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First Armenian journal
A PIONEER Statue of Rev. Arathoon Shumavon unveiled in Yerevan, Armenia, in October 2004
On October 28, 1794, there appeared the first Armenian news journal published in the world - and its first readers were in Madras, where it was founded. Azdarar's founding editor was the Rev. Harathun Shimavonian, then the priest in charge of the Armenian Church on Armenian Street, George Town.
Born in 1750 in Shiraz, in what is today Iran, the Rev. Arathoon Shumavon, as he was first known, lost two sons in one week and left his house a broken man to wander in the mountains of Persia. There, he found solace with the Persian holy men, who, during his seven years of self-imposed exile with them, helped him become a Persian and Arabic scholar. He then returned to Shiraz, where the Armenian Orthodoxy assigned him to India, to take charge of the Armenian Church in Madras. Arriving in Madras in 1784, he was to spend the next 40 years of his life in the city where the Armenians were a thriving and prosperous community. He passed away in 1824 and was buried in the tree-shaded cemetery adjacent to his beloved church. His tombstone here also commemorates the founding of Azdarar.
The Rev. Shimavonian started a printing press in Madras in 1789 to print and publish Armenian books. But his was not the first Armenian printing press in Madras. That honour goes to the press set up by Aga Jacob Shawmier in 1772.
The Shawmier Press was also the first Armenian printing unit to be established in India. Shawmier was the son of Aga Shawmier Sulthanumian, an early Armenian merchant prince in Madras who built his fortune on trade in several entrepots between Manila and the Persian Gulf. Shawmier died young in Malacca in 1774 and the press closed, but not before it had printed several classics on Armenia and its wandering people.
The Rev. Shimavonian's was the second Armenian printing press. His venture was followed by one in 1809 when Aga Sargis Satur Agavallian started the third press, which closed down in 1812 with the death of its owner and after having printed six major tiles.
The fourth and last Armenian printing press in Madras was started by Shawmier's two grandsons; by the 1840s, that too had downed shutters. The Rev. Harathun's press continued till his death, with the good Father being typecaster, compositor, printer and binder!
Shimavonian's printing press was different from other Armenian presses, because he also printed and published books in Arabic and Persian, permission being granted to him for this by Nawab Mohammed Wallajah of the Carnatic, in whose eyes he had found favour through his scholarship and not by that route which brought down the Nawab.
It was in the midst of all this publishing activity that Shimavonian decided to start Azdarar and invited, in August 1794, the "pious Armenian gentlemen and the chaste ladies of Madras" to both support and contribute to the journal. In it, he promised readers, there would be "the principal events of the month, taken either from the different gazettes or from different books, with important subjects and pleasant news; and at the end of the pamphlet there will be a calendar for the month following, containing the festivals of saints and the dates of the news and full moon, etc."
In the event, he received in the letter-box he had placed in the belfry a regular stream of letters from readers - which included criticism of public and communal affair which generated much discussions - book reviews, and a variety of articles. Despite this promising response, Azdarar was unable to make it beyond March 1796.
It was revived in 1846 and died within a year. Resurrected in 1848, it met the same fate again. But whatever its fate, it made a mark in the history of the Armenian people - and Madras.
S. MUTHIAH
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