Death of Vazgen Hakobian (May 5, 1982)

Historian Vazgen Hakobian was born in the village of Lernants (nowadays Lernagiugh) in the region of Shirak on February 14, 1913. He graduated from the Faculty of History of Yerevan State University in 1941 and obtained his Ph.D. in Historical Sciences in 1967. He taught at the Pedagogical Institute of Kirovakan (nowadays Vanadzor) from 1969 to 1974 and was a head of department at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia. 

Hakobian’s fields of interest were Armenian medieval history, issues of the Armenian liberation movement in the eighteenth century, and the study of various sources. He compiled and edited the two-volume collection Minor Chronologies (Thirteenth-Eighteenth Centuries, 1951-1956), with most sources published for the first time, and Colophons of  Seventeenth Century Armenian Manuscripts (three volumes, 1974-1984), both in Armenian. He also collaborated in the edition of a collection of documents about Armenian-Russian relations in the eighteenth century (vol. 2, two parts, 1964-1967), this one in Russian. 

Hakobian’s edition of Armenian Canon Law in two volumes (1964 and 1971) is particularly important, because it put together the legislation of the Armenian Church for the first time. His work earned the Mesrop Mashtots prize of the Academy of Sciences in 1974. 

Vazgen Hakobian passed away in Yerevan on May 5, 1982.