FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE) – He was born in the Central Valley but left a legacy worldwide.
Richard Gable Hovannisian: A writer of books, a lecturer, and a documenter of the history of the Armenian people.
“He basically then from the ground up developed the study of Armenian history as we know it in the United States,” said Barlow Der Mugrdechian, the director of Fresno State’s Armenian Studies Program.
Born in Tulare in 1932, Hovannisian’s educational journey took him from Fresno State to Cal State Berkeley and eventually to UCLA where he received his doctorate and taught for 60 years. Der Mugrdechian was his student.
“I loved his classes; we all loved his classes. It was just entertaining in the sense of being able to draw you into history,” he said.
Mugrdechian says Hovannisian devoted his life to writing Armenia’s history when he discovered no such writings existed. He was instrumental in the creation of Armenian Studies programs at universities including Fresno State, and courageously spoke out at international conferences demanding the recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide where one and a half million Armenian lives were lost at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
“There, American scholars who were taking the Turkish side would be talking and saying this wasn’t a genocide and everything and he would be standing up and challenging them,” Der Mugrdechian said.
Nazik Messerlian of Fresno was Hovannisian’s sister-in-law. She and her sister, who later became his wife, first met him in college. She describes him as kind, loving, and passionate about the Armenian cause.
“His love of people was I think the foundation to all of this,” she said.
Hovannisian received honors from the Armenian Church and many organizations. A crowning achievement: recording close to a thousand oral histories from Armenian Genocide survivors– the collection is now housed at the Shoah Foundation at USC.
While retired from teaching, Hovannisian never stopped working. His most recent work was published just last year.
His legacy lives on in the generations impacted by Armenian studies in schools teaching a history documented extensively by the lifetime of work of Richard Hovannisian.
Hovannisian had family in Fresno, and they say he always loved his local ties. A national funeral will be held for him on Saturday, July 22 at Holy Trinity Apostolic Church in Fresno at 11:00 a.m.