HAGOP BARONYAN

CULTURE AND ARTS Castigat ridendo mores* or Hagop Baronyan on the 125th anniversary of his death

Baronyan had always been running counter to Armenian clergy and elites whom he criticized satirically, and he lived in reduced circumstances because of his conflict with those circles which, in Baronyan's opinion, had been managing the economic resources of the society in accordance with their own interests. Even when he found out that he got tuberculosis at the age of 45, he hadn't given up resisting. (*a Latin phrase meaning “one corrects customs by laughing at them", which was used by French poet Jean-Baptiste Santeul (1630-1697) for the first time.)