Gostan Zarian

Constant, or Kostan Zarian (Armenian: Կոստան Զարեան; February 8, 1885 – December 11, 1969) was an Armenian writer who produced short lyric poems, long narrative poems of an epic cast, manifestos, essays, travel impressions, criticism, and fiction. The genre in which he excelled, however, was the diary form with long autobiographical divagations, reminiscences and impressions of people and places, interspersed with literary, philosophical and historical meditations and polemics.

Early years

Kostandin Yeghiazarian was born in 1885 in Shamakhi (modern-day Azerbaijan). Through his mother, he was first cousins with the author Alexander Shirvanzade and the actor Hovhannes Abelian. His father, Christopher Yeghiazarov, was a prosperous general in the Russian Army, "a strong man, profoundly Christian and Armenian," who spent most of his life fighting in the mountains of the Caucasus. He died when Zarian was four years old, which prompted his family to move to Baku. He was then separated from his mother and placed with a Russian family, who enrolled him in a Russian gymnasium.

After attending the Russian Gymnasium of Baku, in 1895, when he was ten, he was sent to the College of Saint Germain in Asnières, near Paris. He continued his studies in Belgium, and, after obtaining a doctorate in literature and philosophy from the Free University (Université libre) of Brussels, he spent about a year writing and publishing verse in both French and Russian, delivering lectures on Russian literature and drama, and living a more or less bohemian life among writers and artists. Zarian became involved in the Russian Social Democratic Party, where he became personally acquainted with Vladimir Lenin.