In the 19-th century, when Shushi was experiencing a period of great economic prosperity, the Armenian capital was accumulated here, which was also used for the development of national culture. The National Library presents the rich publishing heritage of Shushi, the history of which dates back to 1828.
In the following years, the number of publishing houses exceeded a dozen, including the publishing houses of His Holiness Metropolitan Baghdasar, Hovhannes Hovnanyants, Mikael Hovsepyants, Mirzajan Mahtes Hakobyants and his daughter. Leo received his literary baptism at the Hakobyants printing house, where Raffi’s ‘The Fool’ was published for the first time. One of the latter was Melkum Babajanyan’s Printing House, which operated in the early 20-th century.
During the one-century economic and cultural prosperity of Shushi, more than 170 books were published here, 28 newspapers were published, 25 in Armenian and 3 in Russian.
The period of rapid development of Shushi was interrupted in 1920, when the cultural capital of Artsakh was attacked by Azerbaijani thugs, and later began the period of falsification and assimilation of the flourishing Armenian culture of Shushi.
