DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2025-5(2)-214-243
Yerevan architectural controversies in the early Soviet Armenian novel: Mkrtich Armen and Derenik Demirchyan
Thomas Charles Toghramadjian
Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, Armonk, New York, United States of America [email protected]
ORCID: 0009-0009-6207-6960
Albert Makaryan
Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0001-5111-5412
ABSTRACT
Mkrtich Armen Derenik Demirchyan Soviet Armenian literature Yerevan Armenian architecture Alexander Tamanyan Mikayel Mazmanyan Socialist Realism architectural novel. This article examines the architectural definition of Yerevan as a modern capital city and the aesthetic definition of a Soviet Armenian literary method in the novels of Mkrtich Armen and Derenik Demirchyan. Armen’s Yerevan (published in 1931 and banned in 1933) and Demirchyan’s New Monumental (serialized 1931–1933) both center on the reconstruction of Yerevan and ideological dissension among the city’s architects. Here, however, the resemblance stops. Yerevan eulogizes the disappearing landscape of pre-Soviet Yerevan in vivid, immediate detail presented within an elaborate armature of multiple dreams. New Monumental, meanwhile, approaches its subject matter within the formal and ideological constraints of the incipient Socialist Realist method and through the abstract settings of public debate, administrative process, and judicial procedure. The two works are examined within applicable theoretical frameworks concerning the structure of the “modern urban novel” and “socialist realist” novel, and with contextual reference to Armenian architectural and literary factions and debates of the early Stalinist period. Our analysis counters a recent critical tendency to read Yerevan as a polemical work or a straightforward fictionalization of contemporary architectural conflicts. Instead, both Armen’s artistic intentions and his novel’s problematic reception are best understood in terms of the subjective, dialogical character and innovative formal characteristics of his prose. Turning to New Monumental, we identify Demirchyan’s use of the Socialist Realist “spontaneity-consciousness” dialectic, his faithful dramatization of historical events and debates, and his metaphorization of the city-in-progress and generational conflict among its architects into a statement on the present and future of Soviet Armenian literature. The article concludes with a reflection on Demirchyan’s revision of New Monumental into an unfinished work titled City, and on the place of the “architectural novel” in the history of Soviet Armenian literature.
KEYWORDS: Mkrtich Armen, Derenik Demirchyan, Soviet Armenian literature, Yerevan, Armenian architecture, Alexander Tamanyan, Mikayel Mazmanyan, Socialist Realism, architectural novel.
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Information about the author
Thomas Charles Toghramadjian
Master of Theology, Research Fellow
Yerevan State University
1, Alex Manoogian St., Yerevan, 0025, Armenia
St. Nersess Armenian Seminary 486, Bedford Road, Armonk, New York, 10504, United States of America
ORCID: 0009-0009-6207-6960
e-mail: [email protected]
Albert A. Makaryan
Dr. Sci., Professor,
Head of the Chair of History and Literary Theory
after Academician Hr. Tamrazyan
Yerevan State University
1, Alex Manoogian St., Yerevan, 0025, Armenia
ORCID: 0000-0001-5111-5412
Scopus AuthorID: 58601287200
e-mail: [email protected]
For citation:
Toghramadjian, Th. Ch., & Makaryan, A. (2025). Yerevan architectural controversies in the early Soviet Armenian novel: Mkrtich Armen and Derenik Demirchyan. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and Semiotics of the City, 5(2), 214–243. https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2025-5(2)-214-243
