The paper examines the peasant songs – horovels of Artsakh; it aims to cover the peculiarities of the musical linguistic language of the region. Work songs are one of the oldest layers of Armenian folk music. Our study is based on the notes made by Komitas Vardapet, Robert Atayan and Matevos Muradyan, in which horovels of the historical Varanda (present-day Martuni) region predominate. Back in the dawn of Christianity, Artsakh was one of the most important spiritual centers of the Armenian world with its folklore, unique dialect and song-making tradition. Presumably, this was the reason why Komitas Vardapet took a keen interest in music folklore of Artsakh (10 out of 20 peasant songs, recorded by him, are Artsakh horovels). As a result of comparative analysis of the musical material, we have identified several typological principles of structure and evolution of the musical language of horovels of the region under review (presence of metro-rhythmic, intonational and melodic patterns, prevalence of Phrygian scale with a tertiary secondary support). This, in turn, attests to the existence of traditional modular thinking in the peasant songs of Artsakh. “Horovel”, recorded by R. Atayan during his first expedition to Karabakh in 1957, when historical Artsakh was part of the Azerbaijani SSR, is published in the article for the first time.