King Artavasdes and the Anagram of his Name in the Ancient Armenian Epic

Abstract

The paper deals with the ancient Armenian epic Vipasank known from the book of the 5th century historian Movses Khorenatsi (Moses Chorenensis). The author considers its plot both contextually, against the backdrop of Caucasian peoples’ mythology, and historically, by drawing parallels with real-life figures that might have served as prototypes for the legendary epic kings and heroes. It is noted that obvious character analogies and linguistic similarities do not suggest any genetic relatedness between the Armenian and the neighbouring Caucasion traditions but are a result of cultural borrowings and language contacts. The author points out the culture-driven evolution of traditional beliefs that caused changes in the original epic plot. The story of Artavasdes, the son and the successor of the legendary king Artaxias who defeated the Alan army and stole the Alan princess Satenik, serves as an example of this development. The entire logic of the epic suggests that in its archaic version, Artavasdes was the son of Argavan, head of the vishapazuns (“dragonids”), which is proved by multiple text allusions and the plot development. Based on the peculiarities of Indo-European poetic language, first noted by Ferdinand de Saussure, the paper highlights its tendency to encrypt the names of gods or heroes by repeating sounds and sound combinations. The author gives a close analysis of one obscure passage of the Vipasank epic and draws a hypothesis that it contains an anagram of the name of Artavasdes, which, after the adoption of Christianity, must have alluded to the secret relation between Satenik and Argavan. This, in turn, enables the author to trace back the evolution of the image of Artavasdes in epic tradition and to explain its ambivalence.