The Documentary and Fictional Foundations of Simon Simonyan’s Novel Anzhamandros

Abstract

This article provides a general overview of Simon Simonyan’s novel Anzhamandros, aiming to explore its connection with reality and its artistic features. Although the novel remains relatively little known to contemporary Armenian readers, it clearly deserves critical attention. The study examines the key thematic questions posed in the novel, primarily through the lens of their artistic expression.

The article discusses the specific characteristics of Simonyan’s narrative technique, the principles of character and image construction, and the internal coherence of the novel’s structure. Attention is given to the multilayered nature of the narration and the author’s experimentation with different storytelling methods.

Special emphasis is placed on the novel’s structural composition as a fusion of two interwoven narratives. The analysis attempts to uncover and interpret the author’s motivations for using the “novel within a novel” technique and to examine how each narrative layer functions artistically.