Hovhannes Shiraz

Hovhannes Shiraz
Born	Onik Tadevosi Karapetyan 27 April 1914 Alexandropol, Russian Empire
Died	24 March 1984 (aged 69) Yerevan, Soviet Armenia
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	Armenian
Genre	Lyric poetry

Hovhannes Shiraz (Armenian: Հովհաննես Շիրազ) (April 27, 1915 – March 14, 1984) was an Armenian poet.

He was born Hovhannes (Onik) Tadevosi Karapetyan in the city of Alexandropol, then part of the Russian Empire (now Gyumri, Armenia). His mother, Astghik, was widowed by the Armenian Genocide shortly before his birth. Shiraz grew up in a considerable poverty. His first work called Beginning of Spring was published in 1935. Novelist Atrpet gave the talented poet the epithet "Shiraz", because "this youth's poems have the fragrance of roses, fresh and covered with dew, like the roses of Shiraz" (Shiraz being one of Iran's major cities, famous for its roses and poets). Another version of his pen name is "Shirak azn"—a child of Shirak, the region he was from.

Hovhannes Shiraz studied in Yerevan State University and Moscow Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. In 1958, he published the first volume of his anthology Knar Hayastani (Lyre of Armenia). The second and third volumes were published in 1965 and 1974. These collections include the best examples of Shiraz's poetry.

Shiraz mostly wrote and published poetry. He is an author of very popular patriotic and love poems included "Ani", "My Mother", "May my love remain a secret", "Siamanto and Khjezare", "Expromptu", "Like the Pagan Love", "My Holy Homeland", "The Fate of Armenians", "To Andranik", etc. He wrote "The Armenian Dante-esque" about the Armenian genocide, a subject that was banned in Soviet Union. The first version of this masterpiece was written in 1941. Only short passages from this work were published in Soviet Armenia during his lifetime, and some chapters were published in Beirut and Tehran. The entire poem (over 8000 lines) was published in 1990 in Yerevan.

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