Biography of Yerevan

Text: Godliterators. The author of this book grew up among the Yerevan creative intelligentsia: his grandfather, in whose honor Mark was named, was the main architect of the city for more than 14 years. Armenian architects, actors, musicians, artists often visited their house. All these meetings influenced Mark and its perception and understanding of the city, which was reflected in the book.

She opens another - not ceremonial and not tourist Yerevan. A personal story is accompanied by photographs from the personal archive of the author and his friends, ancient engravings and work of Armenian artists, paintings from national museums and private galleries. Mark Grigoryan: “Only about two weeks passed after I was forced to leave Armenia in the year and ended up in the capital of Great Britain.

My colleagues from the Institute for the Lighting of War and the World, where I then worked, presented a book that, in their opinion, could help me feel London, its story and the present, the traditions that its streets and areas live ... I learned to understand the city, reading it, and recognized the capital of Britain, wandering around the streets and squares. The book, as you already guessed, was called London.

Biography ”, and Peter Akraid wrote it. Of course, I would really like, having been in Yerevan, tourists, emigrants and repatriates also walked around the city with my book. ” A fragment of the book is provided by the publishing house. Museum Matenadaran Matenadaran on October 1, the People's Commissar of Education of Armenia, Balabek Martirosyan, signed an order addressed to the architect Mark Grigoryan, who ordered to start the design of the building of the State Public Library and the Central Museum of Ancient Manuscripts of Army.

SSR Matenadaran. " The document appeared due to the fact that several thousand medieval manuscripts were transported to Yerevan a few weeks earlier, which made up the catholicosate library nationalized in the year, one of the oldest libraries of the world founded in the 5th century, apparently, shortly after the invention of the Armenian alphabet. Books were posted in the State Public Library, which was not intended for ancient manuscripts that needed special storage conditions.

And many manuscripts were really priceless. Some carried the most important information about the more than a thousand -year period of history not only of Armenia, but also of the entire Christian world. Particular value was presented by hand -painted miniatures of the highest artistic level. In order to ensure the safety of books and documents, it was necessary to start design as soon as possible.

But the task of the architect was complicated by the fact that in modern Armenia there was no tradition of building buildings intended for storing rare books with great historical value. In order to establish such continuity, the architect should thoroughly study the conditions of storage of manuscripts and incunabul, and then begin to master the design and construction technique, where books could be stored for decades, or even centuries.

Having consulted with Academician Joseph Orbeli, who was then the director of the Hermitage and the chairman of the Presidium of the Armenian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Mark Grigoryan went on a business trip to Leningrad, where he had a work in the library of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and consultations with specialists in the field of long -term preservation of archival documents and manuscripts.

In particular, he met with the best Soviet specialist in this field, Professor Nikolai Tikhonov. In the fall of the year, Leningrad was like a front -line city. The pre -war tension was felt literally in everything - the streets were flooded in uniform, and at home they were already hidden at night behind the lightning. And in such conditions, Grigoryan and Tikhonov discussed different ways to restore documents, restoration of papyrus inscriptions, micrographs of valuable books ...

The war with Finland began on November 30, but Grigoryan had already returned to Yerevan, where he tried to start the design of the Matenadaran building. But the work did not advance. On the one hand, the architect could not “catch” the right idea, and on the other hand, the Great Patriotic War began in June, and the chief architect Yerevan and Grigoryan occupied this post that had a lot of other tasks that required an immediate solution.

The first two years of the war passed, and in November several prominent scientists founded the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, which replaced the Armenian branch of the Union Academy. It was a very important step taken in the midst of the war, when the Nazi troops were still in the USSR. Let us recall: only at the beginning of the year did our troops broke through the blockage ring, surrounding Leningrad for almost three years, Professor Tikhonov, with whom Grigoryan discussed the preservation of the manuscripts, died in the surrounded city.

In February, the Nazis ended the full defeat of the Nazis. In the summer, the battle on the Kursk arc was held, and the battle for the Dnieper still continued. By November, it was already clear that Soviet troops finally broke the course of battles and the full liberation of the country could not around the mountains.I had to think about the future. And, despite the continued war, Joseph Orbeli persistently demanded from Mark Grigoryan to resume work on the design of Matenadaran.

Grigoryan has already mastered advanced methods with manuscripts in Leningrad. But how you can use the forms of ancient architecture, still had to explore. And then he went on a business trip again. This time - to the north of Armenia, to the monasteries Agarcin, Sanain and Ahpat. Returning, he went the other way - to the east, to Noravka and Tatev. In the year, these trips were taken away for several days, although now you can visit the north in one day, return to Yerevan, and the next day to go to the Tatevsky monastery.

Taking advantage of the official trip, the architect on the road visited about ten churches and monasteries. In the center of his attention was the architecture of the monastery bookstores-ancient Matenadaranes, as well as church perisors-the Gavits, who are the structures of semi-church-landfill. The idea of ​​the future Matenadaran gradually surrounded specific images. But for its final design, it was necessary to think about the facade of the building.

And then Grigoryan turned to the archive of his former neighbor - the famous researcher of the architecture of Toros Toramanyan. Indeed, the drawings made by Toramanyan helped Grigoryan find the image of the facade. Here is what he wrote about him in an explanatory note: “... first of all, the task was to find a solution to the facade that would give the Matenadaran building a new independent expression.

Therefore, it was very important to create such an architecture that would contain a deep reflection of the historical past of Armenian architecture along with progressive features. ” And it succeeded. The strict facade of the building with triangular niches reminiscent of medieval temples and the decorated portal became the hallmark of not only the building itself, but to a large extent of the whole of Yerevan, one of the symbols of the centuries -old culture of Armenia.

Thus, all the elements of the “mosaics” fell into place: from Leningrad the architect brought information about the storage of manuscripts, from trips through the monuments of Armenia - knowledge about different types of medieval buildings, and the Tomanyan archive gave the author of Matenadaran the idea of ​​decorating the facade. The rest was, as they say, a matter of technology.

And in November, Mark Grigoryan presented to the public a project of the future institute and the Museum of ancient manuscripts. And ... was criticized. It seemed that everything was not satisfied with everything: both the composition of the building and the author’s decision to build it using the motives of medieval architecture, and the location ... But the author insisted on his own.

History showed that he was right. Criticism continued. The Matenadaran building was not yet completed when, during one of the assembly of the Union of Architects, a certain architect in his speech, according to the genre similar to a denunciation, agreed that he accused Grigoryan of cosmopolitanism and at the same time of nationalism.

A few more years passed, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia declared a strict reprimand to the author "for the assumption of excesses in architecture and design." Grigoryan himself was sure that he was actually punished for nationalism - and secretly proud of it. The building of Matenadaran has become a real synthesis of art. His facade at two levels cost seven sculptures.

In Yerevan, several attempts to decorate the buildings with statues - allegories of culture and art of the republic have been made earlier. The two most striking examples can serve as the opera and the house of the press, but for various reasons this has not been done. At the same level, with the entrance to Matenadaran, you can see monuments to six medieval figures, symbolizing different spheres of science and art.

This is the historian of the Movses Horanacia sculptor E. Vardanyan, Jurisricier and Writer Mkhitar Gosh G. Chubaryan, poet Frick S. Nazaryan, mathematician and cosmologist Ananiah Shirakatsi G. Badalyan, theologian and philosopher Grigor Tatvasci A. Grigoryan, Miniaturian artist Roslin A. on the lower tier, when approaching the building, erected a symbolic group depicting the author of the Armenian alphabet Mesropa Mashtots and his student and biographer Kornyun sculptor G.

next to Mashtots is a stele, on which the letters of the Armenian alphabet are knocked out, and on the wall there is a quote from the Old Testament “Book of the Proverbs of the Solomonovs”: “To know the wisdom and instruction, to understand the sayings of the mind” of the parable, written by Armenian letters. It was assumed that another group of figures created by the sculptor Ara Sargsyan would stand in this place: Mesrop Mashtots and the “customer” of the Armenian alphabet Catholicos Saak Parthev hold a large book.

The statues were almost ready when the authorities banned their installation, unofficially arguing the ban by the fact that in Soviet Armenia the “monument” of the churchman - Catholicosa in Soviet Armenia. The logic of the communist leadership can not always be understood, since Mashtotz was an archbishop, and even saints-however, the sculpture depicting him was nevertheless set.Continuing the theme of the synthesis of arts, I will mention the Wardanank mosaic and decorating the triple of the tripy in the lobby, which symbolically represented three periods of heyday of Armenian culture: ancient, Hellenistic and medieval.

Both works were created by monumental artist Van Khachatur. A major reconstruction of the building took place in the year. Former reading rooms, offices of the director, deputy and scientist secretary were converted into exhibition halls. Parquet floors were replaced by stone, thereby thoroughly reporting the acoustics of the premises, and carved wooden doors, specially created for Matenadaran with an excellent reducer, Oganes Nagashyan, was replaced by ordinary ones.

But the massive “gates” of the portal leading in the lobby remained. And on their handle, the inscription from the intertwined Armenian letters “M” and “G”-the monogram of the author of the building-Mark Grigoryan is still read. Grandfather loved to go to Matenadaran. When he, limping, appeared on the threshold, the director Levon Khachikyan necessarily came out to meet him.

Having solemnly greeted a friend-architect, he showed him new items, and then they drank tea in the director's office. And the last photos of Grigoryan were taken there, in Matenadaran, a building, which is the pinnacle of his work, a masterpiece that has no equal in Armenian architecture. I think that this head of the biography of Yerevan can be completed by a quote from the book “Lessons of Armenia” by the Russian writer Andrei Bitov: “Matenadaran is impeccably responsible for its purpose practically and technically, it is also erected as a monument of centuries -old and great culture.”