Aivazovski

Ivan Aivazovsky was born on 17 July (29 in New Style) 1817 in the city of Feodosia, Crimea, Russian Empire. In the baptismal records of the local St. Sargis Armenian Church, Aivazovsky was listed as Hovhannes, the son of Gevorg Aivazian. During his study at the Imperial Academy of Arts, he was known in Russian as Ivan Gaivazovsky. He became known as Aivazovsky since c. 1840, while in Italy. He signed a 1844 letter with the italianized version of his name: Giovani Aivazovsky. The young Aivazovsky received parochial education at Feodosia’s (Theodosia) St. Sargis Armenian Church. He was taught drawing by Jacob Koch, a local architect. Aivazovsky moved to Simferopol with Taurida Governor Alexander Kaznacheyev’s family in 1830 and attended the city’s Russian gymnasium. In 1833, Aivazovsky arrived in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Maxim Vorobiev’s landscape class. In 1835, he was awarded with a silver medal and appointed assistant to the French painter Philippe Tanneur. In September 1836, Aivazovsky met Russia’s national poet Alexander Pushkin during the latter’s visit to the Academy. His father, Konstantin, (c. 1765–1840), was an Armenian merchant from the Polish region of Galicia. His family had migrated to Europe from Turkish Armenia in the 18th century. After numerous familial conflicts, Konstantin left Galicia for Moldavia, later moving to Bukovina, before settling in Feodosia in the early 1800s. He was initially known as Gevorg Aivazian Haivazian or Haivazi, but he changed his last name to Gaivazovsky by adding the Polish “-sky”. Aivazovsky’s mother, Ripsime, was a Feodosia Armenian. The couple had five children—three daughters and two sons. Aivazovsky’s brother, Gabriel, was a prominent historian and an Armenian Apostolic archbishop.