Ֆրիկի «Գանգատ»ը
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2017
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In the 13th century, due to the rapid expansion of secular life, a new era started in Armenian poetry. Anthropocentric ideology was combined with the ever-absolutely-ruling Godcentrism, which to some extent had already started to emerge in the works of Grigor Narekatsi.
This new phase of Medieval Armenian poetry was started by Hovhannes Pluz Yerznkatsi, immediately followed by Frik. The latter, a very godly person and a glorifier of God, even dared to rebel against God, thus becoming the first theomachist poet in Armenian and perhaps in world literature.
Frik's rebellious spirit is expressed mainly in his complaint poems, where he castigated the injustice ruling in the world. Especially in his famous "Against Fate" poem. Frik whips world-possessing Fate for this injustice and calls him a "crooked judge." In the same poem Frik indirectly blames God as he is the conductor of Fate.
Frik's theomachist spirit is more deeply and sharply expressed in his famous masterpiece "Complaint." The poet addresses his words not to Fate, but directly to God, the supreme judge.
Frik's first complaint directed against God exposes the differences between nations, inequality, and their intolerance towards each other. The poet also complains that Christ left unpunished the executioners who crucified him. He was especially angry and disapproving that God ignored the Armenians, though they were Christians.
Frik also complains that the Creator has unjustly distributed life to men. The length of human life, the possibility of having children, external physical and health conditions, internal mental, moral and intellectual abilities are distributed unfairly. These inequalities generate social inequality, which Frick presented in an unprecedented manner, considering God, who stands on the side of the cruelly strong and unjust, as the defining figure of inequality.
Frik's theomachy, however, is not atheism at all. He was a devout believer in God and a glorifier of God. His rebellion, rather, stemmed from his kindness and warm patriotism. Therefore, at the center of the creativity of the very godly and theomachist, in his ambitions and thoughts the human being also appeared beside God the Creator, sometimes in the image of an Armenian person.
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Բախչինեան, Հ., «Ֆրիկի «Գանգատ»ը», «Հայկազեան հայագիտական հանդէս», 2017, Պէյրութ, էջ 75-88