DAVID OF SASUN BY HOVHANNES TUMANYAN: FROM TEXT TO VISUALIZATION

Abstract

The article analyses the cultural context of the poem "David of Sasun". On the basis of critical discourse analysis, semiotics (C. S. Pearce) and reconstruction of historical memory the perception of the city of Sasun is studied, the peculiarities of historical memory and images of the enemy are reconstructed. Using the example of the poem "David of Sasun" by H. Tumanyan, the semiotic translation from sign-symbols (Tumanyan’s text) to the language of iconic signs (children’s illustrations) is analysed. The analysis of the empirical text showed that Tumanyan created his storyline without additional spatio-temporal details. Some motifs (the part of Sansara and Baghdasara) were omitted in his text because plot entanglements would have appeared. Tumanyan adhered to the "Homeric approach" and touched only one line of the epic, the third branch, dedicated to David of Sasun. The analysis of separate episodes, motifs, plots showed that Tumanyan reproduced the main scheme of the epic’s construction on the opposition of us vs. them, Armenians vs. Arabs, David vs. Msra Melik. The second part of the article presents the results of the study of a modern children’s illustrative project dedicated to H. Tumanyan’s poem. The composition of the children’s drawings is made according to the age peculiarities of the young artists, but the influence of adult project leaders (Sona Badoyan and others) is also noticeable. The analysis also showed that the image of the enemy Msra Melik is represented by Turkic facial features, which reflects the preserved national stereotypes.

Keywords: Armenian epic poem, visualization of epic, collective memory, historical memory, semiotics of connotative translation, Arabs in the Armenian epic, Daredevils of Sasun, Sasun, Armenian identity