Daniel Varoujan
| Daniel Varoujan | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
20 April 1884 Brgnik village, Vilayet of Sebastia, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 26 August 1915 Çankırı, Vilayet of Kastamonu, Ottoman Empire |
| Occupation | poet |
| Nationality | Armenian |
| Education | University of Ghent |
| Spouse | Araksi Varujan |
Daniel Varoujan (Armenian: Դանիէլ Վարուժան, 20 April 1884 – 26 August 1915) was an Armenian poet of the early 20th century. At the age of 31, when he was reaching international stature, he was deported by the Young Turk government, as part of the officially planned and executed Armenian Genocide.
Varoujan was born Daniel Tchboukkiarian (Դանիէլ Չպուքքեարեան) in the Prknig village of Sivas, Turkey. After attending the local school, he was sent in 1896, the year of the Hamidian massacres, to Istanbul, where he attended the Mkhitarian school. He then continued his education at the Mourad-Rafaelian school of Venice, and in 1905 entered Ghent University in Belgium, where he followed courses in literature, sociology and economics. In 1909 he returned to his village where he taught for three years. After his marriage with Araksi Varoujan in 1912, he became the principal of St. Gregory The Illuminator School in Istanbul.
In 1914, he established the Mehian literary group and magazine with Gostan Zarian, Hagop Oshagan, Aharon Dadourian and Kegham Parseghian. The movement aimed to start an Armenian Renaissance. Participants saw their purpose as rousing the nation from centuries of slavery and darkness, reconnecting it to its Pre-Christian past ("Mehian" means "Temple"), and encouraging independence and a rejection of tyranny, whether from its own corrupt leadership or the Turkish government. The fundamental ideology of Mehian was expressed as:
"We announce the worship and the expression of the Armenian spirit, because the Armenian spirit is alive, but appears occasionally. We say: Without the Armenian spirit there is no Armenian literature and Armenian artist. Every true artist expresses only his own race's spirit...We say: External factors, acquired customs, foreign influences, diverted and deformed emotions have dominated the Armenian spirit, but were unable to assimilate it."
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Wikipedia