O. Tumanyan’s children’s poem The Beetle School [Shkola Zhuka] as a free rendering of K. Ldov’s Master Beetle [Gospodin uchitel Zhuk]

The article offers a comparative analysis of two poems for children: H. Tumanyan’s The Beetle School [ Shkola Zhuka ] and K. Ldov’s Master Beetle [ Gospodin uchitel Zhuk ]. The study demonstrates that Tumanyan offers his own liberal retelling of the other poet’s work. The Beetle School uses the Armenian alphabet to make up a poetic narrative and interrupts itself to address the pupils. However, these reprimands do not follow Ldov’s pattern, but instead provide ironic remarks about the realia contained in the text. The scholars argue that The Beetle School reveals the heated debates that occupied Tumanyan’s mind at the time, such as his dispute with A. Arakelyan. According to the article, the attacks of the poem are levied by the beetle/teacher to the insect/students.