Grekofilskaya school of Armenian literature

The first scholars of the Mkhitarists expressed the opinion that the second half of the 5th century ^[4] should be considered the time of the emergence of the Grecophile school, but it is not possible to finally answer this question. Most Greek-philic translations are anonymous and not dated, the dating of the first works citing these translations is also controversial ^[5] . The prominent Dutch Armenist notes that the origin of this school was dated by different scholars between 450 and 570 years, but the first half of the 6th century should be considered the most probable dating. He explains this dating by the fact that one of the translations of the grecophiles - “Objections to the definitions of the cathedral in Chalcedon” by Timofei Elur , most likely was made shortly before the second Dvins Cathedral (554 or 555), and his author belonged to the second generation of grecophiles ^[6] . In any case, as noted by the British historian , in the VI century this literary direction was already well developed ^[5] . The school lasted until the VIII century, but its influence was still felt for a long time in Armenian literature.

In addition to time, the reasons for the emergence of such a direction are also not clear. Various assumptions were made, but the most plausible, according to J. Weitenberg, was the hypothesis of the French scientist , explaining a similar style of translations by the exegetical tradition. According to this opinion, if the semantic ( ad sensum ) translation is in good agreement with the early translations of liturgical texts, then the literal ( ad litteram ) translation reflects a more doctrinal attitude and even greater sensitivity to the original text. The emergence of such a school, according to this hypothesis, is the result of historical and cultural development within Armenia ^[6] . R. Thomson also believes that the reasons for the emergence of such a direction of translation literature remain mysterious, given that in the first half of the 5th century many elegant translations of Greek texts were made in Armenia, in which the output text fully corresponded to the forms and syntax of the Armenian language. The grecophilic style, as he notes, can in no way be the result of poor knowledge of Greek, but rather is due to the authors' concern about the accuracy of the translation ^[5] .

There is an assumption that the school was part of the program of the Armenian Church for the assimilation of the achievements of ancient Greek science and the early Christian literary heritage, and in the future for the successful conduct of dogmatic discussions. Its main purpose was to create textbooks on philosophy and sciences of the “ trivium and quadrivium ”, as well as the history of the Church . From religious texts, however, only the monuments preceding the Council of Chalcedon were translated ^[7] .

Despite the ideological struggle against Byzantium in the VI – VII centuries, the relations of Armenians with Greek culture remained very close. Particularly vivid Armenian-Byzantine cultural contacts were expressed in the influence of the Greek language and literature on the Armenian. The leading role in this was played by the Grecophile school. Although little is known about the authors of this school, there is a consensus in academia that most of them have been educated in leading scientific centers of Byzantium, primarily in Athens , Alexandria , and Constantinople , sometimes in Edessa . The “Art of Grammar” by Dionysius of Thrace , translated by the first representatives of the Greco-philic school, had a serious influence on the study of the Armenian language . Until the Late Middle Ages, Armenian grammars wrote interpretations of the “Art of Grammar" and the grammar of the Armenian language was explained almost exclusively by the concepts of Dionysius. Greco-grammar grammars created new, artificial and quite complex, Armenian words based on Greek forms, and even tried to adapt the Armenian language to Greek grammar. As a result of this activity, the so-called “Grekofilian Armenian language” appeared in ancient Armenian literature ^[8] . This language, repeating the grammatical forms and syntactic turns of the Greek, was available, in most cases, only to connoisseurs of Greek ^[7] . Subsequently, Armenian authors recognized its forms as foreign to the Armenian language and abandoned it, but “Grekofilian Armenian” left a mark, palpable even in modern Armenian ^[9] . This primarily concerns prefixes . For the most accurate translation of prefix-rich Greek words, new prefixes were created, many of which were fixed in Armenian ^[10] .

The first monuments of the Grechophile school include translations of “The Art of Grammar” by Dionysius of Thrace , “Book of Chri” by Aphthony , “Progymnasma” by Theon of Alexandria, as well as two treatises by Irenaeus of Lyons ^{[1] [3]} . However, unlike previous Armenian translators, who mainly deal with translations of church texts, the main attention of the Greco-philists was focused on secular scientific disciplines. For translations, they primarily selected textbooks that were famous at that time (mainly on the sciences of the “ trivium, ” to a lesser extent the “ quadrivium ”), and turned to theological literature much less frequently ^[11] . Their philosophical literature is richest: they include translations of 14 treatises of Philo of Alexandria, dialogues of Plato , The Organon and On the Interpretation of Aristotle, Porfiry 's Introduction to the Organon of Aristotle, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus , Jamblichus and Zenon of Elea , e. In religious literature, translations of the dogmatic works of Timothy Elur, Irenaeus of Lyons and Eutyhius of Constantinople are important, the distribution of which contributed to the further estrangement of the Armenian Monophysites from the Diophysite Byzantium. No less important was the translation of natural science works, which became the basis for the emergence of our own science school in Armenia in the 7th century (thanks to the work of Anania Shirakatsi ^[1] . The translation of De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis et Facultatibus by Galen , which however was not preserved, was extremely important for the natural science discipline. For a better understanding by Armenian doctors of this and other translated medical works, by Grecophiles, or under the influence of the Grecophile school, a special terminological glossary was even created ^[12] .

The study of the heritage of the Grekofilskoy school was originally engaged in armenistics . Especially valuable was the article "Grekofilskaya school and stages of its development" by Y. Manandyan ( Vienna , 1928), where the sequence of the school and its periodization for several generations were first shown. As subsequent studies have shown, the gracophile school is of great importance not only for the Armenian culture, its importance for modern science is also invaluable. Many works translated by Greekophiles were preserved only in the Armenian language and became accessible to world science precisely thanks to these translations. The most important of these works are the seven treatises of Philo of Alexandria and the "Objections" of Timothy Elur. Other works, in particular, translations of the treatises of Aristotle and Porfiry, are the oldest in world literature and were completed much earlier than the manuscripts of Greek texts that have come down to us. These translations are of great importance for the restoration of original versions, especially since the peculiarities of the Grekofilsky translation direction allow this to be done with the highest accuracy ^[1] . At present, the Byzantinists are actively engaged in the study of Greek-Philophile translations, in order to restore the lost and contaminated Greek texts ^[7] .

• Ancient Armenian Translation Literature

• Studies on the Ancient Armenian Version of Philo's Works / ed. Sara Mancini Lombardi, Paola Pontani. - BRILL, 2010 .-- 222 p.