Tserents

Tserents (Lang-hy|Ծերենց, born Hovsep Shishmanyan, Հովսեփ Շիշմանյան, Constantinople September 16 (28), 1822 - Tiflis, February 1 (13), 1888) was a prominent Armenian writer.

Tserents studied at Venice, at the San Lazzaro degli Armeni of the Mekhitarist Order between 1831-1837 and continued his education in Paris (1848-1853). He returned to Constantinople in 1853 and lived for several years in Cyprus, working as a teacher and a scientist. He moved to Tiflis in 1878, and worked as a teacher in the Nersisyan Armenian gymnasium.

Together with Raffi, Tserents was the founder of the Armenian historical novel. The novel "Thoros, Son of Levon" (1877) was dedicated to the tragic events in the history of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in the 12th century. His best known novel, "In the Pains of Birth" (1879), reflects the liberation struggle of the Armenian people against the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century. Tserents's novel "Theodoros Rshtuni" (1881) is about the historic struggle of the 7th century for a strong centralized state.

References

*Great Soviet encyclopedia, 3d edition. - Moscow, 1970-77.