Chair of Iranian Studies

In 1940, the Faculty of Philology was established at Yerevan State University (YSU). Within this faculty, the Chair of Oriental Languages and Literatures included Iranian Studies as one of its research areas. In 1968, when the Faculty of Oriental Studies was founded, it included the Department of Iranian Studies, which was renamed as the Chair of Iranian Studies in 1973. The first head of the chair was Dr. Professor Gevorg Nalbandyan.

Since 2014, the Head of the Chair of Iranian Studies has been PhD, Professor Vardan Voskanyan.

The Chair of Iranian Studies engages in research and educational activities across almost all fields of Iranian studies, including:

• Living and extinct Iranian languages and dialects (Persian, Afghan Persian, Kurdish, Talysh, Tatar, Parthian, Middle Persian, Old Persian),

• The history and geography of Iran and Iranian-speaking regions,

• Iranian linguistics and philology,

• Iranian literature, the history of Iranian culture and civilization,

• The study of Iranian-speaking ethnic and religious groups,

• Current political issues in Iran and the broader Middle Eastern region, and more.

The chair staff comprises prominent and leading experts in the field who regularly participate in professional development programs both in Armenia and abroad. These experts are involved in international and local grant projects and maintain professional cooperation with prominent scholars of Iranian studies and related fields from foreign universities. These scholars have authored instructional and methodological manuals, monographs, school textbooks, and scientific articles, many of which are published in high-impact journals.

The chair has a broad scope of local and international collaborations. Particularly, it maintains cooperative relationships with universities in Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd, Gundeshapur, Neyshabur, and Tabriz, as well as universities in Hamburg, Bonn, and Sorbonne, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of California, Los Angeles. The Chair of Iranian Studies also collaborates with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS RA) and Mesrop Mashtots University in Stepanakert. The chair staff is involved in grant programs of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport of the Republic of Armenia.

The Chair of Iranian Studies offers the "Iranian Studies" bachelor's program and the "Iranian Historiography" master's program.