Ardashes Harutiunian

Who was Ardashes Harutiunian?

Ardashes Harutiunian was an Ottoman Armenian poet, a self-educated translator from French and literary critic, who became one of the most outstanding intellectuals of his period.

Since 1912 he lived in İstanbul, where he worked as a teacher and contributed to Western Armenian newspapers. His first book of poems, Lkvadz Knar, Harutiunian published in 1902. The next two compilations, Yergunk and Nor Knar, were published in 1906 and 1912, respectively. He was one of the first literary critics of contemporary Armenian poets like Misak Metsarents, Daniel Varujan and Siamanto.

During the Armenian genocide, he stayed in Üsküdar on 24 April 1915. He was then arrested on 28 July 1915 and severely beaten at the Müdüriyet. When his father came to see him he was imprisoned as well. Father and son were both deported together with 26 Armenians to Nicomedia and jailed in the Armenian church that was converted into a prison. They were both stabbed to death together with his father near Derbent on 16 August 1915.

After Harutiunian's death his poems were published in separate books in Paris and Yerevan. The main topics of Harutiunian's poetry are love, romantics and humanism.