Armianskie poety [Armenian poets] by Sharti, S. Ia. [pseudonym of Sergei Iakimovich Mikirtumov] - 1917

Tbilisi: self-published (Tipografiia, 1917. Octavo (19 × 15 cm). Original blue printed wrappers; 123, [4] pp. Light soil to wrappers; tiny tear to front wrapper; text evenly toned due to stock; still very good. Second edition of these translations of Armenian poetry from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century was assembled and translated into Russian by the poet Sergey Yakimovich Mikirtumov, who published under the pseudonym S. Ia. Sharti. Published at the height of the Armenian genocide (1915-1917), a systematic extermination of Armenians on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, the translation was likely an attempt to bring attention to the rich cultural history of Armenians. The collection starts with the poetic songs of so-called Ashiks (Ashkhs) - the seventeenth-century Nahapet Kuchak, eighteenth-century Sayat-Nova and nineteenth-century Jivani, national poet singers who, much like the French troubadours, often lived at court and accompanied their original compositions with a stringed instrument called saz. The collection also includes poetry of the nineteenth-century nationalist poets Mikayel Nalbandian, Petros Durian, as well as a number of young twentieth-century poets, such as Vahan Terian and Akop Akopian. The feminist poet Shushanik Kurghinian, credited with the birth of Feminist poetry in Armenia is also included in the collection. Little is known about the translator, who seems to have published two collections of his own poetry "Zhaloby serdtsa" (Laments of the heart) in 1906 and "Izbrannye stikhotvorenia 1905-1910" (Selected poems 1905-1910) in 1911 before launching into this translation project. The first edition appeared in Saratov in 1916. Turchinskii, p. 740. KVK, OCLC only show a copy of the 1917 edition at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.