Category Archives: LITERARY CRITICISM

Ashkhen Ed. Jrbashyan
The article is dedicated to the study of the metric art of Daniel Varuzhan, one of the brightest representatives of Western Armenian poetry. His first collection of poems, “Tremors” (1906), was written on the metric principles developed by the Mkhitarist philologists. Critics then noted that in this book Varuzhan is making his first steps, and he still has a long way to achieve poetic mastery. In particular, the rhymes and poetic forms he used were considered unfortunate and inappropriate.

Varuzhan’s second collection, “Heart of the Nation” (1909), already marked the birth of a mature poet. The heroic spirit permeating this collection, the naturalness of speech, the spontaneous flow of images, gave his poetry a new impulse and quality and found a unique expression in metric forms. Here we find a large number of astrophic and non-rhymed verses. Varuzhan’s attitude to rhyme has changed somewhat since the 1910s. If earlier he denied the role of rhyme and considered it “backward”, then in “Pagan Songs” (1912) he gradually increased the proportion of rhyming poems, giving them a new sound. His poetry also used new ways, new methods and means of constructing poetic stanzas. Without abandoning astrophic verses, Varuzhan was simultaneously looking for new stanza forms, he also used one of the most beloved solid forms of Western Armenian poets – the sonnet. It should be noted that both of his latest collections open with sonnets, which are more suitable for the holistic transmission of the main ideological tendencies of poetic cycles.

Varuzhan used a unique structure and metric forms in his latest collection “Song of Bread”, which the poet never managed to finish. The book was published a few years after his death – in 1921, based on 29 poems published in the press. Literary criticism has long noticed the direct influence of idyllic and instructive poems of world literature, the traditions of which date back to ancient literature, the Renaissance and Classicism, on Varuzhan’s last collection. Obviously, Varuzhan does not repeat the structure and form of these works, but they certainly were a powerful incentive for the general idea of the cycle to promote new creative ideas and forms. The collection “Song of Bread” is formed as a complete and constructive poem, where all the poems have a solid stanza structure and rhyming lines. In this cycle we see not only new ways of constructing stanzas, but also metric forms that were not previously used in his poems.

It can be argued that the poetry of Varuzhan is a solid and integral system of poetic forms and structures. Changes from one collection to another should be seen as a natural result of the legitimate development of this system and the maturation of poetic talent.

Ashot N. Hayruni
In the second half of the 19th century during the process of the search for a national salvation, Raffi also had to take into consideration and reflect upon economic problems, which, under foreign tyranny, in the face of increasing pressure on the Armenian people, had not only economic, but also political significance. Hence, it was not by chance, that these economic problems occupied a key place in Raffi’s works.

This article sheds light on the economic hardships faced by the Armenian people during this time and Raffi’s ideological views on how to solve these problems.

Raffi reflected upon the Armenian merchant and usurer class and gave a factual outline of key aspects that were common to the above noted class. He pointed out that this class was unable to evolve and establish the new economic conditions that were needed. As such, he proposed the creation of a new “scientific trade”, which would be based upon a harmonious blend of professional education and national-moral values, which according to Raffi was necessary to overcome the growing economic problems of this period.

The writer also placed a great deal of importance on the idea of giving “free land” to the toilers, which according to him, had to be realized by the Armenian Church and political institutions and thus could prevent the growing emigration of Armenian peasantry from its native land.

Raffi presented these and many other similar ideas on solving the Armenian economic vows, in not only his public articles, but as well as his literally works, in which he made many of the leading characters his mouthpieces for examining these issues.

Raffi juxtaposes Petros Masisyan (“Golden Rooster”), Chanchur Ivanich (“Zahrumar”), Agha Paronov (“One like this, the other like that”), and his other literary characters representing this class, with other characters, who he tasks with not only presenting solutions to the economic problems, but also developing new economic relations within the Armenian reality. These characters, including Mikayel (“Golden Rooster”) and Ruben Arusyan (“One like this, the other like that”), are imbued with a sense of morality and after acquiring highly professional training, through their actions show the way for the establishment of what Raffi calls “scientific trade”. These characters are also endowed with a moral compass of wanting to serve the national interests of the Armenian society at large. They believe that wealth, first and foremost, is for the common good and by conducting fair trade and business, they also advance Armenian cultural life by doing charity work for countless Armenian social projects and helping members of the intelligentsia. Through their actions, they affirm the important bond that unites “scientific trade” with the highest interests of the people and the homeland, with the latter being given primacy and preference by the author. Thus, Raffi considers an important prerequisite for the establishment of new economic reality the harmonious merger of professional training with a sense of personal morality.

The establishment of “scientific trade” along with the development of new economic methods are closely intertwined with Raffi’s views on school reform and in this regard, these two aspects complete each other. The author’s advanced knowledge of different professional trades is astonishing. When the situation presents itself, Raffi shows himself to be an agriculturalist, an economist and if required, also a theoretician and researcher who examines the problems associated within the given profession.

Sona K. Alaverdyan
The term “frame story” is generally defined as a narrative that frames or
surrounds another story or set of stories. As a literary concept it appeared in the
European culture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but the earliest examples
of this type of literary work (Egyptian “Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor”, “Westcar
Papyrus”, “The Eloquent Peasant”, Indian Vedic Literature, “Mahabharata”,
“Ramayana”, later “Panchatantra”) date back to ancient literature.

The traditions of frame story continued later as well however it received
proper attention and is firmly established in the panorama of the history and theory
of literature due to such monumental works, as Giovanni Boccaccio’s
“Decameron”, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”, “One Thousand and
One Nights”, the structure of which significantly influenced on the works of later
writers and moved the theorists’ curiosity.

The genre of frame story received a new breath, meaning, and application in
the 19th century, due to the German literature. It was the preferred genre of some
prominent writers of the era such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (“Conversations
of German Refugees”), Clemens Brentano (“The Tale of the Honest Casper and
Fair Annie”), Wilhelm Hauff (“The Spessart Inn”), Franz Grillparzer (“The
Monastery of Sendomir’’, “The Poor Musician”), Gottfried Keller (“The People
from Seldwyla”, “Zurich Novellas”, “Epigram”), Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (“The
Monk’s Wedding”), Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (“The Serapion
Brethren”), etc.

Since almost the same time, it has penetrated the gradually evolving Gothic
novel, providing an opportunity to create new images of the relationship of reality
and unreality. Almost all canonical Gothic novels are works of the genre of the
frame story (Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto”, Ann Radcliffe’s “The
Mysteries of Udolpho”, Matthew Lewis “The Monk”, Charles Maturin’s “Melmoth
the Wanderer”, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, Walter Scott’s “Tales of My Landlord”,
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”, James Hogg’s “The
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner”, Emily Bronte’s
“Wuthering Heights”, Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw”, Joseph Conrad’s
“Heart of Darkness”, etc.).

On the horizon of literature, frame story was reborn in the postmodern
period and continues to be in the center of writers’ attention to this day as a suitable
platform for satisfying modern literary interests, which conditions the
contemporaneity of the research into the problem.

Taking into account the fact that the clarification of the issue requires rich
factual material and a large period in this article, we have been satisfied with a
brief interpretation of the key issues. It is assumed that this work does not present
the complete history of the genre but emphasizes its origins, structure, key features,
the study of continuous changes in the historical process, and the outline of general
models of the genre for each stage of development. The scientific novelty of the
study is to initiate an attempt at the thorough examination of this disputable issue
of the development of the history of the Armenian literary criticism.

Summary

Hayk A. Hovhannisyan
The article is about the satirical novel “Phony Geniuses” which was written by Zabel Yesayan. In it, the author depicts the life of the young Armenian intelligentsia, who were living in Paris at that time. Yesayan clearly shows how the wrong assessment of the society turns a talented man into lazy, haughty and selfassured person.

In this work we have tried to refer to the prototype of the novel. We tried to show the obvious similarity of Intra – one of the modern writers to the main character of the novel. Most likely, Zabel Yesayan did not like the selfcontainedness of Intra’s literature, the sheer size of his self-image. That is why she criticizes the literature of her main character in the novel.

In the article we referred to the peculiarities of Zabel Yesayan’s satire showing the unity of satire and tragedy. Even the most satirical images of Yesayan have a tragic sublayer and the author’s pain is clearly seen in the composition.

Zabel Yesayan’s novel “Phony Geniuses” is a realistic work, it stands out with its high art and with a unique way of depicting reality.

Summary

Ashot N. Hayruni
The family and school occupied an important place in Raffi’s ideological worldview in reaching societal enlightenment and national unity. According to him, these two important social structures were important vehicles for transforming any given individual, which through enlightenment would lead to the desired success. According to Raffi, both of these institutions were not prepared and unable to serve the nation’s progress and enlightenment, since fundamentally their practices had remained in the past with inhumane beatings, punishments, with highly illiterate teachers who showed despotic behavior and lack of pedagogical skills.

While analyzing the many flaws in the upbringing and education of Armenian children within the family and schools, Raffi pointed out that these in turn greatly stifled the individual from fully understanding his or her national identity, thus effectively also hindering a proper development of the Armenian society at large. According to Raffi, the main culprit for this was the Church, which yielded greatest influence upon the society and was the main unifying factor of its members, thus, the latter could become the torchbearer for enlightenment and progress, if only it would be able to fulfill this role. After conducting a comprehensive study of the historic path of the Armenian Church, Raffi concluded that the Church had lost its moral compass and had strayed from the path of leadership. Raffi pointed out that Armenian priesthood had to undergo a reform, only after which, it could once again take up the mantle of educating and enlightening the Armenian society at large.

The writer, thus, emphasized the importance of reforming family and school education, which in turn, would transform the society by instilling within the individual ideals of enlightenment. For this task Raffi especially emphasized the important role of the Church.

According to Raffi, the school had to have a stable school curricula and methodological guidebooks, its teachers should have received specialized training, national values should have been underlined and highly emphasized in subjects like Armenian History. Raffi also placed importance in teaching Theology, in particular, teaching the children those parts of the Bible, which developed a sense of morality. Raffi also criticized the view that the religious denomination and national origin were one and the same. He pointed out that national origin and religious affiliation could not be equated, since the two had different historic origins. He pointed out that a religion of a given people would throughout history often change, thus no matter what an important role the given religion had played for a people, it could not fully constitute the totality of their national identity and existence. The core, which according to Raffi could unify all of the members of an enlightened nation and society, was national self-consciousness, which could be gained after proper understanding and self-realization of national identity, which according to him was first and foremost based upon the use of a common language.

Forms of pronouns

The problem of intralinguistic relations of words and types of semantic relations of pronouns has always been discussed in Armenian linguistics. There are structural disagreements. The accepted view is the multifaceted classification of pronouns (personal, demonstrative …), which, however, we strongly believe does not have sufficient scientific validation. The intra-group classification of pronouns should be done according to the contextual meaning, in relation to other parts of speech. In this combination-comparison, the grammatical description of noun-pronouns is more emphasized and visible, therefore, it is mastered well.

Aschot N. Hayruni

Raffi opened a new era not only in the history of Armenian fiction and literary criticism, but also in the history of Armenian social and political thought. Guided by the principle that fiction should not only be a mirror of life, but should also address and clarify the most important issues of public concern, Raffi presented a path of national liberation struggle that he believed could lead to the desired liberation and to the start of nation-building. According to him, the future, the dreamed Armenia should be built on four main cornerstones, the first of which is the religious life, the second is the educational sphere, the third is the economic development, and the fourth is the national statehood. Raffi’s powerful public discourse grew from these four cornerstones. His ideal of national liberation was closely intertwined with the programs of education, enlightenment, and economic prosperity, completing an ideology of general transformation of life and reality in general.

Not only did Raffi offer a unique program of national liberation, but he also presented a moral concept for the realization of this program, which was based on the national wisdom, so it can never lose its relevance. He was deeply observant, pointing out the wounds and shortcomings rooted in national and social life, the elimination of which was very necessary for the reconstruction of society, consolidation, and the realization of the desired goals. Through his literary works and public speeches, the writer unleashed a broad ideological struggle, educated and nurtured generations. There is not a single area of life that he has not touched. His writing talent was enhanced with great sociological, economic and political knowledge. The article examines Raffi’s political views, which, by penetrating advanced Armenian thought and educating generations, became a reference point for the organization and expansion of Armenian political parties. Raffi’s work best proved the truth of his thesis that a good book can save an entire nation.

In Simon Simonyan’s collection of “The Twilight of the Mountaineers”

Marine D. Ghazaryan

Lebanese-Armenian writer Simon Simonyan’s collection “The Twilight of the Mountaineers” has a special place in the literature of the Armenian Genocide, which is characterized by various issues and questions. Summarizing up the author’s main ideas, it turns out that his thoughts are built through the binomial concepts, and the whole system created by them expresses the perceptions of the writer about the native and the alien.

In this very article, with the combination of phenomenology and imagology methods, native and alien issues are examined in schematic contrast relating to components of national identity: values, mentality, language, racial memory, which reveal Simonyan’s national self-consciousness and his own system of values. The heroes of the book are immigrants from Sassoun, who survived the Genocide, who differ in their emphasized sense of nationality.

The story is told by the author-character, who interweaves episodes of his own biography with the eyewitness history. The idea of the beginning: roots have a pivotal importance. Following the tendencies of the development of modern culture, in order to find the ontological foundations of a nation, Simonyan chooses the way to reach the roots from the present to the ancient times, the basis of which is the mythological events.

In his works, Simonyan acts as a great humanist, because raising patriotic issues, he is not molded by narrow national issues. In his stories, the consequences of wars are examined first as universal, then as national, family, and then as individual tragedies. There are no explicit depictions of genocide events in the collection. In most of the works, the scenes of the massacre are concentrated in the general images. The stories are distinguished by the examination of the cause-andeffect relations of the tragedy, making the reproach of national mistakes the most important part of the author’s ideology.

In his short stories, with various perceptions of the native and the alien, Simonyan has tried to achieve the truth by mentioning the theme of the Armenians of Sassoun who have escaped the genocide, examining the realities in terms of an impartial historian and convincing artistry, showing his own aesthetic of being faithful to reality.

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.

On the occasion of the 80th birth anniversary of the philosopher-poet

Summary

Hripsime A. Zakaryan
The theme of life and death has been and remains one of the main literature themes. It is an undeniable truth that life and death problem, in all its multiplicity of themes, is connected with Armenian poetry as an inner worldview. It has developed regularly and logically, in the light of philosophical conceptions of the authors of this or that period, mainly in two directions։ first, death was traditionally perceived as some absolutely natural necessity, at the same time including in itself tragic mood nuances. Second, moral-philosophical, when death is viewed and perceived as the end of earthly sufferings and transition to another life. The philosophical manifestation of this problem is mostly expressed in works of poetsymbolists.

In contemporary Armenian poetry, the theme of this orientation remains relevant and necessary. Emphasized, fully and universally, the life and death theme was sought to be more concretely and vividly transformed in Edoyan’s lyrical works. By redefining the traditional ways, the poet expands and enriches philosophical reflections on life, death, and immortality. This becomes more obvious and expressive as a result of comparing it with works of different authors of different historical periods (Yeghishe Charents, Vahan Terian and others).

The synthesis of Christian and Eastern religious-philosophical perceptions in the worldview of lyrical “I” is the main component of H. Edoyan’s entire creative art.

Thus, the relevance of this article is conditioned by the need for a special analytical work dedicated to the problem of life and death in Edoyan’s poetry, to his philosophical reflections on death, human life and soul immortality.

The article attempts to identify from the standpoint of traditional religiouscultural beliefs the essence, the content originality of the poems written on the issues of life and death that one often meets in the poetry of the prominent Armenian poet Henrik Edoyan. The eternal theme of life and death is often met in Armenian and world poetry in various wordings. However, unlike other poets, Henrik Edoyan, by rediscovering the eternal essence of world religions, confirms non-existence of death and the eternal life that in the poetic text is perceived as a realized truth, conveying a new meaning and a new artistic coloring to the poem.

The poet’s philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, death and immortality are reinterpreted in poems such as “Chaos is us, me and you”, “Here and there”, “Light and heavy”, “One and numerous”, etc.

The purpose of this article is the psychological-philosophical analysis of lifedeath correlation problems, which allows to rethink the peculiarities of H. Edoyan’s poetic world perception.