Daredevils of Sassoun
Encyclopedia
Daredevils of Sassoun is the title of an Old Armenian heroic epic
/ poem in four cycles (parts) and is about four generations of Sassoun's warriors. It is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Armenian
folklore
. This recital of the legendary deeds of four generations of strongmen in a warrior community in the Armenian highland
s is in the tradition of heroic folktales that dramatize the story of a whole nation and voice its deepest sentiments and aspirations, but unlike such well-known epics as the Iliad and the Odyssey, Gilgamesh
, Beowulf
, Chanson de Roland, Poema el Cid and others one might mention, it has survived solely by word of mouth, transmitted from one generation to another by village bards. The literary merits of the Sassoun saga surpass its value as a historical or linguistic document.
- in what is currently Batman Province
, eastern Turkey
.
Ծուռ (Tsour) means crazy, mad, strongman, daredevil
.
The most accurate and complete title of this epic is "Սասնա Ծռեր" (Daredevils of Sassoun). It has however been published under various titles:
and many others. All these titles correspond with four cycles of the epic.
The written literature of Armenia
goes back to fifth century of our era, its Golden Age, when the Bible
was translated into the vernacular from the original Greek and Syriac texts, Plato
and Aristotle
were studied in Armenian schools, and many original works of great interest to the modern specialist were produced by native historians, philosophers and poets.
The oral literature is older that the written, and folk poetry had flourished in Armenia for the past two thousand years, not to go farther back. Movses Khorenatsi (Moses of Khoren) tells us in his classic "History of Armenia" (fifth century) that Armenians still loved the pagan "songs" the minstrels sang on festive occasions, and he quotes from them. Only these fragments of pagan "songs" have survived to this day.
Songs celebrating memorable events have retained their hold on the popular imagination, and one might say that Armenians are preeminently a nation made by the book and the folk song, the word, written and spoken or sung. But the spoken word is more perishable than the written, and little has survived.
The tale told by Gurbo was published in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1874 under the title David of Sassoun or Meherr's Door. The bishop wrote in the introduction:
Other variants of this folk epic have been published since 1874, and there are some fifty of them altogether. If bishop Garen Servantstian saved the Armenian epic from oblivion, sixty years later Dr. Manouk Abeghian of the Armenian Academy of Sciences rendered an almost equally valuable service with his co-workers by collecting nearly all these variants in three scholarly volumes published by the State Publishing House in Yerevan, Armenia in 1936, 1944 (part l)and 1951 (part ll), under the general title "Daredevils of Sassoun" (Sasna Dzrer). All three volumes contain over 2,500 pages of text. In 1939 a collated text weaving most of the important episodes together was published for popular reading under the title "David of Sassoun". As village texts are in various dialects, which presents many difficulties to the modern reader, the story was reworded and a fairly uniform style comprehensible to Eastern Armenian dialects was adopted. From 1939 until 1966 all translations were made from this popularized text.
In 1966 Leon Zaven Surmelian, Armenian-American author, translated the epic into English from its original village stories under the name Daredevils of Sassoun.
First part of Daredevils of Sassoun saga was adapted into a feature length animated film, first of its kind in the Republic of Armenia. Director: Arman Manaryan, head-animator Vardan Zakarian. The film was released in Armenia and Russia on January 25, 2010.
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
/ poem in four cycles (parts) and is about four generations of Sassoun's warriors. It is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. This recital of the legendary deeds of four generations of strongmen in a warrior community in the Armenian highland
Armenian Highland
The Armenian Highland is the central-most and highest of three land-locked plateaus that together form the northern sector of the Middle East...
s is in the tradition of heroic folktales that dramatize the story of a whole nation and voice its deepest sentiments and aspirations, but unlike such well-known epics as the Iliad and the Odyssey, Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...
, Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, Chanson de Roland, Poema el Cid and others one might mention, it has survived solely by word of mouth, transmitted from one generation to another by village bards. The literary merits of the Sassoun saga surpass its value as a historical or linguistic document.
Background
Սասնա (Sasna) in Armenian refers to Sassoun - a region and a city located in Western Armenia, in the rugged mountain country southwest of Lake VanLake Van
Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country in Van district. It is a saline and soda lake, receiving water from numerous small streams that descend from the surrounding mountains. Lake Van is one of the world's largest endorheic lakes . The original outlet from...
- in what is currently Batman Province
Batman Province
Batman Province is a Turkish province southeast of Anatolia. The province's population exceeded 500,000 in 2010.The province is important because of its reserves and production of oil which was started in the 1940s. There is a 494-km long oil pipeline from Batman to the Turkish port of İskenderun....
, eastern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
.
Ծուռ (Tsour) means crazy, mad, strongman, daredevil
Stunt performer
A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...
.
The most accurate and complete title of this epic is "Սասնա Ծռեր" (Daredevils of Sassoun). It has however been published under various titles:
- "Սասունցի Դավիթ" (David of Sassoun)
- "Սանասար և Բաղդասար" (Sanasar and Balthazar)
- "Սասունցի Դավիթ կամ Մհերի դուռ" (David of Sassoun or Meher's door)
and many others. All these titles correspond with four cycles of the epic.
The written literature of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
goes back to fifth century of our era, its Golden Age, when the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
was translated into the vernacular from the original Greek and Syriac texts, Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
were studied in Armenian schools, and many original works of great interest to the modern specialist were produced by native historians, philosophers and poets.
The oral literature is older that the written, and folk poetry had flourished in Armenia for the past two thousand years, not to go farther back. Movses Khorenatsi (Moses of Khoren) tells us in his classic "History of Armenia" (fifth century) that Armenians still loved the pagan "songs" the minstrels sang on festive occasions, and he quotes from them. Only these fragments of pagan "songs" have survived to this day.
Songs celebrating memorable events have retained their hold on the popular imagination, and one might say that Armenians are preeminently a nation made by the book and the folk song, the word, written and spoken or sung. But the spoken word is more perishable than the written, and little has survived.
Discovery of the story
The story of Sassoun - the greatest achievement of the oral literature - was "discovered" in 1873 by a bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Garegin Servantstian, who had exceptionally close contacts with the peasantry in the more remote inaccessible parts of Western Armenia, where life had not changed much for thousand years or so. He says:The tale told by Gurbo was published in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1874 under the title David of Sassoun or Meherr's Door. The bishop wrote in the introduction:
Language
Though the language abounds in poetic pictures, the physical sensory details are often missing. This is because an oral tale is necessarily different from that of a written story. The reciter would get on with his action and act out most parts of the story to hold interest of his audience, plot is the main thing, and the reciter suits the words of action. It's written in a beautifully controlled language and hyperbole is a characteristic device of this epic style.Publications and translations and other media
In 1881 "Sasna Dzrer" was translated into Russian. Later the tale was translated into the languages of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union. Next the text was translated into French and Chinese.Other variants of this folk epic have been published since 1874, and there are some fifty of them altogether. If bishop Garen Servantstian saved the Armenian epic from oblivion, sixty years later Dr. Manouk Abeghian of the Armenian Academy of Sciences rendered an almost equally valuable service with his co-workers by collecting nearly all these variants in three scholarly volumes published by the State Publishing House in Yerevan, Armenia in 1936, 1944 (part l)and 1951 (part ll), under the general title "Daredevils of Sassoun" (Sasna Dzrer). All three volumes contain over 2,500 pages of text. In 1939 a collated text weaving most of the important episodes together was published for popular reading under the title "David of Sassoun". As village texts are in various dialects, which presents many difficulties to the modern reader, the story was reworded and a fairly uniform style comprehensible to Eastern Armenian dialects was adopted. From 1939 until 1966 all translations were made from this popularized text.
In 1966 Leon Zaven Surmelian, Armenian-American author, translated the epic into English from its original village stories under the name Daredevils of Sassoun.
First part of Daredevils of Sassoun saga was adapted into a feature length animated film, first of its kind in the Republic of Armenia. Director: Arman Manaryan, head-animator Vardan Zakarian. The film was released in Armenia and Russia on January 25, 2010.
See also
- David of SasunDavid of SasunDavid of Sasun or David of Sassoun is an Armenian epic hero from the Daredevils of Sassoun who drove Arab invaders out of Armenia.The Sasuntsi Davit is an Armenian national epic poem recounting David's exploits...
- National epicNational epicA national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy...
- Hovhannes TumanyanHovhannes TumanyanHovhannes Tumanyan , is considered to be one of the greatest Armenian poets and writers. His work was mostly written in tragic form, often centering on the harsh lives of villagers in the Lori region.-Biography:...
- Armenian literatureArmenian literature-Early literature:Armenian literature begins about 406 with the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop.Isaac, the Catholicos of Armenia, formed a school of translators who were sent to Edessa, Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea in Cappadocia, and elsewhere, to procure...
- Sassoun