Novel
Wounds of Armenia
Վերք Հայաստանի
Khachatur Abovian · 1858
Synopsis
The Wounds of Armenia: in a village at the foot of Ararat, horsemen of the sardar of Yerevan abduct a young girl promised to another. Aghasi sets off in pursuit and kills the abductors, then watches the governor's brother burn the surrounding villages to draw him out of his mountain.
Context
The author composed the text in 1841 and presented it from the outset as the tale a peasant would tell his neighbour: he was leaving the grabar of the learned for the language of everyday life, which the clergy and scholarly circles refused him, and nothing was printed in his lifetime. The material comes from his native village, during the war of 1826-1828 that transferred the khanate of Erevan from Persia to Russia. The whole consists of three parts followed by an appendix, Zangi, and the subtitle gives its tone: lament of a patriot. Tiflis finally printed it in 1858.
Who it is for
A fairly short novel, in an Armenian of 1840 mixed with Persian and Turkish, rough even for an Armenian-speaking reader today.
Prizes and reception
The first novel published in modern Armenian, it earned its author the title of father of modern Armenian literature.