Your trusted source

Razmik Davoyan, one of the most prominent contemporary Armenian poets, passed away aged 82, Panorama.am learnt from the President of the Writers' Union of Armenia Edvard Militonyan. The author of famous poems "Unwrap your skin", "The spider", and "After Narekatsi" died on Tuesday after along illness.  

Davoyan was born in Mets Parni, Spitak rayon, Armenian SSR in 1940. He studied philology and history at Armenian State Pedagogical University. From 1970 to 1975 he worked as senior adviser at the Committee for Cultural Relations with the Diaspora. From 1975 to 1990 he worked as Secretary of the Central Committee for Armenia’s State Prizes. In 1989 he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for the Earthquake Struck Disaster Area. In 1994 he became the first elected president of the Writers’ Union of Armenia. From 1999 to 2003 he served as Adviser (on cultural and educational issues) to the President of the Republic of Armenia.

His first poem was published in 1957 in the Leninakan Daily “Worker”. Since then he has published well over thirty volumes in Armenian, Russian, Czech and English. His works were widely translated all over the Soviet Union and published in countless Literary Magazines and Journals. Selections of poems have also been translated and published in literary periodicals in Italy, France, Syria, former Yugoslavia, Iran, China and USA. 

In 1971 Davoyan received Armenia’s Youth Organization Central Committee Prize for Literature. In 1986 he received Armenia’s State Prize for Literature. In 1997 he received the Order of St. Mesrop Mashtots, the highest non-military order of the Republic of Armenia, from the President of Armenia for his achievements and services to the country. In 2003 he received the President’s Prize for Literature for his children’s book “Little Bird at the Exhibition”.

In 2010 he received the first degree Medal “for services to the fatherland” from the President of the Republic of Armenia. In 2012, he received the CIS “Stars of the commonwealth” international award in Moscow.