Vahan Totovents

Vahan Hovhannesi Totovents (; July 18, 1894 – July 18, 1938)

During the First World War, in 1915, Totovents went to the Caucasus as a volunteer in defense of his country: this was the year in which the whole of Western Armenia was depleted of its Armenian population during the Armenian genocide. During World War I, he served as a secretary to Andranik Ozanian and participated in the battles of Erzurum and Van. He then worked with poet Hovhannes Tumanyan to organized humanitarian relief for survivors of the genocide. He was posthumously rehabilitated on January 29, 1955, during the Khrushchev Thaw.

Works Totovents published his first work in 1907. His notable works include the novels, stories and dramas Doktor Burbonian (1918), Mahvan batalion ("Death Battalion", 1923), New York (1927), Baku (v. 1–3, 1930–34), Hovnatʻan vordi Yeremiayi ("Jonathan, Son of Jeremiah", 1934). Particularly influential was Totovents's Kyankʻě hin Hṛomeakan chanaparhi vra ("Life on the Old Roman Highway"), an "unsurpassed effort" consisting of "fragmented memories of his birthplace." The Soviet Armenian film A Piece of Sky (1980), directed by Henrik Malyan, is based on Totovents's short story "Pale Blue Flowers" (1935).

His works have been translated into Russian, English, French, Bulgarian and Turkish.

Books

In English Scenes from an Armenian Childhood, 1962, NY: Oxford University Press, 182 p., Tell Me, Bella (a Selection of Stories), 1972, 127 p., , Jonathan, Son of Jeremiah (Mashtots paperbacks), 1985, 68 p., , Pigeon Fancier, 1994, 66 p..

In French Une enfance arménienne, Julliard, 1985, 194 p..