The Theme of Preservation and Retreat of National Identity in the Novel

2024 vol 1

The Theme of Preservation and Retreat of National Identity in the Novel “Daughters of Memory” By Peter Najarian

Nelli Galstyan

Summary

Key words: American-Armenian novelist, national identity, retreat, existential philosophy, inner world, wall, memory of the past, individuality, rock painting, search for identity

In the article, we examined the novel “Daughters of Memory” depicting the Armenian reality by Peter Najarian, the author of many novels, short stories, and literary criticism. P. Najarian is an Armenian novelist who made a great contribution to the American prose of the 20th century.

The novel “Daughters of Memory” by the Armenian-American writer Peter Najarian is one of the best works depicting the life of Armenian Diaspora. Here the writer clearly emphasizes the “laws” of the new world, moral standards, the internal drama of the Armenian with the combination of old and new life, material and spiritual interests.

Wherever foreign Armenian writers are, they pursue the preservation of national identity and national spirit with their works, without which the Armenian in the Diaspora, lacking national subsoil under his feet, a lifestyle cultivated for centuries, a national environment, a vision of a desired homeland, is doomed to assimilation.

Najarian’s novel “Daughters of Memory” is a search for identity and an attempt to cling to it. The author of the book captured in its pages the gradual alienation from one’s national roots of an Armenian isolated in a foreign land, the retreat, the incapacity of some children of genocide witnesses to comprehend and value the past, the painful reality of not taking history lessons to heart, Americanization, the denial of national values, and the eroding of the moral image of the Armenian nation through attempts to use art as a weapon against assimilation and alienation.

The purpose of the article is to reveal and appreciate the theme of national identity with its reflections and manifestations by studying the novel “Daughters of Memory” by Peter Najarian, an Armenian-American English writer of the 20^th century.

In the novel, we examined the problems faced by the Armenian-American writer, the tireless efforts and struggles to preserve the national identity and right to live of Armenians around the world.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58726/27382915-2024.1-81

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