Karen Swassjan

Who is Karen Swassjan?

Karen A. Swassjan, *1948 in Tbilisi, is an Armenian philosopher, literary critic, historian of culture and anthroposophist. He is one of the best known contemporary philosophers in the Russian-speaking world.

Karen Swassjan studied philosophy as well as English and French philology at Yerevan State University, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Henri Bergson and became a professor. He has translated and edited works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler into Russian, and has written numerous works on philosophy, literature, history of ideas and anthroposophy in Russian and German. In 1994/95 he was honoured by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his work as a researcher and teacher. In 2009 he won the first prize in an essay competition organized by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science. Karen Swassjan writes and lectures in Basle, Switzerland, where he lives at present.