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 HOVHANNISYAN Hovhannes was born on April 14 (26), 1864 in Vagharshapat. An Armenian poet. He studied at Moscow Lazaryan Seminary and graduated from the faculty of Linguistic of Moscow State University (1888). He taught at Gevorgyan Seminary of Ejmiatsin.  During Baku Commune was the head of coverage department of Baku (1918), then the province of Vagharshapat, in 1922 he worked at the ASSR legislative committee. His first collection of poems was published in 1887. Hovhannisyan is the founder of the new Eastern Armenian poetic school the representatives of which became H. Tumanyan and A. Isahakyan. The lyrical theme of H. Hovhannisyan is love, homeland and nature. Love poems are singled out by the unique harmony of the individual and nature (“I would like a murmuring brook"). His patriotic poetry depicts the sufferings of the Armenian people and is distinguished by heroism and optimism (“Did you see the hills?”, “My Mother”, “Tghmut”, “New Spring”, “Up to the Hill”, “Two Ways”, “Good-bye Sun, Spring”). He was the first poet who depicted the village life with its internal contradictions (“The Church of the Village”). In the poem “Syunyats Ishkhan” Hovhannisyan interpreted some issues of the Armenian history particularly issues related to Vasak Syuni in a new way. He was intolerant towards the evil (“Artavazd”, “Birth of Vahagn”, “Lamp of the Enlightener”. Some poems are on “Alagyaz High Mountain”. Hovhannisyan enriched the Armenian literary language. He translated the works of Homer, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Hugo, Pushkin, Lermontov, Uhland, etc. 

The house-museum of H. Hovhannisyan is in his birthplace from 1948. A school in Ejmiatsin and streets in Yerevan and in other cities of RA are named after him. 

 Source - "Who is Who. The Armenians" Encyclopedia, Volume I, chief-editor Hovh. Ayvazyan, Yerevan, 2007.