Alexander Shirvanzade

Alexander Minasi Movsisian (; 18 April 1858 – 7 August 1935), better known by his pen name Alexander Shirvanzade was an Armenian playwright and novelist. He was one of the main representatives of the realist movement in Armenian literature.

Life and work Alexander Movsisian was born on 18 April 1858 into a tailor's family in Shamakhi, the center of the historical province of Shirvan (then Shemakha Governorate, Russian Empire, modern-day Azerbaijan), from which he later derived his pen name Shirvanzade (meaning "son of Shirvan" in Persian). Shamakhi was a multicultural and once-prosperous economic and administrative center which was declining with the growth of nearby Baku. Shirvanzade received his earliest education at a school run by a Protestant Armenian preacher, then attended the Armenian parish school. His father, considering a Russian-language education to be more useful for his son, moved Alexander to the local Russian two-year school, from which he graduated in 1872. As a youth, he participated in amateur theater groups and wrote a vaudeville. It was here that he first began to familiarize himself with literature and the press. He read the works of Armenian authors, including the novels of Khachatur Abovian, Raffi and Perch Proshian, the poetry of Mikayel Nalbandian and Raphael Patkanian, the plays of Gabriel Sundukian, and the journal . He read Russian literature and the works of European authors such as Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola and Shakespeare (he especially enjoyed the works of the latter). (Honor), in the weekly , which earned him recognition.

Shirvanzade wrote many works during the 1890s. According to literary scholar Hrant Tamrazian, Shirvanzade's best works were written in the 1890s and on the eve of the 1905 Russian Revolution, a time of vibrant social and political activity.

In 1898, Shirvanzade was exiled for two years to Odessa, where he continued to write actively. He returned permanently to the USSR in 1926 and settled in Yerevan. He undertook the publication of his collected works in eight volumes and revised many of his works. The work is remembered for its descriptions of a number of prominent Armenian cultural figures whom Shirvanzade knew, including actor Petros Adamian and writers Raffi, Ghazaros Aghayan, Perch Proshian and Gabriel Sundukian. He died in Kislovodsk in 1935

Legacy Several of Shirvanzade's works were adapted into films in Soviet Armenia: Namus in 1925, Char vogi in 1927, Patvi hamar in 1956, Morgani khnamin ("Morgan's In-law") in 1970, and Chaos in 1973. A street and a school in Yerevan are named after him, as well as a theater in Kapan.

Works From the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC: Artistē (1924) Char ogi; Namus; Patwi hamar (1979) Erker: hing hatorov Collected works, 5 volumes. (1986–1988) Erker (1983) Erkeri zhoghovatsu: tasě hatorov (1959) Evil spirit: a play Translated from the Armenian Char ogi by Nishan Parlakian. (1980) For the sake of honor Translated from Badvi hamar and with an introd. by Nishan Parlakian. (1976) Erkeri liakatar zhoghovatsu (1934) Iz-za chesti (1941) Izbrannoe (1947, 1949, 1952) Kʻaos: vēp (1956) Melania: vēpik: kovkasean irakan keankʻitsʻ (1938) Sobranie sochineniĭ 3 volumes. (1957) Tsʻawagarě (1958) Verjin shatruaně: sēnario (1937) Yōtʻ patmuatskʻner (1920)