#OTD 9 Dec 1904, Arus Asryan, an #Armenia'n actress, People's Artist of the Soviet Union, was born in Tiflis (#Tbilisi). Asrian made her acting debut in 1918 in the role of Tigranian’s opera Anush at the Tbilisi Operetta Theater. She has been awarded two orders & various medals.
She joined the Tbilisi Armenian Drama Theater in 1923, the A. Mravian Leninakan Dramatic Theater in 1929, and the G. Sundukian Theater in Yerevan in 1940.
Her roles have included Susan in Shirvanzade’s Namus, Shogakat and Anush in Paronian’s Beggars and Uncle Balthazar, respectively, Mirandolina in Goldoni’s The Tavern Maid. She also appeared as Liuba Shevtsova in Fadeev’s The Young Guard and as Rutsy in Drutse’s Birds of Our Youth
Arus was as quiet and silent in real life as stormy she was on stage. As Yervand Ghazanchyan says, playing on the stage with Arus Asryan was a much bigger school than studying in any higher educational institution.
Vahram Papazyan characterized the actress as follows: “Arus Asryan’s play is featured by its flexibility, vivid rhythm and preference of marked characters: а fine soubrette and at the same time a comedian”.
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#OTD 11 Dec 1988, An Il-76 military transport aircraft crashes near Leninakan (Gyumri). 9 crew members and 68 military servicemen died in the accident while on an air relief operation following an earthquake in #Armenia on Dec. 7, 1988.
Of the 69 passengers & 9 crew, only 1 person, #Azerbaijan'i Fahraddin Balaev survived, as he was lucky enough to be in the cab of a truck at the tail end of airplane. This was Armenia’s worst air catastrophe, about which only a few people within & beyond its borders know about.
Very little was written about the crash of the Baku-Gyumri flight at that time for two reasons: First, during the Soviet Union, even in 1988, not only were there very few news reports about airline disasters, but there was also a deliberate attempt to hide them from people.
Lemkin came up with the 1st installments of the concept in the 30s based on the events in 1915 & onwards. Already in 1933 he published articles like "Les actes constituant un danger general (interétatique)consideres comme delites des droit des gens" and ⬇️ preventgenocide.org/fr/lemkin/madr…
"Akte der Barbarei und des Vandalismus als delicta juris gentium", which show his first wranglings with the concept. Although he hasn’t settled on the specific term, it is clear that it predates WW2.
Also, in his unpublished & unfinished autobiography he indicates that the horrors of 1915 have motivated him in developping the concept of Genocide. He also planned to publish a history of Genocide, for which he had collected a lot of material.
#OTD 11 Dec 1910, Matthew II Izmirlian, the Catholicos of All Armenians of #Armenia'n Apostolic Church at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin in 1908–10, died. He succeeded Mkrtich I Khrimian (better known as Khrimian Hayrik), who reigned as Catholicos from 1892 to 1907. #History
Matthew II was born in 1845 in Istanbul as Simeon Martirosi Izmirlian. He was ordained as priest in 1869 and served as the personal secretary to Patriarch Mkrtich Khrimian when the latter was still Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 1870s.
After brief period as Bishop of Egypt for Armenian Church in 1886-90,he was elected as Patriarch of Constantinople in 1894. His insistence on democratic reforms & rights of Armenians in Ottoman Emp & his protest against the Hamidian massacres earned him the title "Iron Patriarch"
#OTD 11 Dec 1946, due to efforts of Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who had coined the term genocide to describe Nazi policies in Europe & the #ArmenianGenocide, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 96, which asserted that Genocide is a crime under international law 🧵
Unfortunately, life shows that the adoption of this document did not prevent
mankind from new deliberate actions of extinction, mass murders in the 20th century and the 21st following it.
This unhappy outcome results from the fact that one of the most outrageous acts of annihilation – the #ArmenianGenocide – has not been widely acknowledged and condemned by the international community.
#OTD 10 Dec 2005, approx. 200 #Azerbaijan'i soldiers amassed at the Nakhichevan-Iran border to demolish the remaining grave markers at Julfa medieval #Armenia'n cemetery. It was known as the largest and the most precious repository of about 2,000 cross headstones - “khatchkars".
The destruction of the cemetery has been widely as an act of cultural genocide. After the total destruction of the cemetery, @UNESCO included Armenian khachkars on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
These delicately engraved stones represent a 1500-year-old tradition of Armenian stone masons. Khatchkars are unique & were used as free-standing steles & also as ornaments in the masonry of Armenian churches.Since early Middle Ages they have been used as tombstones in cemeteries
#OTD 10 Dec 1937, Christophor Araratian, an #Armenia'n General, died in Yerevan. He was promoted to the rank of Major General of the Armenian army during its fight for independence in 1918. Araratian participated in the battles of Sardarapat & Karakilisa against Turkish invaders.
For having fought to establish the independence of the First Republic of Armenia, in 1937 during the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin, Araratian was arrested and executed on charges of nationalism.
Following Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet government began a period of rehabilitation, which was extended posthumously to many of the tens of thousands of Stalin's victims.