Armen Zakharyan. Lecture: "30 Seconds to the Renaissance: The Last Novel of the Middle Ages" 23 September 2026

Armen Zakaryan is a philologist, educator, and the creator of the literary channel “Armen and Fyodor.” 
Today we live with the feeling that the old world is coming to an end, while the new one has not yet begun. This isn’t something unique to us; humanity has already experienced such a turning point.

So, it’s the end of the 15th century. The medieval worldview is cracking at the seams: values, rules, language—everything is changing. People felt confusion and disorientation. They were desperately searching for something to hold onto. At that moment, the imprisoned knight Thomas Malory wrote *The Death of Arthur*—the last novel of the Middle Ages.

In this lecture, we will:

• discuss the last novel of the Middle Ages
• trace the evolution of medieval literature
• take a journey from Geoffrey Chaucer and Leonardo da Vinci to the main figure of this lecture, Thomas Malory
• learn how and under what circumstances a new era was born and how this was reflected in literature

You don’t need to be familiar with the work. You don’t need to be an expert on the Middle Ages.
The lecture is structured so that everything is clear and accessible without any prior preparation.