Death of Hakob Khachatryantz (November 1, 1960)

Hakob (Iakov) Khachatryantz was one of the most accomplished translators of Armenian literature into Russian in the 1920s-1950s.  

He was born in December 1884 in Yerevan and spent his childhood in Baku. He graduated from the gymnasium of Baku and then the Faculty of Philology of the University of St. Petersburg. He taught Latin and History at the Armenian Seminary of Nor Nakhichevan (Rostov-on-the-Don). In the 1920s, he returned to Yerevan and worked as the director of the Armenian Telegraphic Agency (now Armenpress). In 1929, he moved to Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg) and then to Moscow. 

Khachatryantz became a member of the Soviet Writers’ Union in 1939. In the same year, he published a collection of Armenian stories translated into Russian with a prologue by his wife, the famed writer Marietta Shahinian. He had previously translated Yeghishe Charents’ novel Land of Nayiri, as well as several works by Hovhannes Tumanian, Shirvanzade, and Avetik Isahakian. Particularly influential was his two-volume Russian-language collection Armenian Nouvelles (1945, 1948) which, in turn, was translated into 14 languages, including English. He also translated into Russian the plays For the Sake of Honor, by Shirvanzade, and Brother Baghdasar, by Hagop Baronian. 

He passed away in Moscow on November 1, 1960.