Vartan Gregorian

Among his teachers there was Simon Vratsian, the last prime minister of the First Republic of Armenia (1918–20).

He was one of Vratsian's unofficial secretaries.

Gregorian described him as both his mentor and his benevolent benefactor.

Vartan Gregorian (April 8, 1934 – April 15, 2021) was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian.

Vartan Gregorian was born on April 8, 1934, in the city of Tabriz in northern Iran to Christian Armenian parents Samuel B. Gregorian and Shushanik (née Mirzaian).

Both his parents had a high school education.

His father worked for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan and was mostly absent.

His mother died of pneumonia at 26, when he was six and his father later remarried.

Vartan and his younger sister, Ojik, were raised by his maternal grandmother, Voski Mirzaian.

She came from a family of scribes, but was an illiterate peasant and Gregorian described her as wise.

His grandfather owned an inn for camel caravans.

He followed his advice and continued his studies at the Collège Armenien (Jemaran) in Beirut, graduating in 1955.

Before moving to Beirut, he spoke Eastern Armenian, some Russian, Farsi, and Turkish.

He learned French within a year.

He also briefly worked as a reporter in Beirut before emigrating to the United States in 1956.

Gregorian came to the United States with the initial intention to return to Beirut to teach Armenian history in a high school.

In another interview, Gregorian said he studied Portuguese so he could become the principal/director of an Armenian high school in São Paulo, Brazil.

In 1956, he enrolled at Stanford University and completed his BA in history and humanities in two years, graduating with honors in 1958.

He began his teaching career at University of California, Berkeley where he was briefly instructor in Armenian history and culture in 1960.

He taught European and Middle Eastern history at San Francisco State College between 1962 and 1968.

Gregorian earned a dual PhD in history and humanities (art history, philosophy, Romance languages, religion, classics) from Stanford University in 1964.

His dissertation was titled "Traditionalism and Modernism in Islam".

He was initially instructor, then in 1964 he was named assistant professor and, in 1966, associate professor of history.

In 1965–66 he had a one-year fellowship in Soviet Armenia.

He was a visiting associate professor of history at University of California, Los Angeles in 1968, before moving to University of Texas at Austin as associate professor in 1968–1970 and professor of history in 1970–1972.

Gregorian joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1972 as Tarzian Professor of Armenian and Caucasian History and Professor of South Asian history.

In 1974 he became the founding dean of Penn's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and served on that role until 1978.

From 1981 to 1989 he served as president of the New York Public Library during which he succeeded in financially stabilizing the institution and revitalizing its cultural importance.

From 1989 to 1997 he served as the first foreign-born president of Brown University.

Gregorian's work has been widely acknowledged.

He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021.

An Armenian born in Iran, Gregorian moved to the United States at 22.

He graduated with a PhD from Stanford University.

He subsequently taught at several universities and his work as a historian focused mainly on the Muslim world.

He went on to join the University of Pennsylvania faculty, then as its provost.

He received dozens of honorary doctorates, the National Humanities Medal (1998), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2004).

Regarding his family origins, he said that he could not determine if they were indigenous to the area, or settled there in the 15th, 16th, or 19th century, because "they were mostly from peasant villages that migrated to Tabriz."

He first went to an Armenian elementary school in Tabriz, then a Russian one when northern Iran was under Soviet occupation.

When Iran regained control of the area, he learned Farsi.

He was told by Edgar Maloyan, the French vice-council in Tabriz of Armenian origin, that he had to go to Beirut, Lebanon because he was "too smart to stay in Tabriz".