Armenian Text: Job’s Children

Abstract

The article considers one of the patterns of the Armenian text in Russian literature - the relationship of the historical destinies of the Armenian and Jewish peoples. The purpose of the study is to present, using the example of travelogues of writers of the second half of the twentieth century: Andrei Bitov, Vasily Grossman, Yuri Karabchievsky, Georgy Gachev, how this pattern of the Armenian text was formed - the pairing of the tragic fate of Jews and Armenians. The intention of the mentality of the Armenians, based on their ancient history, coincides with the Jewish intention, which is shown in the article using typological examples from the prose of Dina Rubina. The Armenian text, according to the author of the article, is a literary construct invented precisely by the writer’s creativity, first by prose, then by poetry responding to it. Thus, examples of the Armenian text, which is in interaction with the specified prose, are given from the lyrics of contemporary poets - Liana Shahverdyan, Alessio Gaspari. The Armenian text is a construct retransmitted in Russian literature. It was created by writers who reproduce certain stable patterns in their work. On the material of this study, we focused on one of them - the ontological relationship of Armenians and Jews. Its central motif is the metaphor of the historical memory of the bloody 20th century - a metaphor-reproach for the fratricidal wars of mankind.