Tsaturian, Aleksandr Ovsepovich

Born Apr. 11 (23), 1865, in Zakataly, Azerbaijan; died Mar. 18 (31), 1917, in Tbilisi. Armenian democratic poet and translator.

Tsaturian began publishing in 1885, and in 1888 he took up residence in Moscow. His first collection, Poems, appeared in 1891. Tsaturian depicted the work, sufferings, and dreams of his people in his cycle From Songs of Suffering (1893) and portrayed the struggle of the workers against their oppressors in Lullaby of a Working Woman (1910). In the collection of satirical verse Jokes of the Pen (1901), he mocked the vices of the wealthy and the clergy. He was the translator and publisher of a collection in Armenian entitled Russian Poets (books 1–2, 1905). Many of Tsaturian’s poems have become folk songs.