This is the title of a monograph published by Yerevan State University Press and authored by Dr. Albert Stepanyan, Adjunct Lecturer of Armenian history at the American University of Armenia (AUA). The book, as its title shows, is dedicated to the History of the Armenians by Moses Khorenatsi, an early medieval author whose work has played an exceptional role in the intellectual history of Armenia.
Jesse Arlen
It’s an unusually chilly Friday evening in September. You put on the meditative piano music of George Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, pour yourself a generous glass of Voskevaz Vanakan, and cozy up under a blanket to read Yeghishe’s History of Vartan and the Armenian War. You start with the Krapar (Գրաբար / Classical Armenian) text itself, falling headlong into the theologically and philosophically dense epistolary exchanges between the Zoroastrian magi of Sasanian Iran and the leading bishops of the Armenian church that comes near the opening of Yeghishe’s text. As you encounter unfamiliar words or get lost in the at times interminably long sentences, you turn to the right page to check the English translation, then return to Yeghishe’s eloquent Krapar on the left page. Before long, the glass has long been finished and several other albums of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann have been played. As the depths of night come upon you, you read of Shah Yazdegerd’s state policy to suppress services in the churches, plunder holy and costly objects from altars and church treasuries, and torture priests and people who resist. Reminded of the events of last year, you burn incense in the poorvar (բուրվառ / censer) you bought from the gift store at Ghazanchetsots cathedral in Shushi, and say a prayer for those departed, recently and long ago.
