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Yeranuhi Karakaşyan

Yeranuhi Karakaşyan

First professional Armenian actress to also act in male roles

Date of Birth: 1848

Place of Birth: İstanbul - Üsküdar

Date of Death: 16/04/1924 1924

Place of Death: Armenia - Tbilisi

Burial Site: No information available

Topics

Gallery

Yeranuhi Karakaşyan Yeranuhi Karakaşyan

Fields of Activity

Theater

Yeranuhi Karakaşyan first took the stage at the age of 16 in the play "King Drtad" (Büyük Drtad) at the Oriental Theater in Istanbul during the 1864-65 season, under the direction of Hekimyan. Later, she began to perform at the Aziziye Theater in Üsküdar. When she was 17 years of age, theater critics such as Hagop Baronyan wrote rave reviews of her work in the press. At the beginning of her career, she took on the roles of young men, such as Paul in Paul and Virginia, Ata in The Poor Child, and Osep in Beautiful Osep.

Gullu Agop founded the Gedikpaşa Theater in 1869; and, the same year, 21-year-old Yeranuhi, at the peak of her fame, began to act there. She played starring roles there for the next ten years. She often played a number of roles at once in the same play.

After moving to the Bengliyan Operetta Company, Yeranuhi Karakasyan went on tour, first in Edirne and then, in 1885 and 1888, in Egypt with the plays Horhor the Chickpea Seller, The Beardless Butler, and Girofle-Girofla. She joined the same group on tour in the Caucasus and played the Queen in Hamlet and Nerissa in the Merchant of Venice. In a second Egyptian tour in Cairo in1890, she played the lead role in Alexandre Dumas (pere)'s Catherine Howard.

Awards

(No information available)

Memberships

(No information available)  

Education

(No information available)  

Contributions to Society

(No information available)  

Family and Friends

  • Sister: Verkine Karakasyan (actress, soprano)
  • Husband: Alexander Argutian
  • Friends: Namık Kemal (Yazar, Gedikpaşa Theater edebiyat kurulu üyesi)
  • Stage Rival: Arusyak Papazyan (in the face of Yerahuhi Karakasyan's fame, Arusyak left the stage in 1868)
  •  

Commemorative Projects

 (No information available)

Further Reading

Metin And, Osmanlı Tiyatrosu, İstanbul, 1999.

Bogos Çalgıcıoğlu, 1820-1846 Osmanlı-Türk Temaşa Sanatında Ermeniler, Getronagan Lisesi'nden Yetişenler Derneği Yayını, İstanbul (Tarihsiz).

Bogos Çalgıcıoğlu, "19.y.y Osmanlı Temaşa Sanatının Başlangıcından 1946'ya Ermeniler", hyetert.com, (Erişim 9.12.2011).

(Sarkis Tütünciyan) Şarasan, Türkiye Ermeni Sahnesi ve Çalışanları, (çev. Bogos Çalgıcıoğlu), İstanbul 2008 (First edition: 1914, original Title: Tırkahay Pemn yev ir Kordziçneri 1850-1908).

Sources

Quoted Sources
Source for Visual Images

Translation into Englisch: Emre Aslay Chicago, İllinois, USA
Editing: Margaret Fearey, Milton, Massachusetts, USA

©2012 Meral Akkent
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