Hovhannes Tumanyan

Hovhannes Tumanyan (1869–1923) was an Armenian poet, writer, translator and literary and public activist, regarded as the national poet of Armenia. Born in the village of Dsegh in the Lori region, he studied at the Nersisyan School in Tiflis, worked for Armenian periodicals there from the 1890s and in 1899 started the Vernatun circle of Armenian writers and intellectuals. He wrote poems, quatrains, ballads, novels and fables, mostly in a realist style about everyday life; his works became the basis of the operas Anush and Almast and of many live-action and animated films. He died in Moscow on 23 March 1923.

February 19, 1869