Levon Shant


Levon Shant was an Armenian playwright, novelist, poet and founder of the Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society.

Biography

He was a lifelong member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and is the namesake of the ARF's Shant Student Association. He attended Armenian school at Scutari until 1884 and then went to the Gevorgian seminary at Echmiadzin until 1891. He returned to Constantinople to teach and write; his first literary work was accepted by the daily Hairenik of that city in 1891. He departed to Germany in 1893 for six years to study science, child psychology, education, literature and history in the universities of Leipzig, Jena and Munich. Afterwards he returned to Constantinople, where he continued working as a teacher. As an author, he was most renowned for his plays: Hin Astvadsner, Kaisre, Inkads Berdi Ishkhanuhin, Oshin Payl. He was one of the vice-presidents of the Armenian Parliament during the Republic and led a delegation to Moscow in April 1920 to negotiate with the communist regime. He left Armenia after its sovietization in 1921, and settled in Paris, Cairo, and eventually in Beirut. He was one of the founders of the Hamazkayin cultural association in Cairo. The next year, he was founding principal of the Nshan Palandjian Djemaran, Beirut, from 1929 until his death. One of many authors banned in Armenia for his political views, a volume of his plays was exceptionally published in Soviet Armenia in 1968. Levon Shant is regarded by many as the greatest Armenian playwright. His plays The Emperor and Ancient Gods remain among the most frequently staged Armenian dramas. The latter revolutionized the Armenian literary world when it was premiered in Tiflis in 1913. Translated into English, German, Italian, French, and Russian, it was directed by Konstantin Stanislavski in 1917.

Works