«Տունը և ճակատը» - զրույց Ալեքսանդր ԹՈՓՉՅԱՆԻ հետ

Karen Agekyan's article is devoted to a conversation with the renowned writer, playwright, and translator Alexander Topchyan, which took place at the International Forum of Armenian Writers Writing in Foreign Languages in Tsaghkadzor. The material is structured as a dialogue between two interlocutors developing a shared theme of national stereotypes and clichés in the perception of the Armenian people abroad and in the cultures of neighboring countries.

Introduction and methodology. The starting point is Topchyan's presentation at the forum, devoted to the mechanisms of the formation of ethnic images and their persistence over time. The interlocutors compare examples of European clichés about Russians, Germans, and Jews with the historical image of the Armenian, noting that such perceptions often survive for centuries and have not only a psychological but also a geopolitical underpinning.

Key thematic sections:

The historical roots of the "dirty Armenian" cliché in French society of the 1920s–30s, linked to the image of refugees after the Genocide; parallels with the work of Shahan Shahnour, who recorded this problem in literature.
The image of the Armenian merchant in the European and Georgian tradition (the character Harutyun in Chavchavadze), considered in the context of the social role of the merchant class and interethnic relations.
The asymmetry of Armenian-Georgian cultural images: the elevation of the Georgian at the expense of the diminishment of the Armenian in the literature of the 19th–20th centuries, including the work of Konstantine Gamsakhurdia and the comedy "Khanuma."
A detailed analysis of the film "Mimino" as a telling case of the contrast between the "noble Georgian" and the "primitive but kind Armenian" (Khachikyan), where the artistic success of the actor Mkrtchyan effectively compensated for an initially demeaning script image.
A case from Topchyan's own practice at the Armenfilm studio — the refusal of the actor Khoren Abrahamyan to appear in the role of a negative Armenian character at Azerbaijanfilm, illustrating the problem of the deliberate use of an actor's nationality to soften a negative image.
A comparison with successful national cinematic images — French, Italian, Georgian — created as a deliberate cultural policy shaping an attractive collective portrait of a nation.

Key point. The interlocutors arrive at the conclusion that the most dangerous clichés are not the external ones but the internal ones — those created by a nation's own culture and reinforced in literature, theater, and cinema over the course of decades. It is noted that diminished expectations regarding one's own cultural image lead to an uncritical perception of even blatantly limited characters as successful ones.

Conclusion. The main conclusion of the conversation is that, unlike Georgian culture, which purposefully and successfully formed an archetypal image of a noble compatriot through cinema, Armenian culture of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods failed to create a full-fledged positive national image, which accounts for the persistence of simplified and demeaning clichés both in external perceptions of Armenians and in the nation's own self-consciousness.