Raphael Patkanian, better known under the pseudonym of Kamar-Katiba, who died on September 3, 1892, at Nakhitchevan-on-the-Don, Russia, where he was born November 20, 1830. He was twenty-one years old when he made his debut in Armenian literature, which he was later to enrich with lyric poems, enthusiastically admired by his compatriots; with numerous short stories, true pictures of Oriental life, and with satirical writings trenchant as a Damascus stiletto. During the last years of his life, he directed the Professional School of his native town; he had ordered to be inscribed over the entrance of this institution the following words in Armenian: "The hand that labors begs not.