Shushanik Kurghinjan

Shushanik Kurghinjan ( Armenian Շուշանիկ Կուրղինյան ; August 18, 1876 in Alexandropol - November 24, 1927 ) was an Armenian author who became known for her poetry . She left an autobiography . She is considered a political author who mainly dealt with feminist and socialist topics. Her best-known work, which has also been translated into English , is a collection of poetry that translates as I want to live .

life and work

Shushanik Kurghinjan was born into a poor family, her father was a shoemaker. According to her own biography, she repaired shoes on his behalf for a small salary after her father had finished work.

Schuschanik Kurghinjan took up her political engagement at a young age. At the age of 17 she organized the first intra-party group for women in the social democratic Huntschak party . Her first poetic creation was a few years later with the publication of her first poem in Taraz in 1899 . Further publication resulted in her being classified as hostile to the Russian tsar and written up for arrest. For this reason she fled to Rostov-on-Don after finishing her school career at the Olginsky Progymnasium . At this point she was already married and took her children with her on this escape. She subsequently lived in poverty and joined the revolutionary underground. This was at the same time a productive phase of her lyric work, especially in 1907 and 1908. She published her first volume of poetry in 1907, the content of many of the texts dealt with the failed Russian revolution of 1905 . She gave marginalized groups such as prostitutes and forced laborers a voice in her poetry. Your poems can therefore be classified as feminist texts from the start. A second volume of poetry was not published for political reasons.

In 1921 Shushanik Kurghinjan returned to Armenia , which at the end of 1922 became a republic of the Soviet Union . Shushanik Kurghinjan was bedridden for the last few years of her life.

In the Soviet Union, Shushanik Kurghinjan's work was primarily perceived as political writing. Both the artistic and the feminist aspects of her writing have been neglected.

The translator Shushan Avagyan contributed significantly to the international fame of Shushanik Kurghinjan through her translations of almost the entire lyric work. Another translator, Lilit Pipoyan, wrote songs for some of the transmitted poems. B. the piece Don't Cry ( Armenian Միլար ) . She also created a Facebook page on which information on Shushanik Kurghinjan is collected.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shushan Avagyan: Exclusive: Shushanik Kurghinian's The Workers. ianyan, March 18, 2012, accessed March 28, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Nune Harutyunyan: The Hidden Gem of Armenian Literature. Shushanik Kurghinyan. The Bridge., April 28, 2016, accessed March 28, 2018 .