Karen A. Swassjan, PhD

Dr. Karen A. Swassjan (1948–2024), born in Tbilisi, Georgia, was a philosopher, literary critic, historian of culture, and anthroposophist. He was one of the best-known contemporary philosophers in the Russian-speaking world. He studied philosophy and English and French philology at Yerevan State University (Yerevan, Armenia), where he wrote his doctoral thesis on Henri Bergson before becoming a professor. In the 1990s he was honored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his work as a researcher and teacher. In 2009, he won the first prize for an essay competition by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science. Dr. Swassjan wrote and lectured in Basle, Switzerland. He translated and edited works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Oswald Spengler into Russian, and wrote numerous works on philosophy, literature, history of ideas, and anthroposophy in Russian and German.