RAFFI

born 1835, Payajik, Iran died 1888, Tiflis, Georgia, Russian Empire pseudonym of Hakob Meliq-hakobian celebrated Armenian novelist. Raffi worked as a schoolmaster and a journalist, collaborating with the Russian-Armenian paper Mshak from 1872 to 1884. His principal novels are Jalaleddin (1878), The Fool (1880), David Bek (1880), The Golden Cockerel (1882), Sparks (188390), and Samuel (1885). He also wrote a number of short stories and historical articles. An ardent nationalist, he was preoccupied with the lot of his fellow Armenians in Iran and Turkey, and his interest in history was that of a writer of the Romantic school. He had a fertile imagination and narrative skill, but the psychology of his characters tends to be shallow and the construction and style of his work uneven.