page_title: Avetik Isahakyan
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Avetik Isahakyan / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Avetik Isahakyan's tomb at Yerevan's Komitas Pantheon (Photo: Rupen Janbazian) Հայերեն: Աւետիք Իսահակեանի գերեզմանը՝ Երեւանի Կոմիտասի անուան Պանթէոնի մէջ
context_page_description: Avetik Isahakyan was a prominent Armenian lyric poet, writer and public activist.
context_section_description: Isahakyan was born in Alexandropol in 1875. He was educated at the Kevorkian seminary in Echmiadzin, and later at the University of Leipzig, where he studied philosophy and anthropology. He started his literary as well as political careers in his early youth. Upon his return from Leipzig in 1895 he entered the ranks of the newly established Alexandropol committee of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Through his activities he supported armed groups and financial aid sent to Western Armenia from Alexandropol. He was arrested in 1896 and spent a year in Yerevan’s prison.
  Later Isahakyan went abroad, attending Literature and History of Philosophy classes at the University of Zurich. He returned to his homeland in 1902, and then moved to Tiflis.
  Together with 158 other Armenian intellectuals, he was arrested in 1908 and after spending half a year in Tiflis' Metekha prison (just like Hovhannes Tumanyan), he was freed on bail. Staying in the Caucasus was no longer possible, and by 1911 Isahakyan had emigrated.
  Isahakyan did not believe the promises made by the government of the Young Turks, regarding self-government and autonomy of Western Armenia. Assured that the danger of Panturkism (which he believed was aimed at the total extinction of Armenians) could be prevented by Turkey’s supporter, Germany, Isahakyan went to Berlin. There, together with a number of German intellectuals, he participated in the German-Armenian movement, and edited the group’s journal "Mesrob" and co-founded German–Armenian Society. The start of World War I and the horrifying massacres confirmed his gruesome predictions about the annihilating nature of the Young Turks government's policies. After the war and the Armenian Genocide, Isahakyan described through his compositions the sorrow destiny and Armenians’ heroic struggle for freedom. The poet put forward the genocide accusations, the worst part of which had taken place between 1915–1922, in "The White Book". During that period, Isahakyan expressed his ideas mainly through his social and political articles, in which he discussed the topics of the Armenian cause, reunification of Armenia and the restoration of the Armenian government. The images of the massacres are persistent in his poems, such as "Snow has Covered Everything...", "To Armenia...", and "Here Comes Spring Again".
  Korney Chukovsky met him in Kislovodsk in 1926 and wrote in his diary:
  I've just had a visit from four Armenians, one of whom, Avetik Isaakyan, is a well-known poet. I can't tell you what a nice man he is: modest, quiet, completely unaffected. He spent a fortnight here without anyone's knowing who he was. Yet his fame is such that when I mentioned him to our Armenian barber, he immediately beamed and started reciting his poetry in Armenian. The shoeshine man had the same reaction: "Avetik! Avetik!" He has a sad, absent look about him. They say the regime (which pays him a small pension) won't let him visit his family abroad. I was surprised to find that he was unable to recite even four lines of his verse in Armenian when I asked him to: he's forgotten everything. And when we had an Armenian evening and his poems were read from the podium he just sat there in the audience, hunched forward, his hands over his face. He refused to go out on the podium or utter a single word.
  Isahakyan again went abroad in 1930 and lived in Paris, but returned permanently to the Armenian SSR in 1936, where he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR in 1943 and president of the Writers Union of the Armenian SSR in 1944. He was awarded the Stalin State Prize in 1946, served as a member of the Soviet Committee for Protection of Peace, and was a deputy of the II-IV Supreme Soviets of the Armenian SSR.
  He was awarded the Order of Lenin twice and decorated with other medals.
  Isahakyan's portrait appears on the Armenian 10,000 dram bill.
  Avetik Isahakyan is buried at Komitas Pantheon which is located in the city center of Yerevan.
caption: Avetik Isahakyan's tomb at Yerevan's Komitas Pantheon
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