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AVETIS AHARONYAN’S “NAZE’S LULLABY” IN FOLK MUSIC – 2020-4

Summary

Ani S. Akopyan
It is known that the Armenian folk (traditional) song has three main directions: peasant, urban folklore and the art of gusans and ashugs (folk troubadours). These directions, being a product of the Armenian people, at the same time differ from each other in the degree of their tradition, the logic of melodic thinking, the scale of sound, character and other indicators. It is well known that Komitas, the founder of Armenian musical folklore, studied mainly peasant music.

The fact is that the cities built at the crossroads of human civilization, as trade and economic centers, were more “diverse”, multinational in terms of demography, which implies appropriate creativity.

We initially had a goal, at least at this stage, to study lullabies of exclusively peasant origin. Thus, the popular “Naze’s Lullaby” with the author’s text and an obvious urban type of melody, until the revelation of a new peasant version, remained outside the scope of our interests. In the article, based on this new version and other sources, we put forward the thesis, according to which the famous lullaby, popular among the people for about 100 years as the author’s poem by Avetis Aharonyan, actually has a national origin.

Thus, the importance of our little research is not only the presence of a newly discovered unique version of the peasant song of a popular verse, but also a very interesting hypothesis that the poem is actually not the author’s, but an example of traditional folklore. It is also important that with the help of Aharonyan’s literary development, this verse was disseminated and musically “rebuilt” in the urban environment, which was often sung around the cradle of an Armenian child for almost a century.

ARMENIAN INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CHURCH OF HOLY SEPULCHRE IN JERUSALEM – 2020-4

Part 3. The Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator (St. Helena Chapel)

Summary

Michael E. Stone (Jerusalem), Khachik A. Harutyunyan
One of the oldest and most beautiful buildings of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the Armenian St. Gregory the Illuminator Church (commonly known as the Chapel of St. Helena) located in the eastern part and on the lower level of the Holy Sepulchre Church, just a few steps away from the Armenian small chapel called “The Division of the Garment”. There is a narrow entrance, from which the gradually widening stairs descend to the spacious hall of the church.

There are two altars in the church. The main altar is dedicated to St. Gregory, right of which there is a small altar dedicated to St. John the Baptist. According to the Armenian tradition, the relics of St. John were buried under this small altar, by St. Gregory the Illuminator during his visit to Jerusalem in the early 4th century.

The church is rich in extensive and short Armenian inscriptions, the total number of which, according to our calculations, reaches about six dozen. 13 of them are regular inscriptions in Erkat‘agir (uncial) script, carved on small khachkars in different parts of the church, which were mainly published and are known to scholars. The rest of the inscriptions are mostly made by the simple scratching method, and are marked by their irregular writing. The oldest dated Armenian inscription in this chapel seems to be a graffito scratched in 1451 (see no 1), after which we have discovered another graffito scratched on the outside of the cupola in 1666 by an unknown Ter (= priest) Kirakos (see no 2).

Within the limits of the present article, we selectively present 16 inscriptions of the most complete, leaving the others for the forthcoming collection of the project “The Armenian Inscriptions of the Holy Land and Sinai”. In addition to the presented graffiti, in the second part of this article, we discuss three inscriptions that have already been published in order to make some corrections and additions to them.

THE DEFINITION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE BY THE THEORETICAL–PRACTICAL EXECUTION (FULFILLMENT) – 2020-4

Summary

Romik Kh. Kocharyan, Anahit R. Jijyan
The social science presents itself as language-acquired human life just in its essential accomplishment. And the social science is presented as wisdom insighting and clarifying the genuine and own spiritual meaning of the past and present of human life, achievable to human understanding by God’s grace. Studying human life and by full disclosing in it virtues of human selfness and their activities with praising value judgment, as well as vices – with reprehension and partial disclosure, social science as such is presented inter-woven with its theoretical forming, just as active (practical) social science. In the presented investigation, from the viewpoint of “revealing the truth-of-being of social science” both the theoretical and practical components are present in their interconnected union. Such understood theory and scientific conception of social science have as its own aim and final result – “the explication of the truth of being-of-social science as such. The nature of social science or the truth of being-of-social science as such, its essential features summarily is revealed in the short formulated definition of social science. The article analyzes and diversifies the views of the classics of sociological thought such as Emil Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, De Roberti, Pitirim Sorokin and others in determining the subject of research and accomplishment (in Armenian “կատարում” – performance, execution) of social sciences. Along with many well-known theorists, the authors of the article analyzed in detail, in particular, the definitions of Pitirim Sorokin presented in his various works. According to the American sociologist of Russian origin and the author of the direction of “social and cultural dynamics”, the subject of social science research is the most general specific characteristics of socio-psychological phenomena, as well as the disclosure of the basic laws of human interaction. However, social science is engaged not only in revealing the truth of the actualized human being, which is often significantly descriptive, but also reveals the prime cause of these realities, their interconnectedness and cultural significance. In this article by revealing the essential and preferable features of social science and summing up the results obtained, so by revealing the nature of social science or the truth of being-of-social science as such – in formulas of thought are presented the definitions of social science by its subject and accomplishment (performance), separately as well as jointly. Social science and, in particular, sociology, is theoretical and practical wisdom that reveals the truth of the decline and rise of the virtues of human life, and therefore the possibilities of improving the human self, life and culture: studylover and researcher, creator and career human life-activity to the spiritualcivilizational good-order. Thus, sociology is the science of theoretical and practical wisdom, revealing the truth of human life and the possibilities for improvement towards spiritual-civilizational good-order. 

WORDS WITH DEPENDENT ROOTS SHOWING SUBJECT AND QUALITY IN THE BIBLE – 2020-4

(Recursive compounds)

Summary

Lalik M. Khachatryan
The article discusses such synthetic reduplications with dependent roots which were used in the Bible for the first time and express subject and quality.

Such reduplicative compounds are grouped by the meaning of components of dependent root and are included in different groups; root groups and root-variant groups.

1. Root reduplications are unique constructions which have different structures;

a) reduplication of simple root (ծործոր – flowing, ջախջախ – smash, smash up),

b) are formed with secondary (word-forming) morphemes (անփոփոխելի- invariable, աղաղակ – cry, shout, արարիչ – creator, թաքթաքուն – secretely).

2. In the structure of root-variant reduplications, wհich form a special group, the second component is a variant of dependent root. Different sound interchange factors form such structures; vowel alternation (սարսուռ – trembling, սպառսպուռ – wholly, entirely), alternation (անդանդաղ – slowly, կարկառ – a heap of stones, կարկուտ – hail, բողբոջ – bud, պաղպաջ – bright, shining), sound dropping (դադար-rest, peace, թրթուր – larva, խախուտ – unsteady, կակուղ – soft, gentle, հեղեղ – flood, սօսափիւն-rustling), augmentative (արհամարհանք- neglect, աղջամուղջ – twilight, տատասկ – blackthorn, ճաճանչ – ray).

There are such reduplications in Bible structure of which have sound interchange combined realities – vowel alternation and sound dropping or alternation and sound dropping, like զարհուրանք – horror, արհաւիրք- disaster.

The synchronic survey of reduplications with dependent roots can become a basis for the diachronic study of certain type of word-formation.

THE IMAGE OF A TURK IN HAKOB OSHAKAN’S NOVELS – 2020-4

Summary

Narine A. Hovhannisyan (Stepanakert)
Hakob Oshakan’s novel, besides being culturology, chronology, psychoanalysis and ideology, is, in our deep conviction, the novel of the Armenian Question. The historical process that started the tragedies of the Armenian people to counter the Armenian Question was largely conditioned by the presence of the Turks. Consequently, Turkishness and the Turk, as a collective whole of national characteristics, became the main concentration of thoughts of Oshakan’s novel.

Exceptional depths are the psycho-observations and psycho-instinctive discoveries of the Turk’s character created by Oshakan, the penetration of racial inner, dark folds, the uncoverings and decipherments of the instincts of the sexual psychological impulses, the subconscious flow, the discoveries of internally stored realities.

In Oshakan’s novel, the most typical manifestations of sexual psychology of the Turk’s character are vulgarity, rape, ethnic profanation, homosexuality, forced feminization, at that they are not private cases of racial psychology, but a public phenomenon and morality. Turkish sexual harassment and racial sadism were fully exposed during the Armenian massacres. According to Oshakan, the Armenian massacres, especially the 1915 Genocide, were the historical platform for Turkish self-manifestation.

One of the striking features of Turkish ethnic psychology described in Oshakan’s novel is religious fanaticism with a focus on anti-Armenian sentiment. Hatred on an unbelievable level is a sacred feeling in Turkish national psychology, also a public phenomenon, a state-encouraged policy. The false ideology of the Turkish state-nation has for centuries instilled in Turkey the mentality that Armenians live on their lands, sowing hatred towards Armenians to the point of national fanaticism.

According to Oshakan, the psychology of extermination and expansionism reaches the level of doctrine in Turkey. The ideology of the Great Turan is the cornerstone of the Turkish national-political strategy and Oshakan shows that Pan-Turkism and Turanism, as complementary concepts, are the national basis for the education of Turkish generations. The dream of the Great Turan, complemented by the racial biological instincts of the Turks, became the precondition for the Armenian Genocide and the occupation of the Armenian Highland.

Oshakan’s revelations of Turkish ethnic psychology are falsification, denial, cunning and unsurpassed diplomacy. On the symmetry of the subconscious and conscious levels of Turkishness Oshakan directs sharp emphases especially against the conscious։ crime and villainy are born from the inner drive of the Turkish biological instincts, from the unconscious level of meditations, from the sound of blood, while denial and treachery are manifestations of the conscious level.

Oshakan’s revelations of the Turkish ethnic image lead to the philosophical notion of an anti-human. The philosophy of the anti-man rises on the internal psychological basis of the history of sadistically committing genocides towards unarmed nations and cold-heartedly denying them. Conscience and self-esteem as psychological elements are completely absent in the Turkish national consciousness and psychological structure.

Thus, in Oshakan’s novel, blood and gender are the poles of the ethnic Turkish type of psychoanalysis, the tensions of internal density. Turkey, as a collective psychology, is at the level of the blood of the Turkish heroes of Oshakan, that is, of innate essence. In other words, Turkishness is a biological psychology, an instinctive mental system.

METAMORPHOSIS OF THE ANNALES SCHOOL: “THE NEW HISTORY” – 2020-4

Part III. The concepts of “Anthropological History” and “History of Memory”

Summary

Smbat Kh. Hovhannisyan
The article examines the paradigms of anthropological history and history of memory interpreted in a new light by the third generation of the Annales school. Hereby, if one of the most significant visions of the positivistic historiography was the quest for the origins of the contemporary events in the past (the so-called “idol of primary sources”), by which the researcher’s outlook was limited to those phenomena, which analogues he saw in the societies of his time, then historical anthropology appreciated mainly those differences that help us comprehend the past, without subordinating the apprehension of the past to the present.

It is also worth pointing out that, if for the founding fathers of the Annales the study of the history of traditions was merely a means for a deeper comprehension of the economic and social histories, then, for the representatives of the third generation of the school, these plots acquire their own independent value. Herein, historical anthropology, developing in parallel with the history of mentalities, serial and quantitative histories, which, in its turn, provided new platforms for the syntheses, was not so distinctly differentiated from the aforementioned research areas.

On the other hand, the importance of the subject of memory and history was again emphasized, and it became clear that mere contraposition could not exhaustingly represent the vast realm of history. Herewith, the apprehension of interrelation between memory and history means revealing, to some extent, not only their differences and opposition, but also and particularly their syntheticaldialogical perspective(s). And before outlining these perspectives it was highly essential, that memory, before turning into history, would go through a cycle of self-overcoming, during which it should gain a historiographical structure. By and large, the history of memory representation, in all its diversity, should appear in the junction in which all probable connections and transitions for historical science are concentrated. This creates the basis and potentiality of an embracive synthesis of historical science, which includes the interpenetrated and interreflected, even antipodal paradigms and conceptions.

THE AGE OF SMBAT II MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE – 2020-4

Part I: Internal and international situation of the Bagratid’s kingdom in the first period of the reign of Smbat II (late 970s – first half of the 980s)

Summary

Arman S. Yeghiazaryan
Studies show that in a relatively stable peace at the beginning of the reign, when Byzantium and neighboring Muslim emirates dealt with internal issues, Smbat II Bagratuni (978-990) was engaged in peaceful construction. At that time, the capital of the kingdom of Ani expanded greatly, and it became necessary to build a new, larger wall. Immediately after ascending to the throne, Smbat II began to implement a large-scale project of new defensive walls and adjacent protection systems, which lasted about 10 years. The author of this project was the famous medieval architect Trdat, who was also the author of the project for the restoration of the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after the earthquake of 989.

The new protection system of Ani and, above all, the city walls made a great impression on contemporaries, as they were simply huge. Thanks to the new defense system, Ani became one of the most impregnable cities of that era. Inside the fence in 989 the foundation was laid for the construction of the city cathedral, many other buildings and bridges were built.

During the reign of Smbat II, the process of division, begun during the reign of King Ashot III (953-978), continued. In the very first year of his reign, Smbat II proclaimed his younger brother Gurgen as king in the northeastern province of the royal possessions, in Tashirk, thus forming third kingdom in the possessions of the Bagratids. King Gurgen of Tashirk recognized the priority of his brother, who, as in the case of the Kars kingdom, had the right to approve the accession of each new king of Tashirk.

With the establishment of the kingdom of Tashir, the central power of Ani was significantly weakened. This reality first manifested itself when Smbat II captured the Shatik fortress belonging to the kingdom of Kars, after which the combined troops of King Mushegh of Kars (975-984) and David Curopalates of Tayk (961- 1000/1001) invaded the central province of Shirak and Smbat II was forced to return the fortress. However, this did not violate the seniority rights of Smbat II and, for example, in 984, when Abbas, the son of King Mushegh, ascended the throne in Kars, he asked for the consent of Smbat II.

During the reign of Smbat II, the Muslim emirates in Armenia were initially unstable and did not pose a threat to the kingdom of the Bagratids. The situation changed in the 980s, when they significantly intensified, began to interfere in the internal development of the kingdom, creating a significant threat to the central government of Ani and Vaspurakan.

PROPERTY, KNOWLEDGE AND FAITH – 2020-4

As sources of power and domination

Summary

Alexander S. Manasyan
The article substantiates the idea of force as a universal phenomenon in inanimate, in animate nature, as well as in a society in which it acts as a factor in the regulation of social relations. The key concept of the general idea is the concept of social power, the main sources of which are property, faith and knowledge. Social power is the ability of one subject to influence another, to impose his point of view (will) on him. Social strength is an innate feature of any human society, just as the force of gravity of any body. If there is a community of people connected with each other, then it is endowed with social power by the fact of its existence. The immediate observable source of all forms of coercion, power, domination is social power. Social power is the engine of any political and economic process and its guiding companion. The society of people that enters the struggle for power acts as a political force. Property, faith, and knowledge differ from other factors in shaping society in that they have functioned steadily throughout human history, forming power-oriented societies. It is obvious that the emergence of property is associated with a natural necessary need of man. In order to live, a person must acquire, create, have at his disposal goods that meet those needs: food, clothing, shelter. The phenomenon of property is related to the natural need to have the goods that meet the vital needs of man. In the course of the reproduction of social life, the energy invested in the instruments of production is repeatedly reproduced during their use, it turns from a material force into a social force, ensuring the power of the ruling minority over the disadvantaged majority. As a source of power, private property began millennia ago and still engenders a relationship of domination. Already at the stage of slavery, the social power of the slave owner flowed from the lands, the instruments of production and the slaves used as labor, which he owned. Often these days, the owner’s power over the means of production is not direct control over them. They are mediated by financial capacity, securities, key management positions and the right to control information flows. The person or group of people for whom property is a source of social power is commonly referred to by the common name as economic person. Faith also had and has tremendous community building potential. The principle underlying it knows no boundaries of nationality or class. He has been and remains a counterbalance to the material beginnings of power. The motto of Christianity “not only bread” in a condensed form expresses the transcendent role of spiritual values outside the material realm for the meaning of life. The ideas of the ancient peoples about the inner connection between power and knowledge are fixed in the Latin saying “Scientia potentia est” (“Knowledge is power”). The principled role of knowledge in the beginning of industrial civilization, thanks to Francis Bacon, found its general reflection in the formula “knowledge is power”, which this time, in contrast to its use in previous periods, marked a new trajectory of social development. The role of the natural and social sciences varies considerably in political processes. If the inclusion of natural knowledge in property relations becomes a source of social power, then social knowledge becomes such, bypassing property relations. The investor of natural and technical knowledge is an economic person who pursues victory in economic competition. The investor of social knowledge in the public consciousness is a political person who aspires to political power. The struggle for power in its purest form is a struggle of socio-political concepts, social projects that competing parties are trying to introduce into public consciousness. The implementation of any large-scale scientific project related to the country is a matter of state competence, which today embodies the politics of a person who came to power in a “party costume”. He should be the main customer of social knowledge.

THE TIMELESS RIGHTS OF ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS – 2020-3

In the articles of the Treaty of Sèvres

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan
The Treaty of Sèvres was considered by Armenian socio-political thought exclusively in the context of Articles 88-93, which are directly related to Armenia. This was quite natural, as these articles restored the right of the Armenian people to their homeland, a part of Western Armenia. Mentioned articles of the Treaty of Sèvres de jure recognized not only the Republic of Armenia including the Armenian provinces of Transcaucasia, but also the United Armenia uniting Eastern and Western Armenia. The signatory states, including the Turkish state that was defeated in the First World War, recognized the independence of the United Armenia and agreed to expand the borders of Armenia by annexing most of the territories of the provinces of Erzurum, Van and Bitlis, as well as part of the province of Trabzon, thus ensuring the exit of Armenia to the Black Sea.

In addition to these articles, the Treaty of Sèvres contains a number of important articles on the restoration of the violated rights of the non-Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire. Although the words “Armenia” or “Armenian” are missing in Articles 125, 142, 144, 285 and 288 of the Treaty of Sèvres, it is obvious, that they also directly refer to the restoration of the violated rights of the Ottoman Armenians, their descendants, as well as the Armenian communities. According to Articles 226, 228 and 230 of the Treaty, criminal liability was provided against high-ranking Turkish officials not only for war crimes, but also for crimes against humanity, which primarily meant genocide against Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. A comprehensive analysis of these articles will make it possible to clarify the international obligations undertaken by the criminal Turkish state under the Treaty of Sèvres, as well as to discuss the prospects for implementing the mechanisms proposed in the document to restore the violated rights and property damage of the Armenian population who became victims of the crime of genocide.

Although the Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified, some of its provisions were partially implemented by the signatory states, and that the Treaty of Sèvres was not replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne, since both the parties to these two documents, also their subject matter, are not identical.