[2] Born in the historical village of Dsegh in the Lori region, at a young age Tumanyan moved to Tiflis, which was the centre of Armenian culture under the Russian Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Hovhannes Tumanyan was born on February 19, 1869, in the village of Dsegh, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Lori Province, Armenia).

He was an offspring of an Armenian princely family of Tumanyan, branch of the famous royal house of Mamikonian that settled in Lori in 10th and 11th centuries from their original feudal fief of Taron.

Young Tumanyan was the oldest of eight children; his siblings were Rostom (1871–1915), Osan (1874–1926), Iskuhi (1878–1943), Vahan (1881–1937), Astghik (1885–1953), Arshavir (1888–1921), Artashes (1892–1916).

[3] In 1899, Tumanyan came up with an idea of organizing meetings of Armenian intellectuals of the time at his house on 44 Bebutov Street in Tiflis (present-day Amaghleba 18, in Sololaki).

Prominent members of the collective were Avetik Isahakyan, Derenik Demirchyan, Levon Shant, Ghazaros Aghayan, Perch Proshyan, Nikol Aghbalian, Alexander Shirvanzade, Nar-Dos, Vrtanes Papazyan, Vahan Terian, Leo, Stepan Lisitsyan, Mariam Tumanyan, Gevorg Bashinjagyan and many other significant Armenian figures of early 20th century.

In October 1914 Tumanyan joined the "Committee for Support of War Victims", which later helped Armenian Genocide refugees settled in Etchmiadzin.

Tumanyan in response decried that decision claiming that the refugees could seek relief in the Catholicos' quarters under order of "The Poet of all Armenians".

Translators of his works into Russian include Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, Joseph Brodsky, Samuil Marshak, and Bella Akhmadulina.

[18] In Autumn of 2011 the government of Armenia purchased a flat that Tumanyan had lived in in Tbilisi from its Georgian owner and in 2017 opened it as a museum and cultural center.