Stepanos Nazarian was a prominent Armenian

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 publisher, enlightener, historian of literature and orientalist

Oriental studies

Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...

.

He was born in the family of a priest. Graduated from the department of philosophy in the University of Tartu

University of Tartu

The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...

 in 1840. In 1849 he became a professor of Persian and Arab literature in Moscow in the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages

Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages

The Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, established in 1815, was a Moscow school specializing in Caucasian language and culture, particularly that of Armenia, and the cultural center of the Armenian diaspora in Russia. Many Russian scholars specializing in Transcaucasia received their...

. He published a number of scholarly works and earned his doctoral dissertation on a work analyzing Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...

's Shahnameh

Shahnameh

The Shahnameh or Shah-nama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD and is the national epic of Iran and related societies...

.

Under the influence of the European enlightenment movement and the Russian social movement of the 40's, Nazarian increasingly began writing against the feudal system and its ideology. In the 50's he became the leader of the Armenian enlightenment movement. Between 1858 and 1864 he published in Moscow the influential magazine Hyusisapayl (Aurora Borealis), that had a great effect on the development of progressive public thought in Armenia. He criticized serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

 and clerical power for the spiritual revival of the Armenian people; however, he refused to classify his actions as part of a broader class struggle. Nazarian advanced the idea of public education in the new enlightenment era as well as the replacement of Classical Armenian (grabar) with the new literary Ashkarhabar. He was a supporter of deism

Deism

Deism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...

 and promoted Russian and foreign literature. Translated many of Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...

's dramas.