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To-do

Drafts

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  • Draft:Faustus of Byzantium
    • Adontz, Nikoghayos (2006). "Pʻavstos Buzandě orpes patmichʻ" Փավստոս Բուզանդը որպես պատմիչ [Pavstos Buzand as a historian]. In Hovhannisyan, P. H. (ed.). Erker Երկեր [Works] (in Armenian). Vol. II. Erevani hamalsarani hratarakchʻutʻyun. pp. 87–130. ISBN 5-8084-0779-6. (Original: Adontz, N. (1922). "Faust Vizantiĭskiĭ, kak istorik" Фаустъ Византійскій, какъ историкъ (PDF). Khristianskiī Vostok (in Russian). VI (3). Petrograd: 235–272.)
  • User:Revolution Saga/sandbox/Sakasene
  • User:Revolution Saga/Vanakan Vardapet
  • User:Revolution Saga/sandbox/Melikdoms of Karabakh
  • User:Revolution Saga/sandbox/Hovhannes Erznkatsi
  • User:Revolution Saga/sandbox/Nikolay Karamzin

Planned

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Pages that need work

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Ancient

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Medieval

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Early modern

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Modern

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Geography

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Literature

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Frequent sources (Hübschmann-Meillet transliteration)

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Simple version

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  • Ulubabyan, B. (1977). "Գտիչի վանք" [Gtich monastery]. In Hambardzumyan, Viktor (ed.). Հայկական Սովետական Հանրագիտարան [Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia] (in Armenian). Vol. 3. Yerevan. p. 190.
  • Hakobyan, T. Kh.; Melik-Bakhshyan, St. T.; Barseghyan, H. Kh. "Տող" [Togh]. Հայաստանի և հարակից շրջանների տեղանունների բառարան [Dictionary of Toponymy of Armenia and Adjacent Territories] (in Armenian). Vol. V. Yerevan State University Publishing House. p. 117.

ALC-LC

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Shirvanzade

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Style and themes

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Syunik

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Syunik was a very mountainous and remote region of Armenia with many fortresses and only a few towns. It was ruled for centuries by the native Siunia dynasty of princes and its branches. Syunik encompassed the entire southern half of modern-day Armenia, including the provinces of Syunik and Vayots Dzor and most of the province of Gegharkunik. It also included territories that are now part of the southwestern districts of Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan.

(Armenian: Հովհաննես (reformed); Յովհաննէս (classical))

Aragaç

Vahan Mamikonian (4th century)

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Vahan Mamikonian (Armenian: Վահան Մամիկոնեան, romanized: Vahan Mamikonean) was a 4th-century Armenian nobleman who, according the the history attributed to Pawstos Buzand, renounced Christianity and defected to Sasanian Iran during Shapur II's invasion of Armenia. After Shapur imprisoned the Armenian king Arshak II and executed Vahan's brother, sparapet Vasak Mamikonian, circa 368, Vahan and his nephew Meruzhan Artsruni were appointed administrators of Armenia along with two Iranian governors. Vahan and Meruzhan oversaw the imposition of Zoroastrianism in Armenia, leading to Vahan and his wife being murdered by his own son Samuel. The murder of Vahan Mamikonian by his son is the subject of the famous historical novel Samuel by the 19th-century Armenian author Raffi.

Society and government (for Arsacid dynasty of Armenia)

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Nakharar system

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Main article: Nakharar

The nakharar system that characterized Armenian society and internal politics for several centuries appears to have originated near or before the beginning of the Common Era, and thus existed during the entire Arsacid period in Armenia and for centuries after its end.[1] It is assumed that Armenia shared this social system with Parthian Iran.[1] Although frequently compared to medieval European feudalism by earlier scholars, more parallels can be found in the Iranian world.[1] As it was in Iran, Armenian society under the nakharar system was divided into three main estates: the nakhararkʻ (magnates, corresponding to the Iranian wuzurgān), the azatkʻ (lesser nobility, using the same word as in Parthian, āzāt), the an-azatkʻ or non-nobles, consisting of the ṛamik ("commoners," merchants and artisans) and shinakan (peasants, the overwhelming majority of the population), corresponding to Iranian vastrōšān, who were free, although the peasants could be bound to the land.[1]

The foundation of the system was the great noble houses.[1] The heads of these houses, the nakharars, were ranked by precedence according to the seat they occupied at the royal table at court.[2]

Georgian: კორიუნის "მაშტოცის ცხოვრება" (ტექსტის თარგმნა, გამოკვლევა და კომენტარები), romanized: k'oriunis "masht'otsis tskhovreba" (t'ekst'is targmna, gamok'vleva da k'oment'arebi)

Officialdoms

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Batyushkov

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Early life and career

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Konstantin Nikolayevich Batyushkov was born on 29 May [O.S. 18 May] 1787 in Vologda to Nikolai Lvovich Batyushkov and Aleksandra Grigoryevna Batyushkova (neé Berdyayeva). Both of his parents came from old noble families. He had three older sisters, Alexandra, Yelizaveta, and Anna, and one younger, Varvara. He also had half-siblings from his father's second marriage. His half-brother, Pompei Batyushkov, later published his biography and collected works in 1885–87. His father served in the Russian army and worked in the civil service. The Batyushkovs experienced financial difficulties. Around 1793, Konstantin's mother became mentally ill and died two years later.[3]

Batyushkov probably spent the first four years of his life in his birthplace, then either followed his father to Vyatka and Saint Petersburg or stayed with his grandfather on the family estate in the Tver Governorate. From 1797, he attended private boarding schools in Saint Petersburg. The first boarding school he attended was run by a Frenchman, and French was the main language of instruction. From 1801, he attended a boarding school directed by an Italian and began to learn Italian. He graduated in 1802, after which he moved in with his father's relative Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov, a noted sentimentalist author who played an important role in Batyushkov's education and literary development. It was through Muravyov that Batyushkov first came into contact with Classical literature and Latin, fostering his strong admiration for the Classical world. At Muravyov's house, Batyushkov met the poets Gavrila Derzhavin and Vasily Kapnist, whose works he admired, and probably began his friendship with Alexey Olenin, whose literary circle was, according to Igor Pilshschikov and T. Henry Fitt, "the aesthetic centre of Russian Neoclassicism, or the Russian style empire, which combined the “cult of sentiment” with an interest in both classical and Northern Antiquity."[3]

Batyushkov's first literary work was a translation into French of the speech of Metropolitan Platon at the coronation of Alexander I. It was published as a separate pamphlet by a friend of his father in 1801. 1802 is traditionally regarded as the starting point of Batyushkov's career as a poet. It was then, at the age of fifteen, that he composed his first poem. In a letter to Nikolai Gnedich dated 1 April 1810, he quotes two lines of this first poem and opines that their themes of yearning for "distant lands" and unhappiness with the real world presaged his later poem, "Muza moya, yeshchyo devstvennitsa, ugadala" (My Muse, while still a virgin, had divined).[3]

In December 1802, Batyushkov became an unsalaried employee of the newly created Ministry of Public Education. Being only fifteen years old at the time, he was not granted any real responsibilities, and the actual purpose of his employment was to acquire a rank in the Table of Ranks, which required a certain number of yeras of service. He received the lowest rank in November 1803 and left the service the next year. However, he returned to the ministry in early 1805 as a secretary of Mikhail Muravyov. He was entrusted with real responsibilities this time, but he evidently had enough free time to pursue his literary interests as well. He made his first serious attempts at writing poetry in 1804. One of his early poems, titled "Mechta" (Dream), displays the influence of Muravyov's lyricism and has been called "a manifesto of Batyushkov's own aesthetics." Batyushkov revised this poem repeatedly throughout his literary career.[3]

Many of Batyushkov's colleagues at the ministry were literary figures, such as Nikolai Gnedich, a member of Olenin's literary circle and later translator of the Iliad, and Ivan Pnin. He became acquainted with members of the Free Society of Lovers of Letters, Sciences and the Arts and wrote works according to the tastes of this group. He unsuccessfully applied to join the group in 1805, presenting two satirical works. While Batyushkov's association with the Society was brief, he established an enduring friendship with Gnedich, to whom he wrote poetic letters, particularly on the theme of friendship.[3]

First military service

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After Napoleon's occupation of Berlin in the autumn of 1806, a mass levy was declared in Russia, and Batyushkov entered military service, first as a member of General Nikolai Tatishschev, then as a junior officer in the Petersburg Militia, a volunteer corps. In May 1807, he fought at the Battle of Guttstadt-Deppen, then fought at Heilsberg, where he was severely wounded. He convalesced in Riga, and in the meantime Russia made peace with Napoleon. He lived for some time at the house of a merchant in Riga and fell in love with the latter's daughter. It was at this time that he wrote two poems, "Vyzdorovleniye" and "Vospominaniya 1807 goda", which had a strong impact on Russian elegiac poetry in the following two decades.[3]

Style and themes

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Along with his contemporary Vasily Zhukovsky, Batyushkov is regarded as one of the founders of the Romantic or pre-Romantic school of Russian poetry. His influence on later Russian poets was great.

Classical antiquity occupies an important place in Batyushkov's work. However, according to Mark Altshuller, Batyushkov was not interested in the reality of the antique world, but rather the "fragile, elegant world of conventional eroticism" which he encountered in the works of authors such as Evariste Parny, Jean-Baptiste Gresset, and Giovanni Casti, and in the French translations of the Greek Anthology. (126-127)

According to Mark Altshuller, "Batyushkov's poetic language is remarkably melodic, flowing and euphonic; it is unique in Russian poetry. Possibly this is due to the influence of Italian poetry, of which Batyushkov was a connoisseur." (127). In contrast with Zhukovsky, Batyushkov stands out for his extremely precise use of the poetic word (127).

The Island of Bornholm

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"The Island of Bornholm" (Russian: Остров Борнгольм, romanized: Ostrov Borngolm) is a short story by Russian author Nikolai Karamzin, first published in 1794 in the first number of Karamzin's almanac Aglaya. It is considered the first Gothic story in Russian literature. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of an educated Russian nobleman returning home from England, implied to be the same narrator as that of Karamzin's quasi-autobiographical Letters of a Russian Traveler. The curious narrator explores the Danish island of Bornholm and unravels a mystery about two lovers with a "terrible secret," which is left unsaid but is implied to be incest.

Plot

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The story is told in the first person from the perspective of an educated Russian nobleman returning home from England (implied to be the same narrator as that of Karamzin's quasi-autobiographical Letters of a Russian Traveler).(Sobol 28) After his ship makes a stop in Gravesend, he encounters a young man with a deathly appearance who sings a song in Danish about a past love which "laws condemn" and a "parental curse" which forced him to leave his home; the singer also mentions the island of Bornholm. The narrator's ship sets out and eventually arrives at Bornholm. The narrator's curiosity is aroused, and despite the captain's warnings of danger, he decides to go ashore and explore the island. While a local boy shows him around, he notices an old castle and decides to approach it, although his guide is afraid. The narrator hears a voice from the castle and asks to be let in. A tall man in black emerges and guides him in, taking him to an old man in the castle. The old man is friendly he narrator and the two have a conversation about the state of the world and the history of the island and "northern peoples." The narrator stays the night at the castle and sees ominous dreams. The next day, he comes across a young woman imprisoned in a cave. The narrator asks why she has been put there. The imprisoned woman expresses remorse but does not tell the narrator what she has done. She asks him to leave. Shaken by this scene, the narrator falls asleep outside. He awakes to see that the old man and his servant have discovered what has happened. The old man tells him the tragic story of the young woman imprisoned in the cave, although this is not told to the reader. The narrator only writes that he discovered the "terrible secret" of the singing stranger from Gravesend. The saddened narrator leaves Bornholm.

Style and themes

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The central conflict of the story is expressed in terms of an opposition between human law and natural law: the lovers suffer misfortune for their natural love which is proscribed by laws. The forbidden love between the singing Dane and the imprisoned woman is implied to be incest, although this is never explicitly stated.(Offard 45-46) (In another redaction of the story which remained unknown until the twentieth century, it is specified that the two are brother and sister.)(Sobol 147) According to Derek Offard, the "dark secret" of the story reflects contemporary anxieties about vice overcoming morality and the "seemingly unresolvable conflict" between rationality and emotion.(Offard 45-46) Offard also places the story in the context of contemporary Russian literary debates, occurring mainly between advocates of the Classicist and Sentimentalist styles. Karamzin belonged to the latter movement. However, Offard notes that the narrator of "The Island of Bornholm," while having the same sensibility as those of Letters of a Russian Traveler and his previous sentimental short stories such as "Poor Liza," displays a "broader, more troubling spiritual disturbance." He connects this with events in Karamzin's personal life and with the recent violent turn of the French Revolution, which raised "fears about the extinction of enlightenment and humanist values […]."(Offard 46-51)

"The Island of Bornholm" is considered the first Gothic story in Russian literature.(Sobol 21) Gothic elements in the work include the enigmatic and foreign setting, with its cliffs, tumultuous sea, and ominous castle, and the "terrible secret" hidden on the island.(Sobol 28) However, the work breaks with Gothic conventions in some ways, namely with the cordial conversation between the narrator and the old man which breaks the suspense. The part of the story has attracted particular attention from scholars.(Sobol 30-31) In this passage, the old man asks the narrator to tell him about the state of the world. Using symbols characteristic of Enlightenment, the narrator states that, while science continues to spread, there is still bloodshed. Vadim Vatsuro and Derek Offard see this passage as an expression of Karamzin's internal conflict of values caused by the French Revolution, a conflict which is also expressed in the clash between nature and law depicted in the story. The old man then finds out that the narrator is Russian and begins to speak of the historical presence of Slavs on Bornholm and the nearby island of Rügen, stating that "[w]e descend from the same people as you" and noting that Russians adopted Christianity while the people of the island were still worshipping idols. In Vatsuro's view, Karamzin uses the character of the old man to represent the false ideas about virtue of his time; the evocation of the medieval past serves to emphasize the old man's connection with "medieval barbarity," represented by the harsh punishment he inflicts on the imprisoned woman. Offard argues that this passage serves to distinguish Russia from the "Gothic horrors" embodied by Bornholm and from the social upheavals of the period; Russians, though a northern people like the locals, "enjoy pride of place by virtue of their spiritual heritage." Sobol, on the other hand, believes that the passage suggests more connectedness than distinction between Russians and the locals, achieving an uncanny effect; she explains, "by learning about the island’s past and the secret it harbors, our traveler discovers something about his own culture’s historical past."(Sobol 29, 32) She adds that evocation of the historical kinship between the Danish island and Russia may reflect "contemporary anxieties over Russia’s uncertain origins," specifically the Scandinavian origin of the first ruling dynasty of Russia (Sobol 33).

  1. ^ a b c d e Garsoïan 2005.
  2. ^ Garsoïan 2004, p. 77.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Pilshchikov, Igor; Fitt, T. Henry (4 September 2017). "Konstantin Batiushkov: Life and Work". Russian Virtual Library. Retrieved 20 October 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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