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Raffi, The Five
Melikdoms of Karabagh (1600-1827),
translated from Armenian by Ara Stepan Melkonian (London: Taderon
Press, 2010), 188
pp., ISBN
978-1-90-3656-57-0,
pb., GB£16.00/US$22.00.
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Raffi was one of the most influential Armenian writers and political
commentators of the 19th century. His works included social and
political commentaries, as well as epic novels. The Five
Melikdoms of Karabagh (Khamsayi Melikoutiunneru) is one of
Raffi’s scholarly works, where he drew on a range of manuscripts,
books and oral sources, to write a detailed history of Karabagh. The
focus of his study were the five Armenian melikdoms (noble houses)
that ruled this region, as Karabagh passed from Persian to Russian
rule. Full of great detail and astute observations, The Five
Melikdoms of Karabagh allow us to better understand this region
today.
This is the first English translation of The Five Melikdoms of
Karabagh, and it joins four other English translations of Raffi’s
work undertaken by the Gomidas Institute and Taderon Press. The
other works are The Fool, Jalaleddin, The Golden Rooster and
Tajkahayk.
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 Tajkahayk by Raffi (Taderon
Press, 2008) and Accursed Years by Yervant Odian (Gomidas
Institute, 2009)
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