Ervand Lalaian

Lalaian, Ervand Aleksandrovich 

Born Mar. 13 (25), 1864, in Aleksandropol’, now Leninakan; died Feb. 24, 1931, in Yerevan. Soviet ethnologist, folklorist, and archaeologist.

Lalaian graduated from the University of Geneva in 1894. Between 1896 and 1916 he published the ethnologic periodical Azgagrakan andes (26 vols.). He was one of the organizers of the Armenian Ethnologic Society, which existed from 1906 to 1917. On his initiative, the Ethnologic and Archaeological Museum was founded in Tbilisi in 1909. Moved to Yerevan in 1921, it became the basis of the State Historical Museum of Armenia, which Lalaian was appointed to direct. His principal works were devoted to the ethnology of the Armenians and to the archaeology of Armenia.

REFERENCES

Melikset-Bekov, L. M. “Armianskii etnograf-arkheolog E. A. Lalaian.” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1936, nos. 4–5. (With a list of Lalaian’s principal works.)
Melik-Pashaian, K. V. “Zhizn’ i deiatel’nost’ Ervanda Lalaiana.” Ibid., 1965, no. 2.