Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* Charles Aznavour, French Resistance Hero

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

*USE CODE DEC25 TO GET 50% OFF ALL PATREON SUBSCRIPTIONS UNTIL THE END OF DECEMBER* This is a preview. For the whole episode go here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144456535?pr=true

I figured, because of who I am, I have a tendency to talk about quite possibly the most evil French Armenian to ever exist, that being my own grandfather. Oh, right. So instead, we're going to talk about, inarguably, one of the greatest French Armenians to ever exist. We're talking about Charles Osnivor. Hell yeah. An icon of Armenia, but never a citizen. an icon of France who's buried near Napoleon Bonaparte famed singer, crooner, actor,

a man that is best described to, well, Americans, as the French Frank Sinatra, and most importantly, has a Gundam character named after him. He does? Shara Asnabal, yeah, which is like a direct name. And because he truly is Armenian, he was best friends with virtually every major corrupt French politician of recent memory.

But we'll get to that final part. He's a man that's so famous. Talking about his career is almost pointless. He wrote over a thousand songs. He toured until the day he died pretty much. When he died, he was taking a break from touring to recover. So going into the depths of his career is kind of pointless. Instead, I figured we should talk about the time that Charles Osnivore and his family

fought the Nazis as members of the French resistance during World War II. Hell, yeah, why not? You know, if you got a life and career, like, I call him Charles, which the French name, Charles, like, Charles, like, I don't know. Either way, if I say either way, that's, you know, I mean him. Interestingly enough, neither one of those names are actually his name. His name was neither Charles nor Aznavore. No, no, no, it wasn't. And to be honest, like, I found out quite late that Aznavur was part of the French resistance.

Like, this is not, I do not think this is very much a common knowledge in Armenia. Well, it wasn't very common knowledge in France until shockingly recently because Charles never talked about it. But we'll get to why exactly. I only know of Charles Aznavore because of my grandfather. He loved his music. He loved Edith Piaf, a whole lot more. like legitimately in love with her. But again, those two characters are connected as well.

Yeah. For starters, we should talk about he and his family. His father, Mamikon Naznavorian, who also went by the name Misha, which can be confusing because Charles Osnivore has a son that also goes by Misha, but we're talking about his father. He was born in Javakheti, Georgia. Then, of course, part of the Russian Empire. And his mother, Gnar Bagradasian, was born in what today would be Sankaria, Turkey, unfortunately. So we kind of know where this is leading.

His parents met in Constantinople because Misha was working as a traveling stage actor. He left his job at his family's restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia. His father, Charles' grandfather, would often brag that his cooking in his kitchen was so famous and well known that the Tsar of Russia himself ate there. Oh, yeah. Charles always laughs at this family story because it absolutely never happened. Of course is not. He said he often served the mayor of Tbilisi. but the Tsar ate at the restaurant once around 150 years before, before any of them worked there.

Still take the credit. I had a really good Irish tour guide in Dublin that Tom and I met, who once told me something that I kind of have loved ever since. And that is never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Absolutely. I mean, especially this is like just kind of portrays the character so well, you know. Georgian Armenian effectively bragging about, you know, Tsar, eating at these restaurants. Yeah, yeah. Tracks.

Amishangar quickly fell in love. And unfortunately, they were both dirt broke artists. They were both actors, singers and dancers. They did everything. But of course, that meant that they were one bad performance away from sleeping on the street. They also fell into the burgeoning world of Armenian left-wing politics in Constantinople. as the very concept of Armenian nationalism and self-determination really became more and more popular within the scope of the Ottoman Empire.

In case you're more curious about this, we did a whole series about this kind of at the Armenian Genocide. So go listen to that. And for the future, next month, we're going to start our series on the history of the First Republic of Armenia. So you're going to learn more about the concepts of Armenian nationalism, self-determination, and mostly left-wing politics. So if you're looking forward to a whole bunch of infighting, listen next month.

Yeah, so much drama. But that also meant Misha had moved into town just in time to suffer through the Armenian genocide. Otherwise, he would have escaped it living in Georgia. But most of the Bogodoscians were killed in the Armenian genocide. But Misha and his new wife managed to escape to Greece before eventually making it to France with about 50,000 or 60,000 other genocide survivors. This is why there's so many of us in France.

is because France is when the few countries say, like, come on over. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, this was kind of the first large group of Armenians, at least after that time, ending up in France. It was. Weirdly, during the aftermath of the Himidian pogroms in the late 1800s, a lot of the Armenians went into the Middle East, or weirdly, Massachusetts. But this is the first big push into France.

The Osnivoreans' plan was to stay in France only temporarily. Instead, they wanted to move to Watertown, Massachusetts, because there's already a huge Armenian community there. They applied for visas to the United States, which, this will surprise many of us, which back then was very easy to do. You pretty much just had to show up. You didn't even need paperwork. You could just say, my name is John Smith.

I'd like to come to America. And they'd say, cool, you look white enough. But again, at the time, Armenians not legally white in America. We did an episode on that a while ago. Yeah. But after they get the visas approved, they decide they don't really want to move again, and they end up staying in France. I relate. They settled in Paris and using a loan, Misha opened a restaurant he named creatively Caucasus.

Hell yeah. Not only would he cook there, but he and his wife would sing and dance and put on plays for patrons. And the restaurant itself quickly became popular with the new Armenian diaspora of Paris, which meant, a hot spot for left wing politics because a lot of the Armenians who left were Dashnax, which at the time was not insulting.

Always debatable. They were Dashnax, they were Mensheviks, Bolshevism was becoming popular within the Armenian population, like general left wing politics and they kind of meld it in with the already very active left wing French groups

and they all kind of hung out at the restaurant. Yeah, I mean, this is quite common actually in situations like this when there's like a hub and a community getting around it. Yeah. And most importantly, like, I know it's probably shocking for some people to hear this. This is late 19-teens, early 1920s, where the French were actually quite open to immigrants. Times have changed. Yeah. And especially left-wing circles by your political ideology, you should be, you know, welcoming. Times have changed. Yeah. Shonor, or what he would go by, Charles, was born in 1924. Before long, virtually as soon as he could walk and talk, he was singing and dancing with his father in the restaurant. Someone call his child labor? I call it education.

I call it motivate the child, you know? It's certainly child labor, but... I mean, it's about time you started earning, you know? Like paying rent. Out of diapers, it's the 20s. A kid this young has two options. be immensely talented or go to the factories. I don't know if I have a kid by the age of three, they better start paying rent. The children, they yearn for the factories. However, Misha was not a great businessman.

And by that, I mean, he was a good person. Because he had survived the horrors of the genocide, he and his wife vowed to never turn away a customer who cannot pay for their meal. They gave food away. That's very sweet. If you came through the door, you were getting food. He was a man who, despite having, virtually nothing would literally give the shirt off his back to a person in need and oftentimes

did. Unfortunately, because of this, the restaurant quickly went out of business. His wife tried to make ends meet by becoming a seamstress while Misha once again hit the road becoming a touring performer. The family was very, very poor. And before long, Charles and his sister Ida entered local singing contest as a sibling duo. And they won everything. Absolutely. Lovely. As weird as it is to have like a cash prize for child singing duos, I am once again from the United States where child beauty pageants exist. So I have no footing to insult this. Children also need to be paid. Like I said, you can either be immensely talented or get your fingers ripped off in a factory. These are you two options. Exactly. You better get up and start doing something. They won cash. Obviously,

it's not a lot. Charles eventually began selling newspapers. He became a newsie. Are you familiar like the kids in the news corners screaming the news at people and trying to to sell them newspapers, and Ida hit the sewing shop with her mom. Charles' big stage debut as in 1933 as a dancer, but he could do anything. He could sing, he could dance, he could act, and this began a bidding war across the theater companies of Paris. Over again, a literal child.