Vartan Gregorian (Iran, 1934- )


Figure 1.-- family portrait shows Vartan at age of 3 in 1937. He wears a dark short pants suit with button-on short trousers. Notice the large white buttons. He wears unusually short long black stockings with hose supporters that show underneath his shorts because the stockings are hardly long enough.

Vartan Gregorian is the famous American intellectual, academic, and university president. He was born in 1934, Tabriz, Iran. He belonged to the small Armenian Christian community in Tabriz where he grew up. He came from a rather poor family and has written interestingly in his recent book, The Road to Home (2003), about the family's need to blend into the Islamic culture of Iran during the 1930s.

Parents

Vartan belonged to the small Armenian Christian community in Tabriz, Iran.

Childhood

Vartan was born during 1934 in Tabriz where he grew up. He came from a rather poor family and has written interestingly in his recent book, The Road to Home (2003), about the family's need to blend into the Islamic culture of Iran during the 1930s. Iran was at this time a monarchy under the Pahlavi dynasty. Gregorian showed a very early love of learning which his conservative and not very well-off father was somewhat unwilling to support financially.

Childhood Clothing

A family portrait shows Vartan at age of 3 in 1937. He wears a dark short pants suit with button-on short trousers. Notice the large white buttons. He wears unusually short long black stockings with hose supporters that show underneath his shorts because the stockings are hardly long enough. I suspect that this is not so much a matter of current style as of poverty and the need to make do on a very tight family budget. The stockings were probably intended originally for a younger and shorter boy. Note that the family dressed their son in western-style clothes rather than in native Iranian boys' clothing.

Education

Vartan attended the local Armenian orthodox church in Tabriz where he became an altar boy. As a youth, he finally left Iran and studied in Beirut, Lebanon. time.

Adult Life

Vartan Gregorian is the famous American intellectual, academic, and university president. He emigrating to the United States where he rose quickly in academic circles, beginning at Stanford University, where he was awarded his Ph.D. Later he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas, and at the University of Pennsylvania (where he became provost), finally assuming the presidency of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He also served as director the New York Public Library for a time.

Sources

Gregorian, Vartan. The Road to Home (2003).






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Created: February 10, 2004
Last updated: February 10, 2004