Vrtanes Mesrop Papazian was an Armenian writer, public-political and cultural activist, literary critic, editor, literature historian, teacher and translator.

He was born in the city of Van, Ottoman Empire, in 1866. Hard conditions made him start working at the age of 15 and wander from city to city, country to country. He worked as a laborer, photographer and telegrapher. For a long period he was teaching at schools in several cities. He worked as the editor of newspapers Free Armenia, Struggle of the Armenian revolutionist labourer association (Tbilisi), of the weekly Path (Tehran) and of the weekly Karabakh (Shoushi). He cooperated with a number of Armenian, Russian and European press organs.

The events of the 1915 genocide did not pass by his family. His brother, Nerses Papazyan (archimandrite Mashtots), abbot of Armenian Church in the northern American cities of Worcester and Boston, was arrested on 24 April 1915 in Constantinople and killed by the Turkish executioners.