Khachatur Abovian - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Abovian was born in 1809 in the village of Kanaker, now a suburb of Yerevan. Abovian's family were descendants of the Beglaryan melik family in Gulistan, one of five Armenian families who ruled around the current day region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Abovian family held the position of tanuter (hereditary lord) in Kanaker and Abovian's uncle was the last tanuter of Kanaker. Abovian's aunt was the wife of Sahak Aghamalian, the last melik of Yerevan at the time of the Russian annexation in 1828. Abovian's social origin and descent had imbued him from an early age with a sense of responsibility to his people. He was born six years after his parents, Avetik and Takuhi, got married and had a brother named Garabed, who died at three years old. At the age of ten his father took him to Echmiadzin to study for priesthood. Abovian dropped out after five years and moved to Tiflis in 1822 to study Armenian studies and languages at the Nersisyan college under the guidance of Harutiun Alamdarian. Abovian graduated in 1826 and began preparing to move to Venice to further his education but the outbreak of the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828 curtailed his plans. For the next three years Abovian taught briefly at Sanahin and then became employed by Catholicos Yeprem as his clerk and translator. While working for the Catholicos, the twenty-year-old Abovian met many notable foreigners, one of whom was the diplomat and playwright Alexandr Griboyedov, who was stuck in Echmiadzin on his way to Tabriz in September 1828. Griboyedov's weekly Tifliskiye Vedemosti became the first paper to publish an article on Abovian.