Category Archives: LITERARY CRITICISM

Summary

Seyran Z. Grigoryan
PhD in Philological Sciences

The article examines the character of Charlotte Schulz in the “Dorpatian Diaries” by Khachatur Abovyan and in the poem “Towards Mount Masis” by Yeghishe Charents. Yeghishe Charents is the founder of the modern Armenian literature, and in his works, the literary heritage of Khachatur Abovyan, the founder of new Armenian literature, has played a special role.
On February 20, 1933, Yeghishe Charents wrote the poem “ Towards Mount Masis ”, which soon found a place in the “At the Crossroads of History” section of the “Book of the Way” collection. The poem is dedicated to the life and work of Khachatur Abovyan. The main focus is on the problem of Abovyan’s disappearance, but through the depiction of the last sleepless night and the dramatic thoughts of the hero, some important questions are raised. They include psychological issues in addition to political and intellectual ones. In the poem, Charents creates vivid images of Dorpat University professor Friedrich Parrott and the beloved girl of young student Khachatur Abovyan – Charlotte Schulz.

The source of the image of Charlotte Schulz was a memoir called “Dorpatian Diaries”, written by Khachatur Abovyan in simple grabar from 1830 to 1835. As a work of memoir literature, the diary depicts the acquaintance and love of the characters in the Baltic village of Ponimon (Panemune), the meetings, relationships, and feelings of an Armenian student and a young beautiful German woman. Charlotte Schulz is the adoptive sister of Khachatur Abovyan’s closest friend, Theodor Grass. Khachatur Abovyan writes the name of the heroine in the forms Lotte or young lady Schulz. Real facts and images of documentary prose in the poem “Towards Mount Masis” are used by the principle of poetic generalizations. Charents does not recreate the details of a love story, not details and circumstances, but the essence of the characters and their feelings.

At the time of writing the poem, Khachatur Abovyan’s “Dorpatian Diaries” was not published yet. It was first published in 1955 as a separate book and in the 6th volume of the complete works of Khachatur Abovyan. In this article we assume that as a source for creating the character of Charlotte Schulz, Yeghishe Charents could have used Nerses Ter-Karapetyan’s study “Khachatur Abovyan”, where there are many quotes and retellings of diaries based on the manuscript of this work. Another version is that Yeghishe Charents, like Nerses Ter-Karapetyan, was familiar with the manuscripts, which were then still kept by the writer’s descendants.

An important role in the poem is played by one reliable artifact preserved in the archive of Khachatur Abovyan. That is Charlotte Schulz’s souvenir. Its source is also the writer’s diaries, but in the poem, it has a special artistic meaning. Through it, the main poetic principle of the poem operates – the synthesis of the real and the artistic. The poem focuses on the dramatic separation of lovers. The article makes an attempt to clarify this ending with the help of real biographical facts of Khachatur Abovyan and Charlotte Schulz.

REFERENCES
1. Abeghyan A. , Abovyani sirayin aprumnerĕ Dorpatum (Mi ej mer “Abovyan ev Dorpat” ashkhatut’yunits’), “Hayrenik’” orat’ert’, Boston, 1975, t’iv 18940,marti 16 (In
Armenian).
2. Abovyan Kh. A. , Yerkeri liakatar zhoghovatsu ut’ hatorov, hat․ 1, Yer.,
Haykakan SSR GA hrat., 1948 (In Armenian).
3. Abovyan Kh. A., Yerkeri liakatar zhoghovatsu ut’ hatorov, hat․ 6, Yer.,
Haykakan SSR GA hrat., 1955 (In Armenian).
4. Ch’arents’ Ye., Girk’ chanaparhi, Yer., Petakan hrat., 1933 (In Armenian).
5. .Ch’arents’ Ye., Yerkeri zhoghovatsu vets’ hatorov, hat. 4, Yer., Haykakan SSR GA hrat., (In Armenian).
6. Ch’arents’ Ye., Yerkir Nairi, Yer., Petakan hrat., 1926 (In Armenian).
7. Hakobyan P., Abovyanĕ ew Bakunts’ĕ, “Banber Yerevani hamalsarani”, 1980, t’iv 2 (In Armenian).
8. Hakobyan P. H., Khachatur Abovyan., Kyank’ĕ, gorts’, zhamanakĕ (1809-1836), Yer., HKhH GA hrat., 1967 (In Armenian).
9. Ter-Karapetyan N., Khachatur Abovyan, Tp’khis, Tparan M. Sharadze ev ĕnk. Nik: 21, 1897 (In Armenian).

The unpublished pages of Avetik Isahakyan’s notebooks

Shoghik B. Khachatryan

In 1977 A. Inchikyan prepared Avetik Isahakyan’s “Memoir” for publication, collected and organized notes from the poet’s various notebooks – in fact creating a complete manuscript. Within the framework of the scientific publication of Isahakyan’s works, Avik Isahakyan filled in the blank sections of the “Memoir” with other diaries and selected diary notes. However, even after the publication of the complete diaries, a large number of the poet’s notebooks remained unpublished.

Notebooks contain a variety of notes in various booklets, or individual sheets. Mainly, they present the poet’s thoughts, ideas, judgments about various realities and different aspects of life. A considerable part of them have the value of aphorisms and popular expressions.

But the more interesting notes are those which, in one way or another, relate to Isahakyan’s original work, opening up various layers of his literary workshop. How the writer’s style and the peculiarities of his literary method are formed, how raw material, a fact, an event are developed and transformed into artistic reality! Here is a non-exhaustive list of issues that may be covered by notebook notes.

Thus, the poet’s notebooks, in terms of both their content and significance in the creative work process, and the nature of their notes, deeply reflect the author’s personality, and the biography of his soul.

In the novels “Sos and Varditer” and “Bread problem” by Perch Proshyan

Aram G. Aleksanyan

The article examines the historical, economic and cultural prerequisites for the collapse of the patriarchal caste system.

The historical process, masking the defensive confrontation between the moral worldview and the psychology of a corrupt society, is artistically expressed in the novels of Perch Proshyan. Literature partly manifests itself as a kind of cultural and defensive confrontation. This reality, in turn, gives rise to conservative
and libertarian thinking in public life with corresponding epistemological attitudes.

If, thanks to the enlightenment movement, traditional thinking, the values that organize patriarchal life, the nature of human relations and the emotional manifestations of psychology have radically changed, then conservative culture had a completely traditional epistemological context. Enlightenment attitude formed in
the minds of a new structure of perception of time, revived the order of the future, making it the main focus of activity. In the context of this worldview, history has already been perceived in the past, present and future dimensions of time. Meanwhile, conservatives envisioned the future as a sprawling present. And traditionalists perceived defamation as damage to morality and the traditional way of life. All the ideological content and emotional depth of Proshyan’s works is an artistic expression of this historical process. It is characterized as a unique defensive cultural confrontation with artistic potential, character building, and a historically unique storytelling typology.

Ashot N. Hayruni

Raffi considered the writer a “man of the times” who should also guide public thoughts and ideas. Without diminishing the necessary condition of artistic perfection, he is guided in the evaluation of artistic works by the criterion of the primacy of ideological content, essential in terms of the functional significance of literature. In this regard, as well as the capacity and wide expressive possibilities, he particularly emphasizes the need for the development of aesthetic prose, especially the novel genre, in the Armenian reality.

Maro V. Ghukasyan

The following paper discusses Armenian genius humorist Hakob Paronyan’s works written in the Turkish language by the Armenian letters. In this publication the author gives answers to the question “Why Paronyan decided to write in the Turkish language by Armenian letters?” and introduces the motives for writing in the Turkish language by the Armenian letters. It is affirmed that writing in the Turkish language by the Armenian letters was not his purpose, but means to attain the purpose of saving the Armenian nation living under the control of the Ottoman Empire from the loss of their national language and nationality in general.

David V. Gasparyan

The Russian Revolution of 1917 completely changed the military-political reality of the region. On May 28, 1918, the Republic of Armenia was proclaimed, and the leaders of the newly established state did the utmost to build a new statehood. The patriotic spirit pervaded Charents. He was the soldier of his motherland; he volunteered to fight in Erzrum and at the same time he was a devoted poet. With that enthusiasm, he wrote “Soma” and Frenzied Masses “, radiopoems, separate poetic series and poems. 

Ashot N. Hayruni

The oral folk tradition, according to Raffi, not only preserved the mentality
and the mindset of the Armenian people, but also its folkways and epic legends,
which were transmitted only orally and were not written down. Thus, according
to him, a comparative analysis and study of oral folklore could provide a limitless
source of material to a given archaeologist, historian, culturologist and
ethnographer.

(From Hovhannes Sarkavag to Mkrtich Naghash)

Ala A. Kharatyan

The article examines the motif of the rose and the nightingale in the poetics of
Mkrtich Naghash, as well as the transformation that the motif of the bird underwent
in the medieval Armenian literature up to Mkrtich Naghash.

In Hrant Matevosyan’s literature

Vachagan R. Grigoryan

After the October Revolution in 1917, there was a great interest in the Bolshevik experience. The World War II halted the process of transformation.
Though the hopes of creating a good life did not die down, yet in the middle of the century the irreversible consequences of the policy of the time were
obvious.

Summary

Suren D. Danielyan

The article examines the drama “On the Way to the Heaven” (1936) by Hakob Oshakan, which shows national-political theme and together with dramas “When we know to die” and “Stephannos Syunetsi” completes the author’s perceptions regarding the historical and moral questions. In particular, the relationship between Oshakan’s drama and other genres, such as short stories and novels, the experience of a new genre matter is emphasized.

This five-act drama, which with its genre features appeals to mystery of tragedy, was first published in 1936 in Boston’s “Hairenik” weekly, and half a century later in Beirut, edited by Archbishop Varoujan Hergelian, with the preface of Elo Sarajian’s “On the Occasion of Publication”.

The material of the drama “On the Way to the Heaven” suggests the immediate beginning of the1915 genocide and the elimination. The article presents the peculiarities of Oshakan’s character formation through Armenian (Knar, Ter Nersess, protestant priests), German (von Elena Adler, Rita) and Turkish characters (Khalil, Ibrahim) and their various conflicts, where each of them is positioned according to its national inclinations and interests. Regardless of the efforts made by the author to show the development of the character in case of Khalil, a Turk with a European education, he remains convinced that the same education will not help him to get rid of his instincts. Along with the national questions, the scenes of the women collision are alos presented with the aim at keeping the intrigue of the drama awake.

The Armenian Knar stands out among the characters, which is the focus of the intrigue mentioned above. She was a developed, struggling, powerful, often lonely woman who used the pasha’s position to rescue caravans sentenced to death. She comes out at the same time against the German, Turkish atrocities and self-defense Armenian clergy, sometimes with open flags of struggle.

The wording of the article is considering the system of approaches and judgment of Elo Sarajian, Krikor Beledian and himself Hakob Oshakan.

The conclusion is, that Hakob Oshakan’s drama “On the way to the Heaven”, the title of which suggests the way of Armenians’ elimination and death of people, preserves emotion, psychological completeness of the characters. And the multiplicity of these characters is a sign of special styling in itself.