights since its foundation in 1898.
His
political engagement led him to almost leave literature aside. In
October 1900 he became the editor in chief of the bimonthly Pro Armenia, published
by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, to promote the Armenian
Cause. The editorial board was composed of famous names in the
pro-Armenian movement of France, such as Jean Jaures, Anatole France,
Georges Clemanceau, and Francis de Pressensé. After following the
Ottoman Revolution (1908), Pro-Armenia resumed publication in 1912, first with the name of Pour les peoples d’Orient, and then again as Pro Armenia (1913-1914). Quillard returned to the Ottoman Empire in 1904 as correspondent for L’Illustration. In
1904 he became member of the central committee of the League of Human
Rights, and in 1907 was elected vice-president. He would rise to the
position of general secretary in 1911.
On
February 4, 1912, at the age of 47, Pierre Quillard passed away from a
massive heart attack in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He was buried in the cemetery
of Père-Lachaise, in Paris, and eight young Armenians carried his
coffin on their shoulders to its final destination. A telegram sent by
the A.R.F. to the editorial offices of Mercure de France stated:
“We are stricken by the unexpected loss of Pierre Quillard, brave director of Pro Armenia, defender of oppressed people. We send our condolences to the members and contributors of Pro Armenia, Pressensé,
Anatole France, Clemanceau, Jaur Jaurès, Bérard, Roberty,
d'Estournelles, Cochin, all those who have supported our case in the
great days of misfortune. His beloved memory will live among us in the
relevant work for the fraternization of the races of the Orient.”
Father
Ghugas Injijian, geographer and philologist, was a member of the
Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice and a prolific author of many
valuable works in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
He
was born in Constantinople in 1758. His mother was the sister of
another famous Mekhitarist monk, historian Mikayel Chamchian
(1738-1823). His father sent him to study in the monastery of San
Lazzaro, the headquarters of the congregation. He embraced ecclesiastic
life in 1774. After a four-year sojourn in Constantinople (1786-1790),
he returned to Venice, where he started publishing his works.
His first publications were in verse: Brief Survey of Ancient and New Geography (1791), also translated into Italian, and partially into French; Byzantine Summerplace (1794),
partly translated into Italian and French, which depicted the geography
and geology of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. After the
publication of Azdarar (1794-1796) in India, Injijian became the publisher of the second Armenian periodical in history, called Darekrutiun (“Annals,” 1799-1802), which was continued by Yeghanag Piuzantian (“Byzantine
Times,” 1803-1820). Both were yearbooks, written in Modern Armenian,
which contained information about world political affairs, religious,
academic, and scientific issues, as well as weather information and
predictions.
In 1805 Injijian moved back to Constantinople and continued his activities. In 1806 he contributed a volume on Asia to the Geography of the Four Parts of the World (picture), produced by his teacher Stepanos Agontz, the Abbot of the Venice branch of the congregation.
With the support of the Duzians, a wealthy family of amiras, in
1812 Injijian launched the Arsharouni Society with the goal of
promoting books published in Modern Armenian. The Duzians fell in
disgrace with the sultan in 1819, and Injijian, fearing for his life,
escaped to Odessa, where he remained for a year. The Arsharouni Society
was dissolved by the Turkish government, and Yeghanag Piuzantian, which the society sponsored, ceased publication.
After
the danger had passed, Injijian returned to Constantinople in 1820, and
two years later he published one of his most important works in Venice,
Topography of Ancient Armenia, where he presented the historical
and geographical picture of Greater Armenia on the basis of a wealth of
data gathered from Greek, Roman, and Syriac sources. His work included
the description of the geography of the fifteen provinces and hundreds
of districts, etymology of place names, ethnographic information, and topographic amendments. This would be followed by the posthumous, three-volume Geographical Archaeology of the Armenian Land (1835), which was the first voluminous work after Chamchian’s History of Armenia to
talk about the geography, administrative division, laws, science, arts,
ethnography and other issues related to ancient Armenia.
Still, Injijian would produce an eight-volume work called Narration of the Century (Դարապատում),
where he offered an abridged history of all countries from 1750-1800,
which was published from 1824-1827. The last two volumes were devoted to
the history of the development of science and art, as well as the life
and work of great thinkers, artists and clergymen.
In early 1828, the Catholic Armenians of Ankara were deported, and
Injijian considered it dangerous to remain in Constantinople. He
returned to Venice, where he was elected deputy abbot of the
Congregation and remained in that position until his death on July 2,
1833.
Known as
the “prince of the Armenian short novel,” he was also a skillful and
highly regarded lawyer, as well as an experienced member of the Ottoman
Parliament. His parliamentarian immunity, however, was violated to turn
him into one of the victims of the first wave of arrests and killings of
intellectuals that began on April 24, 1915.
Krikor
Zohrab was born into a wealthy family in the district of Beshiktash
(Constantinople) on June 26, 1861. He started his elementary studies at
the local Makruhian School. In 1870 his father passed away and his
mother remarried, this time to a noted lawyer. Zohrab’s family moved to
Ortakeuy, where he and his brother Mihran continued their education at
the local Tarkmanchats School. In 1876 he entered the Galatasaray
Institute, sponsored by the French government, which was the only
institution of higher education in the Ottoman Empire at the time. He
graduated in 1880 with a degree in civil engineering, but rather than
working in that field, he went to work in his stepfather’s law office,
and entered the law section of the Galatasaray Institute, which was soon
closed due to lack of Muslim students (it had 45 Armenian, 2 Muslim, 2
Jewish, and 3 Greek students). In
1882 he enrolled in a newly opened law school, the Imperial University
of Jurisprudence, but left two years later without graduating. In 1884
he passed an exam in the city of Edirne and obtained the title of
lawyer.
Zohrab had already entered the literary field in 1878, becoming a contributor to the daily Lrakir at
the age of 17. In the 1880s he would become one of the prolific names
in the literary movement of the time. In 1885 he was the publisher of
the journal Yergrakount of the Asiatic Society, edited by the famous satirical writer Hagop Baronian. He published there his first novel, A Disappeared Generation, which he released in book format in 1887. He edited the literary journal Masis in 1892-1893, to which he also frequently contributed with novellas. He also wrote for the dailies Arevelk and Hairenik. He
joined the trend of realism, propelled by French writers such as Guy de
Maupassant and Émile Zola, and became the master of this current genre,
which became the only one to be called “school” in Armenian
literature.
Zohrab
married Clara Yazejian in 1888. They had four children: Levon, Dolores,
Aram, and Hermine. Dolores Zohrab-Liebmann would later become a
philanthropist in New York City. In 1891 he was elected delegate to the
National Assembly, but his election was annulled in a session of the
Assembly because he was not yet thirty years old.
He
took a long break from literature in 1893-1898, which included the
impact of the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896, devoting himself to his
profession. He was well known to foreign citizens living in
Constantinople, because he often represented them in the first
commercial court, due to his knowledge of French. He was also a
translator and legal advisor to the Russian embassy in Constantinople,
and managed cases for Russian citizens. He also had the right to freely
travel in Europe.
Masis, now
a daily, made a comeback in 1898, again edited by Zohrab, who returned
to his literary endeavors, coupling them with his professional
activities, where he had already acquired a prestigious name. However,
in 1906, after he defended a Bulgarian revolutionary in a criminal case,
accusing a Turkish official of torture, he was disbarred. He went to
Paris, where he published a law monograph in French. He was planning to
settle in Egypt with his family when the Young Turk coup d’état of 1908
and the restoration of the Ottoman Constitution changed his plans. He
returned to Constantinople, where he was elected member of the Ottoman
Parliament. He was known for his eloquent speeches. He vehemently
defended Armenian interests and rights. After the double Adana massacre
of April 1909, he strongly criticized the Turkish authorities for their
actions and demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.
To serve the Armenian cause, he wrote an influential paper in French called “La question arménienne à la lumière des documents”
(The Armenian Question under the Light of Documents), published in 1913
under the pseudonym Marcel Leart in Paris. It dealt with many aspects
of the hardships endured by the Armenian population and denounced the
government’s inaction.
Also in 1909-1911 he gathered his novellas and short stories in three volumes, Life as It Is, Silent Pains, and Voices of Conscience. He also published Known Figures, portraits of contemporaries, and From the Traveler’s Journal, a series of travelogues.
Simultaneously
with the Ottoman Parliament, Zohrab also became a member of the
Armenian National Assembly. He raised the issue of reforms for the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which led to the signature of the
Russo-Turkish agreement in January 1914, thwarted after the beginning of
World War I.
After
the wave of arrests of intellectuals on April 24 and the following
days, Zohrab pleaded for the liberation of his compatriots and the
cessation of the ongoing atrocities. He was personally acquainted and
friends with many officials, including Ministry of Interior Talaat
Pasha. However, his efforts were useless. Despite their parliamentary
immunity, Zohrab and his colleague Vartkes Serengulian were both
arrested on May 21, 1915, and dispatched to Diyarbakır for a purported
trial by court martial. They were sent to Aleppo, where they remained
for a few weeks, waiting for the result of attempts to have them sent
back to Constantinople, to no avail. They were dispatched to Urfa, and
killed in the outskirts of the town between July 15 and 20, 1915.
Krikor
Zohrab’s memory as an outstanding writer and lawyer has remained alive
for a century. His books have been widely published in popular and
critical editions and his short stories have been included in many
school textbooks. Most recently, on May 3, 2017, a plaque honoring him,
in memory of the Armenian Genocide, was inaugurated at the School of
Lawyers of the Appellate Court of Paris.
A generation
of Armenian professional soldiers who had distinguished themselves in
the Russian army led the military of the first Republic of Armenia.
General Kristapor Araratian was one of them.
Araratian
was born on June 18, 1876, in the city of Mitzkhetha (province of
Tiflis). His father Gerasim (Karapet) Araratov was a lieutenant general
in the Russian army. He entered the military school of Tiflis (1886-1893) and graduated as a sub-officer. Afterwards, he
entered the artillery school of St. Petersburg, which he finished in
1896 among the top three of his class. He was permitted to serve at the
place of his choice, and thus Araratian chose the Caucasian brigade of
grenade artillery, seated near Tiflis. He was transferred to Siberia in
1904, and later, on his request, to the battlefront in the
Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. In 1906 he went to serve in European
Russia, where he continued rising through the army ranks, and he
received several medals for his services. He was married to Nina
Eyubova, and they had two children, Konstantin and Elena.
He
participated in World War I, first in the Russian front (1914-1915),
and then in the Romanian front (1916-1917). After the October Revolution
and the retreat of the Russian troops from the Caucasus, Colonel
Araratian was aware that the Ottoman army would take advantage of the
situation and attack Armenia. He moved to the Caucasus and entered the
newly formed Armenian army. Its commander, General Tovmas Nazarbekian,
designated Araratian commander of the second division of the artillery
brigade in January 1918. The brigade was included in the army corps of
Yerevan, commanded by Movses Silikian, and Araratian became commander of
artillery. In this post, he participated in the battle of Sardarabad,
and his division took prisoner a whole battalion of enemy troops,
composed of Turkish and German soldiers.
After
the proclamation of the republic, Araratian became commander of the
Armenian artillery brigade. He participated in the short-lived
Armenian-Georgian war in December 1918. In March 1919, after Prime
Minister Hovhannes Kajaznuni resigned from his post, Alexander Khatisian
replaced him. War Minister Hovhannes Hakhverdian had also resigned, and
on March 27, 1919, Kristapor Araratian, ascended to the rank of major
general, was named War Minister. He asked Hakhverdian to become an
advisor, and designated Lieutenant General Silikian as his assistant.
Araratian remained in his post until April 3, 1920, when he resigned and
became director of the rifle company of the ministry.
He
later became artillery commander until he was sent to Kars as military
commander. Kars, the most important fortress of the region, fell to the
enemy in the Armenian-Turkish war (October 30, 1920). Araratian fell
prisoner, together with many Armenian soldiers. He would only return to
Armenia at the end of 1921, and held the post of artillery commander
until 1925. In 1925-1926 he went to Moscow, where he studied at the
Frunze Military Academy for high-ranking officers. After his return, he
was offered the direction of the military chairs at Yerevan State
University and the Armenian Agricultural Institute.
Like
many officers who had served the first Republic, Araratian was also a
victim of the Stalinist purges. He was arrested on September 2, 1937.
After three months in prison, the death sentence of November 16 was
executed on December 10. Kristapor Araratian, along with Generals Movses
Silikian and Dmitri Mirimanov, and four colonels, was transported to
the gorge of Nork, outside Yerevan (currently the zoo of Yerevan), and
shot by the secret police.
His
wife took packages for years to the KGB to be delivered to her husband,
without knowing that he was dead. A death certificate was given to his
family in 1955, which stated that he had reportedly died on February 16,
1943, from a heart attack. However, on July 18, 1956, the Supreme Court
of the Armenian Soviet Republic declared null and void the sentence of
November 1937 against Araratian, which allowed learning the actual date
of his death.
His
daughter Elena Araratova was a talented ballet dancer, whose career was
greatly affected by the fact that her father had been executed as an
enemy of the people. She would never receive the coveted title of People’s Artist.
Chess
has remained a beloved activity in Armenia since Soviet times, and
especially after Tigran Petrosian became world champion from 1963-1969.
Karen Asrian was among those chess players who followed that tradition
to become one of the most promising and short-lived names in independent
Armenia.
He
was born in Yerevan on the day of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide: April 24, 1980. He started playing chess at the age
of five and in 1990 he participated in the Leningrad (now St.
Petersburg) classification tournament for the Youth World Chess
Championship, where he completed his norm to be awarded the title of
International Master at the age of nine. Interestingly, then champion
Garry Kasparov (1985-1993) had completed the same norm at the age of
thirteen and his predecessor Anatoli Karpov (1975-1985) was eleven when
he did it. Asrian’s ELO rating (the measure to rank chess players) was
2310 in September 1996 and became 2600 at the end of 1998, when he
became International Grandmaster.
Between
1996 and 2008 he completed an impressive number of feats. In 1996 and
1997 he won the Tigran Petrosian Memorial international tournament (he
would win it again in 2004) in Yerevan. Two years later, he won the
Armenian Chess Championship and was champion of Europe with the Armenian
team. Competing on the third board of the Armenian team, he won the
bronze medal in the World Tournaments of 2001 and 2005, and the Chess
Olympics of 2002 and 2004. He was also on the third board of the
Armenian team that won the gold medal at the 37th Chess Olympiad in
Turin (Italy) in 2006. During the same year, he had reached his highest
ELO rating (2646), with put him on the 62nd position among chess players
in the world.
Meanwhile,
Asrian had graduated from the Armenian State Institute of Physical
Culture in 2001, when he also won the Sheikh Cup in Dubai.
He won the Armenian Chess Championship again in 2007 and 2008, when he became the coach of the Iranian national chess team. His final rating, in April 2008, was 2630 (92nd in the world).
In
the early morning of June 9, 2008, Asrian felt ill while driving and
pulled his car into a courtyard of Yerevan before losing consciousness.
An ambulance crew pronounced him dead at the scene, and the Armenian
Chess Federation reported that the player had died of a heart attack
while driving. The Chess Giants Yerevan tournament, which was going to
start that same day, was interrupted for a few days and then renamed
Karen Asrian Memorial. The unfortunate player had an open casket funeral
at the Yerevan Chess House on June 11, with the participation of the
President of Armenia (and President of the Armenian Chess Federation)
Serzh Sargsyan and top government and legislative officials.
The
Chess Giants Yerevan tournament was scheduled to start on June 9, with
Asrian’s participation. It was postponed for a few days by decision of
the Armenian Chess Federation and renamed the Karen Asrian Memorial. The
tournament was held from June 12-15 and won by Levon Aronian, who had
been on the first board of the gold medalist Armenian chess team in
2006.
Alice Sapritch (her name was originally spelled Sapric, the Turkish spelling of the Armenian word saprich/սափրիչ “barber”), was a French actress of Armenian origin with a forty-year career in cinema, theater, and television.
