For the following three years he taught briefly at Sanahin and then worked for Catholicos Yeprem of Armenia [hy] as his clerk and translator.

[9] While working for the Catholicos, the twenty-year-old Abovian met many notable foreigners, including the diplomat and playwright Alexander Griboyedov, who was stuck in Echmiadzin en route to Tabriz in September 1828.

[12] The turning point in Abovian's life was the arrival of Friedrich Parrot in Armenia in September 1829, a professor of physics from the University of Dorpat in Livonia (in present-day Tartu, Estonia).

Parrot traveled to Armenia to climb Mount Ararat to conduct geological studies and required a local guide and a translator for the expedition.

[13] Abovian and Parrot crossed the Arax River into the district of Surmali and headed to the Armenian village of Akhuri situated on the northern slope of Ararat 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level.

Years later, in 1845, the German mineralogist Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich climbed Ararat with Abovian.

[18] He entered the university directly without additional preparation and studied in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Philological-Historical Department from 3 September 1830 to 18 January 1836.

[19] The years in Dorpat (present-day Tartu, Estonia) were very fruitful for Abovian who studied social and natural sciences, European literature and philosophy, and mastered German, Russian, French and Latin.

[21] In 1834 Abovian visited his cousin Maria (daughter of melik Sahak Aghamalian) in Saint Petersburg, who then married to the Georgian prince Alexander.

[22] Abovian's efforts were thwarted as he faced a growing and hostile reaction from the Armenian clergy as well as Tsarist officials, largely stemming from his opposition to dogmatism and formalism in the school system.

Abovian was appointed as the supervisor of the Tiflis uyezd school and married a German woman named Emilia Looze (died 1870) in 1839.

A Bavarian professor, Moritz Wagner, from the University of Munich, arrived in May and toured the Lake Sevan region with Abovian and thereafter corresponded with him on a regular basis.

[26] They also visited a Yazidi encampment where they met the chief Timur Aga and exchanged pleasantries with a rider from Count Paskevich's guard.

[4][6] Numerous theories have been proposed attempting to explain his disappearance: that he committed suicide, was murdered by his Persian or Turkish enemies, or arrested and exiled to Siberia by the Special Corps of Gendarmes, among others.

[6] Writer Axel Bakunts put forward the theory that Abovian was in Western Europe engulfed in the Revolutions of 1848.

[27] Abovian wrote novels, stories, descriptions, plays, scientific and artistic compositions, verses and fables.

[28] The story begins with an abduction of an Armenian girl by a band of thugs sent by the Persian sardar that triggers an uprising led by Aghasi.

[29] Abovian saw in strengthening of the friendship of Russian and Armenian peoples a guarantee of the national, political and cultural revival of his native lands.

[28] Abovian translated to the Armenian language the works of Homer, Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Nikolay Karamzin, I.

[28] Pedagogical compositions of Abovian include the book for reading Introduction to Education (1838), a textbook of Russian grammar and an Armenian-language novel History of Tigran, or a Moral Manual for Armenian Children (printed in 1941).

[32] Kevork Bardakjian argues that, while there is much reason for the praise of Abovian, his veneration was carried to extremes, especially during the Soviet years, leaving many worthy contemporaries in the shadow of the chosen 'fathers' or 'masters.'

Bardakjian also suggests that the extent of the influence of Abovian's work, much of which was published decades after his death, is still open to debate.

Ara Baliozian wrote:[34] [Abovian] believed that every person, even the lowest, has inherent powers capable of development.

These liberal views, together with his persistent efforts to reform the education system, alienated him from the Armenian establishment—the clergy and the wealthy merchants: an alliance that has always been on the side of reaction rather than progress.

As a result, he may have committed suicide, or, as a thinker impossible to muzzle, he may have been secretly assassinated by agents of the Czar.Schools, streets, boulevards and parks were named after him.

As a result of a misunderstanding the statue was only delivered to Yerevan in 1925 and first erected on Abovian Street by the site of the Moscow Cinema in 1933 and then moved to the children's park on the banks of the Hrazdan River.