Part I: the warm friendship of Simon Zavaryan and Hovhannes Tumanyan
Summary
Susanna G. Hovhannisyan
The social activity of the great persons – Simon Zavaryan and Hovhannes Tumanyan is one of the interesting pages of the Armenian political thought of the beginning of the 20th century. The meetings and cooperation of these two famous persons are connected to the activity of AR Federation, which was the primary force in the Armenian liberation war, as well as to the different spheres of the Armenian life activity. They were gathered with the idea of the survival and freedom of the Armenian people.
The social, national, educational and other projects of Zavaryan and Tumanyan had just one goal – to develop the social life and people in general. Nevertheless, that period full of political mess and disorder left all their projects undone.
Despite the different characters, they were holding the same views concerning the development of the national literature, the role of woman, patriotism, culture and so on. But they were in variance in the questions of foreign policy, especially in the question of Russia’s policy.
Zavaryan and Tumanyan have almost always been on the same side of the barricade, they’ve been together in the same political group – «Young Armenia», in the same party – AR Federation. They have given lectures in the youthful secret organization called “Tsiatsan” (Rainbow), which purposed to introduce the Armenian literature and history to the people contributing in that way to the rise of the national self-consciousness and freedom-loving ideas. They have also run the risk together during the Armenian-Tatar conflict in 1905-1906.
Despite the differences and common things in approaches of Zavaryan and Tumanyan, they are very timely even now. Their researches and publicistic articles, numerous ideas and the whole life that they lived are original and necessary lectures for every Armenian public figure at all times.