Khachaturian’s ballet Gayane as a metaphor of happines in a semiotic perspective
By: Inna Merkouleva and Tigran Simyan
| ARTICLE INFO: Volume: 12 Issue: 01:Summer 2026 ISSN: 2459-2943 DOI: 10.18680/hss.2026.0004 Pages: 57-85 Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
KEYWORDS: Ballet Happiness Passions Inspiration Imprint Semiotic existence |
ABSTRACT
One of the most famous ballets by the Armenian and Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian is called Gayane. The ballet was composed in 1942, and its final piece, the Sabre Dance, remains one of the most recognizable works in the world musical heritage. The Sabre Dance had a significant influence on the history of 20th-century popular music, and the theme has been repeatedly used in film, television series, and figure skating. However, Khachaturian himself considered the Sabre Dance an additional element, introduced into the ballet almost after the score was completed. For the composer, the ballet’s inner message as a “path to happiness” was far more important. Since its 1943 premiere, Gayane has been successfully performed on leading stages around the world. To understand the secret of the ballet’s long-standing success, we propose examining several examples of Gayane productions from the perspective of cultural semiotics and the Greimasian and post-Greimasian semiotics. The examples are illustrated with unique archival materials from the Aram Khachaturian House Museum in Yerevan.
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