Published in 1878 in the Armenian language, Jalaleddin follows the story of a young man with nothing to lose as he embarks on a journey through the valleys and peaks of the Eastern Anatolian mountains to rediscover a treasure he lost long ago. Based on events that took place during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, this short yet vivid narrative intensely portrays the human spirit in all its capacity for love and hate, war and peace, civility and wildness, and destruction and self-sacrifice.