Mikayel Nalbandian

Mikayel Nalbandian Poems

Mikayel Nalbandian Biography

Mikael Nalbandian (14) November 1829 – 31 March (12 April) 1866) was an Armenian writer who dominated 19th century Armenian literature. Born in New Nakhichevan (now Rostov-on-Don area) in a family of a handicraftsman. Largely self-educated, Nalbandian initially pursued priesthood, but left it soon after, studied medicine briefly at Moscow University (1854–58) and finally succeeded in collaborating with Stepanos Nazaryan in founding of an influential periodical, Aurora Borealis (Hyusisapayl). In the years of revolutionary situation in Russia 1859–1861, Nalbandyan was one of the first of the Armenian writers to take the positions of revolutionary democracy under the influence of propaganda by Kolokol (Bell) and Sovremennik (Contemporary) magazines. He traveled widely throughout Europe: Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, London and Constantinople, as well as to India. In Constantinople, Nalbandyan created a secret revolutionary society named Party of the Young around an Armenian magazine Meghu (Bee). In London, he became close friends with A.I. Gertsen, N.P. Ogarev, and M.A. Bakunin, as well as with N.A. Serno-Solovyevich and others, participated in discussing the project of an appeal article What the People Need (a program of the soon-to-be Land and Freedom organization). In a pamphlet Two Lines (1861), announced his political credo - to dedicate his life to the idea of people's liberation. In his main journalistic work Agriculture as the Right Way (1862), Nalbandyan criticized harshly the peasantry reform of 1861, even though he did it from the positions of community socialism. He saw a peasant revolution as the only solution for post-reform Russia. Upon return to Russia, his passionate activities led to his arrest and imprisonment in St. Petersburg by the Tsarist government in July 1862. He was impirosned in the Alexeyevsky ravelin of Petropavlovskaya fortress. Having been accused of inciting anti-Tsarist sentiments with the distribution of "propagandist" literature, he was eventually exiled (in 1865) to Kamyshin, a remote area over 500 miles southeast of Moscow on the west bank of the Volga in the province of Saratov. He died of tuberculosis in prison a year later. It was forbidden in Russia to possess a picture of Nalbandian; but portraits of him, with his poem, "Liberty," printed in the margins, were circulated secretly.)

The Best Poem Of Mikayel Nalbandian

Days Of Childhood

DAYS of my childhood, like a dream
Ye fleeted, to return no more.
Ah, happy days and free from care,
Ye brought but joy in passing o’er !

Then Science came, and on the world
He gazed with grave, observant looks ;
All things were analyzed and weighed,
And all my time was given to books.

When to full consciousness I woke,
My country’s woes weighed down my heart.
Apollo gave me then his lyre,
To bid my gloomy cares depart.

Alas ! that lyre beneath my touch
Sent forth a grave and tearful voice,
Sad as my soul; no single chord
Would breathe a note that said “ Rejoice !”

Ah, then at last I felt, I knew,
There never could be joy for me,
While speechless, sad, in alien hands,
My country languished to be free.

Apollo, take thy lyre again,
And let its voice, amid the groves,
Sound for some man who may in peace
Devote his life to her he loves!

To the arena I will go,
But not with lyre and flowery phrase;
I will protest and cry aloud,
And strive with darkness all my days.

What boots to-day a mournful lyre ?
To-day we need the sword of strife.
Upon the foeman sword and fire, —
Be that the watchword of my life !

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