In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

329 Introduction: Art, Religion, and Philology 1. “Das Grundgesetz aller Götterbildung ist das Gesetz der Schönheit.” Schellings Werke, ed. Manfred Schröter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1927), 3:417–18. 2. Ibid., 3:425: “Mythologie ist die notwendige Bedingung und der erste Stoff aller Kunst.” 3. Friedrich Schlegel, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, translated, introduced , and annotated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968), 81. 4. Daniel Varuzhan, Yerkeri Liakatar Zhoghovatsu [Complete Works] (Yerevan: Academy of Sciences Publishing, 1987), 3:364. The reader will find the details of Varuzhan ’s biography below, at the beginning of Part II. The passage briefly quoted is reproduced at greater length there. 5. Later I shall try to explain this “two-sided orientalism” better. Let us note the following for the moment: one of the two sides is the orientalism that Edward Said brought to light (I say this with the proviso that we have to interpret the orientalist phenomenon that he describes as characteristic of philology even before it is linked to colonialism, Western hegemony, and the invention of the Other). The other side has been brought out, magisterially, by Maurice Olender in his Les langues du paradis: Aryens et Sèmites, un couple providentiel (Paris: Seuil, 1989) in connection with the racialist thought of nineteenth-century philology. See Chapter 6, n. 13. 1. Variants and Facets of the Literary Erection 1. In 1997, all seven issues of Mehyan were reprinted in a single-volume facsimile version by Kilikia Publishing House of Aleppo. 2. Hagop Kufejian changed his name to Hagop Oshagan in 1920, and with his new name (at first a pen name, then his name in “real life,” after he fled Istanbul in 1922) he became the most powerful Armenian novelist of the twentieth century. 3. I contributed a preface to an anthology of Aharon’s verse edited by Zoulal Kazandjian and entitled Aharon Taturean, anzhamanak panasteghtsë [Aharon Dadurean, the Poet Notes 330 notes to pages 16–20 Out of Time] (Venice, 1997). A more elaborate version of this preface was published in GAM, no. 5 (2002). Another essay on Aharon, by Krikor Beledian, may be found in Beledian’s Tram (Beirut: Atlas, 1980), 285–316, under the title “Aharon yev k’ertvats’in harts’ë” [Aharon and the Question of the Poem]. With this essay, Beledian inaugurated his criticism of the “metaphysical” determinations of poetry and, simultaneously, paid magnificent tribute to Aharon, the unloved son of Armenian literature. 4. Published in Paris in 1931, this volume of Parseghian’s writings was the fourth in a series comprising the works of “Martyred Writers.” 5. Hagop Sirouni began his poetic career in Varuzhan’s orbit. In 1922, he moved to Rumania, where he lived until the end of his life, working as a philologist and, from 1924 to 1926, as the editor of the new series of the review Navasard. He was deported to Siberia in 1944, where he remained until 1955. Sirouni was extraordinarily prolific. He published a number of very useful works, notably a four-volume history of Armenian Constantinople , Polis yev ir derë (Antelias: Armenian Catholicosate, 1965–88), a book on the renowned Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga, and, beginning in 1965, an admirable study of Komitas in the pages of Ejmiatsin that merits publication in book form. Today Sirouni is better known than in the past thanks to Ink’nakensagrakan not’er [Autobiographical Notes] (Yerevan: Khachents, 2006); this publication at last makes available his account of the years 1915–18, which he spent slipping through police dragnets. Of all the writers I discuss here, Sirouni is the only one with whom I was briefly able to rub shoulders, when I myself was still a very young man. 6. This episode is now better known thanks to the autobiographical notes mentioned in the previous note. See Ink’nakensagrakan not’er, 147–74. 7. This essay appears translated in appendix B (text 15). 8. Original text in Mehyan, no. 1, p. 3. Hereafter, passages from articles in this journal, provided in translation in the text, will be followed by parenthetical citations of the Mehyan issue and page on which the original text is found. 9. Original text in Varuzhan, Yerkeri Liakatar Zhoghovatsu [Complete Works] (Yerevan: Academy of Sciences Publishing, 1987), 2:88–90. The entire poem appears in translation in appendix C (text 22), and a detailed analysis is provided in chapter 6. Yerkeri Liakatar Zhoghovatsu is hereafter abbreviated YLZ, and translated passages...

Share