Silva Kaputikyan with children

Silva Kaputikyan, the foremost Armenian poet of the 20th century, a writer, publicist and academician. She was born on 5 January 1919 in Yerevan into the family of Barunak Kaputikyan, a teacher, former editor of a revolutionary newspaper and refugee from Van. From 1936 to 1941 she studied at the Faculty of Philology of Yerevan University. In 1952 she was awarded the Stalin Prize, second class.

Kaputikyan was one of the leaders of the Karabakh movement. On 26 February 1988 she and Zori Balayan met Gorbachev. She was the wife of the poet Hovhannes Shiraz and the mother of the sculptor Ara Shiraz. She died on 26 August 2006 in Yerevan and is buried in the Komitas Pantheon.

In the photograph she stands by a large round table, surrounded by children wearing Pioneer neckerchiefs. An open book lies on the table.