Category Archives: REVIEWS

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan

Keywords – Armenian Genocide, the Treaty of Sèvres, codify, issue of compensation, International Court of Justice, the resolution for clemency, experiments

On the eve and during the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, doctoral thesis of the lawyer R. Dakessian on the legal basis of overcoming the consequences of the crime, which he defended in Lyon, was published as a book in the Armenian language in Armenia.

Dakessian’s work is mainly based on the writings of Western thinkers in the field of law, and it almost fully ignored Armenian sources. As to the works of the international lawyer and specialist in international law Yu. Barsegov, the author has completely ignored his contribution to this issue. Such a unilateral choice of authors and sources caused not only conflicting opinions and views in Dakessian’s work, but also led to the actual and conceptual mistakes.

The publication of Dakessian’s work is a signal that on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide, though taking Pan-Armenian Declaration and creating a special committee of lawyers to overcome the consequences of the Genocide, the Republic of Armenia, nevertheless, does not systemize the work in this direction to create a common approach and to prevent such kind of initiative. Of course, we do not approve censorship, but we must be aware of the fact that the legal issue of the Armenian Genocide is not an ordinary academic question. This is very important not only for the Republic of Armenia, but it is a matter of national security for all Armenians hence similar experiments on this matter are not only unacceptable, but also should be condemned.

Summary

Shushanik G. Zohrabyan (Paris)

Key words – Andranik Kochar, founder of Armenian Photography, artistic photography, master of portrait, black and white photography, architectural monuments.

In 2018, “Tigran Mets” Publishing House published an illustrated book by Gayane Arakelyan entitled “The Photographic Art of Andranik Kochar”.

The main goal of the scientific work is to sanctify the forgotten heritage of the photographic art of the great master Andranik Kochar (1919-1984) and show his significant role in the development of Armenian photography.

Gayane Arakelyan’s monograph is based on the research she has conducted for more than 10 years.

The result of this research was the PhD thesis on the art of A. Kochar, reports, numerous articles published in various newspapers and magazines: “Etchmiadzin”, “Lraber” and “Vem”. This monograph is an addition to all the above mentioned editions.

Summary

Suren D. Danielyan Knarik A. Abrahamyan

Key words – Western Armenian literature, Hakop Paronyan, satire, genre, portrait, dramaturgy, essay, novel, children’s literature, literary criticism.

Literary critic Albert Makaryan has spent a lot of time to explore the different sides of creativity of the most outstanding West Armenian writer and playwright Hakop Paronyan. А. Makaryan’s new book is continuing the progressive development of good old-fashioned subject, “with new reading” in the newest time, to which questions this article by S. Danielyan and K. Abrahamyan is devoted.

Summary

Davit V. Petrosyan

Key words – prose, collection, literary text, struggling individual, philosophical glance, psychology, hero.

The review analyzes and evaluates the literary peculiarities of the stories and novelettes enclosed in the collection “Midday” by Sergey Aghajanyan. It states the significance of artistic mentality perceived in aesthetic structures of the prose-writer. The latter creates distinctive works in prose through comparison of visualization system of material presentation. The heroes of Aghajanyan are mostly struggling individuals: at the fatal moments of life they sometimes lose and sometimes reaffirm their individualism. The author presents all these by giving an important place to the nuances that are opened in their inner world.

Summary

Armen S. Asryan

Key words – liberation, individuality, work, Aram Manukyan, Western Armenia, weapon, ammunition, collection, people, motherland, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, letters.

On the occasion of 100 Anniversery Republic of Armenia the collection entitled “Aram Manukyan: Collection of Letters” is presented to the Armenian reader for the first time. It includes 354 letters by the famous freedom fighter of Armenian liberation movement, the founder of the First Republic Aram Manukyan written from November 1904 up to 1915: 325 letters are published for the first time. The collection is comprised, edited and commented by the historian YervandPambukyan, who has exercised a really tremendous , hard and thankful work dedicating to this job 14 long and tough years. Though Aram’s manuscripts are rather beautiful and legible but the deciphering of his letters’ numerous codes and digital cryptograms, the revelation of revolutionary pseudonyms, the commenting of forgottentoponymswritten in foreign language and personal names is, indeed, the hardest task and does need diligent work. Comments that are accompanying the collection from beginning up to the end have greatly eased the perception of the letters by simultaneously accomplishing the transmitted information. Aram Manukyan’s letters included in the reviewed collection were found from ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s archives in far off city of Boston.

Summary

David V. Petrosyan

Key words – Eastern-Armenian press, Western-Armenian press, historical-analytical method, research, structure, periodical press, thematic department, title, parties.

The review has considered a number of issues related to the content, structure and themes of the second volume of the recently published “History of Armenian Periodicals.” The work is noteworthy for clear structural divisions, a concept developed to represent the importance and significance of a largescale project.

Apart from referring to the well-known periodicals of Eastern and Western Armenians, the volume also represents and depicts in different chapters the Armenian press in the Armenian colonies (Egypt, France, Bulgaria, Iran, the USA) and parties, most of which are unknown to the reader.

Through the combination of general observations and specific descriptions typical for the historical – philological method, the book presents the complete picture of the Armenian press in the first two decades of the 20th century.

Summary

Tigran S. Simyan

Key words – textbook, paradigm of education, change of paradigm, change of educational paradigm, Armenian-writing textbook of theory of literature, theory of literature, literary criticism, introduction to literary studies.

The purpose of the annotation is to comprehend and evaluate in diachrony the training manual „Literary Criticism as Practical Literary Studies“ by Zhenya Kalantaryan in the context of the Armenian-language discourse of textbooks of the Soviet and postSoviet period, as well as to show the novelty and innovation of this publication. A brief overview of Armenian-language textbooks at the „Literature Theory“ course or „Introduction to Literary Sdudies“ showed that textbooks of the Soviet era were politicized, often the prblematics were dictated „from above“. In the 1990‘s. these textbooks were confirmed by the Revision. After the collapse of the USSR, Zaven Avetisyan and David / Mher Gasparyan were presented in their textbooks teaching aids in a context of the course „Introduction to Literary Studies“ in a much new way, visualized, structured and apolitical (but fast with the same problems). 2016 in the collective textbook „Contemporary problems of the Theory of Literature“, in comparison with the previous experience, metalanguage concepts were presented much more “hot” („Basic concepts of narratology“), etc. Study book of Zhenya Kalantaryan „Literary Criticism as Practical Literary Studies“is, according to the author of the annotation, one of the important events in the Armenian-language discourse of teaching aids, since the problematics and metalanguage of Literary Criticism are presented in a much “hot” way. Such a toolkit creates all the comfort to provide young scientists and students with new opportunities for a more innovative, strategically correct and systematic analysis of artistic texts. In addition, the composition of the textbook Zh. Kalantaryan is presented in the review, as well as the relationship between the part and the whole, the composition and the title of the textbook.

Summary

Sergey A. Aghajanyan

Key words – Narration, speech, media-text, reverse perspective, essay, scientific method, term, identity, text, variant reading.

The summary presents the content and structure of the fragmented monograph «Narration, Media-text, Reverse Perspective» by D. Petrosyan. The work consists of three parts. The first section articles aim at finding out the connection between narration and reverse perspective in the context of mythical and rational time, space and memory.

The main problem of the second part is the dialogistic character of mediatext, inter-textual and inner-textual development where linear connections and relations from media to auditorium and vice versa are shown.

The final collection of essays aim at the synthesis of the previous two sections on metaphysical level. Here the peculiarities of author’s artistic perception of a human being are revealed.

Summary

Knarik A. Abrahamyan

Key words – Hovhannes Shiraz, poetry, literary criticism, literary continuity, monograph, creative history, biographer, comprehensive analysis.

Hovhannes Shiraz is an author who kept the figure of Newest Armenian Literature with his national shapes. And it’s something strange that his some creative characters were obscure for literary critics. Samvel Muradyan’s two toms come to answer many questions. In this article we have tried to show the scientific value of author’s research.

Summary

Avag A. Harutyunyan

Key words – Ararat Uprising, Khoyboun, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Kemalists, USSR, Reza Shah, Artashes Muradyan, Red Army, Soviet intelligence, blockade, defeat.

The monograph is devoted to the most important stage of the Armenian-Kurdish political and military cooperation, which until now has not been the subject of a special study in Armenian historiography.

In the context of the Ararat Uprising, ha have analyzed the political, military, chronical and geographical features of the Kurdish movement, the conditions for the awakening of the Kurdish national identity, the evolution of the Kurdish nationalist circles in the sense of cooperation between Hoybun and the AR Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the mechanisms for forming the Hoybun, political goals of the new stage of the Armenian-Kurdish relations.