MUSEUM OF ARMENIAN POET HOVHANNES HOVHANNISYAN AT THE VERGE OF DILAPIDATION
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
03.06.2009 13:12 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Museum of Hovhannes Hovhannisyan is located in
the very centre of the Holly City of Ejmiatsin, in the neigbourhood
to the Holy Mother cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church and
mayor’s office.
Armenian literary world will celebrate Hovhannes Hovhannisyan’s 145th
anniversary of birth and 90th anniversary of death this year. The
founder of the Classic Armenian Poetry taught ancient Greek and
Latin for long years at the Gevorkian theological seminary in
Ejmiatsin. Famous poets, musicians and artists have been hosted at
his place.
Today poet’s house has dilapidated and like gnarled little old man
unprotected and frightened looks at multi-store residential buildings
tightly surrounded him.
Employees of the museum, who have been working here for several
decades, hardly remembered when repair works carried out last
time. Just several years ago the former director Amalia Hovhannisyan
managed to do some small-scale remedial maintenance to fix the roof.
Today the house is pierced through, and its ceiling and one of the
walls mould because of moisture. The great Komitas, a friend of
Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, was playing the piano lean-to moldy wall.
There are plenty of ancient books, pictures, personal belongings
of the poet, as well as letters addressed to him by the well-known
people of late 19th and early 20th centuries among exhibits of the
museum. All these invaluable illustrations of poet’s life are very
unlikely to preserve under such conditions.
More than two hundred years ago the museum was transferred from the
Institute of Literature and Art to Mayor’s office of Ejmiatsin.
Hovhannes Hovhannisyan’s grandniece Anush Ter-Minasyan addressed a
request to the ministry of Culture of Armenia in due time.