Death of Hampartzum Limonjian (June 29, 1839)

Hampartzum Limonjian, better known by the sobriquet Baba Hampartzum, was one of the most important figures of Armenian music. He opened a new era in Armenian songs, as he cleaned them from foreign influences, and became the creator of the Armenian new musical notation, which helped maintain the heritage of popular and spiritual songs.

Limonjian was born in Constantinople in 1768. His childhood was marked by poverty. As soon as he had learned how to write and to read, he became an apprentice in a tailor shop and, after learning the trade, became a tailor himself.

He had an innate love for singing and music, and in his free time he devoted himself to learning music, and this is how he advanced in musicology. He later became a student of Zenne Boghos and learned Armenian religious music. He met Turkish dervishes and in a short time learned the style of their classical singing. The mystic teachings of the dervishes made a great impact on him, as well as their introspective life and their prayers that were accompanied by songs, music, and ritual dances.

Afterwards, Hampartzum Limonjian, who was already known as Baba Hampartzum, studied also European musical theory. His acquaintance with Hovhannes Chelebi Duzian became crucial. Hovhannes Chelebi, who was also a music lover, noted the exceptional abilities of Baba Hampartzum and had him hired as a music teacher in the Mekhitarist School of Constantinople. Simultaneously, he also worked as a scribe for the Balians, who were the imperial architects.

Once he assured his living, Baba Hampartzum strove to improve his musical knowledge. He took lessons from Greek musicians and maintained his links with the dervishes. He also studied old Armenian religious songs and tried to transcribe them. The European notation was not appropriate and he invented an Armenian notation system that resembled the khaz (the Armenian notation used in the Armenian hymns or sharagan) and corresponded to the European musical scale. He worked on his invention until 1815. In 1837 he wrote his autobiography, in Turkish, where he wrote about the motives that had led him to create the Armenian notation.

Hampartzum Limonjian had a group of students who continued his work, among them his son Nezen Zenob (1810-1866), Tamburi Alexan, Apisoghom Utudjian, Aristakes Hovhannesian, Bedros Cheomlekian and Hovhannes Muhendisian.

He passed away on June 29, 1839, at the age of 71. Decades later, Kevork IV, Catholicos of All Armenians, took the initiative to organize the teaching and the promotion of the notation system invented by Baba Hampartzum, which was particularly important in the maintenance and the normalization of Armenian religious music.

Assembly of Shahabivan (June 24, 444)

In a period when the kingdom had fallen (428) and the country was divided between Persia and Byzantium, the Armenian Church rose as the main unifying force. Victim of various accusations, after the fall of the kingdom Catholicos Sahak Partev was retained in Persia, and Surmak, from the house of Aghbianos—rival to the house of St. Gregory of Illuminator—became Catholicos, supported by the Persian king Vram V, although he never enjoyed the support of the Armenian Church. After his death in 443, Hovsep I Hoghotsmetsi, a student of Mesrop Mashtots, was elected Catholicos and was recognized both by the Church and by new Persian king Yazkert II.

Catholicos Hovsep and governor of Armenia Vasak Siuni agreed to convene a national-ecclesiastical assembly in the town of Shahabivan, in the district of Dzaghkotn of the province of Ayrarat (Great Armenia), which was the headquarters of the Armenian royal army. The assembly was attended by 40 bishops and other ecclesiastics, as well as many laymen, including princes, members of the military, etcetera. It started on June 24, 444.

The assembly was convened, mainly, to confirm the rules established by the Apostles and the Council of Nicea, which many ecclesiastics had broken, and to reaffirm the internal order and moral norms of the Armenian Church, as well as to give its judgment upon various heresies and wrongdoings.

The assembly of Shahabivan was canonical, but its resolutions, unlike other cases, were the only ones that established punishment for various transgressions. For these reason, its resolutions took the character of a judicial code. Only one of the 20 rules had an advisory character. Otherwise, ten rules (six of them fully, and four partly) were devoted to ecclesiastics, and they established canonical and criminal punishments for canonical violations and transgressions. Nine rules in their totality and four of them partly were about princes and villagers, with different punishments. Interestingly, while villagers received corporal punishment (beating), the princes were only sentenced to advice, fine, and repentance.

However, some transgressions had the same punishment for both villagers and princes. The fines established for villagers were half or less than half of the fines for princes. The rules took into consideration the economic situation of both social classes.

According to the resolutions of the assembly, all fines would go to the churches and homes for the aged, and in certain cases a portion of the fines would be distributed among the poor. In the canons of the assembly, women and men were equal before the law: “Whether male or woman, the canon applies.”

The assembly passed severe resolutions against the heresy of the Messalians. This heresy, which had originated in the fourth century, denied that the Sacraments gave grace, including baptism, and declared that the only spiritual power was constant prayer that led to possession by the Holy Spirit. The adult members of heretical families were confined to leper colonies, while the children were delivered to the Church, which took their spiritual education in its hands.

The assembly of Shahabivan was very important in the consolidation of the grounds of the Armenian Church and the formation and development of a corpus of Armenian law. It might also be said that its momentum was still felt a few years later, when the attempt of Persia to impose Zoroastrianism met a fiery Armenian resistance symbolized by the battle of Avarair in 451.

Birth of Axel Bakunts (June 13, 1899)

Axel Bakunts was the most important prose writer in the first generation of Soviet Armenian literature. As many other intellectuals, he would also become a victim of totalitarianism.

Bakunts was born Alexander Tevosian on June 13, 1899, in Goris (Zangezur), in a family with eleven children. As he wrote in his autobiography, “my parents had had land and wealth, but I did not see either that land or that wealth. I recall horrendous poverty and a house filled with children. . .” He studied in the parish school from 1905-1910 and then he was admitted in the Kevorkian Seminary of Etchmiadzin, where he studied until 1915. After his short story, “The Fool Man,” published in the children’s monthly Aghbiur in 1911, a satirical piece appeared in July 1915 in the newspaper Paylak under a pseudonym, that cost him a stint in prison, as it was a criticism of the mayor of Goris and the provincial administration. The Seminary was closed in the school year 1915-1916 due to the flow of refugees from the genocide, and after 34 days, the future writer was freed from prison and invited to teach at the village school of Lor, in Zangezur.

By then, Alexander had been replaced by Axel, as his friends called him after the name of the character he played in a comedy, “The Newly Married,” by Norwegian writer and Nobel laureate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He would later adopt the family name Bakunts as his pseudonym.

He graduated in 1917 from the Seminary, and in the fall he became a soldier in the battlefronts of Erzerum and Kars, until his participation in the crucial battle of Sardarabad in late May 1918. He worked in Yerevan as a proofreader and reporter in 1918-1919, and in 1919-1920 he studied at the Polytechnic Institute of Tiflis and taught at the high school of an orphanage. After three years of studies at the Agricultural Institute of Kharkov (Ukraine), in 1923 he returned to Armenia, where he worked as an agronomist. In the same year, the authorities organized the so-called “liquidation” of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in a conference of party members, and 24-year-old Bakunts chaired the conference.

He worked in Goris from 1924-1926 as head of the land section of the executive provincial committee, and moved in 1926 to Yerevan, where he was deputy head in the Land Commission of the republican government until 1931. After a short stint at the Nor Ughi journal, he dedicated himself to literary activities until 1936.

Bakunts started a serious literary career in 1924, and his short stories soon established his reputation as a gifted writer, which was strengthened by his first collection, Mtnadzor (The Dark Valley), published in 1927. Together with Yeghishe Charents, Gurgen Mahari, and other first-rate writers, he was also involved in the literary movements of the time, and fought for the development of Armenian literature in years when the Soviet regime had not yet established its iron fist over culture. Besides several collections of short stories (The White Horse, The Walnut Trees of Brotherhood, etcetera), he published the satirical novel Hovnatan March and also wrote three novels that were lost. He also wrote the screenplays for the films Zangezur and The Son of the Sun.

As Charents wrote in a poem dedicated to his friend Bakunts, “Sadness flows in your Dark Valley / And longing of childhood in the familiar valley, / But work to ensure that in that dark valley / Your bright road will not be lost forever.” There was an insidious campaign against both writers, as well as their friends, especially by fellow writers who tried to follow faithfully the directives of the Communist party. Political accusations started to pile up and Bakunts, together with other names, was victim of a round up on August 9, 1936. He was charged with “anti-revolutionary, anti-Soviet and chauvinist activities.” He was tortured for eleven months in jail. All his attempts at defending himself were useless, and his letters remained unanswered. As many others who were subjected to the terror installed by Stalin in 1936-1938, he was finally given a 25-minute trial and summarily condemned to the firing squad. He was shot on July 18, 1937.

His name disappeared from public recognition until the death of Stalin in 1953. He was later rehabilitated and Bakunts became a classic of Armenian literature in the twentieth century. In 1957 his childhood house became a house-museum.

Death of Vahram Papazian (June 5, 1968)

From Constantinople to Yerevan and from Paris to Moscow, Vahram Papazian would become the most accomplished Shakespearean actor of the Armenian scene worldwide for half a century.

He was born in Constantinople on January 6, 1888, in a middle-class family. He graduated from the Esayan School (1902) and the lyceum of Kadikoy (1902-1904), and had his debut on the stage in 1904. Then he went to the Murad-Raphaelian School of the Mekhitarist Congregation, in Venice, where he studied from 1905-1907.

In 1907 he departed for Paris and then for Baku, where he performed with an Armenian theater group for a few months. After this experience, he returned to Italy and studied at the Art Academy of Milan from 1908-1911. Famed actress Eleonora Duse was among his teachers. During his student years, he performed with Italian itinerant groups and gradually perfected his roles (Othello, Romeo, and Hamlet, among them). He returned to Constantinople in 1908 and his performances of Othello, at the age of 20, earned him the applause of Armenian audiences and the press. He went to Paris in the early 1910s to study the different currents of theater and become closely acquainted with acting techniques. As a professional actor, he performed from 1910-1913 in Constantinople and Smyrna, and from 1913-1917, in Baku and Tiflis. He enriched his repertory with a roster of roles in Armenian and non-Armenian plays.

Papazian as the title character in Shakespeare's Othello

Papazian played in fifteen Russian silent movies from 1917-1918 with the pseudonym of Ernesto Vahram, and would later play in three more films in 1922-1923. In 1920 he returned to Constantinople, where he performed until 1922. After the occupation of the city by the Kemalist forces, he settled in Soviet Armenia. He would perform and direct in Yerevan, Baku, and Tiflis between 1922 and 1927. He moved to Moscow in 1928 and then performed in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from 1929-1931. In 1932 he played in Lithuania, Letonia, and Estonia, and in the same year he left for Paris, where he played Othello with the Odeon Theater group; his performances were singled out by the French press. In 1933 he visited Berlin, where he met the famous director Max Reinhardt and studied closely the German school of acting.

Thereafter, he returned to the Soviet Union and was distinguished as People’s Artist of Armenia and Georgia in 1933, and People’s Artist of Azerbaijan in 1935. He toured the cities of the three countries in 1934-1935, and continued his tour through Russia and Ukraine from 1936-1941. He played in Moscow in 1941 and settled in Leningrad from 1941-1944, where he survived the German blockade.

After years of new presentations in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia, from 1946-1954, Papazian finally settled back in Yerevan as a member of the Sundukian Academic Theater, and he also directed plays in Yerevan and Leninakan (now Gumri). He returned to cinema in four films from 1953-1964, and in 1956 he was given the title of People’s Artist of the Soviet Union. In the last fifteen years of his life, the actor revealed himself to be an accomplished writer with his two-volume memoir, Retrospective Regard (1956-1957). He also wrote his reminiscences on Western Armenian actors, My Heart’s Duty (1959), and several books on performance analysis about the roles of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.

His art belonged to the classical school, enriched by elements of neo-romanticism and psychological realism. His performances of Shakespearean roles were grounded on the traditions of ancient tragedy and the Renaissance, as well as his own Armenian viewpoint.

Vahram Papazian passed away in Leningrad on June 5, 1968, and was buried in the Pantheon of Yerevan. The State Theater of Stepanakert (Karabagh) carries his name.

Declaration of United Armenia (May 28, 1919)

At the time of the independence of the first Republic of Armenia (May 1918), its population also included a mass of refugees from Western Armenia who had survived the genocide.

The first congress of Western Armenians, held in the spring of 1917, tried to establish a semblance of organization for the mass of refugees. Some of them had temporarily resettled back in their homes in 1916-1917, when part of Western Armenia had been occupied by Russia. However, the breakdown of the Caucasian front after the Russian Revolution and the advance of the Turkish Ottoman forces had displaced them once again to the east. These events had crippled the organization established in 1917.

In view of the political changes, an interparty council of Western Armenians named a special commission in December 1918 to arrange for a second general conference. The Second Conference of Western Armenians met in Yerevan from February 6-13, 1919.

The conference adopted a resolution on February 12, 1919 that read in part:
“The Second Congress of Western Armenians, having studied the current situation of the Armenian people:

1. Sincerely hails and extols the independence of Free and United Armenia; (. . .)

3. Proclaims its firm determination and will to have one political and governmental entity through the confluence of the lands and people of all Armenia;(. . .)

5. Directs the elected ‘Executive Body’ to work actively, at the same time, with the cabinet and the legislature of the Araratian [Yerevan] Republic to declare the independence of United, Free Armenia and, in order to effect the all-national union, to participate in the administrative and legislative institutions. (…).”

The nine-person Executive Body was instructed to implement the decision of the Congress and to function until the creation of a combined government of united Armenia. Its petition was approved by the coalition government of the Republic, formed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Populist Party, on February 25, 1919.

The cabinet of ministers adopted the text of the declaration on Armenia’s unification on May 26, 1919, and a day later, another cabinet resolution authorized the Executive Body of the Western Armenians to select twelve deputies to enter the Parliament of united Armenia.

On 28 May 1919, on the first anniversary of the Republic of Armenia, acting Prime Minister Alexander Khatisian read the text of the declaration in a solemn ceremony held at the Parliament:

“To restore the integrity of Armenia and to secure the complete freedom and prosperity of its people, the Government of Armenia, abiding by the solid will and desire of the entire Armenian people, declares that from this day forward the separated parts of Armenia are everlastingly combined as an independent political entity.

(. . .) Now in promulgating this act of unification and independence of the ancestral Armenian lands located in Transcaucasia and the Ottoman Empire, the Government of Armenia declares that the political system of United Armenia is a democratic republic and that it has become the Government of the United Republic of Armenia.

Thus, the people of Armenia are henceforth the supreme lord and master of their consolidated fatherland, and the Parliament and Government of Armenia stand as the supreme legislative and executive authority conjoining the free people of United Armenia. (. . .)”

After the ovation that followed the reading, Khatisian invited the twelve newly designated Western Armenian deputies to take their places within the legislature. On their behalf, Vahagn Krmoyan pledged active Western Armenian participation in the governing bodies of the Republic.

After the messages by Avetik Sahakian, president of the Parliament, and Catholicos Gevorg V, and congratulations by the representatives of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Karabagh, Armenian Americans, and others, Khatisian proceeded to the balcony of the Parliament and read again the declaration to the mass of people gathered on the street.

The declaration, intended to cement the unity of the Armenian people and establish its political will towards the restoration of the country over its historical borders, had the contrary effect. Historian Richard Hovannisian has aptly summarized it: “The proclamation that had been intended as an expression of unity actually aggravated the discord between Russian Armenians and Turkish Armenians and between Dashnakist and anti-Dashnakist leaders. A startling about-face by the Populist Party in the days following the celebration in Erevan administered the coup de grace to the coalition cabinet.”

Although the declaration of United Armenia was never carried on the ground (the Treaty of Sevres, which would become its instrument in August 1920, remained on paper), its symbolic force was an expression and an inspiration for the political dreams of the Armenian people.

Opening of the Monument of Sardarabad (May 25, 1968)

Sardarabad, located 25 miles to the west of Yerevan, became the last Armenian stance against the advance of the invading Third Ottoman Army in May 1918. A defeat would not only open the door for their penetration to the rest of Eastern Armenia, but also the follow-up to the genocide of 1915-1916. Major General Otto von Lossow, German delegate to the Caucasus, had reported to his government on May 15, 1918 that the Ottomans intended to advance the border further to the east, monopolize the economy of the region, and bring about “the total extermination of the Armenians in Transcaucasia also.” Two days before his departure from Tiflis, on May 23, he wrote in his final report: “The aim of Turkish policy is, as I have always reiterated, the taking of possession of Armenian districts and the extermination of the Armenians.”

The Armenian victory in Sardarabad, from May 22-28, 1918, became the cornerstone of the foundation of the first Republic of Armenia. However, the victories of May 1918 and the first republic remained taboo issues in Soviet Armenia until the national awakening of the 1960s that led to the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide in 1965. Afterwards, there would be a historical reassessment, although within the ideological constraints imposed by the regime.

Part of that reassessment would be the construction of the monument dedicated to the battle, inaugurated on May 25, 1968. Its author was talented architect Raphael Israelian (1908-1973), who had already built popular memorials such as the arch of Charents (1957) on the road to Garni and the first monument to the genocide, built in the courtyard of Holy Echmiadzin (1965). Other projects would be completed during his lifetime and posthumously.

The entrance of the impressive complex, which extends over some 50 acres, is guarded by gigantic winged bulls, which symbolize the victory obtained by the people. The steps take the visitor to a wide square, dominated by the 115-foot high bell tower. The nine-bell structure, built from red-orange tufa stone, is the focus of the monumental complex. It reflects the critical moment that the entire country lived and that called the people to the fight. As it is well known, Catholicos Gevorg V ordered all church bells in Armenia to sound day and night in the days of the three battles of Sardarabad, Gharakilise, and Pash Abaran. The bells sound every year on the day of the victory.

The bell tower square marks the beginning of the avenue, flanked by a series of eagles, leading to the 180-foot long Victory wall, which depicts the images of the battle, sculpted by Ara Harutunian and other artists. In 1978 the State Ethnographic Museum of Armenia was built on the end side of the complex, with an impressive collection. It also includes a section dedicated to the first Republic.

As the refrain of the famous song written by poet Paruyr Sevak exhorts, “Generations, know yourself in Sardarabad.” The monument to the battle is one of those mirrors that have helped know history for almost half a century.

Death of Tovma Medzopetsi (May 15, 1446)

Tovma Medzopetsi was the last noteworthy name in the long chain of Armenian medieval historians. As many others before him, his historical works have become a unique source for the study of a certain period of Armenian history, in this case, his own times.

Medzopetsi was born in 1378 in the village of Aghi, near the city of Arjesh, in the region of the Lake Van (Vaspurakan). He studied in the nearby monastery of Medzopavank, built in the eleventh century, between 1386 and 1393. The monastery was headed at the time by Hovhannes Medzopetsi, a vartabed who was a graduate of the University of Datev, in the region of Siunik. He later continued his studies in the monastery of Kharabastavank, as a student of the master vartabeds Sargis Aprakunetsi and Vartan Hokotsvanetsi. Afterwards, he went to the University of Datev in 1406 and studied with St. Grigor Davtevatsi himself, who had been the teacher of Hovhannes Medzopetsi decades before.

After studying for almost a quarter of a century, in 1410 Tovma Medzopetsi returned to his alma mater and became the abbot and the school master of Medzopavank for more than thirty years. During his tenure, the monastery became an active center of manuscript copy and illumination. Textbooks and commentaries were written by specialists who had been invited to teach there.

Besides works in the field of exegesis, music, and ritual, Medzopetsi is particularly noted for his historical work History of Tamerlane and His Successors, devoted to the period 1386-1440. The historian was a contemporary of the devastating invasions of the Turkic-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane, who laid waste of much of Armenia in successive campaigns between 1387 and 1402. He described the ruinous campaigns, the massacres and slavery of the population, the harsh tributary regime, and the few attempts to oppose the enemy.

In 1441, together with other high-ranking ecclesiastics of Armenia, Medzopetsi was among the organizers of the ecclesiastical assembly held in Holy Echmiadzin to elect a new Catholicos. The assembly elected Kirakos I Virapetsi (1441-1443), who installed its seat in Holy Echmiadzin, while Grigor IX Musabekiants (1439-1446) was Catholicos of Cilicia. Thus, from 1441 onwards, the Armenian Church had two Catholicosates.

Medzopetsi passed away in 1446 in the village of Akori, near Mount Ararat, and was buried in the monastery of Medzopavank, which would be destroyed in 1915.