PROF. RICHARD GABLE HOVANNISIAN 

Richard Hovannisian is widely considered a pioneer of Armenian Studies in American Academia. Hovannisian was born and raised in Tulare, near Fresno, California, in a family of Armenian Genocide survivors. His father, Kaspar Gavroian, was born in 1901 in the village of Bazmashen, now called Saricabük, near Kharpert in Western Armenia (modern-day Elazig in eastern Turkey).

Gavroian would eventually change his last name to honor the memory of his father, Hovhannes, who, like thousands of other Armenian recruits, was murdered while serving in the Ottoman army.

Hovannisian received his B.A. in history in 1954 from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in 1966 from UCLA. He joined the UCLA faculty as a young scholar in 1962, and in 1986 was appointed the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA.

Hovannisian’s early scholarly work focused on the history of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920). His Ph.D. dissertation, “Armenia on the Road to Independence,” was published in 1967.

It served as a prologue to a four-volume tome that is still considered the most scholarly and well-received work on this topic.

Hovannisian is a Guggenheim Fellow, having received numerous honors for his scholarship and the advancement of Armenian Studies. His biographical entries are included in “Who’s Who in America” and “Who’s Who in the World,” among other reference works.

Hovannisian serves on the board of directors of many scholarly and civic organizations, including the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation; the International Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide; the Foundation for Research on Armenian Architecture; the Claremont McKenna Mgrublian Center for Human Rights; and the Society for Armenian Studies, which he initiated in the 1970s. In 2011, Hovannisian received the UCLA Alumni Association’s “Most Inspiring Teacher” award. He is also well known for his involvement in Armenian civic and political action and for his work integrating the Armenian Genocide at the Shoah Foundation.