YEREVAN, ARMENIA - Professor Gourgen Melikian, Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Languages at Yerevan State University, is among the final contenders for the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize Committee notified Professor Melikian of his position by letter in early May. He is the only candidate from Armenia. The letter from the Nobel Prize Committee came as a complete surprise to him, as he had completely forgotten that three men had come to the University nearly one year ago to interview him for the purpose of submitting his name to the Nobel Prize Committee. Professor Melikian is a specialist in the Persian language and has written extensively on this subject, including the New Persian grammar system and the New Persian vernacular dialects. His most recent publications are Dvandva Formations in New Persian (published in Yerevan by the Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, 1996) and the article "Examples of Judeo-Kurdish Lexical Parellels" in Acta Kurdia, Vol. 1, 1994 (published in London by Curzon Press). He has made significant contributions to the study of Persian local dialects and argots (the secret language of specific groups), to the study of lexical similarities between Armenian and New Persian languages, and the lexical borrowings by New Persian from the Armenian language. Professor Melikian entered Yerevan State University in 1958 and became a faculty member after graduation. He was elected Dean of the Oriental Language Faculty in 1992. He also served as president of Hyranashen, a university-based organization devoted to improving Armenia's environment. An accomplished alpinist and avid environmentalist himself, he endeavored to instill in his students a love of Armenia's natural environment by taking them regularly on hiking and mountain climbing trips. It was on these trips that he spearheaded Hyrenashen's program to restore the environment by planting trees. It has been estimated that he is responsible for the planting of several hundred thousand trees all throughout Armenia and later in Karabagh as well. It was his avocation as an environmentalist that took him to Karabagh in 1985 and thus he came to know the land and the people, becoming one with them in their struggle for freedom. For over 35 years, whether in the classroom lecturing, in the mountains planting trees, or on one of his many trips to Karabagh organizing and distributed humanitarian aid, Professor Melikian has endeavored to impart to hsi students love and respect both for the environment and for their fellow human beings by awakening them with their own benevolent spirit.

Paul Clinton's article in the Glendale News Press on Sep/6/96: