«Երկկողմանի հայելի. Յոզեֆ Ստրժիգովսկի, Ավստրիա և Հայաստան» - Քրիստինա ՄԱՐԱՆՉԻ

Christina Maranci's article "A Two-Way Mirror: Josef Strzygowski, Austria, and Armenia" is devoted to analyzing the motives that prompted the Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski to create, in 1918, his fundamental work "The Architecture of the Armenians and Europe" (Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa), and to examining the historical context that determined his exceptional interest in medieval Armenia.

Introduction and Methodology
The author poses the question of why the head of the Vienna Institute of Art History devoted such a large-scale study to a relatively understudied region. The article's hypothesis is that Strzygowski's interest in Armenia is explained by the parallels he perceived between medieval Armenia and his contemporary Austria of the First World War period.

The Place of Die Baukunst in Strzygowski's Oeuvre
Maranci demonstrates the special position of the book among the scholar's works:
– it is the most extensive study in scope in his career (approximately nine hundred pages);
– it was here that the methodical scheme later applied in all subsequent works was first formulated;
– the work combines the detail of the early monographs with the breadth of the later generalizing works;
– Strzygowski himself regarded it as one of his key achievements, noting that for the first time he "felt himself on firm ground."

The Role of Armenian Sources and Toros Toramanian
Special attention is given to the collaboration with the Armenian architect Toros Toramanian, whose unpublished materials formed the basis of the book. The author traces the evolution of Strzygowski's authorial stance — from his initial intention to present the work as a joint effort to the exclusion of Toramanian's name from the title page, while nevertheless retaining references to his contribution in the preface and on the title page of the edition.

Armenia versus Georgia
A significant part of the article is devoted to analyzing Strzygowski's decision to strictly differentiate between the Armenian and Georgian architectural traditions, contrary to the practice widespread in European scholarship of combining them within a "Transcaucasian branch" of Byzantine art. Maranci identifies several factors behind this choice:
– Strzygowski's geographical argument concerning Georgia's isolation from the cultural centers of the East;
– the use of a linguistic analogy (the hypothesis of the Armenian origin of the Georgian alphabet);
– the influence of Armenian scholars (N. Marr, T. Toramanian, and others) with whom Strzygowski was in contact;
– racial theory, which placed the Armenians as "Indo-Europeans" above the Georgians, classified as belonging to the "Caucasian race."

Aryan Armenia and the Austrian Context
The article's key thesis is that the Aryan interpretation of Armenian architecture served for Strzygowski as a justification for a spiritual connection between the North (Austria) and the East. The planned subtitle of the book — "Four Books on Aryan Architecture" — reflects the scholar's aspiration to inscribe the Armenian heritage into a general Aryan cultural context, which resonated with the ideological currents of wartime.

Conclusion
Christina Maranci concludes that Strzygowski's interest in Armenia was conditioned not only by scholarly logic and the availability of new sources, but also by the ideological construction of an "Aryan" past, in which medieval Armenia served as a kind of mirror of the author's contemporary Austria — a symbol of the cultural and spiritual kinship of East and West amid historical crisis.