One of the most respected and beloved magazines for Armenian readers - "Literary Armenia" - celebrates its 55 saturated and difficult years. 

 

From the first issue and to date the main feature of the magazine was objective coverage of cultural and socio-political processes in Armenia, the mapping of the processes occurring in modern national literature. 

 

Late fifties-early sixties: leafing through the very first issue of the magazine, one can feel era: some of the most talented writers were published here - Stepan Zorian, Gegham Sarian, Nairi Zarian, Silva Kaputikyan, Hamo Sahyan, Maro Markarian, Gurgen Mahari. Acycle of poems by Osip Mandelstam "Armenia" and his "Journey to Armenia" were also published here, as well as Vasily Grossman ("Welcome to you"), Yu. Karabchievsky ("Longing for Armenia"), Sergei Gorodetsky (novel "Gardens of Babylon"), Andrei Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva, Valeriy Bryusov, Mikhail Voloshin, Andrei Bitov and many others. 

 

The magazine has always been actively followed the developments in the literary life of Armenia and was never afraid to publish new authors, new works. It is in the "Literary Armenia" in Russian translation the first works of Hrant Matevosyan were published. 

 

Very soon the magazine became famous throughout the Soviet Union. The journal stood on a par with such reputable publications as "The New World", "Friendship of Peoples", "Star", "Banner". 

 

But after the collapse of Soviet Union, since the 90s, the magazine, like many other printing publications in the country, came across the truly hard times: many publications went through reducing circulation, frequency, and then completely stopped their existence. However, the "Literary Armenia" survived, survived probably due to the endless dedication and professionalism of its employees, and is now firmly standing on her feet: it found a reliable friend in the Fund for Regional Development and Competitiveness "The Gift", due to support of which again has managed to become a modern, relevant and marketable. 

 

Due to the Fund's initiative the quadrilateral contract was concluded with the "Literary Armenia," the Ministry of Culture and the Union of Writers of Armenia (whose body is the magazine), on a joint publication of the magazine. "The Gift" provides funding, technical equipment, helps in the promotion and distribution of the magazine, including in the country and abroad. So, thanks to the assistance of the Fund "Literary Armenia" is now permanently represented in Moscow in the store "Armenian book". 

 

Founded in 2006, the fund as a whole develops concepts and programs for socio-economic development of communities, provides scientific and educational, scientific and practical studies and activities, engaged in publishing scientific, educational and cultural work, is aimed at establishing closer ties between Armenia and the Armenian diaspora and dissemination of the global economic, scientific, legal and health experience. The fact that the fund is also engaged in the development and manufacture of new technologies, positively affected the performance of the log/magazine in the virtual space: today a stylish and convenient website of the magazine already successfully operates, edition is present in the library ISSUU, has pages on social networks (VKontakte, Facebook). There is a background article about the magazine in Wikipedia. In the nearest future the site of the magazine will have blogs, due to which the connection will be provided through feedback from readers, new authors, literary critics and others. 

 

In December this year "Literary Armenia" marked the 55th anniversary - the only Russian-speaking Armenian literary magazine. Many readers and admirers of the magazine came to the Russian- Armenian (Slavic) University (RAU) in order to pass their congratulations.