Stepan Zoryan (real surname Arakelyan) was born in 1890 to a peasant family in the small town of Karakilisa (modern-day Vanadzor) in the Erivan Governorate of the Russian Empire.

However, his difficult financial situation forced him to work as a proofreader at a printing house, and then as a translator for the Armenian newspaper Surhandak ("Messenger").

From 1922 to 1925, he was the editor-in-chief and secretary of the collegium of the publishing house of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Armenian SSR.

He participated in the production of critical editions of the works of Khachatur Abovyan, Raphael Patkanyan, and Hovhannes Tumanyan.

The Stepan Zoryan state museum was opened in 1972 in Kirovakan (current Vanadzor), at the writer's own house, called by the local inhabitants an "Armenian fortress".