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Yeghishe Charents

Yeghishe Charents was born Yeghishe Abgari Soghomonyan in Kars in 1897 to a family involved in the rug trade. His family hailed from the Armenian community of Maku, Persian Armenia. He first attended an Armenian elementary school, but later transferred to a Russian technical secondary school in Kars from 1908 to 1912. He spent much of his time in reading. In 1912, he had his first poem published in the Armenian periodical Patani. Amid the upheavals of the First World War and the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, he volunteered to fight in a detachment in 1915 for the Caucasian Front.
Sent to Van in 1915, Charents was witness to the destruction that the Turkish garrison had laid upon the Armenian population, leaving indelible memories that would later be read in his poems. He left the front one year later, attending school at the Shanyavski People’s University in Moscow. The horrors of the war and genocide had scarred Charents and he became a fervent supporter of the Bolsheviks, seeing them as the one true hope to saving Armenia.
Charents joined the Red Army and fought during the Russian Civil War as a rank and file soldier in Russia and the Caucasus. In 1919, he returned to Armenia and took part in revolutionary activities there. A year later, he began work at the Ministry of Education as the director of the Art Department. Charents would also once again take up arms, this time against his fellow Armenians, as a rebellion took place against Soviet rule in February 1921. One of his most famous poems, I love the sun-sweet taste of the word Armenia, a lyric ode to his homeland, was composed in 1920-1921.Charents returned to Moscow in 1921 to study at the Institute of literature and Arts founded by Valeri Bryusov. In a manifesto issued in June 1922, known as the “Declaration of the Three,” signed by Charents, Gevorg Abov, and Azad Veshtuni, the young authors expressed their favour of «proletarian internationalism». In 1921-22 he wrote «Amenapoem» , and «Charents-name'», an autobiographical poem. Then, Charents published his satirical novel, Land of Nairi, which became a great success and repeatedly published in Russian in Moscow during the life of poet. In August 1934 Maxim Gorky presented him to the Soviet writers’ first congress delegates with Here is our Land of Nairi.
The first part of Yerkir Nairi is dedicated to the description of public figures and places of Kars, and to the presentation of Armenian public sphere. According to Charents, his Yerkir Nairi is not visible, «it is an incomprehensible miracle: a horrifying secret, an amazing amazement». In the second part of novel, Kars and its leaders are seen during the WWI, and the third part tells about the fall of Kars and the destruction of the dream.

Hovhannes Tumanyan

Hovhannes Tumanyan was born on February 19, 1869 in the village of Dsegh, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Lori Province, Armenia).
His father, Aslan, was the village priest known by the name Ter-Tadevos. He was an offspring of an Armenian princely family of Tumanyan, branch of the famous royal house of Mamikonian that settled in Lori in 10th–11th centuries from their original feudal fief of Taron.
His mother, Sona, an avid storyteller with a particular interest in fables. Young Tumanyan was the oldest of eight children; his siblings were Rostom, Osan, Iskuhi, Vahan, Astghik, Arshavir, Artashes.
From 1877–1879, Tumanyan attended the parochial school of Dsegh. From 1879–1883 he went to a school in Jalaloghly. Tumanyan moved to Tiflis in 1883, where he attended the Nersisyan School from 1883–1887. Tumanyan’s wrote his first poem at the age of 12, while studying in Jalaloghly school. He lived at the teacher’s house for a while and was in love with teacher’s daughter Vergine. Since 1893, Tumanyan worked for Aghbyur, Murtch, Hasker and Horizon periodicals and also was engaged in public activism.
In 1899, Tumanyan came up with an idea of organizing meetings of Armenian intellectuals of the time at his house on 44 Bebutov Street in Tiflis. Soon it became an influential literary group, which often gathered in the garret of Tumanyan’s house. Vernatun means garret in Armenian, which was the name the group was referred to. Prominent members of the collective were Avetik Isahakyan, Derenik Demirchyan, Levon Shant, Ghazaros Aghayan, Perch Proshyan, Nikol Aghbalian, Alexander Shirvanzade, Nar-Dos, Vrtanes Papazyan, Vahan Terian, Leo, Stepan Lisitsyan, Mariam Tumanyan, Gevorg Bashinjagyan and many other significant Armenian figures of early 20th century. With some pauses, it existed until 1908.
In 1912 Tumanyan was elected the president of the Company of Caucasus Armenian Writers.
In the fall of 1921, Tumanyan went to Constantinople to find support of Armenian refugees. After months spent there, he returned ill. After surgery in 1922, he started to get better. But in September, Tumanyan’s disease started to progress again. He was transferred to a hospital in Moscow, where he died on March 23, 1923.

Vahan Terian

Terian was born in the Gandza village  of Javakhk region in Georgia.
Schooled in Tiflis, he then studied at the Lazarian College in Moscow, where he was exposed to symbolism and joined the Russian Social Democrats. He was jailed by Czarist police for his political activity. He is mostly known for his poems dedicated to autumn and love. That’s why Teryan is known as “Singer of Autumn” in Literature. He published his first book of poems, “Dreams at Dusk”, in 1908, which made him an immediate sensation, Hovhannes Tumanian calling him the most original lyric poet of his age. He later published “Night Remembrance”, “The Golden Legend”, “The Return”, “The Golden Link”, “In the Land of Nairi”, and “The Cat’s Paradise”. His poems are filled with images of rain, mist, pallid fields and shapeless shadows, symbols of sorrow, despair and eventually, peace.
In 1913, Terian left Moscow University for the University of St. Petersburg, where he majored in oriental languages, intensifying his political involvement. After the revolution he became representative of Armenians in the Ministry of Nations, personally working with Lenin and Stalin. He died in Orenburg of tuberculosis shortly before his 35th birthday. Each year there is a commemoration of his life in Javakhk region, at Gandza village, where he was born.
In 1916, Vahan Terian published a collection of poems entitled Land of Nairi: Likewise in 1923, Yeghishe Charents wrote a satirical novella entitled Land of Nairi, using once again Nairi as a synonym for Armenia. Hayastan Yeghiazarian, interestingly, used Nairi Zarian as his pen-name, replacing his first name, Hayastan.
Vahan Teryan is buried at Komitas Pantheon which is located in the city center of Yerevan.