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GRIGOR VANTSYAN AND HOVHANNES TUMANYAN

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS
Summary
The relations between the great Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan and the linguist,
armenologist and pedagogue Grigor Vantsian (1870, Akhalkalak region, village Bezhano -
1908, Tiflis) date back to the mid-1880s, when Grigor through the efforts of his relatives in
the fall of 1885 was accepted as a student in the second grade of the Nersisyan School of
Tiflis (he studied in this school from 1885 till 1890). Almost coeval H. Tumanyan, G.
Vantsyan and few other students from the Nersisyan School, already close friends, foun-
ded a literary and artistic circle and got actively engaged in literary discussions at one of
their friends (Davit Shahlamyan) house. As a result of these discussions and due to the
friends moral and organizational support, the first book of the future famous poet, Poems,
was published in 1890 in Moscow. The teenage years relations of Vantsyan and Tuman-
yan gave birth to the poets another immortal work: the ballad Parvana.
Warm and continuously maintained relations between G. Vantsyan and H. Tumanyan
gave birth to numerous letters related to book exchange between the two close friends, to
the publication of the first anthologies and subscription issues, as well as to letters of G.
Vantsyan from provinces and Germany. They asked about each others wellbeing as well as
about other friends and the social life of the Armenians. In his letters G. Vantsyan often
touched the works of H. Tumanyan. 14 letters of Grigor Vantsyan to Hovhannes Tumanyan
are published for the first time.
Vah Sargsyan
Candidate of Sciences (History)

19