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 PAPAZYAN Vrtanes was born on April 12, 1864 in Van. An Armenian writer, political and cultural figure, literary critic, literary historian, ethnographer, editor, teacher and translator. Son of M. Papazyan. 

In 1868 he moved to Agulis, where he received his primary education. He went to Aramyan school in Tabriz (1875-1878), studied in Gevorgyan seminary of Echmiadzin (1878-1879), graduated from the department of literature and social sciences of University of Geneva (1894). For many years he taught in Van, Tbilisi, Tehran, Shushi, Bucharest, Bursa, and other cities. Papazyan edited the newspaper "Kriv" (1894), "Shavig" (1894-96), "Karabakh" (1911-1912), published articles and was a correspondent. In 1887-1889 he established links with the underground Armenian patriotic groups in Karin, traveled to Western Armenia, in 1889 he collaborated with the newspaper "Mshak" ("Letters from Turkish Armenia") with a series of articles.

From 1889, the series of stories of Papazyan, depicting the life of the Western Armenians were published in press, later  in two books ("Pictures from the life of Turkish Armenians", 1891, "Stories from the life of Turkish Armenians", 1904). In those works he portrayed the tragic episodes of the struggle of Western Armenians against the Turks, the Kurds, created images of brave individuals (“Kheran”, "Lightning", "Light Pleasures", "The Dying are Greeting You" and others.). In the novel "Emma" (1895, published in 1901) and the novel "Hadji Bey" (1906) Papazyan criticized the national parties.

Besides depicting the various problems of national life, Papazyan paid great attention to "the entire human troubles", considered serious socio-political condition of the Armenian people to be the part of the great universal human injustice. This idea he embodied in allegorical tales. In the tale "The Wolf Man" (1891), he defended the idea of labor, material and legal equality of people from the positions of utopianism ("Round gods", 1898).

At the beginning of the 20th century Papazyan came to the idea of class struggle ("Dragon", 1903). In his publicistic articles and aesthetic works ("The Forest is moving") 1905, "The Lion woke up" 1905, "The Sea", 1909) portrayed the strength and determination of the masses that rose up against the tyranny.

Papazyan played a major role in the development of Armenian drama. In his dramas ("Arshaluys", "Rock" 1907, "Aytsemnik" 1915, published in 1959 "For the Motherland", 1916, published in 1959) he put forward national liberation and freedom ideas based on historical and contemporary material. He touched upon the folklore of different peoples, their history. For the ethnographic research "Armenian Gypsies" (1899) he was elected as a member of the Moscow Imperial Ethnographic Society (1900).

Papazyan wrote critical articles on the Armenian, Russian and world literature, defended the principles of realism. He created the first complete history of the Armenian literature ("The History of Armenian Literature from Ancient Times to the Present Day", 1910). He translated into Armenian the works of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. Tolstoy, A. Daudet, F. Nietzsche, and others. His works are devoted to general civilization, arts, history, literary movements, linguistics. For the freedom of ideas, Papazyan was persecuted by the Russian government, and for national liberation ideas he was sentenced to death in absentia in Turkey. V. Papazyan died on April 26, 1926 in Yerevan. Streets, schools in Yerevan and other cities were named after V. Papazyan.

Source - "Who is Who. The Armenians" Encyclopedia, Volume I, chief-editor Hovh. Ayvazyan, Yerevan, 2007.