CC BY
29ISSN 2738-2699
YEREVAN STATE
UNIVERSITY
TRANSLATION STUDIES:
THEORY AND PRACTICE
International Scientific Journal
volume 2 I issue 2(4)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46991/TSTP/2022.2.2.005
Armenian Folk Tales Translated: A Chronological Approach
Alvard Jivanyan * https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0613-8743
Yerevan State University
Abstract: Armenians have an old and rich folk culture. Folktales are part of this remarkably diverse heritage. Folk and fairy tale studies often disregard a unique but little-explored facet of the tales. it is their translation, including direct and mediated renderings, retellings, and adaptations of the source text. The translation of each particular folktale is of interest and depends on the translator's individual style and the nature of the translated text as a text type. It is our aim to chronologically consider some major translated titles of Armenian folk tales, collections in German, French, English and Russian. These editions have played an essential role in the identification, dissemination and study of Armenian folk tale material.
Key words: folk tale material, collectors of tales, storyteller, mediated translation, source text, tale motifs, printed versions
1. Introduction
The present article deals with translations of Armenian folk and fairy tales presented in chronological order. Our research includes a number of major collections of Armenian tales told in non-Armenian milieux and recorded in languages other than Armenian. The collectors of these tales have apparently functioned both as recorders and translators. It is to be noted that no printed versions of the mentioned tales in Armenian currently exist. The study and systematization of translated tale collections are important for making the Armenian material more distinct and identifiable for folklore and fairy tale scholars.
2. Recreating Armenian Folk Tales: From Source Texts to Target Cultures
In 1887 Armenian Fairy Tales and Legends (Märchen und Sagen aus Armenien) was published in Leipzig (Chalatianz 1887). The tales were translated into German by
* alvardjivanyan@ysu.am
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Received: 27.10.2022 Revised: 19.11.2022 Accepted: 21.11.2022 © The Author(s) 2022
Grigor Khalatiants, the celebrated Armenologist and the editor of eight volumes of Eminian Ethnographic Collection (friffihjiuh mqqmqpml^mh dnqrn[ui&nL) (19011911). The volume included six tales: Brother Lamb (Der Hammelbruder, ЛшпйЭД ш^рЬр»), The Nightingale Hazaran (Die Wundernachtigall, «¿шqшршü рпцрпц»), The Apple of Life, (Der Lebensapfel, «UütfшhnLpJшü ^Ыпрр»), Nahapet's Daughter (Nachapets Tochter, «Ъшhшцhшhüg The Dreamer (Der Traumseher,
«Ьршqшmhu>») and The Treacherous Mother, (Die verräterische Mutter, «Ъhüqш4nр йш]р üp»).
In the Introduction G. Khalatiants wrote that he had used two sources for his book: the material recorded in Van and Mush by Bishop Garegin Srvandstiants (commonly regarded as the greatest authority on Armenian folk life and folk history) and his own collection of folklore material recorded in the environs of Alexandrapol (ibid., 4). Khalatiants brought interesting folk tale parallels from other cultures, German in particular. His work was a major contribution to the distribution of Armenian folk tales and legends in Europe. It has had a number of editions since its first publication, most recently in 2018 and 2019 (Chalatianz 2018; 2019).
It is of interest that earlier, in 1885, Khalatiants had published an article in Dashkov Museum Collection of Ethnographic Materials («Сборник материалов по этнографии, изд.-ый при Дашковском этнографическом музее») in Moscow, entitled A General Outline of Armenian Folk Tales («Общий очерк армянких сказок»), where he had revealed a series of commonalities shared by Armenian, Slavic and German folk tales (Khalatiants 1885). The article was republished in 1897 in the esteemed volume Fraternal Assistance to Armenians who have suffered in Turkey 1 («Братская помощь пострадавшим в Турции армянам») and was renamed On a Few Common Motifs of Armenian Folk Tales («О некоторых любимейших мотивах армянских сказок») (Khalatiants 1897: 688-702).
In 1890 Lucy Mary Jane Garnett's The Women of Turkey and their Folklore came out in London (Garnett 1890). L.M.J. Garnett was an English traveler and folklorist. In addition to ethnographic material of Muslim and Christian peoples, the volume included some rare samples of Armenian folklore. The 6th-9th chapters were entirely devoted to Armenian women. Details of family life, birth, baptismal and burial rites were described. Garnett presented her translation of a rather lengthy Armenian folk tale The King's Daughter and the Bathboy, noting similarities to certain Greek and Bulgarian tales along with analogous motifs found in Arabian Nights' Entertainments.
Ottoman Wonder Tales, translated and edited by L.M.G. Garnett and beautifully illustrated in color by Charles Folkard, was published 25 years later in London (Garnett 1915).- It featured 14 tales of peoples living in Turkey, including two Armenian folk tales taken from Bishop Garegin Srvandstiants' collection of Armenian tales, Zoulvisia («Эпц^и^ш»), which Garnett had renamed The Amazon Queen and The Princess of Tiflis (the modified title for The Tiflis Beauty of the World, «Ф^ф^ипг. Sm.U^-
1 This volume was launched by Grigory Janshiev, a Russian lawyer of Armenian descent, the author of a treatise on Alexander II's reforms, and the renowned Russian botanist Kliment Timiryazev.
^nLqm^U»2). Garnett did not mention that the tales were Armenian, probably considering it unimportant for English readers, although in her folkloristic survey Women of Turkey she was rather scrupulous in questions of ethnic and cultural identity. In the Foreword to Ottoman Wonder Tales, she wrote:
The term 'Ottoman' being here used in the political sense given to it on the establishment in 1908 of a constitutional form of government in Turkey, this volume will be found to comprise tales current not only among the Mohammedan subjects of the Sultan, but also among the various races professing other creeds who form so large an element in the population of the Ottoman Empire (Garnett 1915: v).
Garnett's translation was far from being faithful to the original. The ending of the text was transformed. Below is the verbatim translation of the finale of the original:
They had a grand feast and for forty days and forty nights they were eating and drinking, and playing and dancing. Then they took the bride and the groom to the church and had a glorious wedding. They achieved their dreams, may we reach Saint Karapet, the Sultan of Mush, who fulfills our dreams (Srvandstiants 1918: 480).
Saint Karapet (meaning forerunner) is an alternative name given by Armenians to John the Baptist, a cultural detail Garnett was probably unaware of, although in 1901 the British traveler Henry F.B. Lynch wrote in his remarkable two-volume travel book on Armenia:
This route once adopted, two deviations are suggested which will not lengthen the journey by many miles. The first is a visit to the ancient cloister of Surb Karapet (John the Baptist), on the northern border range of Mush plain; the second, a short sojourn in the ancient burgh of Hasan Kala, not far from Erzerum (Lynch 1901: 114).
In Garnett's translation, it was the protagonist of the story, the merchant from Baghdad, who was granted the name. The word 'church' was also cut from the text:
Well, in a few days' time all was ready, thanks to the magic purse, and the couple were married in grand style. For forty days and nights there was feasting and rejoicing throughout the city, with music and dancing; and for years afterwards folks would talk of what grand doings there had been when Karabed the merchant wedded the Princess of Tiflis (Garnett 1915: 242).
Interestingly, Frederic Macler's translation was more faithful to the original. It is also true that his interpretation was not meant for young readers:
Ils firent une grande noce. On mangea et but pendant quarante jours et quarante nuits; on fit de la musique, on dansa. Puis, en grande pompe, on se rendit à l'église ou fut célébré le marriage. Ils étaient arrivés à leur but: puissons-nous arriver a nous-mêmes a voir nos désirs réalisés grâce à saint Garabed, le sultan de Mouch (Macler 1905: 138).
2 Dunya guzeli - Beauty of the world in Turkish.
Garnett's changes were either intentional modifications aiming at the simplification and adaptation of the text finale to the needs of young readers, or she had used another version of the story as her source, which seems unlikely. The Ottoman Wonder Tales was last published in 2012 (Garnett 2012).
In 1891 Tales and Legends of Bukovinian and Transylvanian Armenians (Märchen und Sagen der Bukowinaer und Siebenbürger Armenier) was issued in Hamburg. It was compiled by Heinrich Adalbert von Wlislocki and could truly be considered one of the most important translated titles of Armenian folklore. The 60 tales and the 95 proverbs included in this volume were from the compiler's own collections and the collections of other folklorists and were translated by Wlisclocki. In his Foreword to the book, Wlislocki maintained that despite the rather high positions Armenians held in Transylvania, the Armenian language was used only by the older generation or in religious schools and that in a few years, in spite of the efforts of some intellectuals, the Armenians would obviously merge with the Hungarians.
Wlislocki claimed that he had compiled the book in large part through the contribution of G. Munzath, a scholar distinguished for his knowledge of the life and folklore of Bukovian and Galician Armenians and from whom the Viennese linguist I. Hanusch had borrowed some material for his great survey about Armenians. G. Munzath shared the most essential part of his collection with Wlislocki. Some of the texts were accompanied by Hanusch's annotations, which Wlislocki preferred to leave untouched. He also mentioned an old Armenian man from the town of Mülbach, named Anton Bosnyak, who had given him folklore material and had been of great help when Wlislocki was translating the source texts into German. Wlislocki wrote that the German translations of the Armenian texts were unquestionably accurate, having been rendered almost word for word and checked by a number of Armenian scholars (ibid., vi).
Hakobos Tashian published a detailed review of Wlislocki's Märchen und Sagen in Handes amsorya (The Monthly Journal, «Zmüqtu mtfuophmj») of the The Mekhitarist Concregation of Vienna (Die Wiener Mechitaristen Kongregation) (Tashian 1892: 2223). Mentioning that in a previous issue of the journal there had already been an article on the Armenian community of Bukovina, the reviewer claimed that Wlislocki's volume was not only a unique contribution to European social sciences, but also an invaluable input into Armenian studies, since it was saving from oblivion crumbs of the Armenian community's oral culture that in a few decades would be totally lost. However, a greater result would be achieved when the originals of these stories were published in local idioms. Such an edition would be not only be of ethnographic, but also linguistic value, because fragments of an extinguishing dialect would be saved for linguistic science. Tashian also explained that G. Munzath, who had been planning an edition with original tale texts, had enlisted in military service in Transcaucasia to collect Armenian folklore material. As for Anton Bosnyak, the Armenian, who had helped Wlislocki with his work, he had already passed away (ibid., 23). Wlislocki's collection preserves its importance as a literary monument to a storytelling community which no longer exists.
In 1897 Folk Tales and Legends of Caucasus («Кавказские сказки и предания») came out in Tiflis. It was compiled by G. K. Dorofeev and included two Armenian folk tales The Rose Bush and Kuli Khan, both anonymously translated (Dorofeev 1897).
In 1898 A.G. Seklemian compiled and published a collection of Armenian folk tales The Golden Maiden and Other Folk Tales and Fairy Stories Told in Armenia in Cleveland (Seklemian 1898). Since its publication it has had several editions. The last were in 2009 and 2018 (Seklemian 2009, 2018). The book had an Introduction written by the famous publicist, feminist and translator Alice Stone Blackwell, known for her beautiful renderings of Raphayel Patkanian's and Hovhannes Toumanian's poetry.
Blackwell briefly referred to Armenian history, folk beliefs, mythology and famous travelers' notes on Armenians. She mentioned an Armenian theology student, Ohannes Chatschumian, who Blackwell's aunt Isabella Burrows, an active participant of the movement supporting Armenians of Turkey, had met in Leipzig in 1893. Later Chatschumian traveled to the States and met Blackwell. He also translated samples of Armenian folklore and collected Armenian folk tales for Alice Fletcher, the American ethnologist known for her study of American Indian culture. Sadly, because of his early death Chatschumian's work was left incomplete (Blackwell 1898: v). Blackwell considered Seklemian's collection to be an important contribution to international folklore and more valuable than any of the earlier translated volumes of Armenian folk tales:
So far as I can learn, the two volumes of Armenian folk-tales collected by Bishop Sirwantzdiants have hitherto been accessible to English and European readers only through the medium of a rare and more or less imperfect German translation... Prof. Minas Tcheraz, of King's College, London, has published from time to time during the last eight years, in his paper L'Armenie, a series of interesting articles on the folk-lore and fairy tales of the Armenians, under the title L'Orient Inedit. He gathered these stories from the lips of the poorer classes in Constantinople, as Mr. Seklemian did in Erzroom... But the files of L'Armenie, like the books of Bishop Sirwantzdiants, are inaccessible to the general public. Mr. Seklemian has therefore rendered a real service to students of folk-lore who are unacquainted with the Oriental languages, by bringing these curious and interesting tales within their reach (ibid., v- vi).
Since Seklemian's texts were in English, his collection was quite well-known among American folklorists of the time. It should be added that Seklemian had also published two articles on Armenian fairy tales in the Journal of American Folklore (Seklemian 1893; 1897).
Between 1903-1905 Fairy Tales of Caucasus: A Pearl Necklace («Сказки Кавказа: жемчужное ожерелье»), a beautifully illustrated eight-volume edition, was released in Moscow (Gatsuk 1903-1905). All the tales of this edition were retold by the Russian folklorist, publisher and translator V.V. Gatsuk, best known for his renderings of Andersen's and Grimms' tales. Gatsuk's Grimm collection became one of the main sources of Hovhannes Toumanian's mediated translations. Toumanian's private library holds two rare editions of Gatsuk's translations. Volumes 1- 5 and 8 of Folk Tales of Caucasus include eight Armenian folk tales. There is no information as to whether Gatsuk knew Armenian. However, in volume 5, in the footnote to the tale The King
Who Was a Water Carrier («Царь водонос») the compiler wrote: "Accurately translated from an oral narrative. All language peculiarities have been preserved (Gatsuk 1904: 42).
It should be added that the Gatsuk family were related to The Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, Moscow. Many academic editions of the Institute have been printed in the Gatsuks' printing house, including the covers and prefaces of the four issues (1901-1902) of the Eminian Ethnographic Collection.
Frédéric Maler's Armenian Folk Tales (Contes arméniens) was published in 1905 in Paris (Macler 1905). It was a unique and notable edition. Macler was not merely a translator. In 1919, together with other French Armenologists, he established the Society for Armenian Studies (La Société des Études Arméniennes), and a year later, in 1920, he started the publication of The Review of Armenian Studies (La Revue des Études Arméniennes) with Antoine Meillet. Macler's collection featured 21 tales, a preface, lists of proper names and toponyms. The folk tale material was entirely taken from Bishop Srvandstiants' collections. Six of Srvandstiants' twenty-seven tales were not included as they had been translated and published in earlier volumes.
In his Preface the scholar expressed his admiration, calling Srvandstiants an outstanding vardapet (eminent vardapet) and describing the Armenian scholar's collection Hamov-Hodov (Choses savoureuses et parfumées, «^шйп^^птпф») as a very rare and precious volume (un précieux recueil, devenu trés rare) (Macler 1905: 3)-. Sadly, Bishop Srvandstiants never knew the important mission his work would have in the awareness of Armenian identity and the history of the translation of Armenian folk and fairy tales.
In 1911 Macler published the second collection of Armenian folk tales (Contes et légendes de l'Arménie) in the series Little Armenian Library (Petite bibliothéque arménienne) and with a Preface written by the famous orientalist René Basset (Macler 1911).
In 1907 the renowned Scottish ethnographer Andrew Lang published his Olive Fairy Book, where, in addition to Indian, Turkish, French and Danish fairy tales, five Armenian tales were included: Zouvisia («2пц_^и^ш», The Clever Weaver («¿Ьш-рш^т ^пцЬш^р»), He Wins Who Waits («^шп^т rnqth»), The Golden-Headed Fish («ULpnth рш2 рш^р^») and The Steel Cane («^п^щштЬ ^шрпд»). All four tales were borrowed from Macler's French translation of Bishop Srvandstiants' original texts.
The inclusion of Armenian tales into Lang's The Olive Fairy Book was of major importance. Lang's The Coloured Fairy Books (1889 -1910) were famous in Europe owing to the author's great authority as a folklore scholar and collector of fairy tales. Garegin Srvandstiants' name was not indicated in The Olive Fairy Book. Lang referred only to Macler in the Preface: "I must especially thank Monsieur Macler for permitting us to use some of his Contes Arméniens (Paris: Ernest Leroux, Editeur) (Lang 1907: ix)" Nor did he mention Leonora Blanche Alleyne, his wife and the translator of Macler's French texts. Only in his Preface to The Lilac Fairy Book Lang wrote:
The object of these confessions is not only that of advertising my own fairy books (which are not 'out of print'; if your bookseller says so, the truth is not in him), but of
giving credit where credit is due. The fairy books have been almost wholly the work of Mrs. Lang, who has translated and adapted them from the French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, and other languages (Lang 1910: vii).
Such an editorial policy was typical of Lang's time. The identity of translators was not seen as important as it should have been, especially in children's editions and periodicals. They might be presented anonymously or with their initials only.
Jane S. Wingate was an accomplished interpreter of Armenian folklore 3. She was the daughter of Reverend John F. Smith, an American missionary in Marzvan. As a child, she knew Armenian and attended the local missionary school until she left for the States to continue her education. In 1885 Wingate was invited to Turkey to become a teacher at her former school and later moved to Caesarea. Living in a Turkish-speaking environment, Wingate decided to improve her knowledge of Armenian and began to translate fairy tales and send them to the Folklore Society, London. Between 1910-1912 Folklore, the journal of the Folklore Society, published some of Wingate's translations (Wingate 1910-1912).
In 1912 Minas Tcheraz issued Armenian, Greek and Turkish Legends and Traditions (Légendes et traditions arméniennes, grecques et turques) in the series Unpublished Orient (L'Orient inédit) (Tcheraz 1912). He was both the compiler and the translator of the volume. The Preface of the book and some tales were revised versions of texts already published in the 1889-1906 volumes of L'Arménie, a journal edited by Tcheraz. In the Preface, he wrote:
I was looking for my fellow Armenians who had guided me through the magic palace of folk tales, legends, poems and traditions. Many had passed away, leaving their successors, young people who were too modern to be interested in the things of the past and too fascinated by European novelties to appreciate the intense beauty of Oriental folklore. It was this circumstance, which hastened the publication of the present volume. (ibid., 1)
The collection featured 25 folk tales, among them Assadour the Dancer (Théodore le danseur, «Pmpnq Uumqnrp») (2 versions) Cinderella (Cendrillon, 2 versions), Mr. Lazy (Monsieur Le Paresseux, «PmpnU 2m.jp>), and The Master and His Apprentice (Le maître et l'apprenti). Tcheraz had apparently recorded the Armenian oral texts in French. No Armenian texts of these tale versions have been preserved. A few titles were adapted to those of internationally well-known parallels, such as Cinderella (Cendrillon) and The Blue Beard (Barbe Bleu). The latter is a title obviously chosen to make the tale recognizable for French readers, since the vicious personage is not bearded in this tale nor is he in any other Armenian version of this tale type.
In the footnotes to several tales Tcheraz mentioned the names of the storytellers and gave some brief information about them. Thus, in the footnotes to Theodore le Danseur and Monsieur Le Paresseux, he wrote that the tales were told by the late Lusaber Taschian, the mother of the musician and composer Nikoghos Taschian. It is
3 Jane Wingate is better known as the translator of Raffi's The Fool and a part of Armenian Liturgy.
interesting that Tcheraz drew his readers' attention to an important aspect of storytelling, the gender of the narrator: "Most of all, I have benefited from the chatter of common women (babillage des femmes du peuple). Endowed with exceptional memory and rich imagination, they remember all the legends inherited from the remote past" (ibid., 5).
The translations are done according to the norms accepted at the beginning of the 20th c. when proper names were often 'translated'. The French title of Barogh Assadour was Théodore le danseur. The French name Theodore is the equivalent of Armenian Assadour, short for Asdvadsadour, meaning given by God. In the footnote, Tcheraz added that Armenian storytellers, who also told this story in Turkish, presented it as Hudaverdi tchengui, where again we deal with the translation of the protagonist's name (Hudaverdi is from Persian Khuda - God and Turkish Verdi - given).
In 1930 a volume entitled Armenian Folk Tales («Армянские сказки») was issued by Academia, Leningrad. The texts were translated and annotated by Yakov Khachatriants, an authority on Oriental languages, famous for his interpretations of Hovhannes Toumanian's, Avetik Isahakian's, Alexander Shirvanzade's, Nar-Dos' and Yegishe Charents' works. The book was illustrated by Martiros Saryan. It included Y. Khachatriants' Preface, M. Shahinian's extended Introduction and M.P. Andreev's lists of relevant tale motifs (Khachatriants 1930). In 1933 a newly completed and revised edition of the volume was released (Khachatriants 1933).-
Susie Hoogasian-Villa's 100 Armenian Tales and Their Folkloristic Relevance was published in 1966 in Detroit (Hoogasian-Villa 1966). This volume should justly be considered one of the most important and complete collections of Armenian folk tales in English. The book included a Foreword by Thelma G. James, the author's Preface with information on the background of the Detroit Armenian folktales, published collections of Armenian tales, a classification of the stories and an Index of motifs.
In 1967 The Peasant and the Donkey: Tales of the Near and Middle East was issued in Oxford and in 1968 in New York. It included Persian, Jewish, Arabian, Georgian and five Armenian folk tales translated by Charles Downing (the pseudonym of the first Galouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian at the University of Oxford): The Nightingale Hazaran («¿шqшpшü р|рпцр>), The Beardless («£пиш^р»), The Lame and the One-Eyed Thief («Чш^й m. й^ш^ршй^ qnqtpp»), Badikan and Khan Boghu («Ршц^шй U ^шй Pnqnt»), and Heart and Mind («U^prn nL ^t|p») (Nahmad 1967; 1968).
In 1968 the famous Armenian-American author Leon Zaven Surmelian's Apples of Immortality: Folktales of Armenia came out with Artashes Nazinian's Foreword, Surmelian's Introduction and Stewart Irwin's illustrations (Surmelian 1968). The 40 tales included into this volume were taken from the published collections of the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1959-1967), Garegin Srvandstiants' Hamov-Hodov (Surmelian translated the title as Tasty-Fragrant) and Aram Ghanalanian's Armenian Folk Tales («¿ш] дпцпфцш^шй hhp^pühp» (Яшйш^шй]шй 1950). In 1991 Surmelian's collection was translated into German by Zora Shaked with an altered title Armenian Tales and Folk Stories (Armenische Märchen und Volkserzählungen) (Surmelian 1968).
In 1972 Oxford University Press issued Armenian Folk-Tales and Fables translated and compiled by Charles Downing (Downing 1972). The tales were illustrated by William Papas. As a scrupulous scholar Downing not only mentioned the original texts which he had used, namely the I-V and X volumes of Armenian folk tales published by the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1959-67), but also referred to the very first sources of the texts, among them the collections of Garegin Srvandstiants', Tigran Navasardiants' (Navasardyants 1882-1890), Sargis Haykuni's (Haykuni 1901), and Yeravnd Lalayan's (Lalayan 1914 -1915).
Some of Downing's texts (Badikan and Khan Boghu, for instance) were mediated renderings of Yakov Khachatriants' Russian translations. The main reason for indirect interpretation was the inaccessibility of the originals. In a number of tales, Downing has overtly interfered in the narrative, as in the case of The Tale of Ohan the Farmer's Son («OhmU nph^mp^ mq^ htp^mpp»). The scholar renamed it The Forty Thieves' Apprentice and cut the rather cruel ending out of the tale. In the Acknowledgements, concluding the volume, Downing wrote:
The translations are meant to be as close to the original Armenian as is consistent with acceptable English style. Nothing has been omitted from the tales selected, with one exception: the pogrom of the denouement of The Forty Thieves' Apprentice (p. III) has been greatly reduced in scale, for even mythical kings must not be allowed to set children too bad an example... Reciters of oral tales are apt to nod from time to time and to omit to mention important details early enough on, a harmless ellipsis in that most of their natural audience will have heard a version of the story already. The oral reciter also has the advantages proper to the spoken word, namely the ability to vary intonation, volume and speed, to pause for effect, and to illustrate his tale with eloquent physical expressions and gestures; the writer needs a few more adjectives and adverbs (Downing 1972: 217).
The most important collection of the last decade is Armenian Folk Tales: the Emerald Bird (Contes arméniens: L'Oiseau d'Emeraude) comprising tales recorded by Tigran Navasardiants and translated by the French-Armenian culturologist Leon Kétcheyan (Ketcheyan 2012).
3. Conclusion
Armenians have an old and rich folk culture. Folk tales are part of this remarkably diverse heritage. The Armenian folk tale is a unique field for translation studies. On one hand, it shares various commonalities with folk tales of other cultures, and on the other, it reveals distinct national characteristics. The translation of each particular folktale is of interest and depends on the translator's individual style and the nature of the translated text as a particular text type. In this article we have tried to look through major collections of Armenian translated tales. Both direct and mediated renderings, as well as some retellings and adaptations have been considered. The study of Armenian translated tales is important in terms of both popularizing Armenian folklore material and for making it more distinct and identifiable for folklore and fairy tale scholars.
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