Ghazar Parpetsi

Ghazar Parpetsi is the author of the History of the Armenians, which covers the years from 387 to 485. He came from the village of Parpi in Aragatsotn, was raised by a princess of the Mamikonian family, and studied in Constantinople.¹ His patron and lifelong friend was Vahan Mamikonian. After 486, probably in 493, Vahan made him prior of the monastery at Vagharshapat, where Vahan had rebuilt the cathedral.¹²

The History has an introduction and three books. It calls itself the third history of Armenia, after the works of Agathangelos and Pawstos Buzand, and it begins where Pawstos ends, in 387.¹ The first book covers the partition of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia in 387, the invention of the alphabet (see Armenian alphabet) and the end of the monarchy in the Persian part in 428. The second book tells of the revolt of 450 and 451 and the Battle of Avarayr. The third tells of the rising led by Vahan Mamikonian from 481 to 484, which ends with his appointment as governor of Armenia in 485.²¹ Ghazar draws on Agathangelos, Pawstos Buzand and Koriun.²

Vahan asked Ghazar to write the work after jealous monks drove him out of his monastery, and Ghazar answered with a letter to Vahan, which survives and is unique in early Armenian literature.²¹