Asbarez: DEATH GUARD. IN MEMORY OF KARO PETROSIAN

 

Lived with the Armenian School

 

 V. AUGEAN:

 

This time, for the last time, our telephone call went unanswered.

This time, surprisingly, being the first time, he did not honor the date. Punctual and dutiful Mr. Karon did not hesitate to talk about the recent events of Armenian life in general and the situation of the Armenian school in particular.

Years of closeness suddenly ended when Karo Petrosian said goodbye to his life forty days ago, leaving behind him the name of a reasonable person, educational worker and intellectual.

Karo Petrosian’s name is closely related to the educational life of Diaspora Armenians. A man who spent 58 years of his life in the field of human creation and Armenian creation, from Gamishli to Beirut, from Purch Hamout to Los Angeles.

A person who brought his important money to the work of spiritual formation of young generations with Armenian studies-educational publications.

And also, a person who gave a lot to our life with his life as a party member and his merits as a member of the House of Commons, receiving only mental satisfaction and impersonal joy from it.

Karo Petrosian became a humble man of honest work. He lived and acted with simplicity, far from demonstrative phenomena. Service became the goal of his life. On the path of service, he brought to life all the values ​​he professed as a teacher or director. Pleasure and ambition were alien to him. He preferred to live and work with the humble classes of the people, with national-tribal values ​​and principles.

This Armenian, who was born in Aleppo in 1930, after receiving his preliminary education at the Mkhitarian Fathers’ School, in 1945 he led the steps to the Catholicos School of the Great House of Cilicia. to the local National College. With his day, the school will live a great prosperity. The number of students increases from 500 to 1200.

In the spring of 1961, the well-known events of Syria arrive and Karo Petrosian, like others, tastes all the bitterness of the campaign unleashed against the Armenian Federation. He is arrested, imprisoned and suffers the indescribable deprivations of a miserable life for nine months. Finally, in April 1962, he arrived in Beirut, where he worked as an Armenian teacher for two years at the Armenian Evangelical College of Beirut. At the same time, he follows the pedagogy courses of Haykazian University.

The first half of the 1960s is the beginning of the golden age of Lebanese Armenians. Purch Hamut is full of Armenians, without having a national secondary school. The inhabitants, mostly representatives of the modest class, were destined to be satisfied with only a basic education. The lucky ones could continue their studies in Hamazkayin Seminary, Beirut, which was quite far and not accessible to everyone. In 1964, a National Secondary School took shape and body in the heart of Purch Hamut, in New Marash, with the donation of the philanthropist Sofia Jacobian and the Armenian Educational Institution. The school is called Azg. Levon and Sofia Jacobian College, and the inaugural director is appointed Karo Petrosian.

The process of creation and development of the new school was not easy. With the support of the National Authority of the Diocese of Lebanon and the guardianship headed by Mayor Yakob Ashjian, Karo Petrosian is working with all his might to raise the college. He manages to bring together the best teaching elements of the time and provide an enviable level of education to students. It has also succeeded in creating such an atmosphere of interest in culture and art in the college, thanks to which a significant number of students, after graduating from the college, are driven to national life, to literature and culture, newspapers and theater. It is enough to remember only a few names of the graduates of those years. Nazareth Perperian, Haroution Perperian, Naz Der Sargisian, Ani Urfalian, Harut Sassounian, Elo Sarajian, Jean Gosagean, Maro Keshishian, Vahe Perperian, Zohrap Yeagupian, and others.

In addition to being a distinguished educationalist, Karo Petrosian is a faithful member of Dashnaktsutyun and Homeland. From Kanukh, he enters the ranks of the Armenian Alliance. In Gamishli, during the directorship, he is a member of the committee. 1967-1971, two terms, he was a member of the ARF Lebanon Central Committee.

From 1967 to 1973, Karo Petrosian participated in the successive Regional Deputies General Assemblies of the Hometown Middle East, as well as the inaugural General Assembly of the Hometown in 1974, Beirut.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, in 1978 he left Lebanon and first settled in Toronto, then moved to the United States, where for thirty years, until 2008, he taught Armenian language, literature, and Armenian history at Azg. Ferahian College. At the same time, he devotes himself to the preparation of educational publications and successively published the books “Golden Age and Matenagirner”, “Armenian Church Holidays and National Traditions” (the same English and Eastern Armenian versions will be published later), “The Great Vault System and the Holy Sabbath”, “Armenian Education and the Way”. On the pages of the press, he publishes more than 60 studies on national-party issues. It is a part of various bodies for editing Armenian history and Armenian Dat textbooks.

Karo Petrosian will receive many awards for his grateful educational activity. In 1972, he received the letter of honor “One People, One Homeland” from the Armenian Diaspora Liaison Committee. In 1978, he was awarded the “St. Mesrop Mashtots” medal. In 2010, he will be awarded the letter of honor of the Ministry of Diaspora “for his great merit and contribution to the preservation and development of the Armenian language in the Diaspora”. He also received awards from the Association of Armenian University Students of California, the administration of Mashtots College, and various educational and cultural bodies of the Diocese of the Western United States.

28 years after settling in the United States, Karo Petrosian visited Lebanon in 2006 with feelings of nostalgia and was present at the National At the graduation ceremony of Levon and Sofia Jacobian College, he participated in the distribution of certificates and delivered a heartfelt message on this occasion. Five years later, in 2011, he visited Lebanon again, this time to participate in the Hamaspirkian Educational College. at the congress, where he appeared with the topic “Clarification and development of the program for the crystallization of spoken and written Western Armenian”.

It was nice to be close to Karo Petrosian. An honorable person with a quiet and gentle profile, who, while living in the United States, always remained with his heart and soul in his beloved school, Azg. Levon and Sofia Jacobian back to college. “Sofia Jacobian is a pepex,” she repeated during her telephonic communications. He expected us to call him once a week and talk about the news of the Lebanese Armenians and Sofia Jacobian College. For years, almost continuously, the connection continued. After a while, he was successful in the college. An Armenian studies award was established in his name. He provided benefactors to the college. He re-established the ties with the Armenian Educational Institution that had been broken for many years and provided assistance to needy students. Moreover, despite his advanced age, he personally headed the initiative organized in the United States for the college’s ninetieth anniversary celebrations and was happy like a child for every material support given to the college.

On the last day of his conscious life, Karo Petrosian was worried about the Armenian school and its fate. The phone calls did not stop, as did the questions, where is the Lebanese-Armenian education system going like this, why will the schools record a drop in the number of students, why is the Armenian teacher’s anxiety increasing day by day, why, why…

Karo Petrosian lived with the Armenian school, for the Armenian school.

The memory remains unfading with his hundreds of colleagues and students.

One day, the history of the Diaspora Armenian school will be written, it must be written. And in that history, for sure, Karo Petrosian will have his rightful place, as an educational developer, educator and director who left a mark and mark, for whom Armenia and Armenia were supreme values, the church and the party were supreme sanctities, and service and dedication were the best qualities.