The 39^th Sitting of the General Conference of the UNESCO, which is taking place in Paris, adopted a decision to include the 150^th birth anniversaries of Komitas and Hovhannes Tumanyan in the 2018-2019 UNESCO calendar of renowned people and important events.

The UNESCO approved the bids of the Republic of Armenia – “150^th birth anniversary of composer, ethnomusicologist, folklorist, singer Soghomon Soghomonyan, known as Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935)” submitted with the support of France and Germany and the bid “150^th birth anniversary of poet, writer, translator Hovhannes Tumanyan (1817-1923)” submitted with the support of Georgia and Russia.

Reference: Since 1998, 23 anniversaries submitted by the Republic of Armenia have been included in the UNESCO calendar of renowned people and important events.

The bids submitted by the Republic of Armenia, including “350^th anniversary of the first Armenian Bible printed by Voskan Yerevantsi (1666)” and “200^th birth anniversary of Hovhannes Aivazovsky (1817-1900)”, had been approved for the previous two years.