(Tamrazyan with Dr. Hajinian and Dr. Saryan)

HRACHYA TAMRAZYAN, 1953-2016

The Society for Armenian Studies mourns the passing of Hrachya Tamrazyan, Director of the Matenadaran, poet, scholar and publisher; and a colleague whom many of us have known and worked with.

Hrachya Tamrazyan was born in Yerevan. He graduated from the Department of Armenian philology of Yerevan State University (1976) and obtained his doctorate in the field in 1999. As a researcher, he began his lifelong association with the Matenadaran in the late 1970s and later held a number of high positions, both public and private, in the realm of publishing, publications and information.

Hrachya Tamrazyan’s appointment in 2007 as Director of the Matenadaran, ushered in a bright decade of accomplishments. Not only was the new annex of the Matenadaran completed, hundreds of manuscripts and documents were acquired and a number of significant, innovative initiatives and projects, such as digitization, were launched. Above all, he recruited and nurtured a large number of young scholars, closing the growing generational gap, and providing vigor and continuity to the cadres and work of the Matenadaran. Hrachya Tamrazyan was also a gifted poet whose art, in communion with medieval Armenian poetry and informed by the latest literary and intellectual trends, in many ways enriched contemporary Armenian poetry. So did his renowned scholarship encompassing medieval Armenian literature in general and Grigor Narekatsi and his immediate circle in particular, opening new vistas with deep insights.

Յիշատակն արդարոց օրհնութեամբ եղիցի:

Kevork B. Bardakjian
on behalf of the Society for Armenian Studies Executive Council