The Origins of the Medieval Armenian Theatre

Հնագույն դրաման Հայաստանում

The theatre was a lively, artistic symbol of medieval town life both Western Europe and Asia Minor- the cradle of early feudalism. With the coming of Christianity and the end of the ancient world Armenia found itself in a region of tremendous cultural activity at the crossroads between East and West. As the ancient classical theatre began to disappear in the countries of Asia Minor, a new type of theatrical art developed, later to be called the medieval theatre. This form had to origins – the theatrical traditions of late antiquity and the Asiatic folk epic. Having broken with literature, the early medieval theatre retuned to its first principles. The origins of the early medieval Armenian theatre went back be-yond the Middle Ages to the folk-epic traditions of the Armenian people. It can only really be called medieval in the sense that it was well documented in the medieval literary sourced and seems to us to be medieval in conception and character. Before finally coming to Western Europe, This theatre had passed through Syria, Capppadocia, Bysantium and Armenia (4^th-9^th centuries).

The external life of feudal society has a definitely theatrical appearance with its established customs,   rituals and etiquettes. But the theatricality of social life should not be identified with the theatrical art of  the same social environment. In medieval town life the theatre figures as an autonomous phenomenon, free from religious social purposes. The theatre occupies a special place in the social consciousness of the epoch, without blending, in to the official ideology of the Middle Ages. But it should not be confused either with church liturgy or popular customs and games. Armenian medieval writers designate it by the specific term թատր (tatr), which comes from the classical Greek “θέατρον” and the Syrian “tatra”. This term relates neither to liturgical drama (whose early forms were known in Armenia from the 5^th century) nor to any other kind of ritual or custom. From the 9^th century in both the Byzantine and Armenian churches an embryonic type of spiritual drama, the բանագերծութիւն – (banagortsutyun) was formed.  This word “banagortsutyun” is the lexical equivalent of the classical Greek “δραματουργία”. However,  the present review is concerned with the lay theatre and those forms of oral literature such as  popular  satire and folk-epic, which were called by the medieval grammarians “comedy”  կատակերգութիւն  (katakergutyun) and can be compared and identified with the theatre.

The term կատակերգություն was first used in the ancient Armenian translation of the “Grammatici” of Dionysius Thrax. In the medieval texts this term acquires a universal moral and philosophical significance and relates basically to ethical and occasionally artistic conceptions. Among medieval historians the word “comedy” is applied to those phenomena and concepts that do not correspond with the established cultural, official, class and individual relations. The “comic” means the everyday, the commonplace, the out–rageous and the amoral, i.e. an attitude to God-given reality that was free from ethical norms. In accordance with this comedy was used describe the non-religious and ordinary themes in both literature and folklore and also in theatrical spectacles. All forms of the medieval popular professional theatre, irrespective of their differences of genre, wore included under one heading by the medieval theoreticians: կատակերգութիւն – զկատարանաց նուագել խօսս – (katakergutyun – zkatarakans nuagel khoss) which literally translated means the “songs of mimers or actors”. The early medieval Armenia grammarians used the word “comedy” to refer notonly to all kinds and types of oral composition and popular satire (շէր-sher, սռինչ -srynch), but also to the ancient epic poems, called հագներգութիւն (hagnergutyun). The word also signified mythological and historical subjects performed by actors of the vulgar theatre. The word  հագներգությիւն  in medieval texts and in the dictionaries of classical Armenian corresponds to the ancient Greek ραψώδία. This type of choral art տաղ պարանցիկք երգոցն (tagh parantsikk yergotsn) is directly compared by the grammarians to the classical Greek “rhapsodia”. The identification of “comedy” with “rhapsodia” is not accidental. It determines some of the specific features of the early medieval Armenian theatre and its similarities whit ancient choral drama and oriental epic traditions.

Among the sourced of folklore mentioned in Movses Khorenatsi`s  “History of Armenia” mention is made of an ancient choral drama entitled: երգք ցցոց և պարուց (yergk tstsots yev paruts). An approximate exegesis of these words we find in almost all studies of ancient Armenian folklore. But the interpretation seems to us to be incomplete and largely doubtful. In considering the etymology and history of the word պար (par) and ցուցք (tsutsk) we come to the conclusion that their coincidental use demonstrates the existence of a single object. In the Classical Armenian translation of the Bible and other ancient texts (Dionysius Thrax, John Chrysostom, Plato etc.) the word պար (par) corresponds to the Classical Greek χορός. Being close lexical equivalents both these correspond to the Syrian “habla” (row, group, flock etc.). But the word ցուցք (tsutsk) is a fusion of two meanings μίμος (mime) and μίμησις (mimesis). In the dialects of Armenian this word has been retaisned in the two meanings of “comedian” and “theatre”. Evidently ցուցք was the ancient original name for the theatre in Armenian. The term երգք ցցոց և պարուց – (tr. miming, singing and dancing) we are inclined to see as one of the most ancient forms of dramatic art, which was still retained in early medieval Armenia. It is one of the unique prototypes of choral drama, which has become separate from religious activity and its special functions. An examination of available material leads to the conclusion that choral drama in its earliest form existed not only in ancient Greece. It is common phenomenon in the folklore of the peoples of Asia Minor and Eastern Europe.

Choral drama become the basis for the development of dramatic folklore. Dramatic folklore developed within ancient syncretic poetry and the traditions of the oral epic. The religious and philosophical roots give particular place to the cult of the goat. The goat, as the zoomorphic emblem of classical Greek tragedy, is a highly enigmatic phenomenon. According to folklore and literary legend, this cult had its origins in Asia Minor and according to archeological and ethnographic studies the image of the goat was one of the universal symbols in the agrarian cults of Asia Minor. Before arriving in the world of classical antiquity, this mythological spirit wandered in Palestine, Babylon, ancient Israel, Phrygia and the Caucasus. We find the symbolic figure of the goat on Armenian bronze age monuments. Medieval Armenia still retained the ancient peasant custom of the “goat liturgy” “այծից պատարագ” at the yearly festival of St. George. In Armenian legends, fairy tales, parables and proverbs the goat is the symbol of contradiction and conflict.

The ancient and early medieval folk-epic cycles are steeped in dramatism, both in terms of content and form. The fragments of folklore contained in Movses Khorenatsa`s “History of Armenia” show clear traces of choral drama, as do the subsequent epic cycles found in the works of Pavstos Byusand (5^th century) and Ioann Mamikonyan (7^th century). The subjects and dialogues (particularly inPavstos Byuzand) of these epic cycles show instead of epic objectivity, the active will of the subject, as the freely acting force of the dramatic individual. The analysis of certain passages of the text brings us to the conclusion that ancient popular drama pulsed in the veins of the early medieval epic cycles. But this idea is not only the result of our theoretical analysis. According to Grigor Magistros (10^th – 11^th centuries) the mythological and historical legends were performed in theatrical fashion, in the town squares and streets” – ի հրապարակս գռեհից և քաղաքաց – and that one of the most imporsant themes of these performances (հանդէս – handes) was that of the semi-mythological eponymous hero of the Armenian people, Haik.

The remnants of popular choral drama can also be seen in the Armenian epic, “David of Sasun”. The Armenian epic does not within the framework of the Hegelian definition of epic poetry. In many of the fragments it appears as a collection of heterogeneous elements of expression. The medieval story tellers transmitted from generation to generation almost all of the characteristics of the choral performance of the epic. Choral, choreographic, vocal and dialogue elements were still maintained by the story-tellers in the late Middle Ages and early Modern Era (1870). The means of conveying these epics show clear indication of the conventions employed by the ancient oriental epic theatre.

No less viable then the choral epic theatre was the professional theatre of medieval mimers and comedians (the original name for the Armenian actors was կատակ – katak). Not only town sguares were used for performances, but special buildings were erected which are mentioned in the sourced from the 7^th to the 15^th centuries. The actors of the medieval Armenian professional theatre were very similar to the Western European Jugglers. There were, however, important differences characteristic of the early period of the art mime and the improvised circus.

Communications in medieval society were carried out not by the written word, but by specific activities and rituals. These visible means of comunication as well as the visible forms of theatrical activity acquired a special social and artistic significance in early medieval town life. In the early forms of the medieval theatre the principles of artistic reproduction were based on direct (sometimes primitive) sensory perception and association. The expressive forms in this type of theatre amount to a phisical ‘mimesis’ and a demonstration of the unbelivable and impressive, the amusing and the grotesque, a combination of the miraculous with the frightening and the erotic.

The essence of the early midieval Armenian theatre (as well as Syrian, Cappadocian and Byzantine) was the presentation of an intuitive generalized impression of human characteristics and the symbolic embodiment of social contuct. These impresssions were established in there composite characters: the woman-heroine-mistress depicted in the form of a semiclothed dancing girl (վարձակ-vardzak) as the personication of love and voluptuousness; the man-hero-miracle worker, in the form of a juggler, acrobut, lion-tamer or tight-rope walker (գուսան, աճպար, լարախաղաց, ձեռնածու); the clown-comedianwearing the mask of the fool and embodyng the funny, the crude and the material. The name of the mask (Փալյանչո –palyancho) is of porticular interest, resembling as it does the Italian ‘pagliacco’. This of course comes from the ancient Roman comedy «fabula plliata» which was retained in Syria and Byzantium until the 6^th century. These composite figures of the medieval theatre, which show the primordial essence of theatrical activity exist in the embryonic form of the drama and in the contemporary circus which is fundamentally based on the medieval theatre.

Armenian games at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th  century still retained some echoes of the early medieval square theatre. One of the clearest examples of this is a game consisting of a dialogue between the tight-rope walker – “hero” and his “servant-clown”. The former is tragic, being in physical danger, the latter is comic, parodying the movements of the “tragic hero” on the ground in complete safety. The tight-rope walker is supposed to be in an imaginary cloud under the protection of St. Karapet (John the Baptist), but the clown is rooted to be ground and remains a prosaic figure. This circus act, symbolizing the eternal theme of the unity of contradictions is expressed both by the physical situation and the dialogue. The symbolized opposition of sky and earth, the ideal and the material in the later development (and no longer restricted to Asia Minor alone) becomes symbolized in more complex such as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Lear and the Clown, Don Juan and Sganarel, Schastlivtsev and Nyeschastlivtsev.

Armenian medieval theatre, resembling as it does certain aspects of the late classical theatre and the oriental epic is a unique expression of the improvised folk theatre, which historically preceeded the Western European medieval theatre of the 10^th -16^th centuries. Its chronological boundaries cover a period from the beginning of the 4^th century (302 – the conventional date for the conversion to christianitcy of the Armenian state) to the end of the 17^th century (1668 – the beginning of the Armenian school of theatre). The importance of the Armenian medieval theatre in the Christian world was historically limited to one millennium (4^th -14^th centuries). With the fall of the Kilikian kingdom in 1375 and the end of city life, particularly during the Turco-Persian domination, the theatre too ceased to develop. At the end of the 17^th century, the theatre in Armenian existed in the ancient form of improvisation, mime and the circus. The last performance of the medieval Armenian professional theatre was a spectacle given in Yerevan in 1674, described by the French traveller, Chardin. This was considered something exotic and a relic of the ancient oriental theatrical traditions. But in was the last reflection of a historically isolated artistic phenomenon, bearing all the characteristics of a bygone Asiatic theatre, which existed between the classical Greek and Roman and the Western European world.

                               Yerevan   1978   H. Hovhannissyan