David of Sassoun: An Introduction to the Study of the Armenian Epic

The Armenian folk epic David of Sassoun was performed and transmitted orally for over one thousand years before a variant was discovered and transcribed in 1873. The publication of this variant marks the beginning of a long period of discoveries of other variants. The fifty variants collected by1936 are the source of the epic's unified text. The action of the epic is centered on the preservation of the House of Sassoun, or freedom from invaders. The oaths taken by heroes create conflicts of loyalties that work against this central concern. The curse, another form of the oath, leads to the decline of the House of Sassoun. The father's curse, which condemns the son to barren immortality, also puts heroic life in suspension until the eschatological vision is realized.

Arpine Khatchadourian (1925-2012) completed her primary education at Sts. Tarkmanchatz, the Armenian St. James Patriarchate School, and her secondary education at a British High School, both in Jerusalem, Palestine during the British Mandate. After graduating, she taught at Sts. Tarkmanchatz for eight years. In 1950, she married Haig Khatchadourian. The following year, she taught at the Melkonian Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus. The couple then resided in Beirut, Lebanon, where she received her Associate in Arts Degree at the Beirut College for Women in 1953 and taught for several years at the AGBU Tarouhie-Hagopian Secondary School in Beirut. After she and her family emigrated to the United States in 1967, she continued her studies and received a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude and Master of Arts in Comparative Literature, with Honors, and completed all work for her PhD in English and American Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, except for her dissertation. While a student, she was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, a national academic honor society. She taught in both the UW-Milwaukee Department of Comparative Literature and English Department. She also taught "Armenian: An Uncommonly Taught Language" in the UW-Milwaukee Linguistics Department for several years. She received a Teaching Excellence Award from the UW-Milwaukee English Department in the 1985-86 academic year. Khatchadourian retired in 1997 after forty-seven years of teaching that included primary, secondary, high school, and university instruction. The Armenian language and literature, world mythology, and comparative literature were her vocation and avocation. David of Sassoun: An Introduction to the Study of the Armenian Epic is based on original research material. Her essay, "The Oath and the Curse as a Source of Action in David of Sassoun" was published in David of Sassoun: Critical Studies on the Armenian Epic by DIckran Kouymjian and Barlow Der Mugrdechian (2013).


Haig Khatchadourian is Emeritus Professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukie. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University and has been awarded several prizes for poetry and literary essays. In 1973 he received the Outstanding Educator of America Award.