Musicologist, PhD in Arts, researcher at the Shirak Center for Armenian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of RA, Scientific Secretary of the Cen­ter. She graduated from the Komitas State Conservatory (1987). In 2005, she received her PhD. Harutyunyan has worked at the Kumayri Reserve-Muse­um in Gyumri and at Gyumri’s branch of the Komitas State Conservatory. Since 1997 she has been working at the Shirak Center for Armenian Studies. Harutyu­nyan is the author of the monograph entitled The V-XV Century Music in the Con­text of Armenian Historiography (2010) and about 50 articles.

THE ACTIVITY OF THE AŠUŁ SOCIETY IN ALEKSANDRAPOLE IN THE CONTEXT OF KOMITAS’S FUNDAMENTAL THEORY

The Ašuł society in Alexandrapol (now Gyumri) emerged and developed under the immediate effect of historical-cul­tural processes. This society carried out an important mission with the public acknowledgement it possessed. It was an embodiment of the new qualities in the Armenian national thought in all the spheres of the ašuł school: ideological, propagandistic, music-poetic, etc.
Among the songs leaning towards the Near East ašuł traditions that constituted the huge heritage of about forty ašułs, the songs based on Armenian verses display the modal, prosodic and stylis­tic features of Armenian monodic music. My paper presents the criteria in the song-creation of the ašuł society of Al­exandrapol, which are fully in line with Komitas’s fundamental principles of Ar­menian national song art.