Photograph #31
Name/Title
Photograph #31Description
Photograph of Hagop Ayvaz during his military service (backrow middle) in Afyonkarahisar. The photograph was sent to his mother. Hagop Ayvaz (Հակոբ Այվազ, 1926–2006) was an influential Armenian theater historian, critic, and archivist based in Istanbul. He is best known as the longtime editor and publisher of Kulis, an Armenian-language theater periodical that he sustained almost single-handedly for decades, making it one of the most important continuous records of Armenian theatrical life in Turkey. Ayvaz meticulously documented performances, artists, venues, and cultural life from the late Ottoman period through the Republican era, preserving material that would otherwise have been lost. Beyond journalism, he assembled a vast personal archive of photographs, programs, posters, and ephemera, now considered indispensable for the study of Armenian and Turkish theater history. His work established him as a central figure in safeguarding the cultural memory of Istanbul’s Armenian stage.Category
Photographs