Why is the central figure in The Denial of Saint Peter a servant girl?
Imagine someone stops you on the street and starts insisting: “For 30 years we had seized those poor people’s lands and claimed they were ours—that’s why there was a war. But now that we’ve given their lands back and no longer say ‘they’re ours,’ now there is peace.” In short, “the voice of the people.” How would you respond? What would you do?
As I ask this, I picture Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s painting (1610). The scene is well known: a servant girl belonging to some wealthy man or high-ranking cleric asks Peter three times whether he is connected to Jesus Christ, who has already been arrested and is being interrogated. And Peter denies it all three times.
There are three figures in the painting: the Apostle Peter, the servant girl, and another man who does not explicitly appear in the Gospel narrative but likely embodies the pressure of public opinion weighing on Peter. The fact that the servant girl occupies the center of the composition is deeply meaningful. Peter is not standing before a court, yet he yields to “the people,” to the “majority.” (And, incidentally, to that “public,” both Jesus and Peter are “outsiders”: they speak with a Galilean accent, as the servant girl notes—a detail that also reflects local stereotypes.)
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The servant girl is central precisely because she represents no real power, no formal authority, no inherent threat. Peter could easily dismiss her and her questions. But the point is that human weakness—fear, denial—usually does not manifest in extreme situations, when someone is holding a knife to your throat or when there is an immediate risk of imprisonment. More often, it appears in ordinary, seemingly harmless moments.
Now back to our hypothetical example. The “voice of the people” may talk about “poor Azerbaijanis” or claim with certainty that all of Nikol Pashinyan’s opponents are “Kremlin agents.” If this happens on the street, the worst possible reaction is to start a fight. Personally, I would prefer not to engage at all; if pressed, I would simply say I do not share that view. But, unfortunately, the opposite extreme is common: people nod along even when they disagree, because they are afraid of seeming marginal, of ending up in the minority.
In today’s Armenian reality, those who see everything but do not want to oppose the real or perceived majority have a convenient—crudely speaking—“excuse”: “but the former authorities were worse.” I do not believe they truly see this as a serious argument. It is simply a way to bury one’s head in the sand—and ultimately, to deny.
…In the early 1930s, most Germans were unlikely to have been fully convinced that all their problems were caused by Jews. But millions were convinced that this is what the majority believed—and they were afraid of being seen as “sympathizers.”
…In the autumn of 1991, I interviewed presidential candidate Ashot Navasardyan. Among other things, he said he had always considered himself part of a minority that is right. In that elections he received just 0.16 percent of the vote. From my present-day perspective, I hold that 0.16 percent in high regard.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
