The medieval scholars’ (back to Dionysius, the Pseudo-Areopagite, AD 500) awareness and realization of the idea of hidden beauty in art has been referred to in the article.

      The art was perceived as a cognitive reality and no longer an admirable reality. This was the key context for the judgement of the medieval scholars of Armenian decent, starting from Hovhan Mandakouni and David the   Invincible    (5^th century) to Nerses the Lambronese (12^th century). The point is, what should be considered as primary when it comes to the formal foothold in the art: the tangible substance as a sensibly perceived reality or the idea as a product of spiritual contemplation. This appears to be referring to the timeless issue of the correlation of matter and form in the framework of the transitional period in terms of the understanding of art.

Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian

     Тwo pages in paragraph 13 of Theon’s Rhetoric not available in the original text in Greek have survived in the Armenian translation (5^th century). In it a description of a naturalistic play of a Greek actor Povlos by name is given as a rhetorical criterion. This is an irrefutable evidence of the early medieval existence of the school drama. guidelines for acting can be found in Byzantine scholia, Aphenaeus’s work and also in medieval Armenian scholia. Theon’s Rhetoric elucidates not only the early medieval grammatical heritage, but also later periods, such as that of Stratford Grammar School and is presented by Shakespeare’ Hamlet ( “…Tears in the eyes, distraction in‘s aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting…”). Rowse, Shakespeare’s biographer points out Aphenaeus’s above-mentioned work as being one of the textbooks of Stratford Grammar School, in the rhetorical guidelines of which Theon’s impact is obvious.

                                     …this player here,                                                   …այս խաղարկուն այստեղ

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,                                 Բայց սոսկ հորինված կրքի երազում

Could force his soul so to his own conceit                           Իր ձևացմանն է ենթարկում հոգին,

That from her working all his visage wann’d;                      Եվ կամքի ուժով դեմքն է գունատվում,

Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,                              Աչքն է արտասվում, հայացքն այլայլվում

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting                   Ու ձայնը դողում…

With forms to his conceit?  

Shakespeare,   Hamlet,                                                           Շեքսպիր,   Համլետ,

               Act II, scene II.                                                                    գործ. 2   տես. 2:

                    …актер, при тени страсти,

При вымысле пустом, был в состоянье

Свим мечтам всю душу покорить;

Его лицо от силы их бледнеет

В глазах слеза дрожит, и млеет голос.

В чертах лица отчаянье и ужас…

                   Шекспир,  Гамлет,  акт II,  сцена II

                                                  (пер. А. Кронеберга).

Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian

The paradox of acting

A summary

 The renowned “Stanislavsky system” appears to be the logical outcome of the 19th century psychological realism and naturalism, as well as the Russian acting school in particular. It’s adequately been highlighted by the notion of behaviorism, the theory of behavioral psychology having emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. The very first of Stanislavsky’s studio rehearsals (1912-13) are said to have coincided with John Watson’s lectures covering similar points at issue at Columbia University, whilst Stanislavsky’s strivings were quite independent from Watson’s views. Stanislavsky’s method was basically initiated having reference to Theodule Ribot’s experimental psychology and Pavlovian behavioral psychology which suggested the idea of the external response to the outer stimuli. Stanislavsky refuses to discern the established morphological elements of acting describing them as “штамп“ (cliché), thus initiating the method of making the actor’s acting behavior reach an absolute inherence. A person’s actual presence on the stage is being described as “a conditional intention”, its interrelated elements being revealed. This does not appear to be aesthetics. It can be referred to the field of applied psychology, which in its turn may either smoothly grow into aesthetics or take it too far away to a psychodrama. Watson inferred from person’s resistance to external stimuli, whereas Stanislavsky’s method basically derives from “classical conditioning”. Watson’s assessment of the psychic eliminates the consideration of ethical, social, religious and a number of other factors. Stanislavsky was bound to give an importance to the ethical factor in terms of which “the system “is believed to differ from behaviorism. Stanislavsky’s “system” is a closed array, a unique “closet” and it can be viewed in terms of its being merely psychological. It does not have to be confused with the author’s acting and directing practice, the way it has been done by some of the “system’s” interpreters. Some of his declared ideas and emotional statements do not have to be referred to his acting and directing practice as well. The artist’s creative nature has to be detached from his psychological experiments and the implied theory. The reclaimed analogy between “the system” and the aesthetics of the Moscow Art Theatre is another misguidance on the part of the interpreters of “the system”. There appears to be an apparent confusion of the cause and the effect. Evidently it is “the system” which can be regarded to be a product of the Arts Theatre experience. The theatre itself can in no way be the sequential product of “the system”. There used to be controversial attitudes towards “the system” which later served as a subject for academic criticism (Lev Vigotsky, Gustav Shpet). This might be one of the reasons for taking the word system into inverted commas by describing it as “the so called” by the initiator of the theory himself. And this suggests the idea of its being a thrown-down challenge. Something different occurred in reality. The interpreters of it accepted it as a final and definitive doctrine so that they restrained the critical attitude which consequently led to giving birth to pious followers of Stanislavsky and his “system”.

 Stanislavsky’s “system” is a method of work in its essence and composition. It is not a theory. Still we are faced with imposed definitions in it. This imposed doctrine excludes everything except for the truth of ethical and psychological reality. Stanislavsky defined his ethical and aesthetical determination as “super intention”.

Stanislavsky’s “system” can be systematic provided it is strongly interrelated with its essential logic within, which is psychobiological and is bound to describe the determined and circumstantial behavior under preconditioned stage circumstances. But distractions within the system can be observed due to internal changes and supplementation. Thus the issue of the actor’s freedom of muscles is not regarded to be relevant to the psychological point, whereas the latter is quite visible in the key aspects of “the system”, i.e. the focus of attention, the psychological object, the logic of behavior, interaction, the intermittent action, the ethical and psychic objective in the perspective. The constitution is logical within and can be both assumed and argued as an application of intentionality. But its interrelation with truthful art is a matter of different discourse. How pure is this constitution in terms of its own objectives? The fact that the person’s stage behavior is regulated externally and is basically grounded in psycho-physiological approach is arguable though quite apparent. But the postulate no longer works as soon as “the system’s” initiator walks out of the boundaries of his “closed system”. Freedom of muscles: why should it be regarded to be unrelated to the mental and psychic concentration at the very moment of the deliberation of the soul?

 The advent of inner states through forms of appearance had never been extrinsic to Stanislavsky himself.  It had traditionally been inherited from the acting experience of the past. Still it does appear to be extrinsic to the initiator of “the system” and he involuntary breaks the rule of “the system”. This is the first controversial point. The second one is that he coins the term accommodation (приспособление) which in no way can accommodate “the driving forces of the psychic life”. The use of the word приспособление in Russian is twofold and vague in terms of its meaning and remains unclear. On the one hand it refers to action or an element of action, and it would make sense to use the term приспосабливание. And it also suggests external pretense of   circumstances or the psychic state. In this case the idea of the external formal element is involuntarily assumed by Stanislavsky, the one which he had refused to acknowledge at the dawn of his “system” coining it as “штамп“ (cliché). There can be observed a certain attempt to differentiate between “штамп “and “accommodation” describing the first one as a conscious act of pretence and the second one as a subconscious one. Hence the issue gets stuck. Stanislavsky not only contradicts the key principle of his own, but also misleads his followers into a different aesthetic reality.

 The words “штамп” and “accommodation” are not academic notions and cannot be applied as terms. The key point is that the establishment and transfer of morphemes are proved to be inevitable within the framework of all forms of poetic thinking and they are also doomed to be unified, consolidated and transferred from one form to another, and finally, reconsidered once again. Hence, the prosody and rhyming, the structure of architectural patterns, the pas, the pirouettes and the  pas de ciseaux in ballet, the dots and lines  on a canvas which are beyond the geometrical structure, etc. And acting is not an exception. Morphemes, unrelated to the psychological aspect are a key part of acting. It’s the established positions and gestures, the application of the mise-en-scene, the use of the dynamic and static points in the stage space, the leverage of the pitch and rhythm in speech, etc.  There appear certain indications of worn-out, insipid and over-simplified manifestations of these in “the system”, which in no way can be assumed. The point is to what extent the confirmed morphemes are live or deadly, as Peter Brook mentioned. Aesthetic thinking does not involve categories like “old” and “new”, “duplication” or “innovativeness”, “conscious” or “subconscious”. It is the living morphemes, no matter borrowed or discovered, emotionally experienced or performed, that survive in art. They come true in the percipient’s range of emotions. Stanislavsky gives the most admirable definition of acting _ “an endurance of human spirit”. Whereas he tracks down this endurance to the sphere of the psychic. The notions of “spirit” and “soul” are identified with each other, thus creating a background for giving an explanation to the emotional experience practiced on the stage. So, the source of stage commotion or sensation is being searched under supposed circumstances in the range of actor’s sensational memories and the ethical and speculative conception of the author. The first rule is to act truthfully relying on the logic of emotions. It may be truthful, but not sensational. Some critics, Lev Vigotsky and Gustav Shpet among them argued the point which related to the interrelation between the person’s memories of senses and the submitted circumstances on the stage. The outspoken argument over this issue taken place between Mikhail Chekhov and Stanislavsky is said to have been quite illustrious (1928). Earlier, in 1922 Gustav Shpet’s seminal article on acting saw the light. “Emotional experience is interpreted as a mere content of the actor’s creative activity. Aesthetics has been misled into a psychological mistake when recognizing this theory as such <…> And when it (the theory) is supplemented with an absurd assessment of acting techniques , saying “truthful emotional experience is impeccable, and the lack of emotional experience in play is deprived of perfectness”, the whole thing turns into nonsense.”(Gustav Shpet). Shpet defines the truthfulness of play as a type of emotional state which responds to the author’s central proposition. It is the emotional attitude towards the text, which is a finite piece of poetic reality. A brief and thought-provoking definition has been given by Vahram Papazian, the eminent Armenian actor _ “a responsive emotional experience”. This definition makes us believe that play derives from a spiritual burden rather than from the emotional one.

 The reality of art occurs in the percipient’s emotion being both realistic and beyond the boundaries of reality. A melody, an image, a temple column, a passage from a poem may serve as a source for cultivating emotions, as they give birth to a reproduction of the emotional state. An actor is a reader. He gets inspired from reading and plays the inspiration. The play is supposed to be psychologically distant from the presupposed state of affairs. This is emotional experience in play and not a self-destructiveness and a desperate effort to squeeze emotions out one’s body. Play is a fertile calamity in itself. It is a subconscious desire to achieve a virtual reality, which is imaginary and wonderful. In circus it is the improbability and the absurdity. The notion of play is eliminated by Stanislavsky. He quite often conjugates the verb to play in his volumes while the noun play does not develop into a category in his works. No action can be of poetic interest whether in the reality of life or on the stage, unless it carries a play element and is regulated by rhythm, norm and rule. The play invites publicity and audience, thus establishing itself as a morphemic base for stage action. Eliminating the notion of play Stanislavsky happened to skip the ontological status of stage craft.

 In terms of its being a theory of person’s psychological self-imitation Stanislavsky’s “system” invites a question, which is “Who is the actor on the stage? An artistic creator or a substance for creative activity? Is he a player or a plaything? A subject or an object?

 As far as the American experience of using the Stanislavsky system of acting techniques is concerned (Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Robert H. Hetmon) the method was put into practice aiming at a preparation of actors for the cinema. There actors were taken as models and were offered roles absolutely similar to the ones of exemplars chosen at random. Glenn Wilson, a psychologist and a theatre critic believes that this sort of practice reveals the one-sided nature of both “the system” and its American interpretation. Lee Strasberg is said to have adopted the accomplished part of “the system”, which in its essence was the technique of a person’s self-imitation and had no relation with the issue of a person’s self-transformation. The person’s self-transformation is of secondary importance. This question has not been covered by the Russian interpreters. Besides, the unfinished chapter entitled “Typicalness” seems to lack completeness and is detached from the psychological understanding of the subject matter. In case the issue was developed into a deeper understanding of the subject matter, Stanislavsky would come very close to considering the morphemes issue, which in its turn would make him grow to realize the controversial nature of his initial point. Nevertheless he was capable of seeing the root of the problem. This can be observed in two statements of his:

“Whatever man’s desire and actions are, he will never be able to quit his own Self”.

“Make every effort not to lose your own Self”.

However, Stanislavsky brings us.

Stanislavsky himself does not touch upon this aspect, but a single word closer to the philosophical aspect of the issue. Who is man in public loneliness? Is it Him in his personal identity? Or does he run away from his own Self?

 Stanislavsky himself does not touch upon this aspect, but a single word of his, i.e. перевоплощение makes us think of it speculatively. The Russian word seems to have no equivalent in English language in terms of its terminological usage. And it is definitely not the word transformation. Lee Strasberg, the orthodox Stanislavsky follower, appeared not to bother about finding the exact equivalent. Strasberg adopted the accomplished part of “the system” skipping the last and the unfinished one. Meanwhile, the truth is, that it is impossible for man to reincarnate, but it is possible for him to change his personal nature and his personal behavior in a different social setting, depending where he is, who he communicates with and what he is expected of. Paul Rickeur gives his own definition to this _ “me as different”. The shortest definition owes to Martin Heidegger _ “in a co-presence everyone is different, and no one is Him”. A person’s presence on the stage is a kind of co-presence. There we are faced with changes in the inner attitudes of a person, and therefore changes in expression as well. Stanislavsky makes a hint of this in the unfinished chapter of his book, he mentions this beyond his “system”. Various essays regarding external forms of play are compiled in this chapter. In it the author approaches “the method of physical action”. He attempts to compare and synthesize the intonation, masquerading, the make-up and the grimace, but “the transformation issue” still remains unsolved.

The stage demand can be defined as personification of the text. It is the highest level of individual reading which appears as a response to the author. The question whether it is the person who conforms to the role or vice versa is of secondary importance. In aesthetic terms it doesn’t make any difference whether the person carries the role or the role carries the person. The artistic product is Man. A final definition does not exist. Man is always Him and always different, never mind whether in real life or preconditioned circumstances.

Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian

An aesthetic view

Summary

This book is the first attempt of a theoretical insight into the art of acting considered as an independent system of art. What is the stage taken as a metaphysical space, and how is the live presence of the actor as a person implemented as a state of secondary importance, a sort of a game and an aesthetic purpose? The research covers not merely the external aspect of the acting, but its internal organization and its basically persistent though historically changing components.

The introduction of the book is an ethical, psychological and aesthetic research of the actor’s pursuit, considering him to be the carrier of the theatre art specifics. Personally, the actor is taken as a substantial base, a unique entity of form and substance, in aesthetic goal. The point is that how well he associates with the literary background and how self-dependent he appears to be under symbolic acting conditions. His public behaviour makes the means and the purpose, the substance and the form replete. Literature being the basis of this form of art is eliminated on the part of the art of acting in terms of its form, thus changing into a totally different poetic reality. The six chapters of the book reveal the determining conceptions of this very reality.

The first chapter contemplates the metaphysics of the stage, i.e. the problem of the real and conditional dimensions of space and time, the interrelationship of the stage and the audience, as well as the position of the actor under the conditions of supposed reality.

The stage is considered to be out of the actual dimensions of space and time. It is a separate condition suggested by the play thus creating mystical emotions in the audience and behind the scenes. Here things are introduced and apprehended symbolically. What is placed in the space and what is used to force the time to move on, the latter considered as time in time (as a second dimension of time), is the supposed realty of acting, a so-called subjective condition of sense. The stage space is not confined to its visible frame. It also embraces the supposed realty away from the actual stage space. This is conditioned by the behaviour of the dramatis personae, i.e. where they are coming from, what they are intended to do and what they see in their imagination. The same is whit the stage time. It is conditional, too, even if it is identified with the actual time of which the audience is aware. The supposed period of time covered in the play exactly corresponds to the actual period of time, and the public takes it for granted. Whereas in another performance the sun rises, and then it gets dark, and the audience is observing all this, and this is also, conditionally though, taken for granted. Time is motionless on the stage before acting, it moves on during the play, as well as during the intervals, behind the curtain, and at the end of the play it vanishes, evaporates and fades away. This is also called a condition, of which both parties are subconsciously aware.

Space and time are conditions for both the actor and the audience to get into silent consent. They are pure forms in their unity, never mind whether they are mediated by things or situations or self-consciously perceived. This works in the course of acting as a live presence of the person, which is physical and suggests a meaning, which is not-physical.

The second chapter considers the state of acting as a current instant and personal presence in public.

The conception of stage occurs whenever a human faces the public and is expected to justify the absurdity of his situation. The art of acting is accomplished by the fever of the current instant and the personal presence. Here is the inherent relation-ship between the reality and the stage as a state of being and an affinity of situation. One keeps being introduced to himself and the people around him and gets an approval of his own identity, regarding himself as an object of contemplation. He is constantly searching or contriving reasons for his situation, a sort of justification, the latter being both an inner form and a basis of external revelation. Situations that he faces away from the stage are often conditioned by societal prejudices, manners or the mask and the acting behavior he is doomed to accomplish.

Conditioned situations on the stage are based on their counterparts in real life aesthetically arranged. The art of acting occurs where personal presence in public gets sense, and where a human is comprehended In terms of his ethic and aesthetical value. The definition brings forward the inner condition – what is man escaping from, and what is he intended to do? (according to Aristotle).

It dictates definite appearance, i.e. a sign of will, which is determined to be the smallest unit of the stage behaviour. It is called an element of acting. A sign of will can be found away from communicative situation involving the use of language, although their background quite often appears to be the inner speech, a word or a phrase that is not pronounced aloud. The silent appearance of a person gains a particular meaning only this way. This image is never lost in the crowd on the stage.

Another essential of theatrical presence is the so-called “fourth wall”. This invisible bar is permanently in game as a major condition for conditionality. Its being real is closely associated with the reality of the interrelationship between the stage and the audience. The role of the “fourth wall” is dual: it can be present in one case and in another case it can be not. This condition is being realized and only during the performance, but also at the rehearsal as everything here is being done with a full awareness of the existence of the audience.

The third chapter discusses the notion of action taken not as a succession of events but as an implemented will, the personal behavior under conditioned circumstances in response to the supposed situation. The two aspects of action are considered: the real and unreal conditions. The real conditions are observed in the circus where everything seems to be physical. Real is the dramatic state of a person which tends to gain a metaphysical meaning (a subconscious state for the performer of the action).The circus is the deformation of human life, it stands above the reality of human life and shows an irony towards that reality. A physical action at the circus pursues a not-physical goal. At the theatre of drama in the logic of action is the same, while the suggested conditions are different. The action is seemingly real, the conditions are supposingly suggested, the substantial reality is rejected. Things are not introduced as things, they are merely symbols serving as conditions. Thus, an action is a relation with an imaginary evidence occurring in an emply space and motionless time. The action is composed separate steps (deeds) and signs of will, which gain sense in a verbal context or in a space of silence. The obviousness of the action is determined by particular specific details with the help of symbolic meanings and it is a also psychologically justified.

This chapter covers the concept of the “little role”, too. The famous saying “…there are no little roles, there are little actors” means the role can be little in terms of the period of the actual time it can be seen on the stage. The good part of its life is over there, in the outer world, and it’s going on, and only a tiny episode is displayed on the stage. The example of the “little role” comes to elucidate a very important principle of acting: much more can be supposed in the background, i.e. the past life is incomparably richer, and the ultimate is  supposed  to be in the prospective, rather than in the obvious presence of the character.

The textual base is viewed in terms of stage action. This means that the drama is the projection of the stage action. The dramatic speech (the language of drama) is recognized as a sort of clothing for supposed, while the situation is it inner form. The situation occurs in the speech in the present tense and in the first person suggesting the following “grammatical pattern of the narrative genre, i.e. “He was, <…>.” The pure form of drama is modified by the famous fable about the two goats who all of a sudden meet on a narrow bridge: the two forces face each other and appear to be in opposition not on their subjective will. Both tempers are reluctant to give way, and the situation is objectively irretrievable. The person, the condition and the behaviour are a single entity and the speech is a situation itself. The characters enter the action in one state of being and leave in another state of being . The situation gains more importance in dramatic speech, as it is the main reason for this very speech, it has no wording and is the driving force of the stage action. However. Words are words in their inner ecstasy, independent of the situation. In this respect the action is subject to the dominance of logos, and words are valued never depending on the situation and having impact on the situation. This is the inevitable paradox of literature and theatre, which has occurred throughout ages. So, the text becomes a source of theatrical inspiration independent of the situation. Being a complete poetic reality, the force of speech leads to poetic emotions thus   eliminating the role of emotions occurring in real life situations in a stage action. Therefore, the stage acting can also be fruitful in terms of the speech ecstasy, which in its turn eliminates the notion of  “pure” action.

The concept of theatrical speech (chapter five) relates to the stage action on the one hand and the specifics of the drama on the other hand. The speech covers a rather wider space in a literary form than the supposed background situation is. While with the theatrical form it’s just on the contrary. This is the universal doctrine. The poetics of theatrical speech can be characterized as a paradox and a confluence of literary and theatrical forms. The silent reality created by the insubstantial paintbrush of words is beyond the borders of space and time, but it gets confined when the word is taken out of the sea of silence. The monotonous reading in a low voice, which is the beginning of the dramatization of the speech, touches upon the literary form and serves as an invisible bridge leading to live situations. The speech itself is the progenitor of the situation and is subject to situations on the stage thus being accomplished as a state of being, an action, a mise en scene. In this absolutely exstra- linguistic environment words acquire the most unexpected tone of utterance, unforeseen shades of meaning, even with meta-semantic colouring. The power of the speech may have an influence as well. It’s the quality developed by the tone, the sounds, the rhythm and the prosody. Thus the declamation becomes an aesthetic goal itself. The behaviour of the actor carried out on the stage in term of its appearance is not the result or the accomplishment of his speech. It’s another laver in the artistic pattern. The synchronous and diachronic states of speech and motion are taken into consideration. But there is also the originality and the independence of plastic movements when the text becomes irrelevant and is thrown away. This is another example of a principal opposition of literature and theatre, which seems to be inevitable.

All the components of the actor’s behaviour  (performance) bring to the ecstasy of play. The sixth chapter of the book is about this. The theories of play are generally and historically considered, starting with Schiller’s theory of play up to modern theories as the famous “Homo Ludens” by Johann Huizinga in particular. Play is defined as an aesthetic form of human freedom, a self-sufficient activity, an utmost passion, and the stage is regarded to be a product of art, which is ultimate and perfect. The ultimate goat of play itself, as art is created for art’s sake, and the product of the relationship is the form serving as a procedure developing a meaning in the theatre. In this chapter the incarnation, the ecstasy, the trance are rejected. And the idea of artistic inspiration is confirmed. The play is looked upon as a dominated, state as an inspiration and exact production, pathos and moderation, artistic balance, a realization of aesthetic emotions.

Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian

In the ancient Greek original of David’s Definitions of Philosophy, the definitions of art and science were terminologically inherited from ancient thinkers. In this respect, the word τέχνη  is the most capacious and polysemous. Its three main meanings are practical knowledge, art and craft. In the ancient Armenian version of the Definitions, this word was written as արուեստ (aruest) and արհեստ (arhest). In this case, the difference between these two terms is sooner stylistic than semantic. In the works of the Armenian grammarians and philosophers of the Hellenistic school, the terms have been polished and unified to so great an extent that they have almost no semantic indistinctness. However, concepts and objects are historically more mobile than their names, and therefore changes are historically inevitable in the initial bonds between the sign and the denotatum, as a result of which, for instance, we have a discrepancy between the specific and abstract as well as modern and historical meanings of words. The polysemy of the words արուեստ and արհեստ cannot disorientate us if we perceive their meaning in the context of ancient Armenian philosophical literature. However, as soon as we change our viewpoint and try to find, in the early medieval thinkers’ propositions, the definition of art as a specific form of expression or disinterested activity, we will inevitably come across terminological “indistinctness” and the apparent indefiniteness on concepts. While desiring to interpret ancient authors in the mode of our thinking or to “force” them to speak the language which we understand, it is hard for us to acquiesce to the idea that they did not envisage the problems which interest us. In the propositions of the outstanding thinkers of antiquity (including treatises on rhetoric and poetry), aesthetic concepts come to unified modifications and terms. The aesthetic sphere of human activity was cognized without specially singling out aesthetic terms and defining the concept of “aesthetics”. In the medieval thinkers’ propositions, the limits of aesthetics, just as those of the theory of art, remain more than indefinite, regardless of the stand we choose for understanding them. The concept of art as practical knowledge and, in the narrower sense, as artistic creative work was synthesized in David’s theory of knowledge.

In the works on the history of Armenian philosophical and aesthetic thought (V. Chaloyan, A. Adamyan, G. Gabrielyan, S. Arevshatyan), a study has been made of David’s theory of knowledge as well as the place which art holds in his classification of the forms of knowledge. Without referring to these researches, let us try in this case to revive the medieval meaning of the word արուեստ (aruest).

In the word  արուեստ,  արու(aru) is the root, while եստ (est) is the suffix. Such a construction make the word equivalent to the Latin word “virtus”¹, which means courage, a fast, a virtue, talent, superiority², and so forth. The explanation of the word արուեստ in the New Dictionary of the Ancient Armenian Language (which says certain skill, ability) corresponds to those meanings. The most ancient example of  the literary use of this word in Faustos Buzand’s work. He said: “…թմբկահարք և սրնգահարք, քնարահարք և փողահարք, իւրաքանչիւըն արուեստօք պէսպէս ձայնիւք բարբառեցան.”⁴. The matter in question in artistic skill. In that same passage, use is made of the word արուեստական (aruestakan), which was derived from արուեստ and which means a professional musician, a singer⁵ and, in a more general and modern sense, an artist. In this case, the word արուեստ is an attribute, while the word արուեստական, is a qualitative concept. The second form of the word արուեստ, which has been attested since ancient times, is արութիւն (arutivn), whose meaning is “power, courage as well as general or particular virtue”⁶, i.e., etymologically it also corresponds to the Latin word “virtus”.

In basing ourselves on this common linguistic aspect, let us recall the famous words of Movses Khorenatsi: “…բազում  գործք արութեան գտանին գործել և ի մերում աշխարհին” (“many feats of courage exist also in our country”). The matter in question is spiritual feats and moral values. The historian imparted this meaning also to the word արութիւն: “…ոչ ինչ գործ արութեան և քաջութեան եցոյց”⁷, which means “not having created values and exhibited courage”. Finally, the third, comparatively later form արուեստ is the word արհեստ (arhest)^8,  which was used as a synonym of the former in ancient in the new, modern Armenian language. From the standpoint of the question which interests us, important fact is that the word արուեստ in its ordinary sense contained the idea of artistic skill. This word is converted into a term in the grammatical and philosophical works of the Hellenistic school. The ancient Armenian translation of Grammar written by Dionysius the Thracian, being the basis of all the scientific terminology in medieval Armenia, says: “Art (արուեստ) is an empirically elaborated system (բաղկացութիւն) which is intended for performing something useful in life (առ ի պիտանացու ինչ իրս որ ի կենցաղումս ^).9 This formulation was in invariable postulate for the Armenian authors of the Hellenistic orientation, just as, incidentally, for the authors of the late Middle Ages. It was in harmony also with the synthetic thinking of the Middle Ages, according to which artistic creative work was not separated from the practical everyday and spiritual-cultural spheres of activity. In David’s Definitions, art is subordinated as a specific system (բաղկացութիւն) to the epistemological theme and is certainly differentiated not aesthetically: “Art (արուեստ τέχνη) is causally substantiated general knowledge (καθδλου νϋώσίς μετά λσγου), or art (արուեստ-τέχνη) is ability (possession) of conjugation with imagination (βαδιζουσα μετά φαντασιας), or art is definite ability and knowledge, and it also coordinates, i. e. , creates everything in a proper way (ըստ կարգի –τάξις, in a proper order-H.H.).¹⁰

Art did not interest David the Invincible as self –sufficient activity or activity which was independent of practical aims. Therefore one should not look for aesthetic modifications in the direct sense of the word in the definitions. Prof. A.A. Adamyan quite correctly described David’s artistic and aesthetic views by saying “art as knowledge”. A.A. Adamyan showed that the grammarians and interpreters of the Hellenistic school as well as David the invincible introduced ancient rationalism into the medieval theory of art.¹¹ It should be noted that the problem of essence and the functions of art were also analyzed epistemologically in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. But the concepts in Metaphysics have a somewhat different semantic orientation: in Aristotle’s terminology it is difficult to find a basis for our notions.¹² In Aristotle’s works, for instance, the word τέχνη is so polysemous that it cannot be brought into conformity with the concept of art¹³.In Plato’s works, too, this word’s meaning is so broad and universal that it is almost impossible to translate it¹⁴.

It is difficult to say how David the Invincible imagined the sphere of artistic activity and whether he regarded artistic creative activity in general as a specific form of knowledge. This is difficult not only because he did not write any aesthetic treatises, but also because none of the authors belonging to that epoch and that literary environment had left us such words. Coupling the meaning of the term mainly with grammar, rhetoric and literature, the Armenian interpreters of Dionysios the Thracian had made it more specific and limited. This would have been a different question if David the Invincible preceded the skeptics and not vice versa. Denying ancient skepticism, David the Invincible was undoubtedly acquainted with the skeptics’ aesthetic views and with Sextus Empiricus’s proposition that “any real art science are perceived on the basis of the artistic and scientific functions revealed by them.¹⁵ Unlike the philosophers on the classical period, who, in their thinking, used categories of greater integrity and studied the world more than their self, the skeptics with their emotional and extremely fine self – contemplation had imparted a new quality to the differentiation of concepts. As a representative of both the new epoch and the monoconceptual world, David the Invincible is integral in the Attic sense and optimistic in the Christian sense. For him, philosophy as the “art of arts and the science of sciences” (Aristotle) is the way to comprehend absolute immaterial being, divine being. According to him, reality is knowable because, just as Plato’s “cosmos”, it is single and monoconceptual. Practical knowledge is only a stage on the way to comprehension and, at this stage, the difference between the artistic and inartistic expression of the process of creative work and its result is not and cannot be a subject of discussion. As Prof. V. Chaloyan had noted, David’s concept of արուեստ (τέχνη) coincides with Aristotle’s concept of φρόνησις (practical knowledge).¹⁶  It should be added that the Greek work φρόνημον semantically coincides with the ancient Armenian word արութիւն.

Investigation in the history of Armenian philosophical thought show that the system of the theory of knowledge elaborated by David the Invincible has the following hierarchy: sensation, imagination, and opinion, judgement and thought. Art is in the middle of this hierarchy: it is higher than then sensation but lower than theoretical knowledge and philosophy. If account is taken of the fact that the stages of knowledge established by David the Invincible are interconnected by unity and difference, the place held by art as a form of knowledge will become quite definite: It is in both the sphere of sense perception and the sphere of rational knowledge: art links sensation and experience with theoretical knowledge and philosophy. When this link is “է ընդհանուր գիտութիւն հանդերձ պատճառաւ՞ (καθόλου γνώσις μέτά λόγου), art and science are not differentiated. However, when this link is explained as the “ability (possession) of conjugation with imagination “ունակութիւն ճանապարհորդեալ հանդերձ երևակայութեամբ” (βαδιζουσα μετά φανταζσας), the features of their differentiation arerevealed.

What do ճանապարհորդել (going) and երևակայութիւն (imagination) mean? If the aspect of rational experience (μετά λόγου, causally substantiated) were not emphasized at the matter question was imaginary, unreal notions. In the Russian translation of the Definitions (translated by S. Arevshatyan), the word ճանապարհորդեալ (literally, to travel) was translated by the word conjugation, which, in the given context, indicates that art is the skill or ability to combine the practical with the theoretical. The dictionary meaning of this word is just as interesting. The word βάδισις used in the Greek original of the Definitions means course, process. In this respect, of account is taken also of the word երևակայութիւն (φαντασια, imagination), which means knowledge of an absent object, notion (which should not be confused with the word fantasy), we can explain one of the aspects which distinguishes art from science, i.e., a process which is in conformity with notion. Imagination, or notion, is at the lower steps of knowledge, i.e., it is lower than experience but higher than sensation. At the same time, is it a more dynamic aspect of knowledge, an indispensable property of the process of creation, i. e., an attribute of the process. By saying հանդերձ պատճառաւ (“causally substantiated”) and հանդերձ երևակայութեամբ (“conjugated with imagination”), David the Invincible found the point of contact, as it were, between a plan and its realization. However, we are interested in another aspect of the propositions. It is very enticing to see the awareness of intuition in creative work standing after the word երևալայութիւն (imagination). However, this is improbable because of the following postulate of David’s: “Art is also an empirically elaborated system (բաղկացութիւն) of well-mastered skills that is intended for realizing something useful in life.”¹⁷  If the word երևակայել (to imagine) means to mentally “see” the absent, i.e., an object which, in this case, in not sensually perceived, the word ճանապարհորդել (going) means to successively pass, is one’s imagination, the steps of creation and find a link between a plan and its realization, between a notion and an object. David the Invincible thus approached a very intricate law of the creative process (both artistic and scientific), i.e., the dialectics of the object and the subject. The words երևակայութիւն and ճանապարհորդել mean aesthetic modifications to us because, in  David’s terminology, they act as auxiliary concepts which explain relations between the rational and sensual forms of knowledge.

In David’s definition, imagination and process are dialectically unity is expressed by the word (τάξις, order): “art is definite ability and knowledge (cognition – H. H.); it also indicates, i.e., creates everything in a proper way (order-H.H.)”¹⁷. In the work of an anonymous medieval interpreter of the Definitions, the concepts of կարգ (order) and ճանապարհ (way) are almost identical (“ որպէս ընդ ճանապարհ գնալ կարգու կատարել”). In the interpretation, “going” is the contemplation of not only an image, but also the process and steps of its creation, just as when a house is being built (“նախ զհիմն և ապա զորմունս. Յես որոյ և զձեղունս”).¹⁸   But the concept of կարգ (or τάξις, order) reveals for greater depth in the context of ancient and Hellenistic propositions than in medieval ones. According to David the Invincible, կարգ -τάξις is the ultimate aim in which process and imagination, a plan and its realization are united.David the Invincible used the word կարգ τάξις in the sense of Plato’s τάξις and κόσμος. Plato used these terms in different senses: ontological, ethic and, partially, aesthetic senses.¹⁹ However, in the Definitions, the word կարգ τάξις is used as an epistemological tern, and only in the general context of David’s works and his literary environment does is acquire the significance of an aesthetic modification. If account is taken of the fact that David used the words τέχνη and արուեստ as attributes and not as qualitative concepts (“ ունակութիւն ոմն”), is can be maintained that art for ancient and Hellenistic thinkers as well as medieval thinkers was an attributive concept (which described the type of skill /ability/). This specific creates կարգ (order), which is the aim of art, the product of creative work, a consummate quality. The limits of our searches are fount here. The կարգ is a complete whole in both nature and art. In the most perfect form, the idea of  կարգ is given proportionally, harmoniously and expediently with respect to Plato’s cosmos.

The question of the difference between science and art is very slightly considered only in the places of David’s definitions where he spoke about the difference between the two forms of knowledge, which he denoted by the terms արուեստ τέχνη and մակացութիւն έπιστήμη. According to David the Invincible, theoretical knowledge is true both in itself (“ըստ իւրում բանին”, “in essence”) and with respect to its subject (“ըստ ենթակային”, “according to the subject”),²⁰ and this means that any theoretical knowledge is higher than practical skill. Of course, the matter in question is science. However, when it is maintained that art, being true “in essence, can make an error with respect to the subject (“ըստ ենթակային”), the matter in question is no longer art as we understand it, but practical activity in general. This question is raised similarly in Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “Science (έπιστήμη) relates to being, while art (τέχνη), to formation (γένεσις).”²¹ There may be aesthetic aspects²² in this case and in the above-mentioned propositions and definitions of David’s, but the question is raised differently. The difference between art and nature, and not between art and science or art and craft was important to David the Invincible. “We say ‘conjugated with imagination’ owing to nature, since nature also is possession, as it possesses existence in things which embody in themselves, i.e., in a person, in a stone and other things, but it creates in the proper way (in the proper order-H.H.), and not by imaginiation^.”23 Consequently, nature is also a system (բաղկացութիւն), a result of a “certain skill” (“ունակութեան ուրումն”), and it also has a process and a result. Let us recall that Plato applied skill to the whole χόσμος. However, nature as a system is the objective will and not the result of imagination, David the Invincible wrote: “when the master of art (τεχνίτης) begins his work, he at first creates in himself an idea of a thing and only then does he realize it. However, nature never preliminarily creates in itself an idea of a thing.”²⁴  Nature  is its own object and is created on its own, while a “master” (արուեստաւոր τεχνίτης) imagines what should be created. Nature is order, a person is a manifestation of this order, while art as order is the result of human imagination. As for the difference between art and craft, i.e., the difference between artistic and inartistic orders, it is outside the framework of David’s theory of knowledge.

In David’s aesthetic orientation, the idea of order (կարգ  τάξις) was the most significant and viable one. What order means in the ancient theories of art is a special question. Another such question is what are the medieval interpretations and modifications of Plato’s theory of order. Only one thing can the stated for the present: in the Middle Ages, mostly the streamlining function was ascribed to art, because the principle of imitation or reproduction (mimeses) was practically and theoretically rejected. Medieval thinkers borrowed especially the idea of order from the ancient theories of art. For instance, Augustine and Boetsii , who were the early medieval adherents of the Plotinian wing of Neoplatonism, regarded art as an attribute of rational cognition. Although they rather closely approached the aesthetic them proper as compared with David the Invincible, they in principle remained the interpteters of Plato’s idea of order. No wonder after David the Invincible and the early medieval thinkers, the perception of art in  medieval Armenia did not transcend the framework of the concept of order evenwhen the term itself was not used. Ovanes Yerznkatsi (12^th century) wrote: “What is art if it is not the initial vision (notion-H.H.) and comprehension of all being by science (knowledge-H.H.) a proper way and in good time (առնել զամենայն ինչ ի ժամանակի իւրում և ըստ պատշաճի).”²⁵ He used the Armenian Grecophiles’ formulation and, in his epistemological theme, too, the aesthetic aspect is seen only because he related a painter’s and a musician’s skill to the sphere of art. Thus, the idea of order is something which can reveal and explain the meaning of medieval art and help us guide ourselves with respect to its history and theory.

NOTES

1. G.Acharyan, Etymological Root Dictionary of Armenian, Vol.1, Yerevan, 1971, p. 332 (in Armenian).
2. See Ancient Greek-Russian Dictionary, compiled by I.Kh. Dvoretskii, Moskow,1958,p.1084 (in Russian)
3. New Dictionary of Ancient Armenian, Vol.1, Venice, 1936, p.372 (in ancient Armenian).
4. Faustos Buzand, History of Armenia, Tiflis, 1912, pp. 347-348 (in ancient Armenian)
5. See M. Abegyan, Works, Yerevan, Vol. 2, 1967, p 193 (in Armenian)
6. New Dictionary of Ancient Armenian, Vol. 1, p. 374
7. Movses Khorenatsi, History of Armenia, Tiflis, 1913, pp. 12, 13 (in ancient Armenian). The word արութիւն is usually translated as courage, which in our opinion gives a one-sided idea of the given concept.
8. See G. Acharyan, Op. cit., Vol. 1 p. 332
9. N. Adonts, Dionysius the Thracian and Armenian Interpreters, Petrograd, 1915, p. 42 (texts in ancient Armenian).
10. David the Invincible, Definitions of philosophy. Critical text and Russian translation by S. Arevshatyan, Yerevan, 1960, p. 103. Davidis Prolegomena et in Porphyrii Isagogen Commentarium, Berolini, 1904, p. 43 (texts in ancient Greek).
11. A. Adamyan, “Questions of Aesthetics and the Theory of Art”, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1978, pp,209-217 (in Russian).
12. See Aristotle, Works, Vol. 1, Mys1, Moskow, 1976, pp. 65-67 (in Russian).
13. See A. F. losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Aristotle and Late Classicism, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1975, p. 361 (in Russian).
14. A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. High classicism, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1974, p. 16 (in Russian).
15. Sextus Empiricus, Works, Vol. 2, Mysl, Moskow, 1976, p. 38 (in Russian).
16. V. Chaloyan, History of Armenian Philosophy, Yerevan, 1975, p. 144 (in Armenian).
17.  Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 102-103. Davidis prolegomena, p. 43.
18. Interpretation of the Book of Definitions, Mashdots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts , Matenadaran, manuscript No.32o1, p. 170a.
19. See A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Sophists. Socrates. Plato. Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1969, pp. 374-379 (in Russian).
20. Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 104-105.
21. A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Aristotle and Late Classicism, pp. 363-364. In this respect, an indirect aesthetic theme is envisaged.
22. This question has been considered fundamentally erroneously in my book Theatre in Medieval Armenia. Questions of History and Theory, Yerevan, pp. 305-307 (in Armenian).
23. Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 102-103.
24. Ibid.
25. Matenadaran, manuscript No. 2173, p. 278a.

                       Yerevan 1980      H. Hovhannissyan

Such is the subject of our study.

We neither have nor seek for ancient evidence: we proceed from medieval references of the phenomenon. We attempt to view antiquity in the medieval light, taking into consideration the survived written and oral pieces of folk legends.

Our purpose is to examine the historical-typological and thematic interconnections of ancient Armenian drama in a particular frame, searching for semasiological and internal relations between mythological, ritual modifications and folk dramatic games, viewed in comparatively later periods. We mean the type of the phenomenon, its description and those features that bring the Armenian folk drama close to the ancient theatrical system, and the folk-dancing (choral) drama. We do not intend to identify the ancient mystic drama with the medieval folk drama, but we are prone to think that these two different types have the same roots.

We are interested in the vein hidden in the Armenian dramatic folklore, its mythological source, its trends to religious outlook, its cult symbols ( that will be thoroughly examined) and the most important of all, with its ritual and game modifications.

The most apparent of the discussed facts is the folk drama. This is an expression of game folklore that has passed through Middle Ages, bears various social-historical influences, and is rough and simplistic by appearance. But it is much more than can be judged by its appearance. It includes such depths, such invisible layers, that in order to recognize the subject it is necessary to turn to indirect parallels, to remove far from facts and sometimes to put together signs seemingly incompatible in terms of time and environment.

But shall we take into account all the rites originating in pre-written language age, all the known forms of syncretic folklore, all those expressions of conventionality of ways that include elements of action, play and rituals? Usually this is how the ancient drama is examined. This examination method creates a mode of uncertainty and the boundaries of the subject remain indefinite. Yet, our purpose is specific.

By realizing the significance of cult signs and ancient beliefs, by turning over the pages of Lives of our Fathers, the Gospel and Agathang, by paying attention to some old sites and restaurated memorials, we attempt to reflect on a certain problem in a particular direction. The purpose is to consider the general pre-theme of the drama, to examine its expressions in the folkloric environment, and its religious and artistic modifications.

Considering the historical-typological and mainly historical-philological examination of Armenian and ancient folk drama, we look for its complete, typologically constructed expressions on one hand and its literary references, signs and reflections on the other. As for the ritual and game bases of drama, we mean the dramatic structure and not the dramatic sense (it is a wider sphere). We must not confuse the two sides of dramatics: one of them is dramatic as a general strain level of an emotional state, the other is the structure-formation of contexts. In the first case, the dramatic structure is an aesthetic feature meaning an internal tension and a possibility of movement and excitement. It may be typical to all literary genres and it can be expressed in all forms of artistic mentality. This is dramatics as an aesthetic expression, and a structure characterizing its genre. The position of the subject and its relations to the reality can be dramatic, when the subject is viewed and reproduced from the spectra of “action liberty of a subject”(Hegel) as a relationship between “I” and “You”.

We think that we may use a situation or a state, for example a dramatic state of speech and an epic (narrative) situation instead of the genre.

Dramatic sense is the state or the situation where the practical will of an individual is expressed or when it possesses a potential of expression; the situation is a present condition (not past as in epic genre) and the action is its aim.

If dramatics does not lead to drama as a category of expression, then it conveys the idea of an immediate possibility or a dramatic model. If the situation can be generally repeated, i.e. it has parallels in everyday life, in history and in literature, especially in folklore and in games, and emerges into different plot structures, it is called a dramatic model or modification. For instance, two goats meet on the narrow bridge of a small river: they face an unavoidable conflict and involuntary guiltiness. This is a fable modification of a drama, its most simple and precise model which has its folklore-game variation: the children’s game called “goats’ fight.”

If the mode of the logical expression is not the result of situations, it does not cause dramatic modifications. But mediated signs and indirect references exist in Armenian song-epic folklore. They are not various and cannot be so. Dramatic modifications are limited by their typology and seem diverse because they appear in different contexts.

Considering the logical and folk-dancing extracts of ancient Armenian drama we do not intend to make it a narration, but instead find special signs that characterize the typology of the drama.

Dramatic modifications are more obvious in the game folklore. The contention for priority and the struggle to become the master of the situation, where the special spiritual strain is expressed in the form of physical activities, brings to drama. Such games are the obvious expressions and reflections of national psychology, though their semantics are not visible.

The meaning of the game is mainly incomprehensible or forgotten both for the player and the viewer. But the game is neither an endless pastime nor a mere sports activity, no matter how it is perceived. If the perception and the essence are on the same level, there is a need for research.

Each emotional situation, either a usual-ceremonial game or an unusual-circus type, has a theatrical element and consists of signs. Behind each sign there is always an invisible meaning questing for explanation.

Of course, there is not a direct link between a game and a drama. They are not isomorphous, side by side, do not replace or follow each other although they have the same origins. The environment creates the metaphysics of the drama. Ancient Indian dramas are not dramatic, but not because of the fact that the ideas of decadence and victory have been expressed in one genius game. Official religious ideology has accepted the ideas of danger and death as inseparable from the ideas of salvation and resurrection, and this reconciliation was put in the base of Brahman poetics. Card reading is a result of an environment which is dramatic both in reality and in theatre. The provision of the Angel is quite acceptable in Europe: “the dramatic action requires the realization of three principles- that of the individual liberty, self-motivation and the sovereignty of the free will responsible for personal actions and their consequences.” Hegel means the classic tragedy and the social environment for its existence, i.e. Sophocles and the polis democracy of Athens. The example of classic Greece provided Hegel with an opportunity to create a harmonious state and define the ideal regulations. Yet, the course of the history and life seems capricious.

The ideal basis for the drama (if it ever existed) has disappeared, and drama has changed the sphere and the level of expression. Hegel’s theory of drama remains a stable indicator, a conventional apparatus revealing the structure and the logic of the phenomenon, that explains by far no conceptual phenomena.

What Hegel considers a condition for tragic action, occurs in drama and in game and play- folklore, but in what sphere of life, in what spiritual space and mode of expression?

This is the starting point of our critique.

This is where we want to widen the boundaries of drama and the comprehension of dramatics. Consequently, by saying old and folk drama, we mean the song-epic and game folklore, the discovery of the completed phenomena, the transformations of the phenomenon, its potential conditions and models.

Not all kinds of Armenian folk games may be called dramatic or are adjusted to dramatic models. But there are games dramatic by nature where the phenomenon we are looking for is evident, prompting drama by semasiology. Such is for example, the mace game, rough by appearance and symbolic conflict by content, where the right of position is contended for by obvious physical means but not for the objective of physical victory. Rope-dancing is dramatically much more moderate, theatrically impressive and profound, and is the eccentric-objective and symbolic reproduction of human attitude towards the reality, the visible idea of harmony and perhaps the semasiological base of circus.

If the fable of two goats is the simplest model of drama then rope-dancing can perhaps be considered to be the main determinant of the theatre. This is a folk miracle and morality; on one hand it is a manifestation of the ambiguity of human existence and on the other, a symbolic resolution of the relation between humans and the supernatural spirits of the air.

The study of Ancient and Medieval theatre convinces that folk-dancing is the most viable and perhaps the preliminary trait in folk dramatic art. Many features of the ancient drama have faded and disappeared but this one reaches the new era. The signs of folk-dancing as an ancient theatrical system exist in folk-game, in epic narratives, in various modifications of lifestyle and in ecclesiastical ritual.

All this is mentioned in the previous research of the author, but there is a need to reveal separately the spheres of folk-dancing and to revitalize their meaning in accordance with the universal typological features.

We do not want to be repeated (the reader may get this impression in some places), we simply attempt to develop the question.

We have considered folk-dancing drama as one of the types of early medieval theatre and have searched for its survivals in song-epic folklore.

Now we attempt to interpret the same phenomenon as the main type of ancient Armenian folk drama. We choose the theatrical universality as a historical-typological orientation. This is the axis of the research. Consequently, not all facts of theatrical and game folklore are connected with ancient drama. The question is, in what kind of game and rituals does the content-structural principle of folk-dancing drama exist as a main and decisive peculiarity?

Starting with the national interpretation of mystic drama, the known ancient themes (mythological modification), linguistic facts of folk-dancing drama, as well as the general bases of the religious outlook of the drama, we try to view the branch of game folklore in the new era by the light of antiquity, called oral literature, folk ritual ( G. Srvandztyants, S. haykuni, E. Tievkants, V. Ter-Minasyan, E. Lalayan, and others) and later a game (V. Bdoyan), folk theatrical play (A. Arshakuni), theatrical performance (Srbuhi Lisityan), and further on folk dramatic work and folklore theatre.

From the ritual and other types of games we separate a definite kind of game, that is_ judge-games and circle-type games constructed by the same logic, where the opsis of folk-dancing drama is obvious.

In this games we assume the existence of an individual and the environment, a conditional conflict, an agreed action (ritual) and elemental (game) performance, creativity, eccentric change of conditions and such representational modifications, where we perceive the object and the subject (action and actor), the limits of reality and conventionality, the spectator and the actor. Calling them folk-drama, we try to clarify the types and peculiarities of these games and differentiate the drama or the dramatic models from the other forms of game folklore and dramatic rites from non dramatic ones.

It eases the comprehension of theatre as well.

Theatricality, no matter how wide the concept is (and it is), it cannot be independent from the dramatic (the dramatic action). The perception of this unity as we have mentioned, is weak in modern Armenian theatre study, although the distinction and the connection of those two features exist in dramatic theories of the past century, particularly in the theoretical analysis of France Grilpartsen.

Defining the ancient and folk drama and recognizing the ancient dramatic theme in Armenian folklore, we try to reach the basis of the ancient Armenian theatre and, find its historical (although distant) ties with the folk drama of the new era. This is one of the main questions of this research.

The concept of folk drama was not included in our philological literature. Theoretically, drama has not been distinguished from the other types of game-folklore. Documentary material has been collected and published since the end of the last century ( by P. Proshyan, Raffi, G. Srvandztyans, E. Tievkans, V. Ter Vardanyan, H. Malkhasyan, E. Lalayants, etc.). The material is systemized (V. Bdoyan), and it is difficult to input new data into it today. (The national way of life does not have the previous ethnographic richness, it moves from rural to urban areas). However, there has been no theoretical examination and especially no typological distinction of folk drama. Every ritual phenomenon, such as the wedding for example, has been called a folk theatrical play so far. This is a disputable approach which dates from the last century. One of the reasons is the disregard to the practice of the dramatic and theatrical as well as the classic esthetical theories. It has brought to the confusion of the boundaries, concepts and objects which also exists in the Russian theatrical study of the past, in the works of P. Morozov, Yu. Veselevski, V. Vsevolodski-Gernross. New authors so far have inherited the views of the past century without a theoretical revision. We think it more extraordinary when a funeral is considered as drama or theatre.

Garegin Levonyan and following Georg Goyan consider the description of Gnel’s funeral and Parandzem’s wailing in Faust Buzand’s “Armenian History” as a tragedy of the Fourth century, in case when the mystic rite as a component of Navasard holiday existed among Armenians earlier, according to Khorenatsi, during the King Vagharsh I (117-140 B.C.).

As we will see in the book, the mysterious type of the theatre already existed during the Armenian Arshakuni dynasty and that no drama could have been created from the barbarian forms of pagan wailing (described by Faust). What a poverty of spiritual life should it have been especially in the period of the prosperity of the Armenian ministry!

Life, especially in ancient and medieval centuries, had a variety of ritual expressions, if was not completely ritual. No reasons to identify the lifestyles, no matter how theatrical they were, with oral elaborated and existing composition within the life. The rite sometimes has the expression of mechanical beliefs deprived of meaning, it creates an environment of social contact and stable ways for oral literature, particularly for drama, and does not become such by itself. The study of rituals is by  far not an unimportant task from the perspective of our issue, but let us not confuse the environment with the phenomenon existing in it. We had a chance to talk about it.

In the study of the Armenian ancient and folk drama, we proceed both from rituals and games considering them as factors deciding the structure of the drama or the different levels of dramatic expression. But here too, a distinction should be made. The dramatic sense is rather a result of an eventuality and an element, i.e. of the state of playing, than of an agreement- the ritual state. The rite is an agreed and stable phenomenon which implies theatrical sense. Therefore, the rite and the game are assumed to have the same relations as those existing between theatrical and dramatic senses.

Therefore, the rite and the game are assumed to have the same relations as those existing between theatrical and dramatic senses. Rituals are the regulation of the game, like theatricality for dramatic sense. Theatrical art is the internal dialectic tie between two of them. The perception of the contradicting unity of those first principles of rituals and games, are actually new and brought the theatrical artists of the beginning of the Twentieth century the idea that theatre was the solidarity of the temple and the playground, and the agreement between “the heathen priest and player.” In this work, we attempt to view those two principles separately and together according to sign links.

As an order and sequence of the inquiry, we accept the six parts of the drama defined by Aristotle: 1) fable or fabula, 2) customs or character, 3) speech, 4) idea, 5) vision or opsis and 6) play (music).

In fact these are not parts but synchronous- structural elements and layers, and the exclusion of any of them will result in a distortion of the subject. Aristotle imagines drama as literature without opsis which is “typical to a poem least of all”. The visible world, i.e. the theatre is independent. It is a formation existing beyond the speech. On one hand it is an assumed reality (according to Roman Ingonden’s interpretation), and on the other hand, it is the theatrical orchestral public realization of the literary material and its subjective determinant.

According to the six structural elements in the sequence defined by Aristotle, the base of the drama is first of all the theme, and the myth is the mythological modification (modus) in today’s terminology. According to Aristotle’s logic, the character (person, archetype) is subject to myth and plot regulation. According to Aristotle, accepting this principle, we must note that the character gets materialized when the myth is subjected to opsis and surpasses the boundaries of literature (poetry). So we arrive at the idea of ritual modification, which, in its turn, results in game modification.

The internal logic of the phenomenon, as we have noticed, has been viewed long time ago, and the bases for interpretation have already been given. Thus, it dictates us to classify the inquiries in the following sequence: a) mythological modification, b) ritual modification, c) game modification. Hence, in the first chapter we discuss the myth, the archetype (ethos) and the idea (dianoya) in the second, the ritual traces and metamorphoses in the third chapter and later, we examine the evidence of the game modifications, that is to say the folk drama with its models. We follow the sequence of historical facts, according to the opportunities provided by the material. This sequence is conditional, of course. The structural elements of drama are found in different time periods and places, far from one another and disconnected. And the purpose of our study is to review the existing connections.

Resume

The subject of our study is the ancient Armenian mysterial drama with its mythological and ritual bases and symbolic and thematic-plot typology.The Armenian version of the “Chained force” with the mysterial name of the principal personage, that is to say the ritual embodiment of Syderian year (solar-astral year), which is connected with the holiday of Navasard (pre-Christian Armenian Holiday, linking old and coming year, called Kaland) is chosen as a universal modification or model for drama. The Chained Force has three names in Armenian mythological legends: Shidar, Artavazd and Mher.  All  this  three are symbolic-mysterial names. The study reveals the unique nature of phenomenon which is typical for the region, universal traits and typological references to Ancient Eastern and Balkanian folkloric-mythological mentality, to cosmogenic notions and rituals.

The thematic model of Ancient Armenian drama and its ritual and game modifications-metamorphosis are examined in this work. The first modification was narrated in the pre-Christian mystery Navasard, officially adopted in the Second century BC and interrupted in 301AD by the adoption of Christianity. The second modification is the Christian cleric drama, the liturgy and its formal connections with ancient rituals of Near East and ancient Greek drama.

The third modification is the comic mystery created by the Armenian monks, the “Abeghatogh” with its parallels in folk-games, i.e. the so called “Judge games.” These three trends show the historical evolution of Ancient Armenian drama on one hand, and the universal base of the dramatic mentality on the other hand. Finally, the study leads to the question:  were the sources of Ancient drama and its symbolic opsys are. This question brings us to an undeclared conclusion that the roots of ancient drama can be found in Near East and Mesopotamia and that the Ancient Armenian drama is the prototype of Syderian mystery.

The theatre was a lively, artistic symbol of medieval town life both Western Europe and Asia Minor- the cradle of early feudalism. With the coming of Christianity and the end of the ancient world Armenia found itself in a region of tremendous cultural activity at the crossroads between East and West. As the ancient classical theatre began to disappear in the countries of Asia Minor, a new type of theatrical art developed, later to be called the medieval theatre. This form had to origins – the theatrical traditions of late antiquity and the Asiatic folk epic. Having broken with literature, the early medieval theatre retuned to its first principles. The origins of the early medieval Armenian theatre went back be-yond the Middle Ages to the folk-epic traditions of the Armenian people. It can only really be called medieval in the sense that it was well documented in the medieval literary sourced and seems to us to be medieval in conception and character. Before finally coming to Western Europe, This theatre had passed through Syria, Capppadocia, Bysantium and Armenia (4^th-9^th centuries).

The external life of feudal society has a definitely theatrical appearance with its established customs,   rituals and etiquettes. But the theatricality of social life should not be identified with the theatrical art of  the same social environment. In medieval town life the theatre figures as an autonomous phenomenon, free from religious social purposes. The theatre occupies a special place in the social consciousness of the epoch, without blending, in to the official ideology of the Middle Ages. But it should not be confused either with church liturgy or popular customs and games. Armenian medieval writers designate it by the specific term թատր (tatr), which comes from the classical Greek “θέατρον” and the Syrian “tatra”. This term relates neither to liturgical drama (whose early forms were known in Armenia from the 5^th century) nor to any other kind of ritual or custom. From the 9^th century in both the Byzantine and Armenian churches an embryonic type of spiritual drama, the բանագերծութիւն – (banagortsutyun) was formed.  This word “banagortsutyun” is the lexical equivalent of the classical Greek “δραματουργία”. However,  the present review is concerned with the lay theatre and those forms of oral literature such as  popular  satire and folk-epic, which were called by the medieval grammarians “comedy”  կատակերգութիւն  (katakergutyun) and can be compared and identified with the theatre.

The term կատակերգություն was first used in the ancient Armenian translation of the “Grammatici” of Dionysius Thrax. In the medieval texts this term acquires a universal moral and philosophical significance and relates basically to ethical and occasionally artistic conceptions. Among medieval historians the word “comedy” is applied to those phenomena and concepts that do not correspond with the established cultural, official, class and individual relations. The “comic” means the everyday, the commonplace, the out–rageous and the amoral, i.e. an attitude to God-given reality that was free from ethical norms. In accordance with this comedy was used describe the non-religious and ordinary themes in both literature and folklore and also in theatrical spectacles. All forms of the medieval popular professional theatre, irrespective of their differences of genre, wore included under one heading by the medieval theoreticians: կատակերգութիւն – զկատարանաց նուագել խօսս – (katakergutyun – zkatarakans nuagel khoss) which literally translated means the “songs of mimers or actors”. The early medieval Armenia grammarians used the word “comedy” to refer notonly to all kinds and types of oral composition and popular satire (շէր-sher, սռինչ -srynch), but also to the ancient epic poems, called հագներգութիւն (hagnergutyun). The word also signified mythological and historical subjects performed by actors of the vulgar theatre. The word  հագներգությիւն  in medieval texts and in the dictionaries of classical Armenian corresponds to the ancient Greek ραψώδία. This type of choral art տաղ պարանցիկք երգոցն (tagh parantsikk yergotsn) is directly compared by the grammarians to the classical Greek “rhapsodia”. The identification of “comedy” with “rhapsodia” is not accidental. It determines some of the specific features of the early medieval Armenian theatre and its similarities whit ancient choral drama and oriental epic traditions.

Among the sourced of folklore mentioned in Movses Khorenatsi`s  “History of Armenia” mention is made of an ancient choral drama entitled: երգք ցցոց և պարուց (yergk tstsots yev paruts). An approximate exegesis of these words we find in almost all studies of ancient Armenian folklore. But the interpretation seems to us to be incomplete and largely doubtful. In considering the etymology and history of the word պար (par) and ցուցք (tsutsk) we come to the conclusion that their coincidental use demonstrates the existence of a single object. In the Classical Armenian translation of the Bible and other ancient texts (Dionysius Thrax, John Chrysostom, Plato etc.) the word պար (par) corresponds to the Classical Greek χορός. Being close lexical equivalents both these correspond to the Syrian “habla” (row, group, flock etc.). But the word ցուցք (tsutsk) is a fusion of two meanings μίμος (mime) and μίμησις (mimesis). In the dialects of Armenian this word has been retaisned in the two meanings of “comedian” and “theatre”. Evidently ցուցք was the ancient original name for the theatre in Armenian. The term երգք ցցոց և պարուց – (tr. miming, singing and dancing) we are inclined to see as one of the most ancient forms of dramatic art, which was still retained in early medieval Armenia. It is one of the unique prototypes of choral drama, which has become separate from religious activity and its special functions. An examination of available material leads to the conclusion that choral drama in its earliest form existed not only in ancient Greece. It is common phenomenon in the folklore of the peoples of Asia Minor and Eastern Europe.

Choral drama become the basis for the development of dramatic folklore. Dramatic folklore developed within ancient syncretic poetry and the traditions of the oral epic. The religious and philosophical roots give particular place to the cult of the goat. The goat, as the zoomorphic emblem of classical Greek tragedy, is a highly enigmatic phenomenon. According to folklore and literary legend, this cult had its origins in Asia Minor and according to archeological and ethnographic studies the image of the goat was one of the universal symbols in the agrarian cults of Asia Minor. Before arriving in the world of classical antiquity, this mythological spirit wandered in Palestine, Babylon, ancient Israel, Phrygia and the Caucasus. We find the symbolic figure of the goat on Armenian bronze age monuments. Medieval Armenia still retained the ancient peasant custom of the “goat liturgy” “այծից պատարագ” at the yearly festival of St. George. In Armenian legends, fairy tales, parables and proverbs the goat is the symbol of contradiction and conflict.

The ancient and early medieval folk-epic cycles are steeped in dramatism, both in terms of content and form. The fragments of folklore contained in Movses Khorenatsa`s “History of Armenia” show clear traces of choral drama, as do the subsequent epic cycles found in the works of Pavstos Byusand (5^th century) and Ioann Mamikonyan (7^th century). The subjects and dialogues (particularly inPavstos Byuzand) of these epic cycles show instead of epic objectivity, the active will of the subject, as the freely acting force of the dramatic individual. The analysis of certain passages of the text brings us to the conclusion that ancient popular drama pulsed in the veins of the early medieval epic cycles. But this idea is not only the result of our theoretical analysis. According to Grigor Magistros (10^th – 11^th centuries) the mythological and historical legends were performed in theatrical fashion, in the town squares and streets” – ի հրապարակս գռեհից և քաղաքաց – and that one of the most imporsant themes of these performances (հանդէս – handes) was that of the semi-mythological eponymous hero of the Armenian people, Haik.

The remnants of popular choral drama can also be seen in the Armenian epic, “David of Sasun”. The Armenian epic does not within the framework of the Hegelian definition of epic poetry. In many of the fragments it appears as a collection of heterogeneous elements of expression. The medieval story tellers transmitted from generation to generation almost all of the characteristics of the choral performance of the epic. Choral, choreographic, vocal and dialogue elements were still maintained by the story-tellers in the late Middle Ages and early Modern Era (1870). The means of conveying these epics show clear indication of the conventions employed by the ancient oriental epic theatre.

No less viable then the choral epic theatre was the professional theatre of medieval mimers and comedians (the original name for the Armenian actors was կատակ – katak). Not only town sguares were used for performances, but special buildings were erected which are mentioned in the sourced from the 7^th to the 15^th centuries. The actors of the medieval Armenian professional theatre were very similar to the Western European Jugglers. There were, however, important differences characteristic of the early period of the art mime and the improvised circus.

Communications in medieval society were carried out not by the written word, but by specific activities and rituals. These visible means of comunication as well as the visible forms of theatrical activity acquired a special social and artistic significance in early medieval town life. In the early forms of the medieval theatre the principles of artistic reproduction were based on direct (sometimes primitive) sensory perception and association. The expressive forms in this type of theatre amount to a phisical ‘mimesis’ and a demonstration of the unbelivable and impressive, the amusing and the grotesque, a combination of the miraculous with the frightening and the erotic.

The essence of the early midieval Armenian theatre (as well as Syrian, Cappadocian and Byzantine) was the presentation of an intuitive generalized impression of human characteristics and the symbolic embodiment of social contuct. These impresssions were established in there composite characters: the woman-heroine-mistress depicted in the form of a semiclothed dancing girl (վարձակ-vardzak) as the personication of love and voluptuousness; the man-hero-miracle worker, in the form of a juggler, acrobut, lion-tamer or tight-rope walker (գուսան, աճպար, լարախաղաց, ձեռնածու); the clown-comedianwearing the mask of the fool and embodyng the funny, the crude and the material. The name of the mask (Փալյանչո –palyancho) is of porticular interest, resembling as it does the Italian ‘pagliacco’. This of course comes from the ancient Roman comedy «fabula plliata» which was retained in Syria and Byzantium until the 6^th century. These composite figures of the medieval theatre, which show the primordial essence of theatrical activity exist in the embryonic form of the drama and in the contemporary circus which is fundamentally based on the medieval theatre.

Armenian games at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th  century still retained some echoes of the early medieval square theatre. One of the clearest examples of this is a game consisting of a dialogue between the tight-rope walker – “hero” and his “servant-clown”. The former is tragic, being in physical danger, the latter is comic, parodying the movements of the “tragic hero” on the ground in complete safety. The tight-rope walker is supposed to be in an imaginary cloud under the protection of St. Karapet (John the Baptist), but the clown is rooted to be ground and remains a prosaic figure. This circus act, symbolizing the eternal theme of the unity of contradictions is expressed both by the physical situation and the dialogue. The symbolized opposition of sky and earth, the ideal and the material in the later development (and no longer restricted to Asia Minor alone) becomes symbolized in more complex such as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Lear and the Clown, Don Juan and Sganarel, Schastlivtsev and Nyeschastlivtsev.

Armenian medieval theatre, resembling as it does certain aspects of the late classical theatre and the oriental epic is a unique expression of the improvised folk theatre, which historically preceeded the Western European medieval theatre of the 10^th -16^th centuries. Its chronological boundaries cover a period from the beginning of the 4^th century (302 – the conventional date for the conversion to christianitcy of the Armenian state) to the end of the 17^th century (1668 – the beginning of the Armenian school of theatre). The importance of the Armenian medieval theatre in the Christian world was historically limited to one millennium (4^th -14^th centuries). With the fall of the Kilikian kingdom in 1375 and the end of city life, particularly during the Turco-Persian domination, the theatre too ceased to develop. At the end of the 17^th century, the theatre in Armenian existed in the ancient form of improvisation, mime and the circus. The last performance of the medieval Armenian professional theatre was a spectacle given in Yerevan in 1674, described by the French traveller, Chardin. This was considered something exotic and a relic of the ancient oriental theatrical traditions. But in was the last reflection of a historically isolated artistic phenomenon, bearing all the characteristics of a bygone Asiatic theatre, which existed between the classical Greek and Roman and the Western European world.

                               Yerevan   1978   H. Hovhannissyan

 The Latin-Celtiic-German period (since the 10^th century) has been thoroughly looked into, while earlier   periods (since the 4^th century) have been left out of sight. The latter is intended to be called the Greek- Assyrian-Armenian period.

 The word բեմ (bem) being the equivalent for the words stage and scene in English has got a different historic meaning.  It is borrowed from ancient Greek (βήμα) and maintains a clerical and scholastic meaning. It means height altar, pulpit. This is merely the linguistic point of the issue. The subject matter of the current investigation is the Christian liturgy, which retains two origins in historical terms. The Roman theatres are known to have been converted into places punishment in the earlier centuries of Christianity and the carriers of the new faith were tortured to death, comedians among them According to some archaeological data the first church of john the Baptist, the progenitor of Christianity used to be the Alexandria Theatre (2^nd century), and the proscenium of the Theatre of Cyde was converted into a church, and that churches were built of the stones of the ravaged theatres as long as they were said to be consecrated with the sacred blood. Exactly in this period The Apostolic liturgy with choral dialogues was originated, which was later developed by St. Basil obviously influenced by ancient attic drama. He was educated in the late Hellenistic school like most other contemporaries of his and, consequently was deeply inclined towards grammatical and rhetorical interpretations of classical Greek drama. Therefore, Basil’s “Liturgy” can be assumed as a metamorphosis of the ancient tragedy and the religious and ideological basis for the religious drama. Some of the further interpretations of ritual and dramatic character relating to some of the plots described in the New Testament, particularly those with Christian and Easter series tend to be assumed as liturgical, and so in the theatre history they are referred to as liturgical drama. Thus, the Church, beginning from the 4^th and 5^th centuries developed its theatrocracy as  a firm rejection to the pagan theatrical heritage. The critical speeches of the clerics, which had originated since the thing century (Tertullian, Cyprian and others) had their continuation in later centuries. In the fifth century Basil’s “Liturgy” was translated into Armenian, as a canonical rite, as well as Johann Chrisostom’s theatre-rejecting speeches against the theatre and public games (Johann Mairavanetsi, the 7^th century, Simon the Bishop). Having established its theatrocracy, the church quite naturally reviewed the pagan symbols of religious and social nature. The very central symbol appeared to be the theatre and that was to be rejected. The literary pieces of drama though had already been made the property of the libraries and were studied as materials for grammatical and aesthetic interpretation.

 In the late Hellenistic period (beginning from the 1^th century) the ancient drama was pronounced as a monologue and a piece of rhetoric art. This tradition was passed to Byzantine Christian schools together with the Grammar Art by Dionysius Trax, The Rhetoric by Theon of Alexandria, Athenaeus’s    Progymnasmata. All these pieces were translated into Armenian in the 5^th century as textbooks for grammar schools. Dionysius Thrax’ Grammar was interpreted both in Byzantine intellectual circles (Melampodos, Diomedes, Heliodoros, Marcianos , Byzantine) as well as Armenian schools (David, Movses,  Anonymous,  Stephanos). This tradition has continued to survive till the 14-15^th centuries. Since the 10^th century Latin translations and interpretations had become known in Europe as well. In the textbooks of Rhetoric certain elements of theatre aesthetics can be observed. Quite evidently it can be seen in Theon’s Rhetoric. Only two pages in paragraph 13 of Theon’s Rhetoric not available in the original text in Greek have survived in the Armenian translation (5^th century). In it a description of a naturalistic play of a Greek actor Povlos by name is given as a rhetorical criterion. This is an irrefutable evidence of the early medieval existence of the school drama. The some name can be found in Dionysios’s Grammar, and guidelines for acting can be found in Byzantine scholia, Athenaeus’s work and also in medieval Armenian scholia. This means that the churc h-school drama can no longer be considered a phenomenon peculiar to 13-15^th centuries but it goes back to the 4^th and 5^th centuries. Theon’s Rhetoric elucidates not only the early medieval grammatical heritage, but also later periods, such as that of Stratford Grammar School and is presented by Shakespeare’ Hamlet ( “…Tears in the eyes, distraction in‘s aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting…”). Rowse, Shakespeare’s biographer points out Athenaeus’s above-mentioned work as being one of the textbooks of Stratford Grammar School, in the rhetorical guidelines of which Theon’s impact is obvious. It should be mentioned without doubt that the original of Shakespearean understanding of acting presented in Hamlet’s judgements are to be sought for in the criteria of university rhetoric of the time. The interpretations of Dionysius Thrax’ Grammar became known to European philologists due to Alfred Hilgard’s publication (Leipzig, 1901). That was much dealt with on the part of linguists, but it should also be considered to be the literary theory of the time and it has surprisingly been ignored by theorists of drama. While the Armenian scholia (5-14^th centuries) which were duly studied and published by Nikoghayoss  Adonts  (publ. 1915, St. Peterburg) are hardly known to European philologists. The study of in reveals most unexpected evidence, particularly the earlier-developed theory of the school drama.

 Those pieces of literature which are close to drama in terms of their dialogue-type structure are being observed in the light of grammatical scholia. Thus, for instance, the trenodia “Lamentation of Our Lady” is a completely tragic dialogue. Another example of mystic drama is  ”Ode to Resurrection” by Nerses Lambronatsi (12^th century), a funny dialogue. Or, say a comic miracle called “For the Mangled” by Nerses Abegha (Monk Nerses) is said to go back to the 14^th century and, of course, the oratorical drama “Song Annunciation “ by Arakel Baghishetsi (15^th century), some dramatic poems of late medieval period are like morality plays. . To mention a few, “The Wine and the philosopher”, “Earth and Heaven Argument”  etc. Though with religious content they were not involved in official church ceremonies and were written for the sake of education and teaching morale. The creative environment of them cannot be imagined outside church and school. Their relation to grammatical interpretation is mostly common, indirect, sometimes direct relationship is observed.

In medieval original texts the religious drama is not called the art, it has got its own term, and translated into Armenian it sound as katsurd  (presentment) and banagortsution (speech action). The Armenian translation taghavor and khoran for the Greek equivalent deserve special interpretation. One of them implies theatrical, sometimes even ceremonial meaning,  the other one carries a liturgical meaning.

 Some phenomena peculiar to medieval drama regain new values in the context of the present study. Thus, for example, a compilation of  comedies  called   “Anti-Terence” issued by Hrotsvitha, a Benedictine abbess (10^th century) of Gandersheim in Saxony. Hrotsvitha’s plays appear to be the dramatic projection of theatre-rejecting speeches, and in their real sense, they claim to be the rejection of the genre. We tend to believe that they were performed not in the 10^th century (as it is supposed to have been) but after the year 1494 initiated to be performed on a university stage. This is the so-called school theatre which was later developed by Martin Luther against Catholicism, and by Ignatius Loyolla against Protestantism (afther the year 1534). Since that time the school stage became a cathedra for theological debates. Some hints of that are observed in Hamlet’s, the graduate of Wittenberg University words. The theatre of Dutch Deacons’ Readings (rederaykers) was much the same.

 This, the rhetorical apprehension of drama originated in the monastery grammar school and became a propaganda and a debate of a theoretical nature. In the late middle ages it was passed to Jesuitical schools to become the privilege of them, then in penetrated to Easter Europe and through Catholic missionaries was brought into Armenian environment. The Armenian church-school stage in Lvov served to Catholic preaching with “The Martyrdom of St. Hripsime” and other plays (since 1668). The monastery school stage at St. Lazar in Venice principally possessed the same role (since 1730). An incomplete list of the performed plays is known, also some theatrical explication such as “Clerk Emianoss”,”St. Anton Abbot”, “Luther’s Deeds” and others. Eventually, the  aggiographic  ideas gained religious and patriotic meaning, and there appeared the martyred commander Vardan Mamikonyan, having been sanctified in the 5^th century, as a dramatic personage on the monastery stage at St. Lazar. The aggiographic drama continued to the implemented in the 19^th century Armenian theatre and this can be assumed as an emergence of secularization.

 The secularization is not so much a result of historic evolution but an parallel phenomenon and its origins can be found in the early middle Ages as an example of popular religious orientation. It is the ambivalent appreciation of reality in the people’s theatre, where the equilibrist is presented as John the Baptist’s messenger, bringing for-ward his prayers and charms, eminent and fascinating, ready to create a miracle, and his servant, who is mean and mercenary. Here we have the archetypical understanding of spiritual and worldly attitudes. Another expression of secularization can be observed in the monastery environment. It is the play called “Abeghatogh” performed in the very last day of Shrovetide. It is a liturgical parody, feast and fun, a violation of the monastery hierarchy, a mockery which ends up with a most wonderful miracle. It’s the comic scene of Lazar’s resurrection. We shall call this a comic mystery and, draw the curtain of the medieval stage.

                                                                                  Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian

 The ancient Armenian mystery play displays thematic associations with ‘’the myth of perpetual recurrence‘’ symbolizing the universal cycle and in interrelation with the Prometheus theme as well as the Iranian and Caucasian versions of the mythologem of “the captive in chains”. None of the versions mentioned, except for the Greek one has ever been referred to as ritually and dramatically modified. The Armenian version is distinguished by is close relation to the sidereal year (the time in which the earth completes one revolution in is orbit around the sun measured whit respect to the fixed starts) and is defined as prophecy drama, called Shidar, a name carrying the meaning of joint. The resumption of the tale, with reference to several passages from “Armenian History” narrated by Movses Khorenatsy (5^th century), suggests coherence with Saxo Grammaticus`s “Gesta Danorum” (13<sup>th</sup> century), a partly mythical history of Hamlet, the literary interpretation of with appears to the Shakespeare`s “Hamlet” in which certain mystical inferences can be observed. Thus for instance, “The time is out of joint.” (Act I, scene V); “When the have shuffled off this mortal coil”, (Act III, Scene I). The mystery background of these words takes us too far. “I am an inmate of my own flesh” (an ancient Babylonian poem): here is the thesis which serves as universal background for all types of dramatic state. The thematic mode is common for all cultures, but the ritual itself, representing the act of mystery (“the joint of time”) relates to early medieval literary sources of Armenian beliefs. The captured power appears to be a restrained energy, a sort of anticipated release, a Messiah in the final chapter of “Sasna Crer” (“Cranks of Sassoon”), the Armenian heroic epic. The hero, chain-bound at the rock, is named Mher is the analogue of Mithra, the ancient Per got of light. He stares at “the wheel of destiny, which symbolizes the galaxy circle, i.e. the horoscope originated in Western Asian culture. Supposedly, this happens to be the birthplace of the mystical and ritual drama.

 The logic behind the object of investigation is closely related to the issue of the origin of drama which has long been covered in literature basically relying on two theories parallel to each other. Those were the so-called “solar” and “vegetative” theories. The current study is bound to develop “the solar theory”, according to which the key symbol tends to be the ancient Attic place resembling a circle /orchestra/ together which the twelve choral dancers around the circle, thus representing the symbolic image of the twelve signs of zodiac (Sir Kerchever Chambers, August Mahr). The very fast of the occurrence of the ancient Armenian choral drama and the idea of ritual myth being a sidereal mystery with Shidar masque in the center of the play remained unknown to English and Armenia scholars, while it definitely represents the time-and-space model of the ancient oriental rituals. The present study tends to accomplish “the solar theory” of the origin of drama. It comes to prove that the semicircle of the ancient Greek orchestra is the implication of an ever -lasting evolution, a sort of transformation of the Assyrian-Babylonian gnomon into ritual dance circle, the origin of which goes deep into the Western Asian /including Armenian/ gnomon culture.

 The Appendix of the book presents the reason for the usage of the word theatron for ancient Armenian mystery play in medieval texts. It is evidence of Hellenistic origin dating to third to second centuries B.C. and a sign of the ritual becoming formally accepted, the latter actually taken place during the reign of King Vagharsh the First, in 117 A.D. The ritual was declared for bidden by St. Gregory, the first Armenian Catholicus, in the year 301, and it was immediately replaced by another holiday named after Hovhannes Mkrtich /john the Baptist/, the Christian prophet.

Yerevan 2011

                                                                                                 Translated by   Astghick H.Hovhannissian