Proshian, Perch

(pen name of Ovanes Stepanovich Ter-Arakelian). Born June 3 (15), 1837, in the village of Ashtarak, now in Razdan Raion; died Nov. 23 (Dec. 6), 1907, in Baku; buried in Tbilisi. Armenian writer and teacher.

Proshian graduated from the Nersisian Seminary in Tbilisi in 1855 and became a teacher. In 1861 he founded the first Armenian school for girls. He began publishing in 1859. Proshian helped found the Armenian theater in Tbilisi (1863) and wrote the play Agasi (1863; based on themes from Kh. Abovian’s novel Armenia’s Wounds). In 1860 he published a socially oriented novel of everyday life, Sos and Varditer. His historical novels The Apple of Discord (1878) and Birth Pangs (1892) depicted the Armenian people’s efforts to gain national liberation. The novels For the Sake of Bread (1880, Russian translation, 1955) and The Parasites (1889) depicted the hard life of workers.

Proshian translated into Armenian works of L. N. Tolstoy, A. N. Ostrovskii, and Charles Dickens. His collected works were published in seven volumes (1962–64).