Nalbandian was widely revered in the Soviet period, while Dashnaks adopted "Mer Hayrenik", based on his poem "The Song of an Italian Girl", as the anthem of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918.

[8][15] In 1858 he collaborated with Stepanos Nazarian to establish the monthly journal Hyusisapayl («Հիւսիսափայլ», Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis), which was published in Moscow until 1864.

[14] The name was influenced by the journal Poliarnaia zvezda ("Northern Star"), published by Russian radicals Herzen and Ogarev in London.

[27] From March to July 1859 he traveled throughout Europe, visiting Warsaw, Paris, London, and several German cities, where he met activists (e.g., Stepan Voskan, editor of Paris-based Arevmutk)[28] and acquired knowledge about the socio-economic and political conditions of the time.

[8][34] On his way to London to obtain official permission for his journey, he visited Italy (Messina, Sicily, Naples, Rome, and Genoa), and contacted with independence activists—supporters of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the leader of the Italian unification movement.

[8][35] In London, he was confirmed by the Russian embassy and the British Foreign Office as New Nakhichevan's representative to arrange the transfer of the will from India.

In Paris he met with Ivan Turgenev, and published two political works: "Two lines" (Erku togh, 1861) and "Agriculture as the True Way" (Երկրագործութիւնը որպէս ուղիղ ճանապարհ, 1862).

He read encyclopedias,[44] Khachatur Abovian's Wounds of Armenia and made extensive annotations,[45] Henry Thomas Buckle's History of Civilisation in England,[46] Georg Kolb's Handbuch der vergleichenden Statistik,[47] Dmitri Mendeleev's textbook Organic Chemistry,[48] and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

[49] On 10 December 1865 Nalbandian was found guilty by the Governing Senate in the following crimes: being aware of the criminal intentions of the "London propagandists", supporting them in disseminating banned literature in southern Russia among Armenians, and an aspiration to start an anti-government movement.

[56] He was buried at the courtyard of the Holy Cross Armenian Church in Rostov-on-Don,[57] located some 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the north of New Nakhichevan.

[2][63] Bardakjian summarizes his views as follows:[51] Ronald Grigor Suny notes that Nalbandian was "used and misused by Soviet historians as the Armenian equivalent to the Russian 'enlighteners' of the late 1850s and early 1860s—Herzen, Ogarev, Chernyshevskii, and Dobroliubov."

He attacked conservative clerics (and other perceived obscurantist community leaders) for their efforts to stifle secular and Western-style learning in Armenian schools.

[96] His attacks on Catholicism "should be understood as part of his struggle to liberate Armenian literature from its medieval, religious roots, which he felt had been revived and nourished by the Mekhitarist fathers.

In a 1861 letter addressed to Harutiun Svadjian, his major Western Armenian ally, he wrote: "Etna and Vesuvius are still smoking"—in reference to the Italian unification—"is there no fire left in the old volcano of Ararat?

He aligned with realism ("art as a mirror of reality") and valued such pieces as Abovian's Wounds of Armenia, Sos and Vartiter by Perch Proshian, and Vartan Pasha's Akabi, written in Turkish using the Armenian script.

[61] He also authored a modern Armenian rendering of Ghazar Parpetsi's A Letter to Vahan Mamikonian (Թուղթ առ Վահան Մամիկոնեան).

[119] Nalbandian's oeuvre consists of poems on patriotism and freedom, novels that expose social ills, essays and articles on national and political issues, economics, philosophy, education, and a series of pieces of literary criticism.

[120][121] Under that pseudonym, Nalbandian composed short stories, published in Hyusisapayl, that portrayed the Armenian clergy's mysticism, deceitfulness, and ignorance.

[84] In 1857 he wrote what Vahé Oshagan described as the first ethnographic novel in Armenian literature Minin Khoske, Miusin Harsn ("A Promise to One, A Bride to the Other").

"[12] He was part of Russian Armenian intellectuals of the mid-to-late 19th century that were experiencing their own "amalgamated version of the Reformation and the Enlightenment simultaneously.

Ghazaros Aghayan noted that students of the Nersisian School of Tiflis widely read Nalbandian and were influenced by his radicalism.

[134] In his 1904, Leo ranked Nalbandian lower than Raphael Patkanian in terms of literary talent, but noted that he had a high reputation among the youth.

[139] Nalbandian indirectly influenced the Armenian rebels of Zeitun, a mountainous region in Cilicia, Ottoman Empire that enjoyed some autonomy up to the 19th century.

The intellectuals' organization, named the Benevolent Union, included Tserents, Harutiun Svadjian, Mgrdich Beshiktashlian, Serovbe Takvorian, and Dr. Kaitiban.

[145] In mid-1880s an Armenian organization in Tiflis led by Christapor Mikayelian, a member of the populist revolutionary Narodnaya Volya, disseminated Nalbandian's pamphlet on agriculture among the urban poor.

[149] Armenian revolutionaries's use of violence (armed struggle) since the late 1880s against their oppressors, especially Ottomans and Kurds, was also influenced by the writings of Nalbandian, Patkanian and Raffi.

[150][151] Nalbandian also influenced the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak)[152] and early Armenian Marxists, such as Stepan Shahumian, Alexander Miasnikian, and Bogdan Knuniants.

[154] According to Miasnikian, Nalbandian was an agrarian and utopian socialist,[155] who "came close to modern materialism," which Miasinikian considers a great achievement.

"[158] Ashot Hovhannisian, an early Armenian Marxist and the first Education Minister of Soviet Armenia (1920–21), wrote a two volume book entitled Nalbandian and his time («Նալբանդյանը և նրա ժամանակը», 1955–56).

The Soviet Armenian government decreed in 1922 to erect a statue of Nalbandian, along with Abovian, Vahan Terian, Gabriel Sundukian and Bolshevik and Communist figures in Yerevan.