Imperial

ARARAT (CHARENTS) ARCH

The words that run the length of the arch are from

Charents' poem «For My Sweet Armenia» and read:

It’s written on the arch :

Travel the world: you will never find

a crest as pure as Ararat's,

As an impassible road to glory,

I love my Masis Mountain.

This monument (architect: Raphael Israyelian) was erected in 1957. The site has a breathtaking view of Mount Ararat from here. The words carved on the arch belong to one of Armenia's most famous poets, Yeghisheh Charents (1897-1937), and locals refer to the arch as Charents Arch. A revolutionary artist during the turbulent years of the Armenian Genocide and the formation of the Soviet Union, Charents was born Yeghishe Soghomonian in Iran and received his schooling in Kars (1904-1912), then a part of the Armenian Provinces of the Russian Empire. In 1914, when World World I broke out, Charents joined Armenian Volunteer brigades on the Caucasus front. and fought with Russian Imperial troops as they routed the Turks and liberated western Armenia as far as Van and Erzurum. During this campaign Charents witnessed first-hand the ravages of the Armenian Genocide, which strongly affected his poetry.

In 1930, as the political situation in Soviet Armenia changed, Charents' views became completely at odds with the totalitarian regime of the ruling powers.

Charents became a victim of that same totalitarian regime when he was killed in 1937, one of the millions murdered during the Great Purge. His poems were banned although in his lifetime a 6-volume edition of poems and one novel were published. His home-museum in Yerevan houses his works and personal items.

Some of his most famous works are Lyrical Poems, Dantean Legend (1916), The Frenzied Mobs (1918), Poems (1923), Land of Nairi (1923) Epic Daybreak (1930), Book for the Road (1933). Charents also wrote many unpublished poems.