The present study examines the novella “People without Childhood” (1985) by renowned Diaspora Armenian writer, editor, and essayist Andranik Tsarukyan. His works have been translated into several languages, including French, Russian, English, Persian, and Arabic. The aim of the study is to analyze Tsarukyan’s novellas from the perspective of the manifestations of psychological trauma caused by the Genocide. The research objectives are: a) to analyze the manifestations and psychotraumatic transformations of the national orphanhood syndrome; b) to interpret escape from reality, the psychosomatics of the situation, and psychotrauma as a coded marker for ethnic identification. The study also addresses the following issues: a) body as a socio-psychological object of traumatic experience; b) fear as a causality of reducing rationality. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that Tsarukyan’s novellas are analyzed for the first time in Armenian scholarship through the lens of genocide psychotrauma.

KeywordsAndranik Tsarukyan genocide orphans orphanage psychotrauma fear ethnopsychology.