Birth of Stepan Balasanian (December 5, 1837)

Stepan Balasanian was one of the leading figures of the Armenian intelligentsia of the Caucasus in the late nineteenth century.

Balasanian was born on December 5, 1837, in the Romanian city of Botoșani (Moldavia), where there was an old Armenian community. He received his elementary education in his birthplace, and in 1852 he went to study in Paris, first at the Samuel-Moorat College of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice (1852-1855) and then at the Haigazian School, from which he graduated in 1858.

After graduation, Archbishop Gabriel Ayvazovsky (brother of the famous painter) invited Balasanian to and teach at the Khalibian School in Feodosia (Crimea). He taught there from1858 to 1861, and, due to quarrels with Ayvazovsky, left the school with his colleagues in 1861 to found a school in Nor Nakhijevan, near Rostov-on-the-Don. His progressive articles in the press led to his expulsion from Rostov. Balasanian settled in Tiflis and taught Armenian language, history, literature, and French at the Nersisian School. At the same time, he taught at the Royal School of the city.

In 1869, Balasanian and a group of friends founded the Gayanian School for girls in Tiflis. His advanced pedagogical views gave an important role to women’s education. He married the sister of poet Gevorg Barkhudarian (1835-1913) and had one daughter. After his wife’s death, he remarried, but did not have any more children. In 1881, following an invitation by Catholicos of All Armenians Gevorg IV, Balasanian moved to Holy Etchmiadzin, where he taught French and Armenian history at the Gevorgian Seminary until his death on February 19, 1889, at the age of fifty-two. He was buried in the northeastern section of the courtyard of the church of St. Gayane.

Balasanian was a prolific contributor to the leading publications of the Tiflis press, writing articles on current issues, reviews, and scholarly studies on history and literature, in which he expressed quite progressive views about their significance. He established the foundations for a scientific grammar of Eastern Armenian. His main works include History of Armenian Literature (1865), Practical Grammar of the Armenian Language (1869), General View of the New Written Language of Eastern Armenians (1870), and Grammar of Armenian Mother Tongue (1874). His Armenian History was posthumously published in 1890 and had three reprints in 1895, 1911, and 1920.