David Mouradian

David Eduardi Muradyan, known in English and French as David Mouradian, was born on 12 December 1951 in Yerevan, then in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. His father was the actor Eduard Muradyan and his mother the ballet dancer Haykanush Asatryan.

He began publishing in 1969, when his stories appeared in the children's magazine Pioneer. In 1973 he graduated from the faculty of philology of Yerevan State University.

From 1971 to 1973 Mouradian worked in the literary programmes department of Armenian national radio, and from 1973 to 1974 at the magazine Working Woman of Armenia. His first book, I Want to Tell You, came out in 1976. That year he joined the Armenfilm (Hayfilm) film studio, where he worked from 1976 to 1991 and again from 1997 to 2001, first on the script and editorial board, then as chief editor of a creative unit and deputy director for artistic programmes. For many years he presented programmes about film on Armenian Public Television.

He taught at the Yerevan State Pedagogical Institute, and from 1993 he headed the film studies and screenwriting courses at the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinema, where he taught film history and screenwriting. On 2 June 2014 he was elected rector of the institute, as the only candidate, and served until 2018. He was also president of the National Cinema Academy of Armenia.

He was vice president of the Writers' Union of Armenia from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2008, and deputy minister of culture of Armenia from 2008 until he resigned at his own request in January 2010. In 2000 he took part in the European Literary Express, a train journey between European capitals with writers from some 40 countries, which he described in the book Europe on Wheels.

He was the son of the actor Eduard Muradyan and the ballet dancer Haykanush Asatryan, and grew up in an artistic family in Yerevan. Colleagues knew him for his cosmopolitan outlook and his work promoting Armenian culture abroad.

Mouradian wrote eight books, many articles, and scripts for several short feature and documentary films. His books include Souvenir Photo (2000), Trains and Stations (2001), Europe on Wheels (2002), Our Old Piano (2003), A Right to Inheritance (2005), The Orchestra in the Waiting Room (2006) and The Interpretation of Dreams (2009). He was a co-author of the complete catalogue of Armenian cinema (2001), which received a prize from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.

His play Our Old Piano won the Levon Shant prize as the best play of 2003 and ran at the Russian Drama Theatre in Yerevan. A Right to Inheritance was staged in Aleppo, and Your Ticket, Please was produced at the National Chamber Theatre in Yerevan for his 60th birthday in 2011. His work was translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Tajik, Georgian, Romanian, French, German, Hungarian and English.

David Mouradian died on 21 October 2026, at the age of 74. His death was announced by the Union of Cinematographers of Armenia, which wrote: "Very sad news. David Muradyan has died. We express our condolences to his family, relatives and friends." The union said it had been preparing a creative evening dedicated to him under the title Word, Frame, Colour, and that he truly was a man of the word, the frame and colour. The cause and place of death were not reported. Some outlets gave his age as 75.

Mouradian's honours included the Golden Pen award (2006), the title Honoured Art Worker of the Republic of Armenia (2011), the Grigor Narekatsi medal (2014) and the Medal for Services to the Motherland, first class (2017). He also received the Artavazd award and the Levon Shant prize for drama.

As a teacher of film history and screenwriting for more than 30 years, and as a writer whose prose drew on the language of cinema, he shaped the way a generation of Armenian filmmakers and critics thought about their national cinema.