Original title Խենթը / Khenté Publication date 1880 Originally published 1880 Genre Novel | Media type Print | |
Similar Sparks, David Bek, Samuel, Jalaleddin, Diary of a Con Artist | ||
The Fool (Խենթը, Khenté, [χɛntʰə]) is an 1880 Armenian language novel by the novelist Raffi, one of the best-known novels of one of Armenia's most popular writers. Based on an episode from the 1877 Russo-Turkish war, the plot tells a romance set against the background of the divided Armenian nation.
The novel has been translated into English twice; by Jane S. Wingate (Boston, 1950) and Donald Abcarian (Princeton, 2000). It was translated into French as Le fou : Conséquences tragiques de la guerre russo-turque de 1877-1878 en Arménie in 2009 by Mooshegh Abrahamian.
Setting and structure
The novel is set in three districts near the border between Russia and Turkey: Bayazid (Doğubeyazıt), Alashgert (Eleşkirt), and Vagharshapat [Etchmiadzin]. The opening and concluding chapters are set in the time of the last Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), whereas the central story unfolds in an earlier period.
The novel opens with four fast-paced chapters describing the Turkish siege of Bayazid, an historic episode from the last Russo-Turkish war. After a harrowing depiction of the battle, its outcome is left in suspense as chapter five suddenly shifts the focus to an earlier time to tell the story of a peasant household in Alashgert and a romance caught in the treacherous sociopolitical crosscurrents of the late Ottoman order. The succeeding twenty-nine chapters present a rich ethnographic account of peasant life in Western Armenia, while depicting the ideological themes that dominated Armenian life at the time through a set of powerful, competing actors. With chapter thirty-four, the story line returns to the time of the Russo-Turkish War to complete the narrative with which the novel began and the story reaches its conclusion ten chapters later in Vagharshapat [Etchmiadzin].