Armenian History in Print

Asbarez celebrates one hundred years of dedication to the Armenian Cause and community-building

by Paul Chaderjian

GLENDALE, Calif. - While much has happened in the world since the first issue of Asbarez was printed 100 years ago, the newspaper’s mission to keep readers informed has never veered off course.

 Since August 1908, when each individual letter of the alphabet was hand-picked and positioned on a printing plate, and well into the 21st century, when the Internet makes instant electronic newsgathering possible, Asbarez has continuously chronicled the global Armenian experience with ever-increasing velocity.

Asbarez Editor Apo Boghigian credits this century of existence to the volunteers who have rallied around the paper since its first days.

“Asbarez wouldn’t have survived without the resources of its vast community of correspondents,” Boghigian says. “It also wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for the generosity of the individual volunteers and those who provided financial and moral support.”

Fresno, 1908

Asbarez, the official organ of the ARF in the Western US, began in room 14 of the Short Building, located on J Street in Downtown Fresno. The street has since been renamed Fulton and makes up the pedestrian walkway called “Fulton Mall.” While the newspaper’s first home was torn down to make room for a hotel, the newspaper has outlived its geographic history.

The very same month that the first issue of Asbarez rolled off the presses in Fresno, the community also welcomed a baby boy named William Saroyan.

While Saroyan would go on to trip the light fantastic, introducing Americans and a global readership to his ancestral culture, Asbarez would also became the voice of a people struggling to create new communities in the Diaspora, a people preserving their culture through all means possible and a people teaching younger generations the importance of a free, independent, and united homeland.

Saroyan and Asbarez were born in Armenia Town, a small neighborhood around the red brick Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church. As Holy Trinity and the community’s two Armenian Protestant churches increased in membership, a nearby farming community saw the founding of the Fowler Congregational Church and there was talk about the need for an Armenian paper.

“The nearby communities that made and make up the Armenian community of the area were not fully formed at that time,” says historian and writer Berge Bulbulian, whose book The Fresno Armenians chronicles the formation of the Armenian community in the San Joaquin Valley.

“Most Armenians who lived outside the city of Fresno lived on farms,” Bulbulian says. “Most of the Armenians in Fresno at that time were from urban areas of the old country, so they were better educated than those who came later, after the Genocide. Thus that could be an explanation of why Asbarez was established at that time.”

Bulbulian writes that Armenians were already firmly entrenched in farming by 1908 and already farming nearly 16,000 acres. “The Armenian population in the area was about 2,500,” says Bulbulian, “and Armenians operated a number of businesses including a furniture store, a taxidermist shop, barber shops, jewelers, and a few fruit packing houses.”

Bulbulian says many believe the first Armenians to settle in the Central Valley were a group known as “the 40 Armenians” from Marsovan, who arrived in Fresno on September 4, 1883. According to a 1905 article in the Fresno Morning Republican, “a strangely dressed group of foreigners arrived at the Southern Pacific Station in Fresno on a bleak and rainy night. They with their belongings remained at the station until morning when they attracted a large and curious crowd.”

The Armenian-Americans

At the time the first-ever issue of Asbarez came out, the Armenian-American community, particularly in the west, was still in its infancy.

“In 1908, a number of Armenians [in Fresno] worked in packing houses that were just developing at that time and others worked in the fields as farm laborers,” Bulbulian says. “Others worked for Armenian businesses in town since by then there was discrimination against Armenians, and non-Armenian business owners were reluctant to hire Armenians. This applied to farms as well.”

As Armenian immigrants in Fresno struggled to build a new life in their adopted country, they were anxious to receive news of Western Armenia, their homeland, which was jolted by waves of Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish violence that would culminate in the Genocide. The fledgling Armenian community of Fresno also needed a trusted source of news and information for guidance and a measure of comfort in the process of adapting to new realities while trying to preserve the Armenian heritage and identity. Asbarez was born in response to these imperatives.

 “Asbarez did not serve only the Fresno area,” says Bulbulian, “but was read by Armenians elsewhere as well, although there were not a lot of Armenians in California outside of the Fresno area. My recollection from my father’s reading it was that it covered local Armenian issues as well as Armenian issues elsewhere.”

Bulbulian adds that the advent of Asbarez gave community life in Fresno a tremendous boost, even though many of the immigrants “were either illiterate or could barely read.”

“Let us not forget that it was the Fresno Armenian community that nurtured and supported the most important Armenian newspaper east of Boston,” says Dr. Dikran Kouymjian, former director of the Armenian Studies Program at California State University, Fresno. “Fresno was the cultural center of Armenians in the west until the 1960s and the pages of Asbarez chronicled the Armenian community’s difficult progress toward respectability and prosperity.”

Chronicling Armenian history

The pages of Asbarez – first in black and white print, then in both Armenian and English letters, and now also in bits and bytes over the Internet – have contained stories of world wars, great catastrophes, and jubilant celebrations.

From the Armenian Genocide, the first Republic’s short-lived independence, Soviet rule, the regained independence of the new republic, and major geopolitical shifts in the Diasporan experience, the newspaper has delivered the news of the day weekly, biweekly, and now daily.

In an article celebrating the newspaper’s tenth anniversary, one of the seven founding fathers of Asbarez, Abraham Seklemian, wrote that near the end of 1907, he and Hovaness Kabadayan, Aslan Aslanian, Avedis Tufenkjian, Arpaxat Setrakian, Bedros Hagopian, and Levon Hagopian met to discuss the need for a weekly Armenian newspaper in Fresno. Could they have imagined what their paper would write about over the decades to follow?

“What I do remember,” wrote Seklemian, “is that those who were there were in unanimous agreement that such a newspaper was absolutely necessary to serve the needs of the growing immigrant community of California. A second meeting followed [in early 1908] at my home on Fig Avenue, where, in reality, Asbarez was born.”

While the mission and bylaws of the yet-to-be-published newspaper were under discussion and deliberation, each of the founding fathers suggested a name for the publication. Among the suggestions were Arevmoudk, Arev, Asbarez, Aztag, Argos, and Shepor.

After much debate and difficulty, the founding fathers held a lottery with all the suggested names written on small pieces of paper. Mrs. Prapion Hagopian was asked to draw the winning name. The hand of chance picked Asbarez (Arena).

Soon the paper became a true arena – not only in a symbolic sense but also as a center of Armenian activity in Fresno’s Armenia Town. The paper would eventually move to Southern California, when the Armenian population there grew in number and outweighed the population in Central California.

“During my childhood,” remembers Bulbulian, “my father was a good friend of Hovaness Amaduni, the editor of Asbarez at that time [1931-1940], so each Saturday, when my parents picked me up at Armenian school across the street in the basement of the Holy Trinity Church, he and I went to the office to visit with him.”

“Amaduni was one of three or four employees,” says Bulbulian. “Mrs. Hampar was the secretary and there was a typesetter, and there may have been another who did the printing... but none of them were paid well. Amaduni was also the California field worker for the ARF, so his salary covered both jobs. That doesn’t mean he was paid twice as much. He just did twice as much work for the same money.”

Financial hardships were part of the landscape at Asbarez for decades after its creation. Several newspapers including Levon Lulejian’s Mushag were created and disappeared without a trace. A third paper, Kaghakatzy, was reinvented as Nor Or, when it became the official organ of the Armenian Democratic Liberal (Ramgavar) party (see the Reporter’s October 27, 2007 issue for coverage of Nor Or’s 85th anniversary).

“My recollection is that none of the newspapers made much money, if any,” Bulbulian says. “There was very little advertising, and, as you know, subscriptions don’t go far in publishing the paper. The ARF subsidized it. With only about 2,500 people here, which comes out to about 600 or so families, and not all of them subscribing, the paper did not have a lot of subscribers, although people outside the area subscribed as well.”

Since the inception of Asbarez, circulation has grown from 1,200 copies to thousands. Its readership and following have been vast and wide, with copies distributed throughout California and as far away as Russia, Japan, China, Africa, and Egypt. But the paper has focused primarily on the needs of Armenians that first migrated to Fresno, and then the growing Armenian population in Southern California.

“Amaduni was an important influence in my life since he was the best-educated person we knew,” says Bulbulian, and it was the talents and dedication of men like Amaduni, the writers, thinkers, intellectuals, and political leaders over the decades that allowed Asbarez to thrive. Today, the paper enjoys continued success by drawing upon the talents of those who realize the newspaper’s important role in creating and maintaining an Armenian community.

“One word that comes to my mind is total sacrifice by so many, beginning with the editors, the employees, and those who supplied information to the newspaper,” says Edward Megerdichian, an employee of the newspaper from 1956 to 1963. “It was 90 percent voluntary, and everyone had a sense of ownership, a sense of community, that this is our paper and our lives are described in this paper. The paper was and is the link that keeps all the Armenians in Fresno, in California, and the world tied together.”

Megerdichian, the printer

When Edward Megerdichian arrived in Fresno in 1956, he had left Syria and the American College in Aleppo to study at Fresno State. On his third day in Central California, a family friend introduced him to Asbarez editor Andre Amourian [pen name for Andre Der Ohanian], the first of several editors Megerdichian would eventually work with. Amourian asked Megerdichian if he spoke Armenian and whether he was looking for a job.

“It so happened that Ardashes Ghoogasian, who was their printer for a long time,” says Megerdichian, “had asked for a $5 raise. They had told him, ‘No, we don’t have the five dollars to give you.’ So, he was looking for another job. He taught me whatever there was to be taught, the printing skill that I had no concept of. By the end of the fifth week, I was printing the newspaper.”

Megerdichian soon became an important part of the four-person staff of the operation, which was housed in the Asbarez building at the northwest corner of Ventura and M streets. The building was torn down in the 1980s and replaced by the front parking lot of the new Radisson Hotel and Conference Center.

“As you entered the building off of Ventura across the church,” remembers Megerdichian, “to your right was the secretarial office, where we had Nvart Kouyoumjian. She was the secretary. Immediately across her section was the editor’s room. Then there was a section that had glass and wooden frame that separated the shop from the editor’s section and the secretarial part. That’s where the big section was that had all the [equipment] and the Linotype machines.”

Inside the dark and poorly ventilated print room, Megerdichian and his fellow staffers worked with and inhaled hazardous chemicals. “I don’t know what kind of chemical it was… we used to purify the recycled lead,” says Megerdichian. “The Linotypist had to put it in the melting pot, and there was no exhaust pipe to take out smoke and odor out of the building. For a while, we were inhaling all that stuff. But in time, when we had a female Linotypist, Mary Bedoyan, we installed some exhaust piping that would take the exhaust out.”

The unforgiving Fresno summers also took their toll on the staff of the paper. “When it was 100 plus, it was extremely hot inside,” remembers Megerdichian. “We had a huge door that opened into the Asbarez Club. A huge door that slid on two horizontal bars would open manually. It was about four inches thick and reminded me of the old castles of Europe. When the editor had guests like Soghomon Tehlirian or William Saroyan or donors, he’d order coffee for the guests from the club next door.”

Center of the community

The Asbarez Club was separated from the print shop by a 12-inch wall, and Megerdichian would often open the gate in between the buildings and see those playing tavloo (backgammon) or cards, the wager being a cigar or a cup of coffee. “Whenever I opened the door to get a Pepsi or soft drink, the smell of the cigars would just rush through the door into the printing space, and, of course, I would retaliate by singing very loud. Nobody would object to my singing, because I was all alone at night.”

In those days, the newspaper had two editions a week, and Amourian’s sharp memory of historic facts, ability to write fluidly and fast, and his organizational skills were credited for the efficiency of the five-person staff. “He wrote in longhand and so flawlessly,” says Megerdichian. “He didn’t have to think to recall a fact, to retrieve it from the past. He would write it in longhand and the typist would type it.”

“By then all the contributors to the paper were familiar with the deadlines,” says Megerdichian, “and it was amazing how the operation was done. Volunteers would bring their articles, like reports about cultural events, and Amourian almost always had to rewrite every one of them and sign the reporter’s name and give it to the typist for setting. He always had articles from the Hairenik in Boston, Haratch in France, and Aztag in Lebanon.”

Megerdichian remembers serializing various books, which were printed at the bottom of the paper’s pages. “If there was a book that people didn’t have,” he says, “we would start running a series of four pages-five pages at a time, way at the bottom, and people had to clip them out and save the pages until they had the entire book.”

Taking care of the finances in the early days was a finance committee, made up of Fresno-area businessmen. Often these men would come to the rescue when the paper ran out of funds. “I remember many, many weeks when Nvart was crying in her office,” says Megerdichian. “I asked her why she was crying, and she said, ‘I don’t have any money to pay you today. There’s no money in the bank.’ And they would call Garo Kavafian. He was the person in charge of the financials, and he had a liquor store. He would bring money from his own account and put in the Asbarez account, so that we would get paid.”

The arena and its atmosphere

As the presses at Asbarez captured the births and deaths, the marriages, school talent shows, and religious ceremonies in Fresno, news columns recorded current events and editorials focused on ARF messages about the importance of preserving the culture, bringing to justice those who had perpetrated crimes against the Armenian people, and remembering to reclaim the sacred homeland.

Within the pages of the newspaper were scars to heal, world wars to record, and lessons to learn. Teaching and informing the ever-growing base of subscribers were the men whom the ARF had appointed as the paper’s editors-in-chief.

The printer, who had witnessed the replacement of antiquated printing equipment at Asbarez with ones that were more technologically advanced, also witnessed changes in the character of the newspaper with each of its successive editors.

Megerdichian says when Andre Amourian left his position as editor and poet and ARF party leader Melik Shah [pen name of Armenag Melikian] was named editor, Megerdichian realized that much of the newspaper’s accessibility and voice reflected not only the voice of the party but also the character and voice of the editor in charge.

“Shah’s language was different,” says Megerdichian. “It was written for the average man to read and understand, like an editorial should be. But Andre Amourian’s language was more at an intellectual level. It was less accessible but added more character to the paper. So most of the time, the paper took the feel and quality of its current editor.”

Megerdichian remembers Shah listening to American radio broadcasts and translating the latest local, regional, and national news into Armenian. Stories about Armenia were distributed to all ARF publications globally and breaking news was shared by telephone.

The atmosphere at the Asbarez Publishing House also changed with each of the editors, says Megerdichian. “Melik Shah was one of the humblest persons I have known, with a fantastic sense of humor. He was more of a worker’s man and showed it. Once he finished writing his editorial, to him it was a celebration. Unlike Amourian, who would sit down and write as many articles as he would want to in 15-20 minutes, Melik Shah would take a long time to write one. But when Shah was done, he would buy a beer from the club and share a drink to celebrate.”

The third editor that Megerdichian worked with was Mesarouni, a serious man who lacked a smile. “We rarely saw him come into the print shop,” Megerdichian says. “He was always in his office, writing. He was an intellectual himself, a very bright person, and he had a lot of doubts about his being here, because he thought we didn’t like him. But he was wrong.”

“On his first day at Asbarez,” remembers Megerdichian, “I was about to print the paper, but I had forgotten to clamp the plate with the typeset lines of lead, and the whole forum came down with an enormous sound, like an earthquake had taken place. All the fonts, all the lines, the whole thing fell to pieces. He came out and looked at it, and he said, ‘I know what’s going on.’ He said this is sabotage. I said, ‘What are you talking about? I just forgot to clamp it.’ He said, ‘Because you guys don’t like me, you’re purposely delaying the publishing of the paper, so that my reputation looks bad.’”

Megerdichian spent that night reassembling the printing plates and delivered the paper on time. He would eventually earn his mathematics and social science degree and engage in a brilliant and rewarding teaching career at Kings Canyon Middle School and nearly 30 years at Bullard High School. The former printer of the paper that reached thousands of homes and hearts now spends his retirement teaching courses at Fresno City College and California State University. He is also the chairman of the committee in charge of redeveloping the area historically known as Armenia Town.

“One of the founding members of Asbarez was a Tufenkjian,” says Megerdichian. “The word ‘tufenk’ means gun in Turkish. His son, Richard Gunner, is now a developer and is in charge of the development of Armenia Town. There’s a beauty in this, a connection. What his father had started, Asbarez, was destroyed and torn down, and now it’s back again, to be revived, and Gunner is the developer who is helping the party in terms of a concept and a plan.”

“We’re working with the city,” says Megerdichian with pride, “and we’re going to have a prime location for the new Asbarez Club, right across the church on M Street. We’re going to have a building that will be representative of what Armenia Town used to be. There is going to be a club for people to play tavloo and cards. There will be a place for all the organizations to meet, and, of course, a place for us.”

The move to Southern California

In the 1970s, when the Armenian population was multiplying tenfold, the need for a local paper was greater in Southern California than in the central section of the state. Instead of creating a second newspaper in Los Angeles, those attending the ARF General Meeting voted to move the Asbarez operation to Southern California.

“Remember, we are a political organization,” says Megerdichian. “The balance of power had shifted to Los Angeles, because of the number of members in the organization. Our members had died in Fresno, and we didn’t have replenishment in our gomide. Therefore, when we had a general meeting, and the members in Los Angeles outnumbered the members in Fresno, [we knew it was time to move].”

“It was one of the saddest moments for the people of Fresno to hear that Asbarez was going to go to Los Angeles,” says Megerdichian. “At that time, the newspaper was financially [in such a bad state] that, in retrospect, it was a blessing [for the paper to be moved to Los Angeles]. The time was just right for it to move. Armenian life was just flourishing and booming in Los Angeles, whereas in Fresno it had stabilized and it had already taken form. So there was an important role for Asbarez to play in Los Angeles, where the community was just developing.”

The Asbarez Publishing Company moved to the Venice neighborhood in West Los Angeles before finding a new home in Glendale. Megerdichian says he was disheartened when he saw the Venice location for the first time. “It was a very sad sight to see,” he says, “the place on Venice Boulevard. That’s where it went. Then the way they printed the paper had changed. It was offset printing, and the old printing machines were just sitting there. But they did a marvelous job in Los Angeles. When I go to meetings [in Glendale] and see how the place is run, it’s amazing. From a budget of $19,000, now they have a budget of millions.”

“A day doesn’t pass without me looking at the word Asbarez,” say Megerdichian, “and flashing back to pictures of what it used to be and what it is now. I have this admiration for the sacrifice of the young people in our organization and admiration for the older generation, who were willing to give us responsibilities. They were very happy to see the young get involved. They gave us roles to play. They believed in us.”

Megerdichian says older generations of the party have always encouraged the younger generations in any way they could. “They hosted us in their homes, and the love they had for the culture was amazing. And Asbarez was the center, the center for them to meet and socialize, take pride in. It lived up to its name.”

“I think the newspaper’s 100th anniversary is a tremendous occasion to be part of,” says English-section editor Ara Khachatourian. “Asbarez has not only informed the community for several generations, but the community has been shaped through the newspaper. I feel privileged to be a part of it.

Next 100 years

When Asbarez published its first issue, it did so with a commitment to become a trusted source in providing important news and information to the community, a commitment it has maintained and reaffirmed throughout the years. 

And, through thick and thin, Asbarez – first as a weekly, then as an Armenian-language daily – has been there, not only providing news and information, but mobilizing communities, forming opinions, and becoming the arena many turn to for commentary, criticism, and food for thought.

On May 1, 1970, when Asbarez began publishing its English section as a-one page insert, the community awakened to the realities of changing times.

The first English-language editorial stated that the time had come for the California community “to assert itself as an organized and lively unit.” The need to report news about the Armenian community in the English language reflects Asbarez’s awareness of the community’s diversity and hence the importance of reaching its untapped segments.

On February 1, 1997, Asbarez launched its site on the World Wide Web. By the turn of the century, asbarez.com had already been accessed one million times and a new Asbarez, a new arena for exchanging information and telling the Armenian story, was created in cyberspace.

“We’ve had the online component since 1997,” says Khachatourian, “but recently we shifted our daily English-language coverage to the Internet. We have expanded coverage that’s exclusively online and have expanded our weekly weekend edition in English.”

Khachatourian says Asbarez management has noticed a growing trend that young readers prefer the Internet, and the newspaper is ready to provide news and information for generations to come and to move forward with the latest technology.

“For me, it’s been like nurturing an infant,” says the English-section editor. “It’s been interesting to be involved with the newspaper and its print and Internet versions during such a critical time in Armenian history. Working as a reporter and editor for more than 15 years has made Asbarez a part of my life.”

Twenty-first-century media

“I’m optimistic about the future of Armenian print media,” says Boghigian. “Despite all the prognosis that print media is dying, I am confident that Armenian print media is vibrant and will remain vibrant.”

Boghigian says there is a great need in the Armenian-American community for Armenian media that provides a comprehensive and thorough look at the daily and weekly news that pertains to Armenia and Armenians.

“Our daily news coverage provides more content than the collective of all the sites available on the Internet,” Boghigian continues. “Most people don’t have the time to go to various news sources and scour for information from this site and that site, so we provide them with a one-stop shop of news and information.”

Boghigian also says the Armenian-language edition of the newspaper provides a niche that is not met by any other publication.

“There continues to exist a large number of people, including the new immigrants, who read only Armenian,” says Boghigian. He believes the need for a printed Armenian-language daily will continue for at least another few decades before more readers turn to the Internet as their primacy source of news and information.

“Whether produced in print or online,” says Khachatourian, “Asbarez is something that’s here to stay.”