DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2026-6(1)-58-70
Yerevan in the musical-verbal text of Armenian singer-songwriter art of the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries
Gayane Margaryan
Russian-Armenian University, Yerevan, Armenia
Yerevan State Conservatory named after Komitas, Yerevan, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0002-3833-1193
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the musical-poetic texts of Armenian singer-song writer compositions from the last quarter of the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries, dedicated to Yerevan as the central image of Armenian bard culture. The Armenian author's song is examined as an independent socio-cultural phenomenon that emerged in the context of Soviet and post-Soviet urban culture, which distinguishes it from the Russian bard tradition. Unlike the latter, which gravitates toward natural, hiking, and camping topoi, the Armenian author's song has, from its very beginnings, been deeply rooted in urban space and addressed to it. Yerevan functions here not merely as a geographical backdrop but as the true subject of lyric poetry – living, breathing, forgiving, remembering. Four of the most representative and beloved composers are selected for analysis: Ruben Akhverdyan, Eduard Zorikyan, Khrist Manaryan, and Forsh (Vahan Gevorgyan). Each represents a distinct artistic and biographical type of bard: Akhverdyan is the singer of the nocturnal city and inexhaustible nostalgia; Zorikyan is the keeper of the Soviet bard code, the voice of the intelligentsia that did not abandon the city during its difficult years; Forsh is a musician of a new formation who unites the bard tradition with professional arranging sensibility and generic universality. The research methodology combines analysis of verbal and musical texts, a semiotic approach to urban space, the cultural-dialogic conception, and the interpretative method. The study examines the relationship between poetic and musical elements in each work, as well as the specifics of harmonic and rhythmic organization and textural construction. Distinctive features of Armenian urban author's song are identified: personification and animation of the city, Acmeist concreteness of images, the epic catalog as a constructive principle, and nostalgia as the dominant emotional mode. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of the “Yerevan text” as a space of cultural memory in which the author's personal biography is inseparable from the city's biography. The authors conclude that the Armenian author's song about Yerevan represents a unique form of urbanistic lyric poetry without direct analogs in either the Russian or Western bard traditions.
KEYWORDS: Yerevan, author's song, Armenian bard culture, urban text, semiotics of the city, Ruben Akhverdyan, Eduard Zorikyan, Forsh, Khrist Manaryan, musical-poetic analysis, cultural memory, nostalgia, urbanistic lyric poetry.
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Information about the author
Gayane S. Margaryan
Cand. Sci. (Art History), Professor
Russian-Armenian University
123, Hovsep Emin St., Yerevan, 0025, Armenia
Professor at the Department of Special Piano and
the Department of the History of Performing Arts
Yerevan State Conservatory
named after Komitas
1а, Sayat-Nova St., Yerevan, 0001, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0002-3833-1193
e-mail: [email protected]
For citation:
Margaryan, G. (2026). Yerevan in the musical-verbal text of Armenian singer-songwriter art of the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and Semiotics of the City, 6(1), 58–70. https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2026-6(1)-58-70
