Lawyer, psychologist, and state person
Tigranyan was born in 1875, in Alexandropol (now Gyumri). He received his secondary education at Tbilisi's No. 1 male gymnasium. In 1899, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University.
In 1900, Tigranyan worked at the Gevorgyan Seminary, teaching psychology and logic, the history of ancient Armenian law, and church law.
In 1906, he was appointed inspector of the Nersisyan School in Tbilisi and was elected a deputy of the II State Duma of Russia.
He was also engaged in scientific-pedagogical and socio-political activities. In 1915, he participated in the organization of self-defense of the Armenians of Vaspurakan and was elected the newly created governor of Van-Vaspurakan, deputy of Aram Manukyan.
In 1918-1919, Tigranyan was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Public Education, and Arts of the Republic of Armenia, Member of the Parliament, and Vice President.
He took an active part in the organizational works of YSU creation. In 1918, Tigranyan organized a meeting of intellectuals in Tbilisi in the fall and presented the adopted decision to the RA government. On February 6, 1920, by order of RA Minister of Public Education and Art N. Aghbalyan, he was appointed acting associate professor of philosophy at the university's history-linguistics faculty.
On December 28, 1920, By order of A. Hovhannisyan, Tigranyan was appointed a lecturer of psychology and the history of Armenian law in 1921. On January 2, he was elected the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
In 1921, Tigranyan moved to Iran after the February uprising. After a short time, he returned to Yerevan and continued to teach at YSU. In 1923, Tigranyan moved to Alexandropol and engaged in pedagogical activities. In 1935, he returned to Yerevan and finished the 2nd volume of the monograph dedicated to the ancient Armenian canons.
He authored the studies "Armenians" (St. Petersburg, 1910, Yerevan, 1992), "Old Armenian Book of Canons" (Russian, Petersburg, 1918), " Court book of Mkhitar Gosh and Book of Canons" (Tbilisi, 1925), "Armenians introduction to the history of law" (manuscript copyright, Yerevan, 1923) educational manual. He also published his lectures in a separate book (Alexandrapol, 1920), and translated individual chapters of William James' "Principles of Psychology" (Alexandrapol, 1920). The last two books are considered the first editions of YSU. Tigranyan authored unique works, including the works about his brother, songwriter Nikoghayos Tigranyan.
The tsarist autocracy arrested him twice (1898 and 1908) as a "revolutionary", and the Soviet government arrested him three times (1923, 1933, 1937) for "counter-revolutionary activities". On December 5, 1937, he was sentenced to death with confiscation of personal property. The verdict was executed on December 17, 1937.
In 1958, Tigranyan was acquitted, and the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence.
