Schavarch Missakian

Chavarche Missakian (Armenian: Շաւարշ Միսաքեան), born in 1884 in Zmara or Zimmara (Ottoman Empire) and died on January 26, 1957, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was an Armenian journalist and intellectual known for founding and leading the Armenian newspaper Haratch in Paris from 1925 to 1957.

Biography

Time in the Ottoman Empire

Chavarche Missakian was born in 1884 in Zmara, near Sivas, in the Armenian province of the Ottoman Empire. He grew up in Constantinople and studied at the Armenian Guétronagan High School, beginning his journalism career at 16. Starting as a jack-of-all-trades and columnist for the Armenian daily Sourhandak, he published revolutionary literature and worked for the Dashnak newspapers Droschak and Razmig.

In 1908, after the Young Turk Revolution,

Missakian escaped the roundup of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople on April 24, 1915, He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to five years in prison. He was released after the Armistice of Mudros.

Shortly after, on August 1, 1925, he founded the Armenian-language daily Haratch. The newspaper operated uninterrupted until the Occupation when Missakian, a committed socialist, voluntarily ceased its publication in opposition to Nazism and resumed it after the Liberation. His wife contributed under the pseudonyms Sossi or Nodji.

In 1945, Missakian organized the Armenian youth in France by founding Nor Séround and providing them with a newspaper, Haïastan,

Chavarche Missakian led Haratch until his death, after which his daughter Arpik Missakian succeeded him. He died on January 26, 1957, in Neuilly-sur-Seine and was buried at Père-Lachaise Cemetery Face à l'innommable : avril 1915 (translated by Arpik Missakian), Marseille, Éditions Parenthèses, coll. « Diasporales », 2015, 144 p. (ISBN 978-2-86364-299-3) Մեծ Եղեռնի առաջին վաւերագրողը [Le premier témoin du Grand crime ], Antélias, Éditions du Catholicossat arménien de Cilicie, 2017, 483 p. (ISBN 978-9953039695)

Honors

Chavarche-et-Arpik-Missakian Square at the quartier du Faubourg-Montmartre; arrondissement de Paris. A temporary exhibition dedicated to him was held from February 6 to 8, 2008, at the Maison des étudiants arméniens.