About: Jalaleddin (novella)

Jalaleddin (Armenian: Ջալալէդդին) was the first of the Armenian writer Raffi's famous works of historical fiction and a milestone in modern Armenian literature. The novella was first published in serialized form across eight issues of Mshak, a Tiflis-based Armenian newspaper, in 1878 (exactly one year after the events depicted). Its title is based on the name of Sheikh Jalaleddin, a Kurdish chief who led his forces on a violent campaign against Armenian and Assyrian villages in the eastern part of Van province at the beginning of the last Russo-Turkish War (1877–78). While the story is fictional, Raffi based the historical details on eyewitness accounts. Much of the key historical information provided by Raffi corresponds with British correspondents who were in the Eastern Ottoman Empire a