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Raffi, Tajkahayk,
translated from Armenian by Ara Stepan Melkonian (London: Taderon Press, 2005), ISBN
978-1-90-3656-63-1,
paperback, GB£12.00/US$10.00.
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Tajkahayk is probably one of the most foretelling Armenian
political tracts of the 19th century, written on the eve of what
came to be known as the Armenian Question. Raffi, a gifted political
and literary commentator, could see the clash between an emerging
Armenian civil rights movement and traditional elites in the Ottoman
Empire. Despite the rhetoric of the Tanzimat era of reforms, Raffi
identified powerful forces which opposeed social and political
change, especially in the so-called Armenian provinces of the
empire. An astute and critical thinker, Raffi gives us invaluable
insights into the political millieu of this critical period in
modern Armenian and late Ottoman history. This book is one of the
most important literary commentaries on the Armenian Question in the
late Ottoman Empire.
This first English translation of Tajkahayk is part of
a series of translations from Raffi s work sponsored by the Gomidas
Institute. The titles are
The Fool,
Jalaleddin,
The Golden Rooster and
The Five Melikdoms of Karabagh. Taderon Press
is an imprint of the Gomidas Institute.
.
About the Author
Raffi (né Hakob Melik-Hakobian) was
born in 1835 in Bayajuk, near Salmas, in northwestern Persia. He
died in Tiflis in 1888. He was a prolific and popular writer who
contributed to Krikor Ardzrouni’s Tiflis-based liberal periodical,
Mshak (Cultivator). Among his other principal works of
fiction are Jalaleddin, Gharib Mshetsi (The exile from
Moush), Khachagoghi Hishatakarane (The diary of a
cross-stealer), Kaitzer (Sparks), Davit Bek, and
Samuel.
About the Translator
Ara Stepan Melkonian is
a British based Fellow at the Gomidas Institute.
His other translations include The Five Melikdoms of Karabagh
(Taderon Press, 2010) by Raffi, and Accursed Years (Gomidas
Institute, 2009) by Yervant Odian.
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