Hyusisapayl

(Northern Lights), an Armenian monthly journal published in Moscow from 1858 to 1864.

The editor and publisher of Hyusisap’ayl was the Enlightenment figure and journalist St. Nazarian. The journal, whose contributors included the revolutionary democrat M. Nalbandian, promoted Enlightenment and democratic ideas; it demanded reforms in all areas of public life and waged a struggle against national conservatism and the reactionary clerical party. The journal was persecuted by the censors and the reactionary Armenian press.

Modeling itself after the journal Sovremennik, whose material it frequently used, Hyusisap’ayl published works of fiction and articles and essays on such subjects as the natural sciences, philosophy, history, and ethics. Waging a theoretical and practical struggle against Grabar—the ancient Armenian language—and the enthusiasm that had developed for dialects, it championed the new literary language, Ashkharhabar. Hyusisap’ayl considerably influenced the development of Armenian literature and criticism.