«Գլոբալացումը և հայկական ինքնության ավանդական խորհրդանիշները» - Համլետ ՊԵՏՐՈՍՅԱՆ

Hamlet Petrosyan's article "Globalization and Traditional Symbols of Armenian Identity" is devoted to the analysis of the origin, evolution, and contemporary revival of key symbols of Armenian identity — the Mountain of the Ark, the Garden of Noah, and the motif of the Lost Paradise — within the context of historical processes comparable to globalization.

Introduction and Methodology

The author stipulates that the question of the historicity of biblical narratives (Eden, the Flood, the Ark) does not fall within the scope of the study. The purpose of the work is a historical-comparative analysis of the formation, development, and functioning of the aforementioned symbols, as well as the demonstration of the thesis that such identity complexes become activated precisely under conditions of globalization, functioning as a mechanism enabling a community to adapt to new historical circumstances.

Traditional Images: Garden, Vineyard, Mountain

Petrosyan traces the origins of this system of imagery back to the most ancient agricultural culture of Armenia, in which viticulture and horticulture carried not only economic but also symbolic significance. In the Armenian tradition, the garden is a model of the ideal world; the king is likened to a gardener, and wine is a divine beverage.

Early Christian Adaptation of Biblical Images

The article shows how, in the early Middle Ages, Armenian authors (the "Panegyric" attributed to Movses Khorenatsi, and Ghazar Parpetsi) — without directly equating the two — compared Armenia, and above all the Ayrarat valley, to Paradise and the Promised Land, drawing on:

the country's geographical location at the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates;
the well-developed tradition of irrigated horticulture;
the symbolic significance of the Ayrarat gavar (province).

Masis as the Sacred Center of the Universe

A separate section is devoted to Mount Masis, which in the pre-Christian and early Christian tradition was perceived as a three-part model of the world (the heavenly summit — the world of humans — the subterranean kingdom of the vishaps), was associated with myths about Artavazd, the vishaps, and the kaджs, and was subject to a strict taboo on ascent. The author explains why the identification of Masis with the biblical Ararat did not occur immediately: the persistence of the archaic mountain cult and the absence among Armenians of their own flood legend diminished the significance of the biblical narrative of the ark.

The Crusades and the Final Identification of Ararat and Masis

According to the author, the key factor that brought this process to completion was the era of the Crusades (11th–13th centuries), regarded here as a historical variant of globalization. The expectation of salvation coming from the West, legends about the prophecies of Nerses the Great and Grigor Lusavorich, and the identification of the Crusaders with the foretold deliverers created an atmosphere in which the biblical shrine — the mountain where the ark came to rest — was definitively fixed as Masis in the texts of the "Soperk'," in hagiographies, in the Menologia, as well as in the works of Vardan Areveltsi and Hovhannes Yerznkatsi.

Central Thesis and Conclusion

The article's main conclusion is that Armenia's incorporation into the world-historical (in the Christian sense) context was accompanied by a deliberate elevation of its own traditional symbols to a universal, cosmic scale. Thus, the fixing of Masis's status as the biblical Ararat demonstrates a general pattern: the intensification and transformation of traditional symbols of identity occur precisely during periods of intensive interaction between a local culture and global historical and religious processes, making this case an illustrative example of the mechanism by which a community adapts to the challenges of globalization.