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Aksel (Axel) Bakunts ( hy, Ակսել Բակունց, Alexander Stepani Tevosyan; , 1899 – July 8, 1937) was an Armenian prose
The house in Goris, Armenia, where Bakunts grew up is a museum dedicated to his life and work, operating as a branch of the Yeghishe Charents Museum of Literature and Arts. Bakunts lived there as a child, and also at other times in his life. The museum includes four small rooms that display Bakunts' furniture, correspondence, and books, as well as household items, valuable pictures, documents, stories and novels that were published in periodicals.
Works by Bakunts in ArmenianThe Dark ValleyShort Films based on a Aksel Bakunts short story Pheasant/Միրհավ
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakunts, Axel 1937 deaths 1899 births People from Goris Armenian activists 20th-century Armenian writers Great Purge victims from Armenia Soviet rehabilitations 20th-century translators Armenian male writers
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...
, film-writer, translator and public activist.
Life and career
Bakunts was born 1899 inGoris
Goris ( hy, Գորիս) is a town and the centre of the urban community of Goris, in Syunik Province at the south of Armenia. Located in the valley of the Goris (or Vararak) River, it is 254 km from the Armenian capital Yerevan and 67 ...
in Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...
and educated at the Gevorkian Seminary in Echmiadzin
Vagharshapat ( hy, Վաղարշապատ ) is the 4th-largest city in Armenia and the most populous municipal community of Armavir Province, located about west of the capital Yerevan, and north of the closed Turkish-Armenian border. It is comm ...
. Always outspoken, his first publication, a satirical account of the mayor of Goris, earned him a stint in jail in 1915. He subsequently served as an Armenian volunteer in the battles of Erzurum, Kars and Sardarabad. Between 1918 and 1919 he was a teacher, proof-reader and reporter in Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and i ...
. In 1920 he was accepted to the Kharkov Institute in Ukraine to study agriculture. After graduation in 1923, he worked as an agronomist in Zangezur
Zangezur ( hy, Զանգեզուր) is a historical and geographical region in Eastern Armenia on the slopes of the Zangezur Mountains which largely corresponds to the Syunik Province of the Republic of Armenia. It was ceded to Russia by Qajar I ...
, a region of Armenia that features prominently in his short stories.
From 1926 he settled in Yerevan where he quickly established his reputation as a gifted writer with his first collection of short stories entitled ''Mtnadzor he Dark Valley'. His oeuvre includes short story collections, various individual pieces in the press, fragments of novels destroyed following his arrest in 1936, and three screenplays for films produced by Hyefilm in the 1930s.
A colleague and friend of Yeghishe Charents
Yeghishe Charents (; March 13, 1897 – November 27, 1937) was an Armenian poet, writer and public activist. Charents' literary subject matter ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialist revolution, and frequently Armenia an ...
, Bakunts was a member of the former's Armenian Association of Proletarian Writers. Bakunts fell victim to the Stalinist terror and was accused of various crimes including alienation from socialist society. He was arrested in 1936 and is believed to have been shot after a twenty-five-minute trial in 1937.
Museum
The house in Goris, Armenia, where Bakunts grew up is a museum dedicated to his life and work, operating as a branch of the Yeghishe Charents Museum of Literature and Arts. Bakunts lived there as a child, and also at other times in his life. The museum includes four small rooms that display Bakunts' furniture, correspondence, and books, as well as household items, valuable pictures, documents, stories and novels that were published in periodicals.
Works
His most famous works are "Alpiakan manushak" (dedicated to Arpenik Charents, the first wife ofYeghishe Charents
Yeghishe Charents (; March 13, 1897 – November 27, 1937) was an Armenian poet, writer and public activist. Charents' literary subject matter ranged from his experiences in the First World War, socialist revolution, and frequently Armenia an ...
), "Lar-Markar", "Namak rusats tagavorin" ("A Letter to the Russian Tsar"), "Kyores" (1935) etc. Bakunts also was a film-writer ("Zangezur", etc.). A 1927 collection of his short stories, "Mtnadzor," was translated into English by Nairi Hakhverdi as "The Dark Valley" and published by the Gomidas Institute
The Gomidas Institute (GI; hy, ԿԻ) is an independent academic institution "dedicated to modern Armenian and regional studies." Its activities include research, publications and educational programmes. It publishes documents, monographs, memoir ...
in 2009.
References
External links
Works by Bakunts in Armenian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakunts, Axel 1937 deaths 1899 births People from Goris Armenian activists 20th-century Armenian writers Great Purge victims from Armenia Soviet rehabilitations 20th-century translators Armenian male writers