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MARKOS PATKERAHAN AND THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MATENADARAN MENOLOGIUM N. 1502 – 2018-1

Summary

Shushanik S. Hambaryan

Key words – Constantinople, Markos Patkerahan, manuscript, miniature painting, portrait, martyrdom, fathers of the church, saints, ornament, ornamental script.

Markos Patkerahan is a miniaturist of the 17th century, one of the outstanding representatives of Constantinopolitan school of miniature. There are eleven extant manuscripts illustrated by Markos Patkerahan. Menologium No. 1502 was copied at the church of Saint Sargis the General and his son Martiros in Constantinople in 1651 by the scribe Christosatur. The Menologium contains six hundred and five marginal and half-page miniatures, eleven elaborate headpieces and one hundred and twenty-seven separate marginal ornaments including birds and temples. Markos Patkerahan was responsible for these illustrations . This manuscript is a rare example of a lavishly decorated Menologium and has particular value for any historian of the seventeenth-century Armenian miniature painting.

STATE SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS – 2018-1

Summary

Vardan P. Gevorgyan

Key words ­- social assistance, social policy, social security, social protection, archaic paradigm of social assistance, Christian paradigm of aid, state paradigm of aid, socio­state paradigm of aid, societal model of aid, social state.

For making effective reforms aimed at the social protection of the population including social assistance/ support it is very important to take into account the experience historically gained by the humanity in this field, the progress in shaping the modern social assistance systems and the underlying ideological and value systems. Otherwise even the kindest motivations for creating modern systems will not make it possible to avoid the old institutes of social assistance/support that did not survive to their goal, had no underlying particular ideological and valuable concepts and pursued just momentary goals. The policies, mechanisms and methods implemented through such institutes may at least bring to unnecessary waste of expensive resources and in most dangerous cases lead to deterioration of the state of certain groups in population by bringing about numerous undesirable consequences for the country and society going as far as undermining the public stability and causing turbulences. To support the current reforms in the social assistance to the population in Armenia the article entitled Historical and Theoretical Issues on Formation of Modern Public Social Assistance Support Systems through description of certain theories shows biosocial prerequisites of the phenomenon of social assistance/support, as well as presented the ideological and theoretical features of the main historically-shaped social assistance models (archaic, Christian, state, public and state paradigms of social assistance and societal assistance model).

The main conclusion following the analysis of the ideological and theoretical systems above is that at the current stage of reforms the Republic of Armenia should be guided by the welfare state doctrine. In this regard the most important scientific and practical task of the public administration system is to specify the state’s most preferable model or models .

NATIONAL IDENTITY In modern conditions of transformation of value system – 2018-1

Summary

Movses H. Demirtshyan

Key words – culture, identity, nation, tradition, transformation, globalization, modernization, morality.

The paper analyzes the process of globalization in terms of the impact on the system of self-identification, in particular, on the transformation of national identity. It is known that it is in danger of extinction due to the leveling and aggressive distribution in traditional societies’ global (uniform) system of consumer values. For national identity in this context, there is only one way to survive – the transformation of nation from traditional to political. The process of modernization is also indicated by the fact that the core of this modernization is the modernization of the nation’s moral, which involves the construction of a new hierarchy of values. It is high-lighted that such modernization can take place only under the influence of a targeted system of self-identifications on the society (nation), resulting in possible formation of a political nation – a new community of people for whom the ethnic, religious, and cultural differences in the future are less important than the resolution of common social problems.

However, as a rule, this process of formation of a new identity is initiated by the political power that comes to the realization of the need to build a system of social relations based on new principles and relevant objectives, but, as the experience of post-Soviet countries shows, this need may go unnoticed. As a result, the society begins to form not transpersonal values (to what are the concerns and values of the political nation), but more personal, consumer, which are characterized as bourgeois. They are a direct threat to national identity, as depriving the system of self-identification of such unites transpersonal orientation as the experience of the past, traditions, culture and history, national and state interests and goals are. The threat to national identity in the system of bourgeois values exist on the ontological level, because the spread of bourgeois values (as opposed to national) facilitated by the fact that in a consumer society more viable are exactly the bourgeois values that contribute to a more well-being.

Considering the fact that during historical development the traditional nations transform into political nations, a number of theses are put forward, affirming that moral representations, norms of behaviour, ideals make the spiritual core of any nation. These factors are particularly obvious in the so-called agrarian states, where the rural way of life is a favourable basis for strengthening traditional morality. At the same time, the transformation of a traditional nation into a political one inevitably implies changes in traditional moral dispositions and the critical evaluation of the latter in terms of suitability for developing the society, overcoming stereotypes and forming a new ideology focused more on the state and the person rather than on the nation and collectivism. In this case, ‘political nation’ means a socio-political community endowed with general ethno-cultural consciousness. It is supposed that a traditional nation is successfully transformed into a political one when the society is intellectualized.

WORDS WITH THE MEANING OF “ARMENIAN LIVING IN PERSIA” – 2018-1

Summary

Davit S. Gyurjinyan

Key words – the semantic group “foreign Armenian / Diasporan Armenian”, the word-formation model “country name+ հայ “Armenian”, պարսկահայ “Armenian living in Persia”, իրանահայ “Armenian, living in Iran”, Armenian lexicography.

The words that were created as a result of historical events, generating the concept of “Armenian living in Persia (in Iran)”, are being studied in this article. These are lexical units of Modern Armenian language, formed according to the following models: “country name+ հայ “Armenian” (պարսկահայ “Armenian, living in Persia”, իրանահայ “Armenian, living in Iran”), “name of a city populated by Armenians+հայ” (թեհրանահայ “Armenian living in Tehran”, թավրիզահայ “Armenian living in Tabriz”), “name of a province populated by Armenians+հայ” (փերիահայ “Armenian living in Peria Province”, սալմաստահայ “Armenian living in Salmas”).

The historical foundations of word formation, the structural and semantic features of these words, their morphological values, the spheres and frequency of usage, the lexical semantic links to the analogous words are revealed.

Special attention is paid to the lexicographical processing of the units of the studied group of words in monolingual and translation dictionaries of the Armenian language.

THE LITERARY PERCEPTION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN AND ASIAN – 2018-1

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan

Key words – Hakob Paronyan; Turkish language by Armenian letters; “If the Mountain Doesn’t Go to Prophet, the Prophet Goes to the Mountain”; genre; comic narration; dialogue; “alafranka”, the comic; satire; “Uncle Paghtasar”.

The present publication is devoted to the analysis of one of the interesting literary piece by Armenian genius humorist writer Hakob Paronyan (1843-1891) written in Turkish language with Armenian letters and entitled “If the Mountain Doesn’t Go to Prophet, the Prophet Goes to the Mountain”, which is a dramatic extensive comic narration: by the way, this analysis is carried out for the first time in philology. The author testifies that in this creation Hakob Paronyan has undertaken a brave experiment: he has broken the structure of classic novel, i.e. he has taken away the narration from the narrator and the whole comic narration from the first lines up to the end is composed by dialogues, which, in essence, has brought this creation near to dramatic literary work. As a result of the lack of the author’s narration, the humorist writer has created a literary work that shines with alive and vivid images of clashes between the old and the new that are taking place in the society

THE ISSUES ON THE NATURE OF ARMENIAN VERSE – 2018-1

Summary

Ashkhen E. Jrbashyan

Key words – versification, metrics, numerical verse, dimensional verse, accentuated verse, “Armenian metre”, metric foot, stress, poetical member.

The article attempts for the first time to systemize and present the general picture and fundamental issues of Armenian metrics of Pre-Abeghyan period which includes 18th century and the early 20th century. The author justifies the fact that already in 18th -19th centuries there were serious preconditions for the formation of Armenian metrics which were connected with the development of grammatology, as well as, with the enrichment of main artistic experience and enhancement of translation literature. The Armenian versifiers of that period revealed not only the nature of Old Armenian and Medieval verse but also the nature of the new verse composed in ashkharabar (New Armenian language): they also pointed the influences of other languages on Armenian metrics. These all factors created some preconditions for the further serious studies of versification.

THE ELAMITE VERSION OF THE INSCRIPTION OF XERXES I AT VAN (XV) – 2018-1

Nshan T. Kesecker
The XV inscription is located on the steep southern side of the Urartian fortress of Tushpa (modern Van Kalesi) on a precarious area of the cliffs. The inscription is trilingual containing texts in Old Persian (OP), Achaemenid Elamite (AE) and Akkadian (AA) from left to right, respectively.1 Each version of the text is 27 lines, with the OP taking up significantly more space than the AE and AA (the latter being the smallest). Editions of the text are Weissbach 1911, 116-119 (OP, AE, and AA); Kent 1953, 152-153; Vallat 1977, 217-221; Lecoq 1997, 263-264; Schweiger 1998; Schmitt 2009, 180-182. A legible photo comes from the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative labeled as “Xerxes Cliff Relief.”

OVERCOMING OF THE “IMPOSSIBLE” – 2018-1

Summary

E. Harutyunyan

Key words – contestation, architectonics, expression of will, engineering, life, past, present, future, art of living, identity.

Life is much more significant than moving from one insufficiency to another. Life is an unfinished event and the human is an eternal Faust. The world must be constantly contested so that the life is not deprived of prospect. Contesting is a bid for architectonics of the world. The human has metaphysical surplus of energy and aesthetical creation of the world is his incurable “disease”. The human being cannot live chained to herself. The past pulls, and the future calls. The present does not have history while the life is a story. Each person tries to govern their limited life and to convert it into a story. The past and future story of human life is a text of “how to live” on which we endlessly work and readjust according to our conceptions The article discusses the issues of social-cultural modernization of the Armenian nation living in existential environment and development of “life project” equivalent to contemporary geopolitical conditions. Because of almost perpetual unbeneficial external and internal circumstances the Armenian nation has been forced to choose the “Esthetical” solutions of its existence and has followed to principles of nationalistic ethics when organizing and regulating its life. These principles form a “World of friends” in space and “world of generations” in time. These worlds which organized the national life is a “world of community”, which is outstanding by its cultural power but not by its civilizational will, however to address the challenges of contemporary world a nation needs civilizational organization and a will to choose.

FORTRESS-CHURCHES OF ARMENIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES – 2018-1

Summary

Murad M. Hasratyan

Key words – fortress-church; monastery- fortress; Middle Ages; defensive wall; fences; sacristies; pyramids; felting constructions, refectory

In Middle Ages in Armenia in addition to fortresses and monasteries separate churches were also used for defense. There are two architectural groups of fortress-churches in Armenia. The first group includes those churches, which were initially built for defensive purposes, for instance the one-nave basilica of Agarak (IV century), the church and the vestibule of the monastery of Arakelots in Ijevan (XIII century), a three-storied fortress-church of Sedvi (XIII century).]

The second larger group includes the churches that were converted into fortresses in the Middle Ages. the Ashtarak basilica (V century), the Tsiranavor church in Parbi (V century), the central-cupola church in Mastara (VII century), etc., were surrounded by walls without towers, while the churches of Kumayri (VII century), Jrapi ( VII century), Noragavita (X-XI centuries) Ashnak (X-XI centuries) were surrounded by walls with semi-circular pyramid towers. Over the roof of the Shirakavank cathedral (IX century) a room for the defenders was built.

In the architecture of the fortress-churches their genetic connection with the fortification art of medieval Armenia is definitely manifested and the innovation is that it is an original combination of the compositions of the cult building and the defensive structure.