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Today, January 24, marks the birthday of Paruyr Sevak, one of the greatest Armenian poets of the 20th century. Sevak would have turned 90 today.

Paruyr Sevak was born in Chanakhchi village to Rafael and Anahit Soghomonyan on January 24, 1924. Young Paruyr attended the village school and later in 1940 moved to Yerevan to study at the philological faculty of Yerevan State University. He graduated from the YSU in 1945. The same year he starts a postgraduate study of Armenian literature at the Academy of Sciences Abeghyan Institute of Literature. In 1951 Sevak went to Moscow to study at the Gorky Institute of World Literature. Graduating from that institute Sevak works there in 1957-59 as a translating professor.

In 1960 Sevak returns to Yerevan and starts his fecund and meaningful literary, scientific and public activism. He starts to work at the Abeghyan Institute of Literature as a scientific researcher. From 1966-1971 Sevak served as the Secretary of the Board of the Writers Union of Armenia.

In 1967 Sevak became a doctor of philology after dissertation defense. In 1968 he was elected to the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR.

Sevak died on June 17, 1971 in a car crash while on a drive back to Yerevan. His wife, Nelly Menagharishvili, also died in the car crash. He was buried in the backyard of his home, in Zangakatun, which later became a museum.