The article argues that, while preserving the traditional terms associated with specific texts is important for purposes of identification, genre studies benefit from applying more precise classifications—such as the “apocalypse,” as defined in modern scholarship. These carefully drawn distinctions help differentiate between texts that may share thematic elements but differ in structure, content, or mode of revelation. Clarifying the genre and type of a text contributes to a better understanding of its place within the broader literary tradition, facilitates comparative analysis with similar works in other traditions, and supports a more systematic approach to the study of medieval Armenian revelatory texts.
Author Archives: Admin
THE SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE OF THE HISTORIAN(A Critical View of Karen Hayrapetyan’s Two-Volume Work)
Through his detailed analyses, he demonstrates how the fragile cohesion between Eastern and Western Armenians deteriorated under political and social pressures, leading to fragmentation that undermined the foundations of statehood. The study of the First Western Armenian Congress reveals the political and psychological dimensions of this tension, highlighting competing visions of sovereignty and nation-building. His reflections on governmental policy – relating to refugee settlement, resource allocation, and civic responsibility – are invaluable for understanding how the young republic sought to balance compassion with institutional capacity.
By consolidating dispersed writings into a unified corpus, the two-volume edition closes major historiographical gaps and provides a structured foundation for subsequent inquiry. It simultaneously demonstrates how state-building in Armenia was both a struggle for political legitimacy and a moral endeavour to preserve dignity under existential threat. Hayrapetyan’s methodology, characterised by intellectual integrity and empathy, exemplifies a form of historical scholarship where patriotism is inseparable from critical analysis.
The posthumous publication of Hayrapetyan’s two-volume work also stands as a monument to scholarly integrity and his selfless dedication to Armenian studies. It offers the reader a profound synthesis of historical reasoning, moral clarity, and civic awareness – qualities rarely so harmoniously balanced. In preserving Hayrapetyan’s analytical voice, the publication ensures that the conversation between history and the nation’s moral imagination continues across generations.
ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATION PROCESS IN A TRANSFORMING SOCIETY
Key findings reveal that education is essential for social mobility, innovation, and fostering global consciousness. It identifies the need for reform in educational policies, particularly in Armenia, to ensure relevance and quality in a global context. The research underscores the importance of a holistic educational framework that integrates cultural values, promotes lifelong learning, and prepares individuals for the demands of a dynamic labor market.
Ultimately, the study concludes that the educational system must evolve into a flexible, innovative entity capable of enhancing both individual and societal well-being. By adapting to contemporary challenges and embracing new methodologies, education can effectively empower future generations to navigate and address complex global issues.
THE ARTISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF GABRIEL SUNDUKYAN’S VAUDEVILLES(On the occasion of the 150th anniversary)
Sundukyan’s artistic value is high, as he masterfully uses colorful and characteristic elements. Sundukyan skillfully creates real and destructive worlds that make life more recognizable, although not always pleasant. In vaudevilles, music and songs are not only a means of entertainment, but also an important element of creativity, emphasizing the atmosphere, emphasizing the importance of the interaction of different cultures and values. Comic speech, which Sundukyan often uses, is of particular importance: it not only aims to cause laughter, but also serves as a sharp tool that reveals human shortcomings, making them visible to everyone. The characters, who often speak in touching and at the same time funny ways, reveal the complex relationships between the individual and society. In the world created by Sundukyan, everything not only turns into a symbol, but also gives the reader a wide opportunity to understand the essence of human behavior, which is related to a person’s psychological choices and destiny. Sundukyan’s mission is to shed light on the problems that society or the individual often tries to hide.
THE DEPICTION OF CARPET WEAVING IN TOMBSTONE ART
These images are interpreted as expressions of the deceased’s professional identity and collective memory, reflecting both the perception of women’s social roles and the broader system of cultural values. The study employs an integrated methodological approach, combining iconographic and comparative art-historical analysis, epigraphic readings, and field data correlation. It also addresses issues of origin and attribution concerning certain tombstones in Urut, as well as the role of Armenian women in New Julfa in preserving and transmitting carpet-weaving traditions under Islamic rule.
In conclusion, the article argues that tombstones depicting female weavers serve not only as expressions of individual and communal memory but also as significant visual testimonies to the historical continuity and cultural resilience of Armenian carpet art and identity.
THE TRIUMPH OF AESTHETICISM IN THE MODERN WORLD
The lifeworld of contemporary humans is increasingly distancing itself from direct material experience, moving instead into the realm of semiotic and symbolic structures. Whereas in previous centuries humans interacted with objects as immediate components of material reality, today their experience is mediated through images, symbols, digital codes, and media flows. Reality gradually ceases to exist as a lived world, transforming into a space of form, image, and representation. However, this shift is not solely the result of conscious human choice; it is also a consequence of the development of technological civilization. Technologies, by transforming the production of objects and modes of interaction, also reshape human sensibilities and structures of perception. As a result, humans find themselves in an environment that is intrinsically coded according to aesthetic principles. The surrounding world is no longer perceived as an external reality but as a self-reproducing symbolic narrative, where “being” is gradually replaced by “appearing”. In other words, humans live not through the presence of the world but through its representation, where reality and representation often intermingle, and the value of objects and relations is measured less by their intrinsic existence than by their imaginative and performative significance. The aim of this article is to analyze how technological and aesthetic transformations reconstruct contemporary human perception of the world and shape new social and cultural practices, in which reality becomes mediated, symbolic, and aesthetically structured.
ON THE FORMATION OF THE IMPERATIVE IN THE DIALECT OF AṘTIAL
However, verbs from both the previous e- and i-conjugations form the imperative identically, taking the ending -ē in the singular and the ending -ec‘ēk‘ in the plural. As for the imperative singular ending -iәr (< -ir), it is not attested with simple verbs of the former i-conjugation (again, contrary to H. Ačaṙyan’s description); only suffixed verbs in the previous e- and i-conjugations, as well as verbs in the a-conjugation in general, exhibit the ending -iәr in the imperative singular in the dialect of Aṙtial.
ON A PHONOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF OLD ARMENIAN(Phonetic-phonological relations of վ (v), ւ (ṷ), and ու (oṷ))
The issue of the phonological characteristics of the linguistic units represented by the letters վ (v), ւ (ṷ), and ու (oṷ) in Old Armenian has been a topic of scholarly discussion since the late 19th century, particularly in the works of H. Hübschmann. He argued that all three letters reflected the same phoneme (i.e., phone – V.P.), with a key difference. Hübschmann claimed that վ (v) was a simple fricative consonant, whereas ւ (ṷ) and ու (oṷ), had a dual function. Depending on their position they could function either as consonants [v] or as vowels [u]. From a phonological perspective, this means that the letters վ (v), ւ (ṷ), and ու (oṷ) were merely different positional variants – allophones – of the same phoneme. Most Armenian linguists who have explored this topic in one way or another have, conceptually, accepted Hübschmann’s paradigm (A. Meillet, N. Marr, H. Acharyan, S. Ghazaryan, E. Tumanyan, H. Muradyan) with slight variations. This is especially true in the case of ու (oṷ): all the scholars mentioned above considered Old Armenian ու (oṷ) to be a simple vowel [u] represented by two letters. Only H. Pedersen argued that Old Armenian ու (oṷ) was a diphthong. S. Ghazaryan, A. Abrahamyan, E. Tumanyan, and V. Hambardzumyan also supported this view. E. Aghayan was the first Armenian linguist who, in the 1960s, analyzed the phonemic system of Old Armenian from a phonological perspective drawing on N. Trubetzkoy’s principles of functional phonology, which is based on the concepts of distinctive features and binary oppositions. Nonetheless, even Aghayan supported Hübschmann’s concept on the phonological features of these sounds. Aghayan believed that the actual phoneme among the three was <Ու> (oṷ) – a sonorant, while ու (oṷ), վ (v), and ւ (ṷ) were its positional variants, i.e. sub-phonemes. Guided by the principles of functional phonology, we have demonstrated that: 1) վ (v) and ւ (ṷ) were integral members of the phonemic system of Old Armenian, despite some positional limitations. More specifically, a word could not begin with ւ (ṷ), and վ (v) could only appear at the end of a word if it followed the vowel ո (o) and the resulting sound was not the diphthongoid ու (oṷ) (compare: բով “a furnace for melting metal” vs. բու “owl”). Otherwise, in post-vocalic positions – both medial and final – ւ (ṷ) was the usual form, not վ (v): 2) ու (oṷ) represented not a simple vowel, but a diphthongic structure, more specifically a diphthongoid. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the semivowel ւ (ṷ), like the semivowel յ (i̭), only appeared as part of diphthongs and could alternate independently with both consonants and the semivowel յ (i̭), forming phonological oppositions (contrastive units), i.e., phonological oppositions. (Compare: բաւ “border, edge” ~ բան “speech, saying” ~ բառ “word”; գոյն” shade, color” ~ գուն-(ել) “to color” etc.). Moreover, phonological oppositions existed even between the vocalic components of the same diphthongoid (compare: նաւ “ship” ~ նու “bride”; չու “journey” ~ չեւ “not yet, still absent” etc.). This suggests that the connection between the vocalic and semivocalic elements of diphthongs was weak, and they could also function independently.
THE PERCEPTION OF WOMEN’S ROLE IN PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES IN 19TH CENTURY EASTERN ARMENIAN LITERATURE
Through literary works by Ghazaros Aghayan, Perch Proshyan, Leo, and Raffi, the research reveals how women internalized patriarchal norms through fear, obedience, and ritual practices. The “eldest mother” (mets mayr) emerged as a powerful figure who, after years of submission, gained authority over younger women, perpetuating cycles of oppression. However, the arrival of Enlightenment ideas and new socio-economic orders in the late 19th century catalyzed the dissolution of the gerdastān system, as individual desires and rights began to challenge collective family structures.
The study concludes that the primary causes of patriarchal family disintegration lay not merely in external socio-economic factors, but fundamentally in the internal contradictions of the patriarchal system itself—particularly the suppression of individuality that ultimately generated the forces for its own destruction.
EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA AND MOSES KHORENATSI:Justification of The Royal Authority in The Christian Hellenism
This paper examines similar cases in the context of the Late Roman Empire and Greater Armenia, focusing on the reigns of Constantine the Great (306-337) and Tiridates III (298-330). Despite their differences, they share common features across various aspects of social policy, particularly in religious affairs. The conversion to Christianity opened new perspectives for both Rome and Armenia.
This paper explores these transformations through the narratives of two distinguished intellectuals: Eusebius of Caesarea and Moses Khorenatsi. The former was a close companion of Constantine; the latter, who lived more than a century later, sought to understand and justify the actions of King Tiridates. Eusebius employed an apologetic approach, while Khorenatsi adopted a historical description and interpretation. Both authors, however, drew upon Hellenistic social theory combined with biblical wisdom. According to this synthesis, the Roman Empire reached its zenith under Constantine’s wise leadership, and his new capital, Constantinople, embodied this ideal. Greater Armenia, conversely, followed a different trajectory: after Tiridates, it gradually declined into decay and disintegration. Nevertheless, even under these dire circumstances, a path to redemption emerged.
According to Khorenatsi, such a possibility could only become reality through the creation of a new elite forged in a new national culture and educational system. With this vision, the author revisited the fundamental concept of his teacher, St. Mesrop Mashtots.