Sanasarian College


The Sanassarian College or Sanasarian College was an Armenian language higher education institution in the city of Erzurum, Ottoman Empire founded in 1881 by an Armenian merchant, Mkrtich Sanasarian.

Description

It was a school of high grade which consisted of teachers who were mostly educated in Germany. The college had a nine-year course, with a high grade education that was taught. The school lasted until the Armenian Genocide, when most of the teachers were killed and the building was ruined. Sanasarian college was a foremost institution for Armenian culture and education in the eastern provinces during the decades before World War I.
An English explorer, writer, and a natural historian Isabella Bird's described the college as:
After the Armenian Genocide, and when the property was abandoned, the Sanasarian College was chosen as the location for the Erzurum Congress.

Legal status

The Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul appealed to the court in Ankara for the return of Sanasarian College. The properties owned by the Sanasarian college include nine plots of land in Erzurum, a garden house and vast farmland in the village of Aghveren, two plots in the village of Gez, and a large commercial property known as Sanasarian Han in the Sirkeci district of Istanbul. The court proceedings are still pending.

Notable graduates