Yeghishe Charents

An early proponent of communism and the USSR, the futurist Charents joined the Bolshevik Party and became an active supporter of Soviet Armenia, especially during the period of Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP). However, he became disillusioned with direction of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. However, after Stalin's death, he was exonerated in a 1954 speech by Anastas Mikoyan and was officially rehabilitated by the Soviet state in 1955 during the Khrushchev Thaw.

• Name — Yeghishe Charents Եղիշե Չարենց • Birth Name — Yeghishe Soghomonyan • Born — 13 March 1897 • Birthplace — Kars, Kars Oblast, Russian Empire • Died — 27 November 1937 • Place of death — Yerevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union • Resting Place — unknown • Occupation — Poet, writer, translator, public activist • Language — Armenian • Spouse — Izabella Charents • Children — Anahit Charents and Arpenik Charents

• Illustration — House-Museum of Charents in Yerevan Yeghishe Charents was born Yeghishe Abgari Soghomonyan in Kars (then a part of the Russian Empire, now part of Turkey) 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 reading. In 1912, he had his first poem published in the Armenian periodical Patani (Tiflis). In 1915, amid the upheavals of the First World War and the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, he volunteered to fight in a detachment on 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. His long poem Danteakan araspel (Dantesque legend, published in 1916) tells the story of his experiences in 1915. Kevork Bardakjian writes that "Death, devastation, and innocent optimism contrast sharply" in this poem. 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 for the salvation of Armenia. Charents joined the Red Army and fought during the Russian Civil War as a rank-and-file soldier in Russia (Tsaritsyn) 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, "Yes im anush Hayastani arevaham barn em sirum" ("I love the sun-flavored fruit [or name] of my sweet 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 Azat Vshtuni, the young authors expressed their favour of "proletarian internationalism." In 1921-22 he wrote "Amenapoem" (Everyone's poem), and "Charents-name", an autobiographical poem. • Illustration — The building of State Publisher in Yerevan, where Charents worked from 1928 to 1935. In 1924-1925, Charents went on a seven-month trip abroad, visiting Turkey, Italy (where he met Avetik Isahakyan), France, and Germany. When Charents returned, he founded a union of writers, November, and worked for the state publishing house from 1928 to 1935. In 1926, Charents published his satirical novel, Land of Nairi (Yerkir Nairi), which became a great success and repeatedly published in Russian in Moscow during his lifetime. 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 the work 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 World War I, and the third part tells about the fall of Kars and the destruction of the dream. On September 5, 1926, in a park in Yerevan, Charents shot and slightly wounded a sixteen-year-old girl, Marianna Ayvazyan, the sister of composer Artemi Ayvazyan. Charents was arrested and stated during interrogation that he was in love with Ayvazyan and had made a marriage proposal to her, which was rejected, which pushed him to attempt to kill her. According to author Zabel Yesayan, who was present at the trial, Charents testified that he had been in a severely agitated mental state—worsened by the consumption of alcohol—for weeks before the shooting. He explained his actions as the result of "the haunting of a certain idea" rather than of being in love, and he stated that he had been in a "nearly unconscious state" at the time of the act. On the basis of contemporary documentation, Charents's biographer Almast Zakaryan argues that Charents did not intend to kill Ayvazyan but rather committed the act in order to be expelled from the Communist Party; he was dissatisfied with the situation in the Soviet Union and had been denied permission to leave the country. He was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison for the shooting, but this was subsequently reduced to three years' imprisonment. Charents was released early in March 1927. He wrote an account of his time in prison titled Yerevani ughghich tnits (From the Yerevan correctional house), which was published in 1927. Charents translated many works into Armenian. His translation of "The Internationale", with musical arrangement by Romanos Melikian, was published in Moscow in 1928. In 1930, Charents's book, Epic Dawn, which consisted of poems he wrote in 1927-30, was published in Yerevan. It was dedicated to his first wife Arpenik. His last collection of poems, "The Book of the Road", was printed in 1933, but its distribution was delayed by the Soviet government until 1934, when it was reissued with some revisions. In this book, the author lays out the panorama of Armenian history and reviews it part-by-part.

• Illustration — Monument in Yerevan Except for a few poems in journals, Charents could publish nothing after 1934. At the same time, in December 1935, Stalin asked an Armenian delegation how Charents was doing. The poet became a morphine addict under the pressure of the campaign against him and because he was suffering from colic, caused by a kidney stone. Of her last visit to Charents, the actress Arus Voskanyan wrote: "He looked fragile but noble. He took some morphine and then read some Komitas. When I reached over to kiss his hand he was startled." When William Saroyan met Charents in Moscow in 1935, he found him "bursting with energy and ideas," but also "quite profoundly troubled in spirit and ill in body." In July 1936, Charents's friend, Armenian First Secretary Aghasi Khanjian, was shot and killed by Lavrentiy Beria in Tiflis. Charents "saw the assassination at the hands of Beria as an ominous sign of the violence to come." In response, he wrote a series of seven sonnets in memory of Khanjian, titled "The Dauphin of Nairi". The death of Komitas also affected Charents and inspired him to write one of his last great works, "Requiem Æternam in Memory of Komitas". A victim of the Great Purge, Charents was charged with "Trotskiite-nationalist" activity and arrested on July 27, 1937. He died in NKVD custody on November 27 of that same year due to severe health complications, under unclear circumstances. It is unknown where his body was buried. All his books were banned. Charents's younger friend Regina Ghazaryan buried and saved many of his manuscripts.

His first wife was Arpenik Ter-Astvatsatryan, who died in 1927. In 1931 Charents married Izabella Kodabashyan. They had two daughters, Arpenik and Anahit (b. 1935).

• "Three songs to the sad and pale girl...", poems (1914) • "Blue-eyed Homeland", poem (1915) • "Dantesque legend", poem (1915–1916) • "Soma", poem (1918) • "Charents-Name", poem (1922) • "Uncle Lenin", poem (1924) • "Country of Nairi" (Yerkir Nairi) (1926) • "Epical Sunrise", poems (1930) • "Book of the Way", poems (1933–34) • "Ars poetica", poems (1919-1928)

Yeghishe Charents was recorded at birth as Եղիշե Աբգարի Սողոմոնյան. His recorded language was Armenian. 2 children are recorded: Arpenik Charents and Anahit.

Yeghishe Charents is recorded as translator, poet and writer.