WATERTOWN, Mass. — After a brief illness, noted journalist and Armenian activist Dr. Nubar Berberian passed away on November 23. He was 94.
He was born in Cairo, Egypt, on September 25, 1922 to Kevork and Areknaz Berberian. After receiving an Armenian education in the Nubarian School of Heliopolis, he studied in the French lyceum for the French baccalaureate. He received his law degree in 1944 and registered at the Egyptian Mixed Tribunal.
With an unquenchable thirst for education, he left for France, where he received a doctoral degree in jurisprudence in 1947 from the University of Paris School of Law. Full of Armenian patriotic fervor, he entered Armenian public life, putting aside other career possibilities.
Most probably, he was unable to form a family due to his nomadic existence. Instead, the Armenian nation and homeland constituted his family. He also dedicated himself to the care of his elderly mother, until her final advanced years.
His life consisted wholly of labor in the service of the Armenian nation, working as a talented journalist, an articulate and compassionate orator and a principled leader. Nearly all the main contemporary organs of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADL) became part of his life. Thus, in 1947 he accepted the editorship of the newspaper Abaka in Paris, after which he edited the following organs: the daily Arev in Cairo (1948-1958), the thrice-weekly Nor Or of Fresno (1958-1960) and Boston’s Baikar daily (1961-82). During the same period, he published short stories and poetry in the Baikar yearbook under the penname Piuragn.
After retiring in 1982, he still prolifically published articles in the newspapers Zartonk of Beirut, Abaka of Montreal, Azg of Yerevan and Nor Or of Los Angeles.