Armen Ohanian

Armen Ohanian
Native name	Արմեն Օհանյան
Born	Sophia Pirboudaghian 1887 Shamakha, Russian Empire (now in Azerbaijan)
Died	1976 Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	Armenian
Occupation	dancer, actress, writer, and translator

Armen Ohanian (Armenian: Արմեն Օհանյան), born Sophia Pirboudaghian (Armenian: Սոֆյա Էմանուելի Փիրբուդաղյան, 1887–1976) was an Armenian dancer, actress, writer, and translator.

Armen Ohanian was born in Shamakha, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Azerbaijan) to an upper-class Armenian family. A devastating earthquake in 1902 caused her family to move to Baku, where she attended a Russian school. She graduated in 1905, the same year the anti-Armenian pogroms, which she witnessed, caused the death of her father, Emanuel. She was hurriedly married to an Armenian Iranian doctor, Haik Ter-Ohanian, but the marriage ended within a year. She began her acting career as Sophia Ter-Ohanian in the theater group of the Armenian Cultural Union of Baku in 1906. She moved to Moscow in 1908 and studied plastic arts at the Nelidova School, while performing her first dances at the Maly Theatre.

After a short stint at the Tbilisi Opera in 1909, where she appeared for the first time as Armen Ohanian, she traveled again to Iran, where she performed as a dancer and actress during the last period of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. She was among the founders of the Persian National Theater in Tehran. In April 1910 she organized a musical and literary gala in cooperation with the Persian Women Benevolent Association. For the first time, Iranian women were able to play on the stage and watch a film. In May 1910 she produced and directed Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector in Persian, playing the role of Maria Antonovna.

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