YSU Ijevan Branch is pleased to introduce one of Armenia’s greatest poets, writer, academician, public activist Avetik Isahakyan.
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.
His poems are those of love and sorrow. His best work is “Abu-Lala Mahari” (1909–1911), while his other well-known works include “Songs and Novels” and “The Mother’s Heart”. Being a romantic, Isahakyan was best known for his verse “On the Bridge of Realto” dedicated to his first love. During the Second World War of 1941-1945, he wrote patriotic poems like “Martial Call” (1941), “My Heart is at the Mountains’ Top” (1941), “To the Undying Memory of S.G. Zakyan” (1942), “The Day of the Great Victory” (1945) and many other. His creative work, filled with humanism, and a great respect to the human dignity, is deeply connected with the history and culture of the Armenian people, embracing the best traditions of the Russian and the World literature. The Russian poet Alexander Blok characterized him as a “first class poet, fresh and simple, whom one, perhaps, cannot find in Europe any more”.
Isahakyan’s works have been translated in many languages and his poems have been used as lyrics for new songs.
Here is a famous poem by Avetik Isahakyan:
A MOTHER’S HEART
By AVETIK ISAHAKYAN
There is an old tale
About a boy
An only son
Who fell in love with a lass.
`You don’t love me,
You never did,’ said she to him.
`But if you do, go then
And fetch me your mother’s heart.’
Downcast and distraught
The boy walked off
And after shedding copious tears
Came back to his love.
The girl was angry
When she saw him thus
And said, `Don’t you dare come back again
Without your mother’s heart.’
The boy went and killed
A mountain roe deer
And offered its heart
To the one he adored.
But again she was angry
And said, `Get out of my sight.
I told you what I want
Is your mother’s heart.’
The boy went and killed
His mother, and as he ran
With her heart in his hand
He slipped and fell.
`My dear child,
My poor child,’
Cried the mother’s heart,
`Did you hurt yourself?’
—
