Ana
asked:
I just started reading this book, and I like it: the style, the story, characters. What bothers me a bit is that I cannot figure out what period of time this story is going on? when there is a war, which war? Is this in Soviet era? or is it before? can somebody answer this question please?
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Alex
The story of the village spans most of the 20th century, as it traces lives of several generations.
Maran is a fictional place, just like Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Being fictional most of the events in the book have some real background though.
When the portrait of a relative is hidden in the attic, this is a hint to the beginning of the Soviet era. Bolsheviks created Soviet republic of Armenia in 1922.
Huge earthquake might be referencing the Spitak earthquake of 1988, that took the lives of nearly 50.000 people in Armenia.
War in the book is most likely first Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1988–1994
Maran is a fictional place, just like Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Being fictional most of the events in the book have some real background though.
When the portrait of a relative is hidden in the attic, this is a hint to the beginning of the Soviet era. Bolsheviks created Soviet republic of Armenia in 1922.
Huge earthquake might be referencing the Spitak earthquake of 1988, that took the lives of nearly 50.000 people in Armenia.
War in the book is most likely first Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1988–1994
Gosia
I think that it may happen much more recently - the portrait was hidden from the bolsheviks almost a century ago, so I think it would put the end of the book somewhere around beginning of the 21st century. Also - "the war" lasted 7 years which ww2 obviously didn't. I think it could be the first war of Nagorno Karabach (so late 80s/early 90s), but I'm no expert in Armenian history. And there were at least two or three generations between bolsheviks and "the war" - which again, too early for ww2.
But I feel like in this book it really doesn't matter when and where it happens. Maran is the kind of place which is touched by cyclical disasters (including global ones) but mostly functions outside of time - could be anywhere, anytime.
But I feel like in this book it really doesn't matter when and where it happens. Maran is the kind of place which is touched by cyclical disasters (including global ones) but mostly functions outside of time - could be anywhere, anytime.
Patricia
I agree with Tony. I think it starts with the Bolsheviks (first generation), they also mention the massacre, which I think is the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman government in WWI and the war they mention (after the famine) is WWII.
They talk about different people going north and emmigrating to more prosperous places (USA between the wars, Russia, where probably Nastasya is from) etc...
If Anatolia is just under 60 when the story starts, I would say the novel ends in around the early 70s.
They talk about different people going north and emmigrating to more prosperous places (USA between the wars, Russia, where probably Nastasya is from) etc...
If Anatolia is just under 60 when the story starts, I would say the novel ends in around the early 70s.
Tony
I also struggled with situating the chronology within that of the outside world. I agree with Alex's answer that it starts around the time of the Bolsheviks, but I thought the war in question was World War II and that the story concludes somewhere in the 1950s.
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