In Armenian philology, different opinions have appeared regarding the time of writing of Yeghishe’s work “History of Vardan and the Armenian War”. According to the facts reflected in it, it is accepted that Yeghishe’s History was written around 462-465. The centuries-old Armenian national literary tradition recognizes the testimony of Yeghishe as absolutely reliable regarding author’s witnessing the events. However, for more than a century, the debate among philologists and historians over the primacy of Yeghishe’s “History of Vardan and the Armenian War” and Ghazar Parpetsi’s “History of Armenia” has been going on. Yeghishe as the Avarayr’s battle historian, really appears as an impartial author, documenting genuine and reliable facts. Meanwhile, Parpetsi evaluates things from a distance in time, with a certain coloring. Thus, retelling the main episodes of Yeghishe’s Vardanants History, Parpetsi tries to replace the words used by his predecessor with synonymous expressions or change them according to the information he has. He even replaces geographical place names with parallel names as much as possible.
The information reported by Yeghishe regarding the exact dates of the Vardanants war, the troops and victims, and many other details, his awareness of the near and far events that took place, truly make the history an authentic work created by an informed figure and eyewitness author, and his powerful, eloquent poetic speech and vivid imagination elevate the historically authentic work to the level of a national epic.
Our impartial, meticulous study reveals Yeghishe’s primacy over Parpetsi not only chronologically, but also in the very significant differences in the content of their works, which prove the dependence of Parpetsi’s History on Yeghishe’s original.