Azat Vshtuni
Vshtuni, Azat
(pseudonym of Azat Setovich Mamikonian). Born July 7, 1894, in Van, Western Armenia; died Mar. 26, 1958, in Yerevan. Soviet Armenian poet. Member of the CPSU from 1918. Born into a teacher’s family.
Vshtuni studied in Istanbul and attended lectures at the Sorbonne (1911-14). In 1914 he went to live in Tbilisi, then in Yerevan. He participated in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus and Crimea (1917-20). Vshtuni played a leading role in the literary organizations of Soviet Armenia. His first collection of verses, Chords of My Heart, appeared in 1915. In the collections New East (1923), Salamname (1924), and The East Is Now in Flames (1927), Vshtuni glorifies the awakened “boiling East.” The themes of the friendship of peoples and the construction of socialism predominate in the collections Works (1935), Verses and Narrative Poems (1936), Love and Hatred (1946), and Works (1956). A militant spirit, a new understanding of Eastern poetic images, and a musical cadence characterize Vshtuni’s poems.
WORKS
Vshtwni, A. Erker, vols. 1-2. Yerevan, 1960-61.Vshtwni, A. Banasteghzhowt’yownner k’ poemner. Yerevan, 1954.
In Russian translation:
Novyi Vostok. Moscow-Leningrad, 1930.
Izbrannye stikhi. Moscow, 1937.
Stikhi i poemy. Yerevan, 1951.
REFERENCES
Istoriia armianskoi sovetskoi literatury. Moscow, 1966. Pages 99-103.Sovetahay grakanowt’yan patmowt’yown, vol. 1. Yerevan, 1961. Pages 399-426.
S. A. MANUKIAN