CHARENTS: In Search of my Armenian Poet

By Shareen Anderson Charents: In Search Of My Armenian Poet explores the life and work of one of Armenia’s best-loved poets, Eghishe Charents, who was tragically killed in a Stalinist prison in 1937 under mysterious circumstances.Who was this man, this poet? If you ask anyone today, without hesitation, they would say Charents was the poet of the people. A man who lived through his country’s tumultuous history; witnessing a brutal genocide against his people, experiencing the loss of Armenia’s historic homeland and the despair and hunger that followed. He later participated in a calamitous civil war and a revolution that brought a new hope, only to be superseded by the gloom and terror of the Stalinist years. More than just a victim of the times, Charents became a martyr to his people and many consider him to be the father of modern Armenian literature.This literary travelogue takes viewers on a journey from Armenia to the poet’s birthplace in Kars, Turkey, with Grikor Babakhanyan – a p