One of Kurghinian’s famous poems calling women to solidarity in their struggle against oppression, Let Us Unite was first published in the volume Ringing of the Dawn. In this poem, Kurghinian tries to raise women’s self-consciousness to defy the patriarchal system that has kept them within the confines of the home, preventing them from entering the public sphere:

“Enough of old wooden rules and laws / sacrificing our youthful days, / keeping us behind four walls.”

The fifth stanza emphasizes women’s role and participation in the struggle for social justice, and their equal place by their comrades’ side:

“Our lucky men, the cocky boys / should not be proud, should not boast. / They could not have reached anywhere / without our help, without our care.”

The poet’s voice, unlike the elegiac and lyric tones of her contemporaries, is brusque, demanding, and assertive. This self-righteous stance was a radical move away from women’s “angelic” poetry and the lyric style that dominated the Armenian literary salons of her contemporaries. Her language is simple but effective for the time.

Like her other poems, Let Us Unite incorporates many dialectical terms close to the speech patterns of the working class and peasantry to whom her poetry was directed. Kurghinian “sang songs” of rebellion, scrupulously working on perfecting her rhymes and rhythms, usually iambic tetrameter, so that her stanzas could be easily remembered and learned by heart.

Bibliography

Ghazarian, Hovhannes. Shushanik Kurghinian. Yerevan, Armenia: National Academy of Sciences, 1955.
Ishkhanian, Bakhshi. The Concept of Work and the Worker in the Poetry of Ada Negri, Hakob Hakobian and Shushanik Kurghinian. Nor Nakhijevan, Armenia: 1909.
Kurghinian, Shushanik. In Literary Heritage: Poetry, Prose, Plays, Letters, edited by J. Mirzabekian. Yerevan, Armenia: National Academy of Sciences, 1981.
———. I Want to Live: Poems of Shushanik Kurghinian. Translated by Shushan Avagyan. Watertown, Mass.: AIWA Press, 2005.
———. “Let Us Unite.” In The Other Voice: Armenian Women’s Poetry Through the Ages, translated by Diana Der-Hovanessian. Watertown, Mass.: AIWA Press, 2005, 25.

Categories: World Literature

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