Vahan Hovhannesi Totovents (Armenian: Վահան Յովհաննէսի Թոթովենց; September 1, 1889 – July 18, 1938)[1] was an Armenian writer, poet and public activist.
Vahan Totovents was born on July 17, 1893, in the town of Mezre (now Elazığ) in the vilayet of Kharberd. He was one of seven children, and he was only eight when he lost his father—a prosperous landowner and a high government official. After an elementary education, the young Totovents went to the Armenian Central School in the large nearby town of Kharpert, where two of his teachers were well-known authors Tlgadintsi and Rupen Zartarian, who influenced his style of writing, despite its individuality. His first book appeared in 1908. He left for Constantinople in 1908. In 1909 he went to Paris, and then to New York. At the same time, he mastered English and French, and studied literature, history, and philosophy at the University of Wisconsin.
During the First World War, in 1915, Totovents went to the Caucasus as a volunteer in defense of his country: this was the year in which the whole of Western Armenia was depleted of its Armenian population during the Armenian genocide. During World War I, he served as a secretary to Andranik Ozanian and participated in the battles of Erzurum and Van. He then worked with poet Hovhannes Tumanyan to organized humanitarian relief for survivors of the Armenian genocide. He edited a newspaper in Tiflis in 1917-18, wrote numerous articles, a novel, literary studies, and other material mainly in the newspaper Hayastan. In 1920 he again went to America, and two years later he returned to Eastern Armenia, by this time known as Soviet Armenia, where he devoted all his time to writing. His output included novels, short-stories, plays and poems.[2]
Totovents welcomed the sovietization of Armenia and came to Soviet Armenia in 1922. He worked for the satirical monthly Shesht in 1923 and for the official state newspaper Sovetakan Hayastan in 1924–26. He also worked at Yerevan State University. Totovents was arrested in 1936 and executed in 1938 during the Great Purge.[3] He was rehabilitated in 1954.
Totovents published his first work in 1907. His notable works include the novels, stories and dramas Doktor Burbonian (1918), Mahvan batalion ("Death Battalion", 1923), New York (1927), Baku (v. 1–3, 1930–34), Hovnatʻan vordi Yeremiayi ("Jonathan, Son of Jeremiah", 1934). His collection of autobiographical short stories Kyankʻě hin Hṛomeakan chanaparhi vra ("Life on the Old Roman Road", which "reflect[s] the society, culture, and mores not only of the Armenians of his childhood but also of their neighbors in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire", was particularly influential on Armenian literature.[4] The Armenian film A Piece of Sky (1980) directed by Henrik Malian is based on Totovents's short story "Light-Blue Flowers".
His works have been translated into Russian, English, French, Bulgarian and Turkish.