MHER MKRTCHIAN’S ARCHIVE RETURNED TO ARMENIA
By Hovhannes Yeranian

Yerkir.am
June 22, 2007

Fifteen years have passed since the death of the most popular actor
Mher Mkrtchian. Nevertheless, he has become even more popular, his
biography was enriched with legends and myths that have created the
image of the comic actor with sad eyes.

Irina Terterian-Mkrtchian, the daughter of Mher Mkrtchian’s daughter
Nune, is currently in Armenia. We asked to tell her about Mher
Mkrtchian’s unpublished memoirs.

"My grandfather started writing his memoirs during the last year of
his life. Probably he could feel something but he called my mother
and told her that he was starting his memoirs right away. He probably
felt he did not have much time left. He would tell about his life and
my mother would record him. He already had some memoirs in writing,
and what my mother recorded was his thoughts and stories," Irina
Terterian-Mkrtchian says.

The memoirs were left unfinished since Mher Mkrtchian died on December
28, 1993. In 1994 the Terterians left for Argentina and Nune took
Mher Mkrtchian’s archive and memoirs with her.

Irina Terterian was nine years old at that time. She recalls their
life in Buenos Aires was very difficult. Her mother’s attempts to
commemorate her talented father did not succeed since local Armenians
did not know Mher Mkrtchian. Nevertheless, in a couple of year Nune
succeeded in creating a theater named after Mher Mkrtchian.

However, she did not manage to publish her father’s memoirs even
though she had asked for the support of some sponsors. Nune died in
1998. Her daughter Irina, the granddaughter of Avet Terterian and
Mher Mkrtchian, came to realize her lifelong dream of creating Mher
Mkrtchian’s museum. With the support of the Ministry of Culture Irina
Terterian brought to Armenia Mher Mkrtchian’s archive that weighs 40kg.

The archive includes about 1500 photographs, over 1000 letters,
souvenirs, collection of key and many other items. These items are
now deposited in the Mher Mkrtchian Museum on Varpetneri Street in
Gyumri. The memoirs will soon be published.

"When I enter the museum I can feel my grandfather’s presence there.

I want to finish the job my mother had started. I want to publish
the memoirs so that people know the truth, the sad but true story. My
grandfather would joke even in dramatic situations. He was both sad
and loved life, people, his daughter, son, me. I want people to know
the truth," Irina Terterian-Mkrtchian says.

P.S. The popular actor could anticipate the future. In his memoirs he
wrote that when he dies they will clean the streets of Yerevan, these
and these people will come, and will say these and these things. On the
last days of December 1993, on the day of Mher Mkrtchian’s funeral,
everything happened the way the actor had anticipated. They cleaned
the streets of Yerevan, and people said the exact things the great
actor had predicted.