Rouben Abrahamian

Rouben Abrahamian
Born	1881 Gnishik,Erivan Governorate,Russian Empire(nowArmenia)
Died	1951 Yerevan,Armenian SSR,Soviet Union(now Armenia)
Scientific career
Fields	Iranian studies,linguistics

Rouben Abrahamian(Armenian:Ռուբեն Աբրահամյան;1881 – 1951) was anArmenianIranologist,linguist and translator.

Biography

Rouben Abrahamian was born in 1881 in the village ofGnishik(modern-dayVayots DzorProvince ofArmenia), then part of theRussian Empire.He received his secondary education inEtchmiadzinandYerevan,and then moved abroad for higher education in a number of places. First, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology at theKiev University(1907), then atLeipzig University(1909), and then at theSaint Petersburg Imperial University(1911). After his academic spell in Europe, he returned and started teaching Russian, linguistics, and classical philosophy in Yerevan. Between 1912 and 1921, he taught inTiflis(Tbilisi), as well as at other schools in theCaucasusregion. In 1921, he moved to neighboringIranand taught for many years at variousArmenianschools inTabriz,New Julfa,andTehran.

During his time in Tehran, Abrahamian served as the principal of a large Armenian school. At the same time, he also began his study of ancient andmodern Persian.Some time later, he once again travelled to Europe for educational matters, and in 1935, he received his doctorate inphilologyfrom theSorbonne Universityin Paris (nowadays University of Paris). He wrote his graduation thesis on theJudeo-Persiandialects of Judeo-Isfahani andJudeo-Hamadani.His interest for this topic stemmed from the time he translated the works of the 11th-century Iranian poetBaba Tahirinto Armenian.Abrahamian's work on this matter was pivotal, for he found important commonalities between the language used in Baba Tahir’s poems and the Jewish dialects of the Iranian cities ofHamadānandIsfahan.His findings on behalf of Baba Tahir and the Jewish dialects were published in the following year under the title ofDialectologie iranienne: dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir.

When theUniversity of Tehranwas founded in 1935, Abrahamian participated actively in the establishment of its department of Ancient Iranian Languages, where he subsequently started teachingPahlaviand became head of the faculty as well. In 1946, following theIran crisis of 1946,he moved toSoviet Armenia,where he worked at the Institute of Languages at the Academy of Sciences in Yerevan.

Publications

• Kʻareakner ew ḡazalner: Baba Tʻahir Orian Hamadani (The quatrains and ḡazals of Bābā Ṭāher ʿOryān Hamadāni), Tehran, 1930.
• Ferdovsin ew ir Šahnamēn (Ferdowsi and his Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934.
• Hatuatsner Šahnameits (Excerpts from the Shahnameh), Tehran, 1934.
• Dialectologie iranienne: dialectes des Israélites de Hamadan et d’Ispahan et dialecte de Baba Tahir, Paris, 1936.
• Alefbā-ye pahlavi, Tehran, 1937.
• Rāhnemā-ye zabān-e pahlavi, Tehran, 1938.
• Sayatʻ-Novayi tagherě (The Verses of Sayat Nova), Tehran, 1943.
• Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag, Yerevan, 1958.
• Pahlaveren-parskeren-hayeren-ṛuseren-angleren baṛaran (Pahlavi-Persian-Armenian-Russian-English dictionary), Yerevan, 1965.

Sources

• Manoukian, Jennifer."ABRAHAMIAN, ROUBEN".Encyclopaedia Iranica.Retrieved21 March2016.
• H. M. Ayvazean, Ov ov ē hayer: Kensagrakan hanragitaran (Who is Who among Armenians: Biographical encyclopedia), Yerevan, 2005, p. 22.
• B. L Chʻugaszean, Hayrenatardz iranahay dēmkʻer (Repatriated Iranian-Armenians), Yerevan, 1997, pp. 11–12.