Throughout her teaching career that spanned five decades, Zvart Apelian (born 1924) directed group recitations and staged live presentations at Armenian schools in the Middle East and USA. The terms as such do not convey the sentiments their Armenian terms, Khmpayin Asmounk and Gentany Badger, respectively do. The former is a responsive recitation over a theme where soloists recite followed by the group responding or affirming in unison to what the person recited. The latter - Gentany Badger - is a live reenactment and thus the performers are attired accordingly and voice from a prepared text around a theme. Both are cherished traditions in Armenian schools although they seem to be dying nowadays.

Staging group recitation and live enactment celebrating or commemorating an important Armenian historical date, cemented the sentimental bonds between the school and the community. It also became an avenue to delight the parents seeing their sons and daughters on the stage. They served a pedagogical purpose as well, helping train students express themselves publicly.

Group recitation and live enactment texts have not been collected in books. After Zvart retired from teaching she made her mission to record the texts of the group recitations and live reenactments she had had taught her students and presented on stage. Their texts filled hundreds of hand written pages. She had them arranged in several volumes. Each volume is titled after a theme. This book is a reproduction of two of these volumes. One is titled "Group Recitations" (Khmpayin Asmounkner). The other is titled "Immortal Vartanank" (Anmahn Vartanak).

This book is meant to retain a glimpse of the art she practiced throughout her teaching career and to preserve her meticulous handwriting.
About the Author: Zvart Apelian was born in Keurkune, Kessab in Syria. Her father's name was Khacher Chelebian. Her mother's name was Karoun Apelian. Her parents were orphaned survivors of the Armenian Genocide. They were married in the latter part of 1918 at the outskirts of Der Attiyeh, a town in Syria. Upon their return to Keurkune, they moved in Karoun Apelian's parental home where they raised their family.
Zvart received her primary education in Keurkune and her middle school level education in Kessab. She received scholarship and continued her education at the famed Aleppo College. Unfortunately due to war situation her schooling was interrupted in her senior year. She completed her secondary education years later at the Armenian Evangelical College in Beirut. Subsequently she graduated from the Armenian Studies Program of the Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
She embarked on her teaching career early on. She taught at several Armenian schools in the Middle East. Upon moving to the United States she taught at the Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School in Encino, California and for the last 15 years at the Charlotte & Elise Merdinian Evangelical School in Sherman Oaks, California. Throughout her five decades of teaching she taught Armenian language, literature, history and bible.
On numerous occasions she was recognized for her contribution to the Armenian Diaspora education. The Armenian Department of the Gulbenkian Foundation invited her for teachers' training in England, so did Soviet Armenian Government invited her to Armenia for the same purpose in 1960's. The Union of The Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East presented her a Certificate of Appreciation in 1986 upon ending her twenty-five years of teaching at the Shamlian-Tatigian Armenian High School. In 1996, the late Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin I Sarkissian bestowed upon her Saint Mesrob Mashdots ecclesiastical decree accompanied with an encyclical proclamation naming her a dear daughter of the Armenian nation.
She retired from her teaching career in 2001. In 2007, she had a select collection of her articles published as a book titled "I and the Teaching." She was moved to the Ararat Nursing Facility in 2013 where she continues to receive tender loving care.