THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY OF MICHAEL J. ARLEN’S NOVEL “PASSAGE TO ARARAT”
DOI 10.54151/27382559-23.1pb-58
Galstyan N. B.
Keywords: Genocide, memoir, national identity, Armenian history, national spirit, condemnation, national roots, testimony, tragedy of the nation, memory.
Based on the challenges of the time, the problem of human alienation, the topic we have chosen is more relevant than ever. In the article by the American-Armenian English-speaking writer Michael J. Arlen “Passage to Ararat ”, we show the writer’s attempt to get closer to his Armenian roots, to correct his place and role in the American multinational crater of self-knowledge, which, on the one hand, was an impetus for clarifying national self-consciousness, and on the other hand (in the historical depth and the desire) to introduce the Armenians and Armenia to world humanity. For Michael J. Arlen the most important impulse to preserve the national was attachment to the roots and the Motherland. He was one of those Armenian writers who wrote in English, portrayed the Armenian psychology, realities and phenomena of life, impartially presenting the issues of the fate and existence of Armenians in a foreign reality, culture, centuries-old history. The preconceived attitude of the powerful of this world to everything showed the historical-political, national and moral-psychological evaluation of the Genocide and became a condemnation of all this. Michael Arlen the Younger, preserving the consciousness of national identity, contributed to the preservation of the Armenian nation with his memoir novel “Passage to Ararat”. As a struggle for dissimilarity to foreigners, the preservation of national identity was valued, and in the complex of artistic thinking, the fundamental outlines of the original national orientation were affected.
