39 Facts About Khachatur Abovian

Khachatur Abovian mysteriously vanished in 1848 and was eventually presumed dead.

Only after the establishment of the Armenian SSR was Khachatur Abovian accorded recognition and stature.

Khachatur Abovian is regarded as one of the foremost figures not just in Armenian literature, but Armenian history at large.

Khachatur Abovian was born in 1809 in the village of Kanaker, then part of Qajar Iran, and now a district of Yerevan, Armenia.

Khachatur Abovian's family were descendants of the Beglaryan family in Gulistan, one of five Armenian families who ruled around the current-day region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Khachatur Abovian family held the position of in Kanaker; Khachatur Abovian's uncle was the last of Kanaker.

Khachatur Abovian's aunt was the wife of Sahak Aghamalian, the last of Yerevan at the time of the Russian annexation in 1828.

Khachatur Abovian was born six years after his parents, Avetik and Takuhi, married.

At age 10, Khachatur Abovian was taken by his father to Echmiadzin to study for the priesthood.

Khachatur Abovian dropped out after five years and moved to Tiflis in 1822 to study Armenian studies and languages at the Nersisyan School under the guidance of Harutiun Alamdarian.

Khachatur Abovian graduated in 1826 and began preparing to move to Venice to further his education.

The turning point in Khachatur Abovian's life was the arrival of Friedrich Parrot in Armenia in September 1829, a professor of physics from the University of Dorpat in Livonia.

Khachatur Abovian was one of the last travelers to visit Akhuri and the monastery before a disastrous earthquake completely buried both in May 1840.

Khachatur Abovian dug a hole in the ice and erected a wooden cross facing north.

Khachatur Abovian picked up a chunk of ice from the summit and carried it down with him in a bottle, considering the water holy.

Khachatur Abovian entered the university directly without additional preparation and studied in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Philological-Historical Department from 3 September 1830 to 18 January 1836.

The years in Dorpat were very fruitful for Khachatur Abovian who studied social and natural sciences, European literature and philosophy, and mastered German, Russian, French and Latin.

In 1834 Khachatur Abovian visited his cousin Maria in Saint Petersburg, who then married to the Georgian prince Alexander.

Khachatur Abovian's efforts were thwarted as he faced a growing and hostile reaction from the Armenian clergy as well as Tsarist officials, largely stemming from his opposition to dogmatism and formalism in the school system.

Khachatur Abovian was appointed as the supervisor of the Tiflis uyezd school and married a German woman named Emilia Looze in 1839.

Khachatur Abovian hoped that Abovian would guide her on another expedition to Mount Ararat which ultimately did not occur.

Khachatur Abovian was dismissed from the school in 1843 and was transferred to the subdivisional uyezd school in Yerevan where he encountered apathy and antagonism from his colleagues and the clergy.

Khachatur Abovian became a trusted friend of the Yazidi community in Armenia, and when the chief returned with lavish gifts from a banquet in Tiflis organised by the viceroy of the Caucasus Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov in 1844, he organised a tribal feast and Abovian was invited to attend.

On 14 April 1848, Khachatur Abovian left his home for an early morning walk, and was never seen again; his disappearance remains unresolved.

Writer Axel Bakunts put forward the theory that Khachatur Abovian was in Western Europe engulfed in the Revolutions of 1848.

Khachatur Abovian wrote novels, stories, descriptions, plays, scientific and artistic compositions, verses and fables.

Khachatur Abovian was the first Armenian writer to compose literature for children.

Khachatur Abovian saw in strengthening of the friendship of Russian and Armenian peoples a guarantee of the national, political and cultural revival of his native lands.

However, when Khachatur Abovian wrote the novel he was already disillusioned with Tsarist policies in Armenia, particularly with the implementation of in 1836 which greatly reduced the political power of the Armenian Catholicos and the abolishment of the Armenian Oblast in 1840.

Khachatur Abovian's poetry was filled with satire best expressed in The Wine Jug, in which he criticised Russian bureaucracy.

Khachatur Abovian wrote scientific and artistic non-fiction works such as the Discovery of America and Book of Stories.

Khachatur Abovian continued promoting secular and comprehensive training, school accessibility, free education for the indigent and equal education of boys and girls.

Khachatur Abovian was the first Armenian to study scientific ethnography: the way of life and customs of the peasants of the native settlements around Kanaker, inhabitants of Yerevan, and gathered and studied Armenian and Kurdish folklore.

Bardakjian writes that Khachatur Abovian cannot be regarded as the father of modern Armenian literature, but that he merits recognition as the founder of modern Eastern Armenian literature for his novel Wounds of Armenia.

Khachatur Abovian was influenced by the progressive pedagogical views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

The work Khachatur Abovian accomplished in the field of education was remembered.

Khachatur Abovian's portrait is one of the most exceptional exhibits of the Museum of Literature and Arts after Charents.

Khachatur Abovian cut worn-out edges, glued it to a hard paper and then filled the cracks with corresponding colours.

Khachatur Abovian painted it in the fall of 1830, when Abovian was only 20 or 21 years old.