LOS ANGELES TO HOST AN EVENT IN COMMEMORATION OF SHAHAN NATALIE’S 125TH ANNIVERSARY
PanARMENIAN.Net
18.03.2010 19:42 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Shahan
Natalie’s birth, the Shahan Natalie Family Foundation invites the
public to attend a tribute to the living memory of the internationally
known intrepid Armenian thinker, writer, orator, and activist. The
event will take place on Saturday, April 10, 2010, in the Los Angeles
Public Library’s Mark Taper Auditorium. Preceding the afternoon
program, Sylva Natalie Manoogian will lead a Hye (Armenian) Treasures
tour of the Central Library’s resources, Asbarez.com reported.
Born in the village of Husenik, province of Kharberd, Historic Armenia,
Shahan Natalie (born Hagop Der Hagopian) was orphaned at the age
of 11, during the 1895 Hamidian massacres of the Armenians. He was
sent to Istanbul and was accepted by the famed Berberian Academy,
where his literary career and community activism were launched. At
the age of 16, he returned to his native village to join the teaching
staff of the school at the Church of St. Varvara. Four years later,
in 1904, he immigrated to the United States. Fated to be spared from
the atrocities of the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide by order of the
Turkish government, he fulfilled his boyhood vow to devote his entire
life to defending the rights of his people world-wide.
Over a period of more than six decades, he wrote under the nom de
plume Shahan Natalie, published numerous Armenian language newspapers
and books, and traveled to his homeland and Armenian communities
throughout the Diaspora. Shahan Natalie’s literary legacy embodies
his love, devotion, and pride in the Armenian culture, language and
literature, as well as his admiration and respect for the languages and
literatures of the world. He transmitted these feelings to his family
and others whose lives he touched. In December 1998, the Los Angeles
Public Library’s International Languages Department Armenian Language &
Literature collection was dedicated in Shahan Natalie’s name.