Yeghishe

Yeghishe Vardapet (Armenian: Եղիշե, pronounced [jɛʁiˈʃɛ], AD 410 – 475; Eliseus, spelled alternatively Yeghisheh, Yeghishé, Eghishe, Egishe, Elishe, or Ełišē) was a prominent Armenian historian. He was the author of a history documenting the successful revolt of the Armenians in the 5th century against the rule and religion of the Sassanid Persians.

Life

According to ancient and medieval sources that have trickled down to historians, Yeghishe was one of the younger pupils of Sahak Partev and Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian Alphabet. In 434, he, along with several other students, were sent to Alexandria to study Greek, Syriac and the liberal arts. He returned to Armenia in 441 and entered into military service, serving as a soldier or secretary to the Sparapet Vardan Mamikonian. He took part in the war of religious independence (449-451) against the Persian King, Yazdegerd II.

Following their defeat at the battle of Avarayr, he renounced military life, became a hermit and retired to the mountains south of Lake Van (Rshtunik'). In 464-465, he was asked to write the history of the events leading up to and after the battle of Avarayr by a priest named David Mamikonian. Following his death, his remains were removed and taken to the Surb Astvatsatsin Monastery, located along Lake Van's shoreline. All ancient authorities speak of Yeghishe as a vardapet (church doctor).

Yeghishe Charents

Yeghishe Charents (Armenian: Եղիշե Չարենց; March 13, 1897 – November 27, 1937) was an Armenian poet, writer and public activist. Charents was an outstanding poet of the twentieth century, touching upon a multitude of topics that ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialist revolution, and, more prominently, on Armenia and Armenians. He is recognized as "the main poet of the 20th century" in Armenia.

An early supporter of communism, Charents joined the Bolshevik party, but as the Stalinist terror began in the 1930s, he gradually grew disillusioned with Stalinism and was executed during the 1930s purges.

Biography

Early life

Yeghishe Charents was born Yeghishe Abgari Soghomonyan in Kars (Eastern Armenia, then a part of the Russian Empire) 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 in reading. In 1912, he had his first poem published in the Armenian periodical Patani (Tiflis). Amid the upheavals of the First World War and the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, he volunteered to fight in a detachment in 1915 for the Caucasian Front.