Suren Tigrani Yeremian (; ; – 17 December 1992) was a Soviet historian and cartographer who specialized in the study of the early history and geography of Armenia and the Caucasus. He devoted nearly thirty years of his scholarly efforts in reconstructing the Ashkharhatsuyts, a seventh-century atlas commonly attributed to Anania Shirakatsi.[See the "Preface" and "Introduction" in Robert Hewsen's The Geography of Ananias of Širak: Asxarhacoyc, the Long and the Short Recensions. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1992, .]
Biography
Early life and education
Yeremian was born into a family of laborers in
Tbilisi, in 1908 and attended a local Russian school.
[ Presidency of the Armenian Academy of the Sciences, Institute of History. "S. T. Yeremian," Patma-Banasirakan Handes 135-136 (1992): pp. 255-256.][ Mahé, Jean-Pierre. "In Memoriam: Souren Eremyan, 1908-1993," Revue des Études Arméniennes 14 (1993): pp. 339-40.] He was an avid reader of history books and his interest in Armenian history grew especially when he read the famous study by
Nicholas Adontz,
Armenia in the Period of Justinian.
He moved to Armenia, where he was accepted to Yerevan State University.
He studied history and economics and graduated from university in 1931.[ s.v., "Yeremian, Suren Tigrani," Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 3, pp. 546-547.] From 1935 until 1941, Yeremian worked at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union's department of Oriental studies in Saint Petersburg. While there, Yeremian taught Armenian history at Leningrad State University's Department of History and Philology. He defended his dissertation, entitled "The Feudal Organization of Kartli during the Marzban Period."
In 1941, he moved back to Yerevan and continued his studies at the Institute of Material Culture and History, which was still under the auspices of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
Academic research
It was during this time that Yeremian shifted his focus to composing historical atlases. One of his most signal contributions was his study of a seventh-century Armenian atlas, the
Ashkharatsuyts. He spent a great deal of his energies in not only translating and researching the background behind the atlas but also on the supposed author of the work, Anania Shirakatsi.
In 1963, his
Armenia According to the Ashkharatsuyts was published, although Yeremian would in subsequent years go on to revise and update some of the views, most notably coming to the conclusion that Anania Shirakatsi was its true author, that he had concluded in the work. He also contributed in writing several articles in the
USSR Historical Atlas. Yeremian was also one of the key advocates who pushed for the publication of the
History of the Armenian People (Yerevan, 1971–1984, 8 volumes), authoring numerous articles on the origins of the Armenian people, the kingdom of
Urartu, and on the social, economic, cultural and political structure of the Kingdom of Armenia.
He would also go on to write numerous articles in the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia.
He struggled with a serious illness for many years, and died in 1992.
Selected works
-
Hayastane ust "Ashkharhatsuytsi". Yerevan, 1963.
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