Stepan Topchyan Has Died

Stepan Topchyan, a literary scholar, journalist, and art critic, has passed away at the age of 84. This information was reported by the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia. Stepan Topchyan was the father of conductor and Honored Artist of Armenia Edward Topchyan.

Stepan Topchyan was born in 1937 in Yerevan. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Linguistics at the Kh. Abovyan Armenian State Pedagogical University. In 1959, he worked at the Armenian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. From 1960 to 1966, he was at the M. Abeghyan Institute of Literature of the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences. From 1967 to 1976, he was a senior research fellow in the section of aesthetics and later in the history of Armenian philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the deputy editor-in-chief of the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia.

Since 1979, he worked at the “Soviet Writer” publishing house. In 1966, he defended his dissertation on the topic “Aesthetic Views of Shirvanzade” and became a candidate of philological sciences. Since 1967, Topchyan was a member of the Writers' Union of Armenia. From 1993, he partially lived in the United States, actively collaborating with the Armenian-American press. In recent years, he periodically lived and created in Armenia.

Stepan Topchyan's last monograph, “Yervand Kochar,