The leading poetess of Armenia — whose command to never forget the mother tongue became an oath for the entire diaspora, and whose courage carried Armenian demands all the way to the Kremlin.
Silva (Sylvia) Kaputikyan, born January 20, 1919, in Yerevan to parents who had fled Van during the Armenian Genocide, became the most beloved Armenian poet of the 20th century — often called the leading poetess of Armenia. Her verse, at once intimate and fiercely national, made her the poetic voice of a people scattered across the world.
Her most famous poem, A Word to My Son, commands every Armenian child to hold onto the Armenian language even if they forget their mother — lines that generations of diaspora Armenians know by heart. She traveled tirelessly through the diaspora, binding communities from Beirut to Los Angeles back to the homeland with her readings.
Kaputikyan was also a woman of political courage. In 1988, at the start of the Karabakh movement, she flew to Moscow with Zori Balayan to press the Armenian case directly to Mikhail Gorbachev. In 2004, at age 85, she returned her state medal in protest against the government's crackdown on demonstrators — defiant to the end. She died in Yerevan on August 25, 2006.
Even if you forget your mother, do not forget your mother tongue.
— Silva Kaputikyan, A Word to My SonKaputikyan published dozens of collections in a career spanning six decades, translated into many languages and honored across the Armenian world. Schools bear her name, her home in Yerevan is a museum, and her lines about language and homeland remain the closest thing the diaspora has to a shared oath.
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