Monthly Archives: December 2009

ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF “HISTORY OF ARMENIA” BY MOVSES KHORENATSI: PROBLEMS OF EQUIVALENCE – 2009-3

Seda Q. Gasparyan, Luiza A. Gasparyan
The paper deals with the study of the English translation of “History of Armenia” by Movses Khorenatsi – a unique monument of the 5th century historical literature the adequate translation of which is of crucial importance as far as the interpretation of Armenian historical, national, cultural and linguistic identities are concerned at the international arena.

The object of our research is the English translation by R. W. Thomson. Its overall study has revealed cases of inadequate translation especially on the lexical level: inaccurate calques of lexical elements, phraseological units among them, obscure transpositions of stylistically connoted words, as well as cases of non-motivated transliteration of elements indicating historical realias.

The research has shown that “History of Armenia” being a real entity of Armenian national historical records is a masterpiece, presenting a skillful intertwinement of the historical, the scientific and the literary – a fact that should have been taken into consideration by the translator.

HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE GARABAGIAN CAUSES – 2009-3

The legend of “late albains”

Henrik S. Svazyan
The state of «Azerbaijan» appeared on the historic arena only on 1918. During existence of the USSR the heirs of the Caucasian Tatars got artificial name «Azerbaijanin» on that «basis». As a result of the illegal decision (July 5, 1921) of the Caucasian Bureau RC(B)P, Mountainous Karabakh was forcibly annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan. It was a political pretext of treating the ancient and medieval history of the Great Armenia’s regions of Artsakh and Utik as a target for attacks by the «Azerbaijani» falsificators of history. As far as it had been impossible to find a «historic justification» for the annexation of the Armenian territories by comparison with Armenia and Armenian centuriesold history, thus the historians of Soviet Azerbaijan, following the «experience» of Cemalist Turkey, started to appropriate the history of proper Aluank and the Albanian tribes which disappeared from the historic arena after the 8th century.

After Azerbaijan became independent, notoriuos Azerbaijani falsificator F.Mamedova published a monography «Caucasian Albania and Albanians» (Baku, 2005, in Russian) where she continued and deepened this falsifying shrewdness. F.Mamedova, through absolute falsification of historic data, called the Armenian population of Utik and Artsakh, which ethnically had no relation to the Albanian tribes, by the artificial term «late Albanians» and tried to prolong the latter’s history up to 19th century. Such an approach is besically contrudictory not only to the data of the Armenian, but also Arabic (Ibn al-Asir, al-Dinavari, Yakubi, Tabari and others), Byzantine (Constantine Porphyrogenitus) and other sources.

TREASURES OF CILICIAN BOOK ILLUMINATION – 2009-3

The Illustrations of The Gospel No. 9422 of Mashtots Matenadaran

Satenik L. Chookaszian
The 13th century miniature of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia is representing the most splendid period. The artistic phenomena that Toros Roslin brought to Armenian miniature were revealed in the oeuvre of his pupils and successors. This article is dedicated to the ornamentations of the Gospel No. 9422 of Mashtots Matenadaran. The manuscript was illustrated by the joint efforts of his successors. The manuscript’s story is not a simple one. The colophons have been lost but judging by the splendour of miniatures the donator was a rich person. The manuscript includes two canon tables of the Epistle of Eusebius to Carpianus, the ten canon tables concordance, four portraits of the Evangelists, corresponding title pages and six miniatures from Christ’s life.

Complex and graceful structure is typical for the miniatures of this manuscript. It is evident that they were painted by a mature artist. Any of the canon tables is a fine and wonderful work of art. The decoration of the canons reveals the scrupulous drafting of details, and we can see the artist’s amazing play of imagination in creation of the decorative texture. Stylized features of prophets, saints and the Virgin appear in the capitals and pedestals of canon columns. In the frontal decoration of canon tables we can see a combination of animal and human heads with twisted stalks, turning into a flowery ornament.

Undoubtedly, this wonderful manuscript is one of the masterpieces of Cilician miniature of the post-Roslin period, and illustration of the Gospel No 9422 is one of the splendid pages of Armenian medieval art.

ARARAT AND ANI IN THE IDEOLOGICAL SPHERES OF ABOVYAN – 2009-3

Summary

Vardan G. Devrikyan
In 1829 the ascent to summit of Mount Ararat with Professor Parrot had a radical impact upon the national-public and literary thinking of Khachatur Abovyan, because since the medieval times there had been a traditional prohibition of the ascent to summit of Mount Ararat upon which rested Noah’s Ark.

Similarly, since the Middle Ages Ani had been considered to be destroyed because of the curse and there was a superstition that it was impossible to live in Ani. Contrary to such a mood Abovyan in “The Wounds of Armenia” settled his principal hero Aghasi together with his friends in Ani putting forward the restoration plan of Ani as the Armenian statehood.

The article deals with the national-political and spiritual-cultural role attributed by Abovyan to Ani. This plan of Abovyan is considered parallel to the works and expressed ideas in the Armenian literature and public thought in his time and during next decades.

THE PROBLEM OF CIVILIZATION HOMEOSTASIS IN GREAT ARMENIA – 2009-3

Part 1. The Intracommunal Homeostasis. Artaxias I

Summary

Albert A. Stepanyan
The paper looks at the civilizational interpretation of one of the crucial epoques of ancient Armenia. It begins with a brief survey of the term “civilization” in modern humanities. Among the main features of this approach the homeostasis has been taken into consideration.

Two varieties of homeostasis are basic for my discussion – intra/ and extra-social. The first of them made the meaning of reforms of Artaxias I – the founder of the Artaxiad dynasty in Armenia. They embraced a large scope of social stratum including cadastre and administrative system, trade and religious beliefs, culture and army etc. All of them looked at the end of rationalization of social stratum of Great Armenia by overpowering traditional (tribal and dynastic) structures. King Artaxias was successful in his innovation program. Owing to them Armenia could keep step with the developed states of the time.

ON THE FATE OF THE WESTERN ARMENIAN MODERN LITERATURE – 2009-3

Summary

Suren D. Danielyan
Western Armenian modern literature has a certain peculiarity of development – isolated character. Since its formation it has struggled for existence, on one hand, in relation to the Soviet Armenian literary socialist approaches and on the other hand trying to establish itself in foreign environment under alien influences and external different blows. In this work special attention is paid to the old and new approaches to this literature, assessments of the classical period, as well as Diaspora Armenian and Soviet Armenian estimations (V.Teryan, L.Shant, Sh.Sahnur, M.Teoleolyan, P.Sevak, Hr.Matevosyan, Er.Azatyan and others). The author alarms for the Western Armenian literary-cultural decline and puts forward proposals in the direction of restoration of the unity of the divided national literature.

SHAMAKHI AND THE SHAMAKHI’S ARMENIANS (from ancient times up to the end of the 20th century) – 2009-3

Summary

Gevorg S. Stepanyan
Since immemorial times the oldest city of Eastern Transcaucasia Shamakhi had been inhabited by Armenians, according to rich bibliographic and archive materials. A part of them considered it to be their native land. Local Armenians had as unified, social-economic and spiritual-cultural active life full of high level creative and scientificcultural work, as well as played significant role in the region’s development. Armenians presented an enlightened and viable element in the backward environment of the alien Turkic speaking population.

Frequent catastrophic earthquakes had negative impact on the natural growth of the Armenian population of Shamakhi. As a result of a destructive earthquake (May, 1859) in Shamakhi the provincial central administration was removed to Baku, thus Shamakhi lost gradually its former glory. The Armenians of Shamakhi suffered hard period especially in 1918. During their aggression against Baku the Turkish troops occupied Shamakhi (July 20) and massacred, forcibly Islamized and deproted the Armenian population of the city.The policy of repressions, deportations and ethnic cleansing commited against Armenians had been continued in the years of Musavatist Azerbaijan and the Soviet power, which followed the latter. In 1989 as a result of deportation Shamakhi was finally deprived of its Armenian population.