Narrative poem1890s
Anush
Hovhannes Tumanyan
A young shepherd and a village girl fall in love, and an old code of honour turns a moment of play into tragedy. Tumanyan's best-known poem, later set as Armenia's national opera.
Read the summaryLiterary Works
What happens in the story, who the characters are, when it was written and what it is really about. Each article gives the context a reader needs before opening the book — and the arguments a student needs after finishing it.
Filters
4 works available
Featured work
Armenia's best-known love story
Narrative poem
Anush
Hovhannes Tumanyan · 1890s
A young shepherd and a village girl fall in love, and an old code of honour turns a moment of play into tragedy. Tumanyan's best-known poem, later set as Armenia's national opera.
Read the summaryAll works
The books Armenian students read
Poems, novels and epics that shaped the modern Armenian literary language.
Historical novelwritten 1841, published 1858
Wounds of Armenia
Khachatur Abovyan
The first novel written in modern spoken Armenian, following a village caught up in the Russo-Persian war and arguing that ordinary people make history.
Read the summary
Novel1880s
The Fool
Raffi
Set during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–78, Raffi's novel follows a young man dismissed as a fool by his neighbours whose clear sight makes him the only realist among them.
Read the summary
Epic poemMedieval epic, first recorded 1873
David of Sassoun
Anonymous, oral tradition
Armenia's national epic, telling of four generations of heroes from Sassoun who defend their mountain homeland — carried by storytellers for a thousand years before it was written down.
Read the summary