Death of Eduard Danielian (July 25, 2017)

A prolific historian, Eduard Danielian had an important contribution to the study of Armenian ancient and medieval history.

Danielian was born on February 18, 1944, in Yerevan. He graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Yerevan State University (1961-1966) and the English section of the Institute (now University) of Foreign Languages Valery Briusov (1966-1972). After finishing the course at the Ph.D. program of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences, in 1972 he defended his dissertation on “The Reflection of Ancient Cosmological Views in Anania Shirakatsi’s Cosmology and Atlas.” He earned a second doctorate in 1988 with the subject “Armeno-Byzantine Political Relations in the Twilight of Sassanid Persia and the Early Period of the Arab Caliphate.”

Eduard Danielian worked for 45 years at the Institute of History of the Academy, going from junior (1972-1978) to senior researcher (1978-1989). He became head of scientific group (1989-2000) and then leading researcher (2000-2010). In his final years he was head of the department of History of Ancient Centuries (2010-2017). He was the founding editor-in-chief of the English electronic journal Fundamental Armenology (2015-2017). Simultaneouly, he taught at the University of Foreign Languages Valery Briusov (1980-2000) and headed the chair of Geography at Yerevan State University (2000-2006).

He studied issues of ancient and medieval history, particularly related to the origins of the Armenia people, Armenian statehood, historical geography, and cosmological views, the sources of Christianity and the early history of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as well as Armeno-Iranian and Armeno-Byzantine relations. He was the author of about 200 scientific articles and several monographs: The Armenological Cosmological Work of the Seventh Century about the Structure of the Universe (in Russian, 1978), The Spiritual Sources to Proclaim Christianity as State Religion in Armenia (two editions, 1996 and 1997), St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Pontifice (1999), The Political History of Armenia and the Armenian Apostolic Church (Sixth-Seventh Centuries) (2000), History of Gandzasar (2005), and The Monastery of Gandzasar (2009).

Danielian passed away on July 25, 2017, in Yerevan.