Personality
Shiraz was known for his good sense of humour. In early 1960s, John Steinbeck visited poet's apartment in Yerevan, and then wrote in a letter: "...men are closest together when they laugh together. And I remember that in Yerevan we laughed together a great deal."
Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Alexander Gitovich dedicated poems to Shiraz.
Shiraz was an anti-establishment poet who was very popular with the people of Soviet Armenia but fought against its corrupt Soviet leadership all his life. When in 1974 the known critic Suren Aghababyan has brought to Shiraz the news about awarding of the Order of Lenin, the answer has followed: "And what they want in exchange? To buy my silence?"
Read more about this topic: Hovhannes Shiraz
Famous quotes containing the word personality:
“It is personality with a penny’s worth of talent. Error which chances to rise above the commonplace.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)
“The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order, of union with God, the principle of all perfection.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)