New Armenian literature

XIX century

In the literature of the second half of the XVIII - early XIX centuries classicism was the dominant direction. Its representatives, recreating the history of the Armenian people's struggle against foreign oppressors, wrote in the ancient Armenian language – grabar, inaccessible to a wide range of readers. Folk ashugh poetry represented literature in a language understandable by the people which was widely spread during the first half of the XIX century. Since the 1820s, the writings of the so-called «transition period» writers began to form a new Armenian literary language - ashkharhabar. In the 1840-1850s, for the first time, Ghevond Alishan wrote a cycle of poems «Songs of Nahapet» in ashkharhabar.

The affirmation of romanticism and the beginning of new Armenian literature is related to the name of the illuminator and democrat Khachatur Abovyan. He studied at the Echmiadzin Seminary and the University of Dorpat. Abovyan left a rich literary heritage in various genres: poems, stories, novels, fables, journalistic research, also, research on ethnography and historiography. He wrote in ashkharhabar, democratized literature, first portrayed a person from the people. He wrote in ashkharhabar. The most famous work by Abovyan is the novel «Wounds of Armenia» (written in 1840, published after the death of the author, in 1858), dedicated to the events of 1826-1828, the time of the annexation of Eastern Armenia to Russia.

The rise and assertion of romanticism in the literature of Western Armenians is associated with the works of Ghevond Alishan, Mkrtich Peshiktashlyan, whose poetry reflected the pathos of the national liberation movement. In the works of Petros Duryan lyric Armenian romantic poetry was brought to its highest development.

In the 1870-1880's Raphael Patkanian, a representative of civil poetry, wrote one of his best poems – «Tears of Araks». The development of the social novel is related to the name of Perch Proshyan. In the works of the novelist and teacher Ghazaros Aghayan, who was also the author of popular fairy tales, enlightening ideas were expressed.

Gabriel Sundukyan (1825–1912) is the founder of the new Armenian realistic drama. He is the representative and speaker of critical realism ideas, and has reflected the moral and mode of an old city life. Household issues are brought to the level of broad social generalizations, as well as life contradictions are totally revealed in his plays. In the plays «Khatabala», «Pepo», «Ruined Family» («Qandvats odjakh») the spiritual purity and morality of the working class are contrasted to the the bourgeoisie’s greed and unscrupulousness.

The development of drama in Western Armenian literature is associated with the name of the satirist and playwright Hakob Paronyan (1843-1891). Concerning the literature of Western Armenia, satirist and playwright Hakob Paronyan in his works of 1870-1880's has achieved socio-political generalizations, ridiculing bourgeois society, arbitrariness of the authorities. His most outstanding works are the comedy «Servant of Two Masters», «The Flatterer», «The Eastern Dentist», «Baghdasar Aghbar», satirical essay «A Tour in Polis Neighborhoods».  

Tserents and Raffi were the novelists who expressed the ideas of the national liberation movement of 1870-1880's, writing mainly in the genre of the historical novel. Tserents (Hovsep Shishmanian, 1822-1888) - author of the novels «Toros, son of Levon» (1877), «In the throes of birth» (1879), «Theodoros Rshtuni» (1881). «Toros, son of Levon» is the first sample of a historical novel in Armenian literature in the classical sense of the genre.

Raffi (Hakob Melik-Hakobyan, 1835-1888) is the author of numerous works in various genres: poems, publicism, critical research, social novels such as «Sparks», «The Fool», «The Golden Rooster» in which the motives of the clash of new and old moralities, social justice, the liberation war of the nineteenth century were developed. He is an outstanding master of monumental epic: novels «David Bek», «Paruyr Haykazn» and a masterpiece of national historical prose novel «Samvel».

Critical realism becomes the leading direction in the 1880s and 1890s. A pleiad of prose writers such as Nar-Dos (Mikayel Hovhannisyan), Muratsan (Grigor Ter-Hovhannisyan), Vrtanes Papazyan, Arpiar Arpiaryan, Grigor Zohrab, Tigran Kamsarakan, novelist and playwright Alexander Shirvanzade («Namus», «Chaos») start creating their masterpieces in this period. Their works presented the realistic reflection of the process of establishing bourgeois relations, combined with criticism of the eternal vices of man.

Works of Hovhannes Tumanyan (1869-1923), known as «all-Armenian poet», as well as publicist, major public and political figure, became the synthesis of the traditional Armenian literature of the XIX century and Armenian classical poetry. Tumanyan performed the same function in the Armenian literature that Pushkin did in the Russian one. He combined folk word-making with literary one, bringing a new quality to poetry and literary language. Tumanyan created a cycle of lyric poems («The poet and Muse», «Groan», «Anoush», «Maro», «Sako of Lori»), ballads, in which images of native nature, spiritually beautiful people are described. Tumanyan developed the national epic poem of «Sasuntsi David» (1902), folk tales. He also wrote philosophical quatrains.