(Solution or impasse)
Summary
Sergey N. Sarinyan
The article is an attempt of textual analysis of Levon Khechoyan’s novel “The Book of Mher’s Door”. By genre it can be called a novel-apocrypha with a complicated structure both in form and content.
Comparing the canonized version of the epos with the one hundred and fifty versions of the Armenian Epos, Khechoyan gives a new interpretation to the mythologism of Mher and Agravakar trying to reveal the cosmogonic beginning of the Armenian Epos. According to the scientific hypothesis, the universe came into existence and developed in the result of the Big Bang, and the Earth being a celestial body, can also be renovated through the Big Bang just by pressing the button of the atomic bomb.
It is for this bang that waits Mher in the Agravakar claiming he will come out of the cave when “the wheat grain is the size of a dog-rose”.
According to Khechoyan, the cosmic reason has its origins in the Armenian Plateau, and just then the epos “Sasna Tsrer” was created which can be called a pro-epic by its world importance.
In the novel “The Book of Mher’s Door”, the epos is viewed as a transformation of contemporaneity just the way the modern-day Armenian being is seen as a transformation of the epic. As a historical and cultural phenomenon the epic “The Sasna Tsrer” reflects the philosophy of the Armenian history which continues today and goes to the future.