Mardiros Minakyan

Mardiros Minakyan ( Armenian Մարտիրոս Մնակեան ; * 1837 in Constantinople , † February 22, 1920 ibid) was an Armenian actor , theater director and founder of modern Turkish theater.

The cadre of the Ottoman theater led by Mardiros Minakyan

Life

Mardiros Minakyan was born in Constantinople in 1837 to Armenian parents. He graduated from the Nersesyan School in Hasköy , Constantinople and worked as an assistant teacher at the same school. In 1857 he entered the stage for the first time as an amateur. His professional career began with a female role in Aristothème 1862 at the Naum Theater in Beyoğlu. At the beginning he only played in Armenian pieces. Together with friends he performed at the Vaspurakan Theater in Smyrna . From 1864 Mardiros Minakyan played in French operettas.

With his marriage he gave up acting and moved to Kaisareia for two years to teach there. After returning to Constantinople, he played again in the Mağakyan Theater and in the Gedik Paşa Theater by Agop Güllü . During the Russo-Turkish War 1877–1878 he staged operas and operettas in Edirne. From 1878 to 1885 he toured to Tbilisi, Smyrna, Adana, Thessaloniki and Egypt, among others. In between he appeared again and again in the Gedik-Paşa-Theater in Beyoğlu (Constantinople).

After Agob Güllüs had to close the Gedik Paşa Theater and Agop Güllü lived in the Sultan's Yıldız Palace, Mardiros Minakyan played operettas in the Croissant Theater in Beyoğlu. When he returned from Egypt, he and his friends founded the Ottoman Theater Company (Osmanlı Dram Kumpanyası). The Ottoman Theater Company was the most important theater company of its time in the Ottoman Empire and performed over 250 plays, operettas and operas. The company existed until 1908 with brief interruptions.

In 1909 she went on in the theater company Tasfiye-i Ahlak Kumpanyası . When it merged with the Benliyan Kumpanya in 1912, the troop grew to 80 people. In the same year, the 50th anniversary of professional theater in the Ottoman Empire was celebrated. Mardiros Minakyan was honored by the Sultan on this occasion. Between 1914 and 1916 Mardiros Minakyan taught as a professor at the Dârülbedayi (Istanbul Conservatory). In 1916 Mardiros Minakyan finally took leave of the stage. He died in Constantinople in 1920.

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• Selcuk Aksin Somel Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire Scarecrow Press, Lanham (MA) 2003
• Kevork Pamukciyan Biyografileriyle Ermeniler Aras Verlag, Istanbul 2003
• Dough ( Teotoros Lapçinciyan ): Ամէնուն Տարեցոյցը. 23 րդ Տարի. 1929. [Everyone's yearbook. 23rd year. 1929] , éditions Massis, Paris 1929, p. 344 ff.