Shadow theater is an art that is more than 1,700 years old. Although it originated in China, shadow performances were also common in India and Turkey. Armenian puppeteers also managed to adopt this art, starting to develop the Armenian tradition of shadow theater, which is still little known.
The history of the Armenian shadow puppet theater began in the 14th century. Its origins originate in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. But unlike the colorful puppet theaters of Syria, Greece, Egypt and Turkey, the puppets of the Armenian theater are simpler — they are usually made of cardboard or the skin of a donkey, horse or camel, and also painted black to create a shadow. It also gives the viewer the freedom to interpret the character’s appearance on their own.
Khachatur Tumasyan was one of the last masters of the Armenian shadow theater. In the 1830s, Tumasyan’s grandfather moved from Erzurum to southern Georgia. He passed on his knowledge of the puppet theater to his grandson, and until the 1960s Khachatur performed performances playing on his grandfather’s dolls, which are now on display in the Ethnographic Museum of Armenia.
Later, Tumasyan shared the history and features of shadow puppet theater with anthropologist Zhenya Khachatryan, who passed on this knowledge to a group of enthusiastic students led by Armen Kirakosyan. Already in 1980, after a twenty—year hiatus, Kirakosyan and his fellow students, adopting the centuries—old traditions of the Armenian puppet theater, founded the Hayruji riding club to tour Armenia and present the shadow theater, which they called Hayrogi. “Our riding club is called Airuji. “Air” means “man” and “ji” is a horse — “man and horse”. And we call our shadow theater “man and soul”, “ayr and vogi”, “Ayrogi”,” explains Kirakosyan.
The Airudzi Club still performs, preserving the tradition of the Armenian theater. While traveling on horseback, the actors stop in various Armenian towns and villages and perform equestrian performances and games, folk dances and songs, as well as show puppet shows based on fairy tales of Armenians and other peoples, as well as traditional shadow theater plots.
In Armenia, as in Turkey and Greece, the main character of shadow theaters is Karagoz, which means “black eyes”. Karagoz is a trickster character. He is an uneducated and cunning commoner and a deceiver who wears a tall hat. The second main character, Haji Ayvaz, has a more modest reputation. He is a decent, loyal and pious man who often reminds his unscrupulous comrade that his actions contradict God’s precepts. Together, Karagez and Haji Ayvaz fall into a series of comical and sometimes rude stories.
Until the 20th century, the Armenian shadow puppet theater had a ritual significance — it was not invented just for entertainment. So, in one of the plots, Karagez is caught spying on women in the bathtub and doing some other obscene things — a traditional scenario for the theater of the 19th century. For this, the hero is killed, he finds himself in the underworld, and then resurrects and becomes a shadow.
However, having lost its original ceremonial origin over time, the shadow theater became very popular in the lower strata of society. The plots have become more primitive and accessible, the vocabulary has become multilingual, the humor has become vulgar, accompanied by swear words and slang words. For this reason, only men were allowed to watch the puppet theater — the presence of women and children at the performances was extremely undesirable.
The stories of the modern shadow theater “Arogi” are intended for a wide audience. And many puppet shows are adapted for children, so obscene language and indecent plots are absent there. The modern Armenian shadow theater is based on traditional fairy tales and can be watched by both adults and children.
In 2019, the Government of the Republic of Armenia recognized the Armenian Shadow Theater as an intangible cultural heritage. It is included in the list of state-protected values, and the Government is taking all appropriate measures to preserve it.
Source: Armenian Museum of Moscow and Culture of Nations
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