Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 143 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46991/AFA/2022.18.1.143 LINGUISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICITY. GHEVOND ALISHAN՚S COMPOSITION “UNDER THE FIR TREE: REFLECTIONS IN THE BOSOM OF DESERTED NATURE” Naira Hambardzumyan Institute of Literature NAS RA The present article aims at studying the problems of historicity, linguistic consciousness, and philosophy of life as a constantly transforming chain that includes and circulates geopolitical and cultural processes. The primary aim of the study is to observe the author – world relations in the domain of language, consciousness and historicity, through which the essential inner features of the author's meditations and philosophical thoughts are revealed, and historicity becomes a tool for regulating experience. Linguistic consciousness presupposes an open image of the world, in which geopolitical events, actions, and situations are summarized. Historicity, as a process of restoring information flows, is full of events and ensures the time and vitality of the geopolitical processes. At the same time, as a regulating depository of language+consciousness, it provides the ability of identifying the attitude towards most important historical events in Alishan's experience. I have applied the phenomenological and historical- comparative methods focusing on semantic-typological procedures, the methodology of understanding. Father Ghevond Alishan's composition “Under the Fir Tree: Reflections in The Bosom of Deserted Nature” which is a unique combination of world historiography, Christianity, and historical-philosophical thought, has so far not received all the attention it deserves. Keywords: Ghevond Alishan, ontology, phenomenology, linguistic consciousness, historicity. Introduction Father Ghevond Alishan (Kerovbe Petros-Margar Alishanean) is an Armenian philosopher, historian, geographer, philologist, poet, translator, member of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Venice since 1838. He was born on July 6, 1820 in  nairahambardzumyan@yahoo.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Received: 05.03.2022 Revised: 30.04.2022 Accepted: 08.05.2022 © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 144 Constantinople. He published his works under the pseudonym “Nahapet”. Among his many studies, important works and collected poems are “Nuagq” (Tunes), vol. A-E, Venice, 1857-1858; “Sisuan and Levon the Great”, Venice, 1885; “Sisakan” (Topography of the Land of Syunik), Venice, 1893; “Haybusak or Armenian Botanical Terms”, Venice, 1895; “Shirak”, Venice, 1881; “Ayrarat”, Venice, 1890; “Hayapatum”, Venice, vol. A-G, 1901; “Shnorhali yev paraga iur” (Shnorhali and his factor), Venice, 1873 and other works. Alishan is a philosopher with the depth and comprehensiveness of his worldview and contemplations, with logical-philosophical denouements and interpretations of judgements. His insight into the aforementioned spheres allowed Father Ghevond Alishan to find a place next to Pythagoras, Plato, Cicero, Yeznik Koghbatsi (Yeznik of Kolb), Anania Shirakatsi, Hovhannes Sarkavag, David the Invincible, Nerses Shnorhali (The Gracious), and others. Alishan’s philosophy is multipolar and introspective. His philosophical worldview was shaped in the spiritual atmosphere of the Mekhitarist Congregation as well as under the influence of the ancient and medieval Armenian philosophical thought, European and national socio-political events. When commenting upon the issues of space, nature, man, life and death, soul and immortality, truth and freedom, Alishan is a philosopher of religion and a theologian. However, when examining social-educational and national issues, Alishan's philosophy is based on scientific worldview and opposed to his own theological understandings. Academician Arsen Terteryan notes that Alishan's philosophy, formed in the above-mentioned spiritual environment, is oriented towards religious philosophy because: “The cell of a monastery is not just a physical, geographical concept, but also a certain mentality, a certain literary direction, a well-known style, and at the same time, an attitude towards life” (Terteryan, 1974). This standpoint towards life and vitality takes Alishan out of the monastery cell making him a philosopher, a writer and a historian. Therefore, as a theologian-philosopher, Alishan defends the theory of the creation of the universe, nature, and man: “You, as well as nature, are created by God”, just as “man is a particle in nature” (Alishan, 1971), but it is the dominant particle of it. Alishan is also a philosopher with his education and essence, with his introspective wisdom and inner ability to master the laws of metaphysics as evidenced by his philosophical research1 including the composition of his philosophical self-contemplation “Under the Fir Tree…” written by the author Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 145 in the Old Armenian Language (Grabar) in 1874. There are few references to this composition by Ghevond Alishan, as well as to his philosophical views2 which is explained by some literary critics by the scarcity of philosophical works in the Armenian reality of the 19th century. Due to his diligence, Alishan gradually gained European-wide recognition. In 1886 he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor by the French Academy. In 1887 he became a member of the Moscow Archaeological Society. In 1896, the St. Petersburg Archaeological Society elected Alishan as one of its honorary members, and in 1897 he was elected a member of the Jena Academy of Philosophy. He was also a member of Italian and Russian scientific societies. He died on November 9, 1901, at the age of eighty, and was buried in the Mekhitarist Fathers’ Cemetery of St. Lazarus Island (Italy). In 1930 Vahan Hovhannisyan translated the reflective-philosophical composition “Under the Fir Tree...” by Father Ghevond Alishan into Modern Armenian and published it under the title “Under the Fir Tree”. Reflections in the Bosom of Deserted Nature”3 in Venice (St. Lazarus). V. Hovhannisyan also wrote the preface to the book, entitled “A Preface to the Translator”, in which he particularly mentioned: “Many have heard of but few have tasted Alishan's small but golden masterpiece. A warm, anxious conversation between the nature and the poet, where the agitated inner world of the Patriarch is revealed with all its longings and complexities... “Under the Fir Tree...” has the depth of the sky and the cry of the soul. It is the novel of truth written in nature” (Alishan, 1874). The composition “Under the Fir Tree...” is written according to the principles of medieval philosophy of writing, as a philosophical monologue, as an unparalleled chain of the highest expression of self-purification, remorse, overcoming sombre passions, moral-psychological values and self- improvement, search for the truth and light, and sending this unparalleled chain through the domain of memory. It is also encountered in the treatises and works of Origen, Plotinus, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Abelard, Narekatsi, Shnorhali, and other thinkers. In the composition “Under the Fir Tree...”, Alishan meditates on the binary conceptions of nature: life and death, evil and good, love and hatred as well as man and society, soul and truth, will and freedom, homeland and patriotism, nations and nationalism, eternity and immortality, cosmic creation, and other issues on existence of life, which have a strongly emphasized ethical nature. Alishan does not deny the possibility of Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 146 scientific cognition, but disputes the moral and ontological values of scientific truths, just like Rousseau who once criticized science and the arts. The phenomenological method has been chosen for the analysis of the paper “Linguistic Consciousness and Historicity”, which aims at revealing the author's spiritual-cultural experience and its psychological significance, as well as the consciousness-related acts ensuring artistic perception, such as imagination, memory, author-world perceptions and manifestations of identity consciousness, ideas, reasons, religious and non-religious goals. As a criterion for analysis, in the study we meant the language + consciousness interrelationship (nature) in the work, to which (within the framework of phenomenological critique) the formation of a literary work is related. We have considered Father Ghevond Alishan’s work in the framework of phenomenological paradigm as an enclosed text, deriving the analysis from the general ideological features of structuralism, which, according to literary critic Zhenya Khalantaryan, “creates an artistic effect, regardless of the author and the reader, which can be reached through structural analysis” (Khalantaryan, 2017). Khalantaryan considers this method in the light of the phenomenological paradigm, “(Criticism of Consciousness, Existentialist Literature, American, German Schools of Receptive Aesthetics, Phenomenological Hermeneutics, etc.), which is based on the discovery of the role of consciousness in text creation.” (Khalantaryan, 2017). As a special method of literary study with a typological procedure4, from the point of view of general and objective regularities in the development of poetics and language in particular, we also employed the historical-comparative method, relating it to the historical functionality of the work, performing an ontological analysis, deeply revealing the idea and aesthetic peculiarities of the work “Under the Fir Tree…”, the author's worldview and depth of perception, the psychological and emotional impact on the reader, as well as the actuality of the work. Linguistic consciousness and historicity The world order, which is given meaning by man, is regulated by the internal laws of the author's thinking, historical perceptions, consciousness of identity, psychology, and textological features characteristic of the fictional text in Father Ghevond Alishan's composition “Under the Fir Tree...” (Alishan, 1874). Alishan – world relations are observable in the domain of language and Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 147 consciousness. As a concept of scientific-fictional thought, they initially reflect the essential and philosophical – the inner features and the dynamism of the author’s thought. Historicity, as a philosophical principle, considers a phenomenon in its origin, development, and transformation, becoming the regulating screw of its experience. It conditions the spatial-temporal domain of the composition “Under the Fir Tree...”, which is at the same time the domain of life existence and philosophy of life that shapes the author's philosophical views and the provisions derived from them. Historicity views the systemic nature of a phenomenon (subject) in its multidimensional development, accepting geopolitical changes as realities manifested in spacial-temporal domains, and the author's philosophy and linguistic consciousness as a chain that includes, transforms, and circulats historical, culturological, and geopolitical processes: “I have not come to perturb anyone, but to find peace for myself” (Alishan, 1874). This chain is formed by the laws of the philosophical text with aesthetic features and fictional tendency: “Only virtue is the angel that passes from this place to the infinite heaven. Oh, glorious Hellas, Latium, and others like you, when I hear and see the statues of your patriotic heroes, my heart trembles and beats… but it immediately stops.” (1874). Or: “There is something in every color that makes it fade; there is something in every beauty that makes it turn ugly; there is something in every construction that makes it spoil” (1874). Linguistic consciousness is multi-layered; therefore, one of its verticals, as a system, is the text, which, as a cogitative reality, is realized in a certain chronotope of the author's writing. Linguistic consciousness as philosophical introspection According to the principles of modern literary criticism, the text is the core of the author's language system, so the reality of writing can include any material or abstract reality, any existing or imaginary phenomenon that forms in the domain of consciousness or outside it (not outside its borders, but outside it) and is perceived by the senses. Therefore, the universe of the text, which is perceived as a chain of recognizable and unrecognizable realities and is indifferent to the process of cognition, is not related to consciousness. However, it may include the still unrecognizable Word. The reality related to the process of cognition is definite beyond consciousness and is given to the author through images born of introspection. Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 148 Linguistic consciousness is at the same time a form of cognitive consciousness, which, in this case, is manifested through the author's creative thought and experience. Language is a behavior. In her study “Alishan’s Old Armenian Poetic Art” literary scholar Lusine Avetisyan writes, “Alishan not only paved the way for novel adoration5…. in Armenian literature, which is called romanticism in the language of others, but also he himself became the ideological and enviable unmatched character of the novel he wrote with his own life and work and set a true example of a teacher, historian, Armenologist, explorer, which enabled to expand the horizons6 (yezert) of the people's self- recognition” (Avetisyan, 2021). By developing philosophical thought and reflective-philosophy in the composition “Under the Fir Tree...”, Ghevond Alishan creates an interest towards world philosophy and culture, which are considered a possible rebirth of man's worldview in the core of which is not directly a human (homo sapiens), but a person-individual who has consciousness and a complex inner world. Historicity and the author's linguistic consciousness interact in the domain of language autonomy, conscious and subconscious images, and historical integrity, forming in the domains of free movement of language + text + consciousness and event + history. Here, the main thing is the realization of an event (phenomenon) in the domain of historicity of a certain process of its origin and development. In this context, the phenomenon of linguistic consciousness substantiates the interstice correlations between language (domain of linguistics) + consciousness (domain of psychology) + event (domain of history). Reflections on self-recognition, search for identity, problems of self- determination, expression of the author's self are also visible in the work. These contribute to the discovery of biographical data and survival. The human spiritual-cultural life experience, encrypted in the depths of memory (Hambardzumyan, 2021), many subconscious layers and knowledge take the author to the depths of individual unconsciousness, to the beginnings, where the collective unconscious is formed, which is the hidden repository of human memories and contains archetypes, the powerful primary psychological images, the author has inherited. They are the symbols whose deep roots go back to ancient cultures (Hambardzumyan, 2021), and the archetypal thinking, the penetrating archetype in general, is the culturally inherited genome (Hambardzumyan, Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 149 2021). On this occasion Carl Gustav Jung writes, “Of course, the superficial layer of the unconscious is clearly personal (Jung, 2013). We call it the personal unconscious. However, this layer rests on another layer leading to a depth that no longer derives from personal experience. That innate deeper layer is the so-called collective unconscious. I chose the term ‘collective’ because it refers to the unconscious, which is not individual but rather universal in nature”. The psychological penetrations of the author's work of art in the realm of the collective unconscious differ from the individual unconscious, defining it as a certain set of psychological processes. In this case linguistic consciousness (as a phenomenon) presupposes an open image of the world and summarizes geopolitical, historical-political, public-social, and culturological movements and events, statistics, and experience relating nations and peoples: “Volumes full of wisdom more than all the books in the world, each line of which begins with an ABC7 and always ends with an O” (Alishan, 1874). Historicity is the depository of knowledge and the regulating force of these movements and experiences. Its possibility of revealing and broadcasting, its attitude and reference to the most important historical events follow the trajectory of the author's initial (historical) experience. There were cultures that were consumed and destroyed. They were enclosed and self-contained and had common features of origin, development, decay and extinction. Their external similarities and commonalities of mutual penetration are also exhausted: “The marvelous wonders of the Ethiopian and Egyptian peoples, whose fame echoed everywhere, are scarcely, slowly rising, scattering the dust of the centuries. Three-thousand-year-old mummies come to light; they are not alive. Thus, they are the witnesses of death, from the clutches of which they could not escape with all the subtleties of their art, and also the witnesses of immortality that was barely, dimly understood in the ancient times” (Alishan, 1874). The primary message of the composition is regulated through Alishan’s observations of linguo-psychological and linguօ-conscious ranges, and the identifications derived from them: “three-thousand-year-old mummies” – witnesses of “death and immortality”. This literary message is accompanied by memory: “The marvelous wonders created by the Ethiopian and Egyptian peoples are slowly rising, shaking off the sand and the dust of centuries”. According to this, the powerful inner energy of the work is realized, thanks to Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 150 the creative and eternal engine of all times, the soul. In this context, linguistic consciousness is the ensemble of cultorological-systemic knowledge characterizing the material world which unites not only the author's sensory but also material knowledge in a single semantic spiral; although, its (spiral) structure does not emphasize the use of linguistic signs. This is not conditioned by the ethnic, historical-political, and social-psychological features of the author's personality and consciousness, which are related to the Armenian national gene pool and linguistic peculiarities. This is the strong point of Ghevond Alishan's composition, though, giving meaning to the abstract phenomena in the composition it tends to the integration of the internal text features, as it has no permanent material coincidences. In Alishan's composition, language is not in the domain of external psychological impulses, but in the context of intratextual coded content. It includes the subtext of the creative idea, which is more expedient in interpreting the semantic meanings and images of intralingual units, when all the poles are provided by linguistic consciousness. The genre forms of the classical writing are bypassed (travel notes, letters, notes). Alishan constructs his work in the format of contemplation (thought), which, on the one hand, limits the reader's attitude, forcing him to obey the laws of meditation, and on the other hand, regulates the chaos by ensuring all the laws of reading. Consequently, the uncertainty over the future emanating from the text becomes predictable in the domain of movement. It is identified with the fragmentation and inexplicability of the world, while the search for symbols in it is identified with the core of a decaying and fragmenting world. In this way, the intra- textual system of the work is substantiated in the reader's consciousness, as he/she knows many other texts with well-known traditions. Our considerations of consciousness draw attention to the author's linguo- mental processes which ensure the ideological domain of the composition. The author's thoughts materialized through language, reflect his life experience which shapes his consciousness, while the ideology of the work is predictable through its suppositional background which also allows to come to certain conclusions. In this context, the result of Alishan's linguistic consciousness is also the content of the composition “Under the Fir Tree…”, which is the interconnection of consciousness and language which carries the author's experience in its sign system. Consequently, historicity as a meaning and writing as a system, directly reflect the content of the author's consciousness. In other words, the material expression of thought – the text, is greatly influenced Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 151 by the author's consciousness which in fact is the accumulation of his previous experience and knowledge. In this case, language which is a general communicative-semantic system, finds its unique authorial manifestation in the original, while linguistic consciousness is reflected in the world picture of the author's perception. Historicity as a cycle of civilizational events Historicity characterizes the work as a whole, when the author's narratory abilities go hand in hand with his profound understandings and interpretations of important historical and civilizational events and facts. In the composition “Under the Fir Tree...”, historicity as a philosophical principle and phenomenon, is observed in its origin, development, and transformation. It stems from the integrity of the culturological, social, and historical-political views of the author's understanding of the world, the axis of which is his work under analysis. This is also noteworthy from the viewpoint of the structure and the topic as well as of the currant interpenetrated interpretations, for when considering the historicity of Alishan’s composition against the background of great geopolitical shifts (course and results of events), the language and interpretive tricks of the original seem to require even more importance, while in the domain of linguistic consciousness, public, social and cultural realities are believed to deserve utmost attention. In connection with this Bakhtin writes: “Every action, every phenomenon and process in the domain of artistic historicity is eventual. Therefore, it is necessary to specify additional equivalent signs that characterize events in the domain of fictional historicity” (Bakhtin, 1975). Consequently, when all the elements of the text relate to the individual (acting person or narrator), the text includes the author's creative energy directed towards the reader. This textual use of the concept of historicity in this very sense can be accounted for by the fact that the metasocial factors enhancing the interpretation of social facts on non-social principles are excluded from the the multi-layered content of this concept. Ghevond Alishan as a literary-historical individual uses this operational concept in the text as a starting point which derives from his concept of trust. From a structural point of view, the writing is viewed as an integrity and tendency of interconnected and mutually penetrating systems, in which, according to Roland Barthes, the process of meaning formation is depicted as a very difficult process because: “Insignificant elements of the text are important Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 152 in insignificant details and passages that do not condition the course of actions” (Barthes, 1994). Therefore, the marking of historicity in the text, which has emphasized boundaries, is later considered a written event. Historicity and historical memory Historicity involves historical memory, which is not stable, but, on the contrary, is an ever-changing process of the analysis of the past, selection, and restoration of information flows. Historical memory is an important component that shapes language and consciousness. By its internal combustion and behavior (often unconscious), it pushes the nation, ethnos, society, and the individual for a certain adjustment, but often transforms, splitting space and time by itself. In this sense, historical memory is based on people's real or imaginary, complete or episodic knowledge and attitude towards the historical past, as well as on cognitive processes. Alishan's return to the historical past makes it possible to concentrate all the cycles of civilization in the domain of judgment, also, to interpret reality as truth, ensuring their viability in the text, while clearing it of information redundancies. Alishan includes and presents the stories of civilizations in a logical chain, with the enclosed continuity of the decline of irrevocably lost nations and peoples. It is based on the similarities of the main stages of origin and destruction, Christian ideas, prophecies; for, having ethnic, cultural, and religious self-identification, nations face more pressing problems that constitute the core value system and ideology of their national identity, through which the state becomes legitimate. This circular chain system, which defines the history of civilizations and the historicity of the composition, develops in the ten chapters of the author's reflection [A↔ZH]8. According to it, civilizations are formed and evolve, developing a unified process, which is supposed to be at the basis of the pattern of universal progress. It is a fact that there were enclosed cultures and civilizations that were consumed and destroyed. Their commonality was in biology, in external similarities and interactions: “For two thousand years, one tyrant forcibly seized the sovereign's wand from another tyrant, by irrevocable order changing only the place of the royal throne: sometimes Calneh, sometimes Nineveh, sometimes Babylon or Ecbatana, sometimes Shosh. Capitals of cosmic luxury, where all the wealth and splendor of the world flowed as if from a golden pipe, piled up, spreading its enchantment in hundreds of provinces of conquered nations and tribes” (Alishan, 1874). According to the English historian, culturologist and Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 153 philosopher Arnold Toynbee, “The term historicity was borrowed from historiography. As a historical fact, it functions and is viewed not in the context of legal historical processes, but in the context of events and their interpretations” (Toynbee, 1978). Toynbee views civilization in the domain of freedom and the creative potential of man, which is inexhaustible as a spiritual task, but is not an ultimately achievable result. Real historical processes and a true depiction of the past, present, and future transitions condition the interpretation of civilizations in Alishan’s world-cognitive and aesthetic systems. His separate judgmental thoughts and a series of reflections on the progress and development of a society are parallelly aimed at the facts of the destruction of civilizations and sum up the gloomy predictions of their disappearance. Alishan's task is not to obey the known passively, but to direct the pre- initial inversion of cognition to the unknown, to the truth, which is active cognition, to creation, and therefore to the World, because the result of the artist's cosmic communication is first and foremost the creation of a certain world. In Alishan's composition, it is expressed by the combination of unity of cosmic-systematized ontology, personality, and process. The hourglass flow or “and the word of God lives forever” Alishan observes the course of the historical development of mankind, the destinies of nations, and attempts to reinterpret them in the domain of specified vanity: “Let the tired and tiring terrible wind go away”. “Come to the north, and come to the south!” “Shut up, you, too, the voice of the desert that dries up hearts, you, that cried out, ‘Flesh is grass’. All the mankind is like wild grass that is trampled underfeet, and like a flower cries out that everything will pass, “And the Word of God lives forever”. Go numb and keep silent” (Alishan, 1874). History does not presuppose the rise of interconnected activities, but an emerging, evolving, decaying, and declining chain of (isolated or extinct) civilizations. Each civilization repeats the same stages of the previous one: “Ninus and Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander and Tamerlane, who used to be the horrors of the world, scare nobody nowdays. Be it great or small, all are toys in the hands of death, even if they differ from each other by destiny” (Alishan, 1874). The fall of a civilization is the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one, that is, a return to a new beginning. This is one of the basic theses of the Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 154 Nietzschean philosophy, the principle of eternal recurrence (return), which he calls the cosmic law. According to it, all the cycles, forms, and systems that existed in the past and could be in the future as well, recur at different stages of cosmic development. Nietzsche compares the melancholic man to the hourglass as the constant cycle of a continuous and eternally recurring life, because, according to him, the ultimate goal of humanity is not the best social or biological levels, but the greatest individuals, superhumans in them. This idea of eternal recurrence (return) is in the domain of Alishan's highest spiritual condition, the Christian light, the formula of love, the destinies of civilizetions that can only be achieved through philosophy, because the will to power is the will to the will that always recurs. The eternal recurrence is in the domain of the author's experience and metaphysics, so whatever returns is in the eternal recurrence and is the recurrence [itself] as the ontological possibility of the Other. And since every civilization is unique in its own way, the interactions of different civilizations essentially exclude each other; therefore, the historical- political and geopolitical progressive processes of the development of societies, their interconnection, and sequence in the domain of history are predictable: “Nevertheless they also passed by, and could not be steadfast, neither the high statues, nor the proud hearts that erected them though they were cast in gold, silver, iron, and copper. Because, according to the Prophet9, they stood on clay legs and feet that could not bear the weight of that huge giant for a long time. So a small stone sprang from a hill, as it appeared to him (the Prophet), rolled over and crashed into the ugly giant. The ground rumbled. The eyewitnesses trembled. And the fear and terror spread by the mighty tyrant were immediately crushed like the shadow that disappears when the oak falls from the blows of the axes. Like brave young men and fierce enemies, the tyranny of Assyria and Babylon, Chaldea and Media, Persia and Parthia, Hellas and Rome fought against one another and trampled and well-trodden by centuries and miserable nations disappeared on by one” (Alishan, 1874). Summarizing this historiographical-philosophical concept with the last cycle of human history, Alishan prophesies, pointing the arrows of civilization at the search for the truth. This is the eternal engine of the historicity of Ghevond Alishan's composition “Under the Fir Tree...”, which Alishan examines and affirms in the domain of his supreme attitude towards life, understanding it through the mutual penetrations of the histories and cultures of civilizations. He proposses his own proposition of the two forces in history in the aesthetic system: a creative [minority] society and nations subject to it, Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 155 which are not characterized by the facts of creation. And as long as there is a certain socio-public and historical-political harmony between them, all peoples tolerate the authority of the rulers. But when one civilization breaks that harmony and ceases to communicate with the other, the commonality of the laws and histories of nations and peoples, historicity, is destroyed: “You, cities of waves and mermaids, Tyre and Sidon, and you, mighty powerful Chalcedon, that dared to rise up against Rome and Alexander of Macedonia, that put taxes on the seas and on the territories, are now ruins sunken in the sea and land, buried under the sand like broken jars, as a memorial to the sand and a shelter for the poor” (Alishan, 1874). Trying to understand the driving forces of history, civilization, or culture, Alishan also criticizes Eurocentrism, arguing that the ancient historiography based on it is inaccurate, as the progressive West is the center of world civilization and its main axis: “The wind blowing from the west storms into the raging south, filling the void of heaven and earth. The scene gets confused, everything starts to speak. Plants sway, grass and branches moan and are aimlessly driven by the wind” (Alishan, 1874). However, things happening and recorded in real life, can't be called an event yet: “In contrast to a phenomenon or process, it is always localized in a certain ontological (single or multiple) domain, which clarifies the system of relations in which it is involved, is carried out for a certain period of time, and has its place in real space” (Arutyunova, 1999). Progress is the law of the development of societies. That universal law draws huge zigzags and curves in different ages and times, in different nations and peoples, completing, complicating, or destroying the universal process. History is rich and meaningful, but more tricky, multipolar, and composite than it can be seen in theoretical systems, structures, and programs: “On the facades of the huge, majestic stone structures of their pyramids and sphinxes, their pagan temples and palaces, and on their pillars and stone monuments, there are signs of a poor superstitious mind: pictures of a cat, ibis, reptiles, dung beetles, all on the tombs of their almighty pharaohs” (Alishan, 1874). Such an observation of the history of civilizations and of the historicity of the composition “Under the Fir Tree...” deeply and truely reveals the philosophical inclusion of Alishan's worldview, which preserves linguistic consciousness and deep scientific nature in its inner domain. According to this, the development of civilizations is ensured when [creative] and [non-creative] societies find themselves in the domains of harmony and unity of social, political, economic, and cultural development, and when the same societies tolerate reciprocal fluctuations of political and economic balance. Thus, there is Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 156 a breakthrough in the harmony; the end of the old cycle and the beginning of the new one are announced. And since every civilization is unique and contradictory in its own way, the internal influences cease to function because the historical process, its interconnections and relations, and the ways of development of societies are not outlined. The philosophy of the composition “Under the Fir Tree...” covers all the cycles of the history of civilizations and the history of mankind, in general. Alishan prophesies, foretelling the impending danger to civilization. According to him, when another cycle breaks down, and harmonious relations are exhausted, when violence, wars, and revolutions undermine the foundations of civilization, the stages of recurrence predetermine the return to the starting point, which may become a precondition for the social pessimism of the above- mentioned vanity: “What is this perturbation of yours about, you lovers of licentious lifestyle, you connected with the material world? What is this desparate mourning of yours about? Why do you think highly of yourself, you “vain philosophers?” What is your hard work, you insatiables, you slaves of comfort? Why do you rob, you tyrants and rulers? Why are you trembling with fear, you cowards?” (Alishan, 1874). And since society is usually incapable of breaking away from pessimism, the idea of progress is incompatible with their views on the rebirth of the consumed and consuming regime and the return to the past. Conclusion Alishan's approach to the historicity of writing and to the cyclic developments and destructions of civilizations marks that the civilizational thought is always in deep crisis, as it is powerless to explain the progress of human history, its contemporaneity, its past, and its future. Beyond the boundaries of historicity, the text relates to new facts, merges into a single context, becoming one circle, one texture, one frame, as meaning implies not volumetric boundaries, but moving baselines that lead to a certain destination. In this context, we have considered Alishan – world relationships in the realm of the concepts of language and consciousness, therefore, as a concept of scientific and artistic thought, so, at the outset they reflect the innate philosophical and ontological features and shifts of the author's thought. One of the bases of linguistic consciousness as a system is the original text, which, as a speculative reality and a certain form of cognitive perception, is Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 157 realized in a certain space and time, and is manifested through the author's creative thought, experience, in which layers of the collective unconscious are visible. It is noteworthy that historicity and the author's linguistic consciousness permeate each other in a common domain of language autonomy, conscious and subconscious images and historical integrity, being formed in the domains of free movement language + text + consciousness and event + history, in which the main thing is the acknowledgement of the event (phenomenon) within a certain process of its origin and development, its historicity. In this context, the phenomenon of linguistic consciousness is substantiated in the domain of intermediate interactions of language (domain of linguistics) + consciousness (domain of psychology) + event (domain of history). The historicity of the text derives from the author's mental system and the structure of thought, because historical period and its duration are indivisible. Therefore, the theory of Bakhtin’s great time counteracts the progress of the text, as it does not live in the future; and does not preserve the breath of the previous (civilizations) in its inner domain. In this regard Alishan is not at all Faust (the scientist and historian of the past) who dug into the storehouse of civilizations to prove that humanity is not progressing and that people are initially only unsuccessfully tottering within the same closed circle. Alishan looks for a way out in the philosophical domains of the Christian idea: soul and freedom, as the true path of the truth. With the acquisition of new meanings, updates, and reinterpretations, the great time changes and moves away from itself in a certain historical and cultural domain, like a river that separates from its own outfall. Alishan's philosophical concept substantiates the true picture of the past based on an objective analysis of real historical and geopolitical processes, which the author directs to the light of Christianity. The composition “Under the Fir Tree...” is a universal combination of world historiography and history of philosophical perception, in general. Notes 1. After Alishan's death in 1909, the Mekhitarist Fathers published the author’s unpublished philosophical and moral reflections “Temporary Thoughts” in “Bazmavep”. According to Yeremyan S., they make up about “100 Small Print Writings”; they also have another title – “Temporary Diary, Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 158 Influenced by Mind and Heart”. Meditations began in 1841 and, with some interruptions, continued until 1855 (Bazmavep, 1909, p 109). 2. Among the literary references of Alishan's writings, the works of Academician Arsen Terteryan and Suren Shtikyan are remarkable (See Terteryan, 1944; Shtikyan, 1967). 3. Later, this translation was included in the volume “Ghevond Alishan. Compositions” compiled by Suren Shtikyan (Alishan, 1981). Alishan's “Know Yourself”, “Memories of Armenian Homeland”, “Instruction, Walk, and Public Consolation”, “National Advantages and Disadvantages”, “Special National Education”, the extensive “Preface” and “Epilogue” of the work “Patriotism”, “A Lecture on Armenia”, the famous “Speech”, and other articles and works are also philosophical in their nature. 4. The similarities existing in the works of the authors of different literatures, which derive from the regularities of public life and art, are based on the study of the common features, similarities and mutual connections of the literatures of different eras (Sarinyan, 2017). 5. Novel adoration is also called novel worship (Avetisyan, 2021). 6. Ezert - otherwise called the horizon (Avetisyan, 2021). 7. Corresponds to the Old Armenian Ayb Ben Gim [ajb, bεn, gim]. 8. The system of Armenian numerals is a historic numeral system using the majuscules (uppercase letters) of the Armenian alphabet. So, A↔ZH corresponds to 1-10. 9. The Prophet Daniel. References Alishan, F.G. (1874). Y'nd yeghevneav: hamayut'ean bacavayri khorhrdac'ut'iun. [Under the fir tree: reflections in the bosom of deserted nature]. Venice: St. Lazarus. (in Armenian) Alishan, F.G. (1981). Yerker. [Compositions]. Yerevan: Sovetakan Grogh. (in Armenian) Arutyunova, N. (1999). Jazyk i mir cheloveka. (2nd ed.) [Language and the world of man]. Moscow: Yazyki russkoj kultury. I-XV. (in Russian) Avetisyan, L. (2021). Aruest grabar qert'ut'ean Alishani. [Alishan’s old Armenian poetic art], Bazmavep, 1-2 (2021), 87-109 (in Armenian) Bakhtin, M. (1975). Formy vremeni i khronotopa v romane. Ocherki po istoricheskoj poetike. [Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel. Armenological Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 159 Essays on historical poetics.] Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. (in Russian) Bakhtin, M. (1975). Voprosy literatury i estetiki. [Questions of literature and aesthetics]. St. Petersburg-Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. (in Russian) Barthes, R. (1994). Izbrannye raboty. Semiotika. Poetika. [Selected works. Semiotics. Poetics]. Moscow: Progress. (in Russian) Hambardzumyan, N. (2021). Mshakut'abanakan hishoghut'yan yev jhamanaki fenomennery Ghevond Alishani Y'nd yeghevneav: hamayut'ean bacavayri khorhrdac'ut'iun yerkum. [The phenomena of cultural memory and time in the essay of Ghevond Alishan “Under the fir tree: reflections in the bosom of deserted nature”]. Lraber Hasarakakan Gitutyunneri [Herald of the Social Sciences]. 3 (663), 165-179. https://doi.org/10.53548/03208117-2021.3-165 (in Armenian) Hambardzumyan, N. (2020). Ghewond Alishani Y'nd Yeghevneav… yerki nerteqstabanakan yev haghordakcakan gorc'aruyt'nery'. Nshan- xorhrdanish-alyuzia-teqst. [The intertextual and communicative functions of Ghevond Alishan's work Under the Fir Tree…: Sign-symbol-allusion- text]. In Ghevond Alishan-200 (Collected materials of the Jubilee Conference) (pp. 224-238), Yerevan: Science publishing house of NAS RA. (in Armenian) Jung, K., & Fuko, M. (2013). Matritsa Bezumija. [Matrix of Madness]. Mօscow: Algorithm. (in Russian) Kalantaryan, Zh. (2017). Qnnadatut'yunn ibrev gorc'nakan grakanagitut'yun. [Criticism as practical literary studies]. Yerevan, YSU press. (in Armenian) Toynbee, A. (1978). Mankind and Mother Earth: a narrative history of the world. England: Oxford University Press, New edition. Terteryan, A. (1944). Alishany' yev hayrenasirut'yuny'. [Alishan and patriotism] (Armenian Classics). Yerevan. (in Armenian) Terteryan, A. (1974). Husher yev nisher H. Alishani. [Memories and characters of F. Alishan]. Yerevan. (in Armenian) Sarinyan, S. (2017). Grakanagitakan met'odner. [Literary methods], Vem, T (ZH - E), 1(57), 9-27 (in Armenian) Shtikyan, S. (1967). Alishani gegharvestakan steghc'agorc'ut'yuny. [Alishan's fictional composition]. Yerevan (in Armenian) Armenian Folia Anglistika, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (25), 2022 Armenological Studies 160 ԼԵԶՎԱԳԻՏԱԿՑՈՒԹՅՈՒՆ ԵՎ ՊԱՏՄԱԿԱՆՈՒԹՅՈՒՆ ՀԱՅՐ ՂԵՎՈՆԴ ԱԼԻՇԱՆԻ «ԸՆԴ ԵՂԵՒՆԵԱՒ ՅԱՄԱՅՈՒԹԵԱՆ ԲԱՑԱՎԱՅՐԻ. ԽՈՐՀՐԴԱԾՈՒԹԻՒՆ» ԵՐԿԸ Նաիրա Համբարձումյան Հոդվածում ուսումնասիրված են պատմականության, լեզվագիտակ- ցության ու կենսափիլիսոփայության հիմնախնդիրները՝ որպես աշ- խարհաքաղաքական ու մշակութաբանական գործընթացները ներա- ռող, շրջանառող ու անընդհատ փոխակերպվող շղթա: Ուսումնասիրու- թյան նպատակն է՝ լեզու+գիտակցություն և պատմականություն տիրույ- թում հեղինակ – աշխարհ փոխհարաբերությունները դիտարկելը, որի միջոցով բացահայտվում են հեղինակի մտածումների և իմաստասի- րական խոհերի ներքին էութաբանական հատկանիշները, իսկ պատ- մականությունը դառնում է այդ փորձառության կարգավորման գոր- ծիքը: Լեզվագիտակցությունը ենթադրում է աշխարհի բաց պատկերը, որում ամփոփվում են աշխարհաքաղաքական իրադարձությունները, գործողություններն ու իրավիճակները, իսկ պատմականությունը՝ որ- պես տեղեկատվական հոսքերի վերականգնման գործընթաց, իրադար- ձական է և ապահովում է աշխարհաքաղաքական գործընթացների ժա- մանակն ու կենսունակությունը: Միևնույն ժամանակ՝ որպես լեզու+գի- տակցություն իմացությունների կարգավորման շտեմարան, պատմա- կանությունն ապահովում է դրանց բացահայտման հնարավորությունը և վերաբերմունքը Ալիշանի փորձառության տիրույթում առկա պատ- մական կարևորագույն իրադարձությունների հանդեպ: Կիրառել ենք ֆենոմենոլոգիական և պատմահամեմատական մեթոդները՝ հետազո- տական տեսադաշտում պահելով տեքստի վերլուծության իմաստաբա- նական և տիպաբանական ընթացակարգերը, հասկացման մեթոդաբա- նությունը: Հայր Ղևոնդ Ալիշանի «Ընդ եղեւնեաւ յամայութեան բացա- վայրի. խորհրդածութիւն» երկը համաշխարհային պատմագիտության, քրիստոնեության և ընդհանրապես, պատմափիլիսոփայական մտքի յուրօրինակ համադրություն է, որը հանգամանալից քննության դեռևս չի ենթարկվել: Բանալի բառեր` Ղևոնդ Ալիշան, գոյաբանություն, կենսափիլիսո- փայություն, լեզվագիտակցություն, պատմականություն: