Вхождение армянской легенды в европейскую историко-литературную традицию

Abstract

Many European chroniclers included in their narrations the legend of the Tatar Khan and the Armenian king’s daughter, who gave birth to a monster, which, as a result of baptism, turned into a beautiful baby, prompting the Khan and the people to accept Christianity. Mainly the same elements constitute the plot of the legend. However, their correlations and combinations change in individual chronicles and annals, as well as in the chivalric novel "The King of Tars". The narrative is often augmented with supplementary events, such as the capture of Jerusalem by the Tatar Khan, the expulsion of the Saracens from Jerusalem, the capture of Aleppo, Damascus, and other cities by the combined armies of the Tatars, Armenian and Georgian kings. The main source of such additions, brought into the plot, was the well-known history by Hethum "La Flor des es-toires de la Terre d'Orient", to which Giovanni Villani refers as well, recommending the book by monk Hayton, written upon the commission of Pope Clement V, to get acquainted with the deeds of the Mongols. As for the Armenian trace of this legend in the European historical-literary tradition, there are obvious parallels between the plots of the first branch of "David of Sassoun" and the legends, concerning the story of the Armenian king's daughter, given in marriage to a non-Christian, which circulated in the West. Veselovsky's excerpt, cited from an Armenian folk poem called "The Lament of Susanna", which he had taken from the collection of "Armenian Popular Songs" published by G. Alishan, is fully consistent with the first part of the legend spread in the West.