In occasion of book V. A . Arutyunova-Fidanian «A narration about affairs Armenian. VII th century. A source and time»

In 1948 F. Combetis published for the first time a Greek original titled by him "Narratio de Rebus Armeniae". The manuscript contains the history of the Armeian Church from the very beginning until 700 DC written by an Armenian-Chalcedinian and was oriented against the monophysit Armenian Church and Armenian clergymen. During the next three centuries Narratio was frequently used by the Armenologists and Byzantinologists, but only in 1952 it was afforded the honor of being investigated in details by Gerar Garitte, a prominent orientalist who knew many eastern languages and Greek. The investigator, taking into account numerous armenisms present in the text, earnestly proved that Narratio had been originally written in Armenian and text under investigation it its Greek translation. As far as in 1962 the source was published in Armenian translated by Hrach Bartikian. In 1994-1995 it was published by J. P. Mahe in French. The translators did not attach any investigation to their translations since Garitte had left no place for that. Not knowing either Greek4 5 or Armenian (let alone ancient Armenian), being far from both the history of the Armenian people and Armenian Church, V.A. Arutyunova-Fidanian tries to prove that Narratio is the original; it has not ever been written in Armenian and has been addressed to the Armenians-Chalcedonians. She contends that the latter ones had either forgotten their mother tongue or had become bilingual and that an "Armenian-Greek synthetic linguistic phenomenon" had taken place. On the title-page of her book she writes that she herself translated Narration from Greek to Russian, but simple examination discovered that it has been translated to Russian from the Armenian translation of H. Bartikian and this is proved by many facts. But since Arutyunova does not know Armenian too, so even that translation has been made by another person - somebody who uses to translate to Russian the necessary for Arutyunova fragments from the books written in Armenian, ancient Armenian, and Western Armenian. The Armenian Church rejected forever the creed of the Chalcedonian Council and never became Chalcedonian. The statement of Arutyunova that from the middle of the 7t h century until 8t h century it was Chalcedonian is unscientific and even absurd. By the way, she does not mention at what Council the Armenian Church rejected its two-century creed and at what Council understood that it had been "mistaken" and returned to the former one. Speaking about the communities of the Armenians-Chalcedonians, Arutyunova does not point out any of them. Besides, there are numerous mistakes committed by the translator of Narration from Armenian to Russian which the author of this review points out..