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The Armenian WeeklySEPTEMBER 1, 2012

WWW.ARMENIANWEEKLY.COM

| T H E A R M E N I A N W E E K LY | September 1, 20122

Sebouh David Aslanian was born in Ethiopia andreceived his Ph.D. (with distinction) from ColumbiaUniversity in 2007. He holds the Richard HovannisianEndowed Chair of Modern Armenian history at thedepartment of history at UCLA. His recently publishedFrom the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The

Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) was the recipient ofthe PEN USA literary award for the most outstanding first book ofthe year from UC Press. It was also awarded the Middle East StudiesAssociations (MESA) Houshang Pourshariati Prize for best book inIranian Studies for 2011.

Artsvi Bakhchinyan works at the Institute of Historyof National Academy of Sciences. He is the authorand editor of more than ten books (mostly inArmenian), including Figures of Armenian Origin,Napoleon Bonaparte and the Armenians, Armeniansin World Cinema, and The Dancer of Shamakha: The

Life and Work of Armen Ohanian (co-authored with VartanMatiossian).

Chris Bohjalian is the author of fifteen books,including the New York Times bestsellers TheSandcastle Girls, The Night Strangers, Skeletons atthe Feast, and The Double Bind. His novel Midwiveswas a number one New York Times best-seller anda selection of Oprahs Book Club. His work has been

translated into more than 25 languages, and three of his novelshave become movies. He has written for Cosmopolitan, Reader'sDigest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Born in Montevideo (Uruguay) and long-time resi-dent of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Dr. VartanMatiossian is a historian, literary scholar, translatorand educator living in New Jersey. He has publishedsix books on Armenian history and literature. He iscurrently the executive director of the Armenian

National Education Committee in New York and book review editorof Armenian Review.

Originally from a family farm in North Dakota, KristiRendahl lived and worked in Armenia from19972002 and visits the country regularly. She workswith the Center for Victims of Torture as the organi-zational development advisor to 10 torture treatmentcenters around the world, and is pursuing a doctorate

in public administration. Rendahl resides in St. Paul, Minn.

Dr. Ara Sanjian is Associate Professor of Armenianand Middle Eastern History and the Director of theArmenian Research Center at the University ofMichigan-Dearborn. He is the author of Turkey andHer Arab Neighbors, 19531958: A Study in the Originsand Failure of the Baghdad Pact. He is currently

working on a book-length project on the Armenian quest forMountainous Karabagh under Soviet rule in 19231987.

Lilly Torosyan is studying international relationsand political science at Boston University (BU). Shelives in West Hartford, Conn. Torosyan is active inthe ACYOA and BUs Armenian Students Association(ASA). She is a staff writer at the Armenian Weekly.

2Contributors

3500 Years: A Celebration of Ink and Paper and GlueBy Chris Bohjalian

5Talk to MeBy Kristi Rendahl7 Wings on Their Feet andon their Heads: Reflections

on Port Armenians andFive Centuries of GlobalArmenian Print CultureBy Sebouh D. Aslanian

13Armenian medievalHistorians in Print:Three Centuries ofScholarship acrossThree ContinentsBy Ara Sanjian

22Celebrating 500 Yearsof Armenian PrintingBy Lilly Torosyan

24The First Historian ofArmenian PrintingBy Vartan Matiossian

25Armenian Printing inAmerica (18571912)By Teotig, Translated and Editedby Vartan Matiossian

28A World History of Armenian PrintersBy ArtsviBakhchinyan

CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

The Armenian WeeklySEPTEMBER 1, 2012

The Armenian WeeklyEditor: Khatchig MouradianCopy-editor: Nayiri ArzoumanianArt Director: Gina Poirier

September 1, 2012 | T H E A R M E N I A N W E E K LY | 3

500o one is ever going to confuse theMadenataran with the local neigh -borhood bookstore. It sits on a hill in downtown Yerevan, a massive, 122-thousand-square-foot block of

marble and basalt, its entrance shielded by statuesof Armenian mathematicians, historians, theolo-gians, and the creator of the Armenian alphabet,Saint Mesrob Mashdots. As many readers of thisnewspaper know, its impressive and regal andunlike a lot of mid-20th-century Soviet architec-tural behemothsimposing and welcoming at once.

And yet the Madenataran is filled with nothingbut books. Its Armenias Institute for AncientManuscripts, a museum of veryand I mean veryold books. When I was in Armenia in May, it was thesecond place I visited. (The first was the ArmenianGenocide Memorial, where, beside the eternalflame, I laid flowers in remembrance of our ances-tors who were killed in the genocide.) I dont readArmenian and Im certainly no scholar when itcomes to illuminated manuscripts, but even now,well into the digital age, I am still drawn to the paperbook. Conse quently, I spent an afternoon at theMadenataran peering through glass at manuscriptsand Bibles and books, some made of parchment andsome made of paper, some copied by hand, andsome printed by presses. I was dazzled.

A Celebration of Ink and Paper and Glue

N

YearsBY CHRIS BOHJALIAN

The author (L) with Prof. Levon Avdoyan in front of the Library of Congress exhibitposter (Photo by Nareg Bostanian)

This marks the 500th anniversary ofArmenian printing. The first tome? TheBook of Fridays, a prayer book printedusing red and black inks in Venice in 1512.The second book published in Armenian?The Bible. Fittingly, UNESCO has selectedYerevan its World Book Capital for this year.Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., LevonAvdoyan prepared a magnificent exhibitionof Armenian manuscripts and booksandrecord albumsat the Library of Congressto celebrate the Armenian literary tradition.The exhibit, To Know Wisdom andTradition, is a gem. I went there, too. Itruns through September 26.

The books in the Madenataran and ondisplay at the Library of Congress are eyecandy for a reader. This is true whetheryou prefer books made of pulp and ink orglue, or youve chosen instead an eReader.The reality is that anyone who loves booksunderstands that we have a profound,totemic relationship with paper: to thebook as an artifact. In the library in myhouse in which I write, there are two wallsof books. There could easily be four, butthe room is a corner that once was a livingroom, and so there are also two walls ofwindows. I can swivel in my chair andglance at the dust jacket of most of thebooks on those shelves and tell you whereI was when I first cracked the books spine.Ian McEwans Atonement is the grassbeneath a maple tree outside a health andfitness club in Middlebury, Vt., the leavesunfurling in the April sun; inside, myyoung daughter is in the midst of one ofher dance classes. Henry Roths Call it Sleepis the snack bar at Smith College, wheremy wife went to school when we weremerely boyfriend and girlfriend, and the

smell of the onions the cooks there placedon the hamburgers. And Franz Werfelsmagisterial epic The Forty Days of MusaDagh is the wood-paneled living room ofmy childhood home in Stamford, Conn.,and my dawning awareness that there wasmore to my Armenian grandparents livesas children and young adults than theyever were likely to share. Knowing of myprofound love for The Forty Days of MusaDagh and of books made of paper, theChristmas before last, my wife found mea beautiful first edition of the novel.

The truth is, a books dust jacket orspine can instantly catapult us back intime. We dont merely recall the novels plotor a snippet of dialogue: We remember whowe were, where we were, and, perhaps, thestate of our lives when we first met AtticusFinch or Daisy Buchanan or Gabriel

Bagradian. A book is likemusic in that regard: It canresurrect memories for us.

My new novel, TheSand castle Girls, is setmostly in Turkey and Syriain the midst of theArmenian Genocide in theFirst World War, but thereare a few moments inYerevan. The novel is a lovestory, but it is also the storyof our diasporawhy of the

10 million Armenians in this world, only3 million live in Armenia today.

And the physical book itselfthe paperand the ink and the clothis beautiful.Im not referring to the text or a singleword I wrote. Im talking about the design.The type. The feel. Doubleday designedand produced a physically alluring book.Raised lettering on the cover and the spine.An elegant juxtaposition of gold and black.Deckle edge pages. A cover image that iswistful and epic and, in my opinion, cap-tures perfectly the sensibility of the novel.This is my 15th book, so I can be prettyjaded when my editor sends me a new onehot off the presses. Been there, done that.

Nope. Not this time.When a copy of The Sandcastle Girls

first arrived at my house in Vermont, Ifound myself holding it in my hands andrecalling the day I had written the booksfirst sentence. And I thought of my recentvisit to the Madenataran, and the spectac-ular care that someone had put into theproduction of each and every book andmanuscript there. No one planned to coin-cide the publication of The Sandcastle Girlswith the 500th anniversary of Armenianprinting or the UNESCO selection ofYerevan as the 2012 World Book Capital.

But this novel is the most personal andthe most important book Ive written. Itsarrival this year is a great, great gift. a

4 | T H E A R M E N I A N W E E K LY | September 1, 2012

Bohjalian at the Madenataran in Yerevan (Photo by Movses Babayan)

Bohjalian and Avdoyan exchange books. (Photo by Nareg Bostanian)


There are people more

qualified than I

to write on the

momentous occasion

of the 500th

anniversary of

Armenian printing.

Nonetheless, Ive been

given the honor of

adding my two dram

to the conversation.

(As you know, they

dont even make one

dram coins, so take it

for what its worth.)

ets start by establishing one thing: Italk a lot. And I talk to a lot of people.So, it wont surprise you that when Imoved to Armenia three weeks aftercollege graduation in 1997, I wasbeyond concerned about my ability tocommunicate.

Until a month or two before I leftfor Armenia, I had been slated for Alba-nia. The Albanian language uses theLatin alphabet, which makes it moreaccessible than, say, Armenian. At leastfor the ignorant lass that I was at thetime, and quite possibly still am. As

such, Id learned useful words likemirupafshim (goodbye) in Albanian,which, incidentally, is the only word Ican recall from my self-study.

The Peace Corps called one day,though, to say that I would not be goingto Albania after all, due to instability inL

TalktoMe

BY KRISTI RENDAHL

WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?


the country. So much for the chest thump-ing Id done in front of my father: I will gountil they tell me I cannot! Well, they toldme I cannot.

Id lost my verve for advance prepara-tion, having done so in vain once already.Also, I was terrified of the Armenian lan-guage. The Armenian-English/English-Armenian dictionary I special-orderedthrough a bookstore in Fargo, N.D. didnothing to ease my mind. The wordsappeared to be constructed entirely fromletters that resembled m, n, and u. How inGods name would I learn this?

My dad advised me to first learn thephrase Im much funnier in my own lan-guage. Instead, I learned the word forbathroom. Im still not sure if I made theright choice.

In high school, Id taken two years ofSpanish. In college, I took another semes-ter of Spanish, and a semester of, youguessed it, Norwegian. Neither one spoketo me in a meaningful way at the time.There was no urgency for me to learneither, though I certainly could have cre-ated some of my own.

My entre to Armenian was somethingaltogether different. My host family spokenary a word of English, save for a lullabythat is useful only in very specific, and obvi-ous, settings. And, I lived in a village.Classes were four hours a day and four daysa week, and that was a good start. The realwork came when I got back home, wheremy host family had infinite patience to talkwith and at me.

If it werent for my young host brothers,Id still be differentiating consonants in theArmenian alphabet. If it werent for a PeaceCorps colleague, Id still be learning thealphabet. This is the colleague who taughtme the beauty of mnemonic devices. Thanksto him, I saw the letter m () as a mudshovel and the letter n () as capable ofholding a nut to the left.

This wasnt high level linguistics; thiswas survival.

REWIND 15 YEARS

F ive hundred years is a lot to celebrate.Im just celebrating what 15 years ofprogress can provide.

When I arrived, e-mail was still in itsinfancy stage. I hadan e-mail address incollege, and my sec-ond was with theAmerican University ofArmenia. At that time,there were no cell phones, let alone Skype,which even my taxi driver from today useson a regular basis.

In fact, when I lived in the Loriprovince in the north of the country, Iwalked down the mountain vil-lage road about a mile tomake $1 per minute callsto the U.S. from a call cen-ter, where everyone lis-tened (or tried to listen) toevery word spoken. Moreoften than not, once Id reachthe building, Id be told, Gits chka (Thereare no lines).

Today, I dont need to tell youyou whoare quite likely to be reading this onlinethat the world is a different place. I sendPDF documents in Armenian to my Kindle,which holds hundreds upon hundreds ofbooks without changing in weight. Ilearned recently that a new Armenian fontwas created for official documents. I readFacebook status messages and commentsin Armenian to keep up with peoples viewson the latest topics of conversation. And,when in a pinch, I use Google translate todecipher a complicated sentence.

Mashdots would not believe his eyes.

MODERN-DAY WORD ADVICE

People ask me how I learned Armen-ian, and occasionally they ask foradvice. My stock advice is: 1) makea decision to learn it, 2) get a tutor, and 3)forget about shame. These three things, ifsincerely attempted, will get you whereyou want to go. In the meantime, tuckthese bits of unsolicited advice in yourback pocket.

Amot and absosthe words for shameand its a pitywill take you a long waysin this country. As with most things, timingis important, but usage is more important.Both, as it happens, can be used in serious

situations, or asjokes. Ill leave itto you to find theappropriate tonefor each.

Lav eli is aphrase unique to

Armenians who live in thepresent-day boundaries of Arme-nia. Its as if to say, Cmon,

man!or Alright already! If some-one is piling food on your plate, you

might try this. If they are talking yourear off and you want them to stop, shoutit out and walk away. If someone budges

in front of you in line, mutter it withintention.

The word esa is tricky to translate.When youre waiting for something to

happen or someone to arrive, you willoften hear Esa klini or Esa kga. Theimplication is that it will happen soon ors/he will come soon, but the reality is thatit is not time-bound in any way. If someonesays this to you, treat it with a healthy doseof suspicion before you find yourself wait-ing for a bus under the direct sun for twohours. Sure, it might come soon, but youalso might be better off catching a cab.

Its useful to have a line of poetry onthe tip of your tongue. One such useful linecomes from the great Armenian poetParuyr Sevak: Menk kich enk, bayts mezhay en asum (We are few, but we areArmenians). Not sure what to say in a toast?Unsure of the direction the conversationis taking? Try this line. You wont be sorry.

LANGUAGE IN ITS ENTIRETY

Ibegan by stating the fact that there areothers who can speak to the nobleaspects of the printing that has given usthe Bible, the works of Sevak and Naregatsi,and the books that provide witness to theArmenian Genocide.

What is within my scope of knowledgeand ability, though, is something moremodest. My abilities lie in words, writtenand spoken, that help a person understandand enjoy exactly where they are. And, ifyou should find yourself here, Armenia isa wonderful place to be.

Lav eli, yegek! a

Five hundred years

is a lot to celebrate.

Im just celebrating what

15 years of progress

can provide.

From its origins in Venice in 1512,the history of early modern(15001800) Armenian print culturewas closely entangled with that ofport cities, initially in Europe andsubsequently in Asia. In fact, virtu-ally every Armenian printing pressbefore 1800 was established eitherin or close to port cities, and the few

that were not owed their existence to on-going relations with portlocations. Yet, despite the obvious relationship between ports andprinters, their synergetic relationship has thus far largely eludedscholarly attention. As Armenians across the world celebrate thequincentenary of Hakob Meghaparts printing of the first Armenianbook in Venice, it will be useful for us to pause and reflect on theintimate relationship between port cities and printers in the richhistory of Armenian print culture and the history of the early modernArmenian book referred to in Armenian scholarship as hnatib girke.In the process, it will also be important to meditate on the connect-ing link or hinge between ports and printers, namely what I willcall, following the tradition of scholars of Sephardic Jewish history,the figure of the port Armenian.

An Aquacentric View of Early Modern Armenian History1

Armenian historiography and especially Armenian historicalmemory seem to be fixated on the figure of the Armenian asrooted in his or her ancestral homeland. Land, for good or forill, has been taken as the ideal and often only matrix for Armenianhistory. While there are good reasons for this unexamined assumption

in Armenian historical writing (Armenias mostly landlocked geographical terrain and the historical bond between statehood andterritorial sovereignty not being the least of which) this terracentricview of Armenian history does not correspond to some basic realitiesof the Armenian past, especially during the crucial years between1500 and 1800 C.E., that I have come to label as the early modernperiod in Armenian history.2 During this period, arguably the mostmomentous changes in Armenian history, including but not limitedto Armenians early openness to and adoption of print technology,did not take place on the rugged terrain of the Armenian plateau,where perpetual wars between the two gunpowder empires of theOttomans and Safavids had destroyed much of the regions popula-tions and local economies. Rather they unfolded across the slippery


and on their HeadsWings on their Feet

DR. SEBOUH D. ASLANIAN, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, UCLA

Reflections on Port Armenians and Five Centuries of Global Armenian Print Culture

surface of the worlds major bodies of water and through the portcities dotting their shorelines. More particularly, the pulsating centerof Armenian history during the early modern period and beyondseems to have shifted almost entirely to the port cities of the IndianOcean rim and, to a lesser degree, the Mediterranean basin. Considerfor instance the location of the first Armenian printing press in Venicein 1512 followed by a string of presses operating from the Most Serenerepublic (La Serenissima) for several centuries and the establishmentof the Mkhitarist Congregation of eruditeCatholic Armenian monks, a little over twocenturies after Hakob Meghaparts press, inSan Lazarro in the Venetian lagoon. It wouldbe almost impossible for us today to imaginewhat is often called the Armenian renais-sance without the erudite monks who fol-lowed in the footsteps of the Congregations founder, Abbot Mkhitar,not to mention the printing press that enabled these monks to pre-serve, classify, and in fact give form to the canon of Armenian litera-ture. The same can be said of the Indian Ocean basin and itsarchipelago of port cities such as Surat, Madras, and Calcutta, toname a few, where the bulk of and certainly the wealthiest amongport Armenians lived. What would the history of Armenian journalismbe without Azdarar, published for two consecutive years byHaroutiwn Shmavonian in Madras from the 1794 to 1796? What ofArmenian political thought and modern constitutional thinking with-out Shahamir Shahamirians Girk anuaneal vorogayt parats [Bookcalled Snare of Glory], the first republican constitution of a futurestate of Armenia that saw the light of day not in Armenia but Madrasaround 1787? The same may be said of the first printed Armenianplay in the world (The Physiognomist of Duplicity, Calcutta, 1823)and arguably the first novel in vernacular Armenian (MesrobTaghiatiantss Vep Varsenkan, 1847). All of these achievements sharedthree things in common. First, their existence was made possible bythe modern technology of the printing press and its mechanical(re)production of books through movable metal type. True, we shouldwithstand the temptation to exaggerate the revolutionary nature ofthe shift from manuscript to print and the latters impact on Armeniansocieties across the world as has sometimes been done by those whosee print technology as causing a communications revolution.However, the recent push back to represent the appearance of theprinted codex as a blip or hiccup3 of continuity in the longue dureof the history of the book should also be avoided.4 Second, they alloccurred either in or near port cities or were facilitated by maritimeconnections to such cities. The third commonality among theseaccomplishments is that their very existence was predicated on thesupport, both intellectual and financial, of port Armenians.5 Whoor what were these port Armenians and how did they differ from therun-of-the-mill Armenians who did not live in or near port cities? Arethere any attributes that distinguished them, and if so what are they?

First, unlike their agrarian counterparts, who for the most partlived far away from the great shorelines of the world and eked outa living by tilling the land as peasants or as small-time local mer-chants and artisans, port Armenians were predominantly if notalmost exclusively long-distance merchants whose livelihood and

identity were largely shaped by their relationship to the sea. Theymade a living as long-distance merchants involved in the globaltrade of silk, spices, South Asian textiles, and precious stones.Constantly in motion across bodies of water to conduct what worldhistorians call cross-cultural trade, port Armenians, as their nameimplies, resided for the most part in great port cities of their agesuch as Amsterdam, Venice, Marseille, Saint Petersburg, Astrakhan,Madras, and Calcuttaall locations for Armenian printing presses.

Second, as long-distance merchants betrothed to the sea and itsmany ports, port Armenians, like their Sephardic counterparts inJewish history, embodied many of the traits associated with Mercurius,the Roman god of merchants, often portrayed with wings on his feetand head.6 Mercuriuss winged sandals and winged hat have cometo symbolize the principal attributes of the port Jew according tohistorians Lois Dubin and David Sorkin who coined the concept ofport Jew a little over a decade ago to distinguish mostly SephardicJews engaged in long-distance maritime trade from their counterpartsworking in European courts, often known as court Jews. The sym-bolism of Mercuriuss winged nature was not lost on Dubin and Sorkin,both of whom identified it with movement and flight, attributes theyfound present in the figure of the port Jew. The latter, because of his


From Khwaja NahapetGulnazar Aguletsi,Parzabanutiwn hogenuagSaghmosatsn DavtiMargareein (Venice,1687), 23.

association with port cities and long-distance commerce, was a quin-tessential border-crosser who moved swiftly through and acrossdiverse cultural zones and was no less swift, adventurous, and cos-mopolitan in the flights of his imagination and thoughts. The rela-tionship with commerce on the seas for the port Jew and, as we shallsee, for the port Armenian is therefore an integral part of his identityas a social type. Generally speaking, individuals whose location andvocation are in ports are more likely to be open to the world around

them, probably more likely to experiment with the cultural practicesthey encounter among the peoples with whom they come into con-tact, and thus are likely to have cultural identities that are hybrid andenriched through sustained contact and intermingling with othersfrom across the oceans. Also, largely as a function of their locationin port cities, themselves some of the greatest hubs of informationin the globally connected world that came to take shape during theearly modern period, port Armenians were exposed to a greater vol-ume and more diverse varieties of information than their land-lockedcounterparts. This meant that new technologies such as the printingpress or inventions associated with it, such as novel papermakingtechniques and so on, would be more easily accessible to portArmenians than their landlubbing counterparts.

Third, with the exception of a small minority from the mer-cantile town of Agulis in the Caucasus,7 the overwhelming majorityof these port Armenians traced their ancestry to the township ofNew Julfa, the prosperous suburb of the Iranian Safavid imperialcapital of Isfahan where their forebears were relocated by ShahAbbas I in 16041605 in the course of the Ottoman-Safavid wars.8

Their original homeland, the town of Old Julfa in what is today theAzerbaijani exclave of Nakhijevan, was probably the last place inthe world to be associated with oceans and seas. Its land-lockedposition and inhospitable environment were traits that had caughtthe attention of more than one European traveler who passedthrough the town before its destruction in the early years of theseventeenth century. The French traveler and writer Jean Chardin,for instance, remarked that it is not possible to find another townsituated in a place that is more dry and more rocky.9 It was ShahAbbas Is razing of the town to the ground and the brutal relocationof its mercantile denizens to his newly-built capital of Isfahan thataltered the future trajectory of Armenian history. The Shahs grantingof a royal protection and quasi monopoly of the Crowns silk tradeto the Julfans (1619) and subsequent unlocking of the gates of theIndian Ocean in 1622, when the fort of Hormuz at the mouth ofthe Persian Gulf fell from Portuguese to Iranian control, prizedopen the wide watery world of the Indian Ocean to merchants fromNew Julfa and helped transform the Julfans into port Armenians.Like some of their counterparts who had settled or were in theprocess of settling in the port cities of the Mediterranean world(Venice, Livorno, Marseille, Smyrna/Izmir, and Constantinople/Istanbul as well as on the Atlantic seaboard in Amsterdam), theydid not take long to establish mercantile communities in most ofthe oceans important port cities. Most settled in port cities underthe rule of the English East India Company such as Madras,Calcutta, and Bombay, followed by Singapore and Dutch-controlledBatavia in the nineteenth century; others resided in French andPortuguese outposts, such as Pondicherry in Southern India andMacao/Canton in China whence they plied a lucrative trade withManila exchanging Indian textiles and spices as well as Chineseporcelain and silk for New World silver that arrived each year fromAcapulco on Spanish convoys known as the Manila Galleon. Butwhat could these port Armenians have to do with the history ofthe Armenian book and the printing press, which after all wasalmost entirely confined to its European cradle from 1512 to thelate 1600s when it began to gravitate slowly to the East? This bringsus to the fourth and final attribute of port Armenians, their activepatronage of the arts and culture in general and of the new craftof printing in particular.

The PPP Link: Port Armenians, Ports, and Printers

The bonds that connected ports and port Armenians to printersacross the oceans and occasionally over land were complex.First and foremost, the location of the printing establishmentwas crucial. Most Armenian printers in the early modern period,with a few exceptions, were members of the literati belonging to theclerical hierarchy of the Armenian Church. They usually set up theirpresses in the port cities in Europe that already had a substantial


presence of port Armenians with ties to New Julfa. The port city loca-tion was preferred for several reasons. For reasons alluded to aboveport cities were the most dynamic nodes of the world economy dur-ing the early modern period and therefore leading loci of techno-logical innovation. As far as printers were concerned, port citiesoffered access to paper manufacturers, font casters, engravers, aswell as compositors and press operators. In addition, the fact thatthey usually contained a substantial presence of port Armenianswilling to patronize and shore up new printing presses meant thatArmenian port settlements already came equipped with a diasporiccommunity infrastructure including churches and other communityinstitutions. Most important perhaps, port cities afforded printerswith relatively cheap and efficient access to transportation. In anage when transportation by water was almost always cheaper, safer,and faster than its overland counterpart, location in a port city meantthat a printer could load his newly printed commodity (books) andhave it shipped to the nearest markets of consumption. In the eigh-teenth century, the major reading market for Armenian books wasConstantinople/Istanbul, home to the largest urban population ofArmenians. The citys close to 80,000 Armenians by the second halfof the eighteenth century was the prized destination for printedArmenian books that were shipped there either directly to its bustlingport with its minaret-studded skyline or by caravan routes once thebooks were unloaded in the port of Smyrna/Istanbul in the south.10

A few examples of Armenian port city presses will suffice to clarifywhat has been said thus far.

Amsterdam, where an Armenian press was installed in 1660,and where Armenian printers were active until the second decadeof the eighteenth century, was an important Armenian port citywith a significant presence of Julfan merchants and two successivechurches: Surb Karapet in 1663/64 followed by Surb Hogi in 1713.11

In the second half of the seventeenth century, the city had clearlytaken the lead as the most dynamic printing center in the worldwith over forty printing houses publishing in multiple languages,including Armenian and Hebrew. Partly as a result of this reputation,it attracted Armenian printers beginning with the most famous ofthem, Oskan Yerevantsi (originally from New Julfa) who, with theactive financial support of several Julfan merchants in Livorno,printed the first Armenian bible in Amsterdam in 1666.12 AfterYerevantsi moved to Livorno and Marseille with his press, his placewas eventually filled by members of the illustrious family of savantsand printers, the Vanandetsis from the region of Ghoghtn inNakhijevan, who actively published first-rate books from their set-tlement in the Dutch capital from 1694 to 1717, when their presswas shut down due to financial troubles.13 As Rene Bekius haspointed out in an insightful essay, another reason for Amsterdamslure was its reputation for being a haven for persecuted minoritiessuch as Sephardic Jews expelled from Iberian Peninsula andHuguenots from France as well as Armenian printers keen to avoidthe tentacular reach of the censors of the Propaganda Fide, anorganization founded by the Catholic Church in 1622 to spreadChristianity in new areas and to combat the effects of the refor-mation and presence of what it regarded as heresy.14 In additionto having lax censorship laws and being relatively free of censors

and spies from Rome, Amsterdam with its famous stock exchangealso boasted an information and transportation network secondto none, as well as paper mills producing cheaper and better qualitypaper due to a new innovation in production techniques.15 Thesame was true of Marseille (1670s), Livorno (1640s), Venice(15121513, 15645, 1586, 1660s to the present), Constantinople(1567, 1660s and from 1701 to the present), Saint Petersburg (1781),Astrakhan (1796), and especially Madras (1772) and Calcutta(1796). All these locations were port cities with impressive com-munities of port Armenians. They were also connected to eachother and to New Julfa through networks of circulation throughwhich capital, commodities, printers, and merchants as well asprinted books, ideas, and new technologies circulated. The estab-lishment of a press in New Julfa as early as 1638 was in many waysan exception to the port city-printers pattern discussed above.16

However, this press could have hardly existed without the financialand technical support offered to it by the townships famous mer-chants residing abroad in one of their many port city settlementsfrom Venice to Madras. For instance, when in 1686 the townshipsclerical hierarchy decided to reopen the press that had been shutdown following an uprising in the 1640s of the suburbs scribes, ifthe French Huguenot traveler, Jean Baptist Taverniers account isto be trusted, the primate of the time wrote a letter (stored at theArchivio di Stato di Firenze) to the most notable Julfan merchantsresiding in Venice asking them for assistance with the purchase oftechnical equipment (including new fonts and types).17

In addition to providing Armenian printers with an institutionalor community infrastructure, port Armenians provided the capitalinvestments necessary to shore up the printing activities of theclerical elite. They did this in several ways. They were directlyinvolved in partnerships with printer-priests as a form of what hascome to be known as print Capitalism.18 An example of this isthe partnership contract that a Julfan merchant named Paolo Alexan(Poghos ordi Aleksani?) had entered with two Armenian priests(Oannes de Ougorlou and Matheus di Hovhannes) who ran animportant press in Amsterdam from 1685 to the mid-1690s. Afterprinting 8,300 copies of Armenians books, many of them destinedfor Smyrna to be sold there and, one would assume, inConstantinople, the partners had had a falling out and took theirdispute to a notary public. 19 However, business partnershipsbetween port Armenians and printers based exclusively on theprofit motive were the exception in the history of the Armenianbook, unlike its European counterpart where printing was from itsorigins a model of a capitalist enterprise.20 The small size of theArmenian reading market, itself a function of low population num-bers and even lower literacy rates, was probably the main reasonwhy the profession of the printer was not a profitable one.Merchants were thus quick to realize that printing for capitalistmotives was not a paying proposition and began supporting print-ing presses not necessarily with the intention of engaging in a cap-italist enterprise but rather as a form of cultural patronage for bothChurch and nation. They could have done this for reasons thatwe would today call prestige power or the vanity of having thenames of their family members immortalized in the colophons of


the books published through their benevolence. The case of SimeonYerevantsis press in Ejmiatsinthe first printing press in the homelandas far away from a port city as one could imagineisan example of the latter. Established in 1772, this press was entirelypaid for by a port Armenian residing in Madras known as GrigorAgha Chekigents (alias Mikael Khojajanian), who donated 18,000rupees to the Catholicosate to help buy the appropriate materialfor casting of types and evenfor the establishment of apaper mill in 1775 on thegrounds of the Catholicosate.21

Thus when technical specialistscould not be procured in situ,a port Armenian in Madrasmade sure not only to raise therequired capital but also to relyon his local connections inIndia and dispatch to theCatholicos French technicalspecialists from the port settle-ment of Pondicherry to helpthe monks in their enterpriseof printing. Sometimes bothactivities (cultural patronageand entrepreneurial invest-ment) were combined, as wasthe case with Oskan Yerevantsispress in Amsterdam, which wasbought with the capital invest-ment of Oskans brother, AvetisGhlijents, a merchant fromNew Julfa. This press was laterdonated by Oskan to Ejmiatsinunder whose name it functioned during its various peregrinationsfrom Amsterdam to Marseille and thence to Constantinople.Merchants also stepped in to support Armenian printers throughdirectly commissioning important works for publication.

The publication of several trade and language manuals useful tomerchants, such as the celebrated Gants chapoy kshroy twoy ewdramits bolor ashkhari [A treasury of measures, numbers, and moneysof the entire world (Amsterdam, 1699) and the first Armenian bookin the vernacular, Arhest Hamaroghutean, amboghj ev katareal [Theart of arithmetic, complete and perfect] (Marseille, 1675), are examplesof such mercantile patronage of Armenian books. The same can besaid for works of translation from foreign languages, such as CharlesRollins Histoire Romaine [Patmutiwn hrovmeakan] and WilliamRobertsons multi-volume History of America [VipasanutiwnAmerikoy], both commissioned by Julfan merchants from Madrasand printed or published by Mkhitarists in Venice and Trieste,22 respec-tively. In a few cases, merchants carried out the translations themselvesand paid for the publication of their own works such as MarcaraShahrimanians translation of Petis de la Croixs Histoire du GrandGenghizcan, [Patmutiwn Metsin Gengizkhani arajin kayser nakhnimghulats ev tatarats, bazhaneal i chors girs] (Trieste, 1788).

In addition to patronizing the printing activities of priests, didport Armenians also own and operate their own printing presses? Asmentioned above, the miniscule size of the Armenian reading publicand the low levels of literacy made print capitalism unfeasible forport Armenians and the few cases of merchant printers were few andfar in between.23 In the seventeenth century, Armenian merchantsoperated at least two Armenian presses in Venice: Gaspar

Shahrimanians press of 1687 and thepress of Khwaja Nahapet GulnazarAguletsi, which published thePsalms of David, the second of onlythree printed Armenian books in thevernacular during the seventeenthcentury.24 In the eighteenth century,it became more common perhaps to

find port Armenians who were also owners of their ownprinting presses. The most celebrated case of this wasthe merchant prince Shahamir Shahamirian, who estab-lished in Madras in 1772 the first Armenian printing pressin India and printed a number of trailblazing booksincluding in 178789 Girk anuaneal vorogayt Parats(Book called Snare of Glory), the republican proto-con-stitution for a future republic of Armenia.25 Later thissame press appears to have been used to print the firstArmenian newspaper in the world, Azdarar (17941796).The press of Grigor Khojamal Khaldarian, a Julfan fromIndia who had traveled to and resided in London in the1770s26 and later opened Russias first Armenian printingpress in the port city of Saint Petersburg in 1781 is anothercase in point. It is interesting to note that the first pub-lished work by an Armenian woman, Kleopatra SarafiansBanali Gitutean (Key of knowledge) saw the light of dayon Khaldarians press in 1788.27

As Armenians across the world celebrate an important milestonein Armenian history, we need to remember that many importantaspects of the history of the Armenian book remain to be properlyscrutinized and studied. What I have sketched above in an impres-sionistic way is only the maritime and mercantile underpinningsof Armenian print culture. Other scholars before me have touchedupon this in more or less fruitful ways but never systematically.There are entire areas of the history of the Armenian book thatremain not only untouched but whose very existence has not evenbeen properly acknowledged and therefore examined. Importantquestions such as how does the study of the printed book in itsmultifaceted dimensionfrom its production site in port cities orelsewhere to its destination into the hands of readerscontributeto our understanding of the mentalit of any given society? In otherwords, how do books begin to transform the mental universe ofordinary readers once they are released into a network of circulation?Who were the principal readers among the early modern Armenians,what was the literacy rate, and how does one even begin to measureit? In addition, the history of reading or who read what, how, andwhere is a topic that has occupied center stage in the discipline ofthe history of the book in Europe and North America but remains


Portrait of MarcaraShahrimanian, fromPatmutiwn MetsinGengizkhani arajinkayser nakhni mghulatsev tatarats,bazhaneal i chors girs (Trieste,1788).

terra incognita in the scholarship on the Armenian book.28 As theworldwide celebrations of the quincentenary continue and exhibitsand conferences are convened, one hopes that scholars of theArmenian past will pause, take critical stock of what their prede-cessors accomplished, and while grateful for standing tall on theirshoulders will forge ahead to pose new and imaginative questionsof their own. As every good historian knows, the ability to pose theright kinds of questions to the evidence one has at ones disposalis among the most important skills that members of the historianstribe cherish. One can only wish that in the wake of the quincen-tenary celebrations new and theoretically vigorous studies willbloom in the study of the printed Armenian book. If we are fortunate,this crop will be conceptually informed by the most recentEuroamerican scholarship in the tradition of the post-AnnalesLhistoire du Livre while simultaneously being archivally groundedin notarial and other documents. A hundred years ago at the lastcentenary as Armenians in Istanbul, Tiflis, and other locations pre-pared to celebrate the accomplishments of Hakob Meghapart inthe port city of Venice, they inspired a new generation of scholarsof the book, including Teotik, and the formidable Leo (ArakelBabakhanian)29 to blaze new paths of scholarship that supersededthe work of Garegin Zharbanalian30 and others in the generationbefore them. May the same happen with this centenary. a

ENDNOTES

1. My thoughts in this section of the paper were first inspired by my reading of JerryBentleys Sea and Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Historical Analysis, GeographicalReview, Vol. 89, No. 2, Oceans Connect (Apr., 1999), pp. 215224; and KrenWigen,AHR Forum: Oceans of History, Introduction, American Historical Review,(June 2006): 717721.

2. See Sebouh D. Aslanian, Silver, Missionaries, and Print: A Global Microhistory ofEarly modern Armenian Networks of Circulation and the Armenian Translationof Charles Rollins Histoire Romaine, unpublished paper, 2009; idem, Port Citiesand Printers: Reflections on Five Centuries of Armenian Print Culture and BookHistory, (unpublished paper).

3 Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 316. I have elaborated at lengthon the issue of continuity versus rupture in my Port Cities and Printers: Reflectionson Five Centuries of Armenian Print Culture and Book History.

4. Thus Robert Gross writes: The current consensus, neatly summarized by theFrench historian Roger Chartier, is that the change from the manuscript to theprinted book was no big deal. In its physical design, the newcomer kept the oldways. It employed devices developed in monastic scriptoria to order the text: sig-natures, page numbers, columns and lines, ornaments, alphabetical tables, sys-tematic in dexes. It inherited a hierarchy of sizes, from the learned folio to thehuman ist quarto down to the bedside libellus. And it called upon methods of silentreading of long standing in medieval universities and popularized among aris -tocratic laymen in the fifteenth century. The printing press thus depended on,rather than altered, the fundamental form of the book. (Emphasis added) RobertA. Gross, Communications Revolutions: Writing a History of the Book for anElectronic Age, Rare Books and Manuscript Librarianship, 13 (1998) 15.

5. My thoughts on Port Armenians have been influenced by the work of Lois Dubinand David Sorkin in Jewish Studies. See David Sorkin, The Port Jew: Notes Towarda Social Type, Journal of Jewish Studies (Cambridge, England) 50 (Spring 1999):8797 and Lois Dubin, Wings on their feet and wings on their head: Reflectionson the Study of Port Jews, in David Cesarani/ Gemma Romaine, eds., Jews andPort Cities, 15901990: Commerce, Community, and Cosmopolitanism (London:Vallentine Mitchell, 2006),1430

6. See Dubin, Wings on their Feet, 1416.7. Armenian merchants from Agulis were particularly active alongside Julfans in

Mediterranean port cities such as Venice, Livorno, and Marseille. 8. For information on Julfa and its merchants, see Sebouh David Aslanian, From the

Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchantsfrom New Julfa, Isfahan, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011).

9. Jean Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, et autres lieux de lOrient. Ed.L. langles. 10 vols. Paris: Le Normant, Imprimeur-Libraire, 1811, 2: 304.

10. For a smart discussion, see the following works by Raymond H. Kvorkian,Catalogue des incunables armniens (15111965) ou chronique de limprimeriearmnienne. (Geneva: Patrick Cramer, 1986); idem., Livres imprim et cultureecrite dans lArmnie des XVI et XVII sicles, Revue des etudes armniennes (1982),idem., Les imprimes armniens des XVIe et XVIIe siecles (Paris, 1987); idem., Lesimprimes armniens 17011850 (Paris, 1989).

11. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, 7980. 12. For the involvement of three Julfan merchants in the printing Yerevantsis Bible,

see Karapet Amatuni, Oskan Vrd. Erevantsi ev ir Zhamanak : lusavor ej m Zh daruyekeghetsakan Patmutene-n [Oskan Vardapet Yerevantsi and his Time: A LuminousPage from the History of 17th century Ecclesiastical History], (Venice: San Lazzaro,1975), 150152, and Alessandro Orengo, Ov Dateos dow Elkeli: Le Disavvenure diun Mercante Armeno Nella Livorno del XVII Secolo, [Ov Dateos dow Elkeli: TheMisadventures of an Armenian Merchant in XVII century Livorno] Gli Armeni LungoLe Strade dItalia, (Livorno, 1998), 5568.

13. Sarukhan, Arakel, Holandan ew Hayer [Holland and the Armenians] (Vienna:Mkhitarist Press, 1925); Mesrop Gregorian, Nor Niwter ew DitoghutiwnnerHratarakich Vanantetswoh Masin [New Materials and Observations on theVanantetsi Family of Publishers] (Vienna: Mkhitarist Press, 1966); and SahakChemchemian, Hay Tpagrutiwn ew Hrom (ZhE. dar) [Armenian Printing andRome in the Seventeenth Century]. (Venice: San Lazzaro, 1989)

14. Ren Bekius, Polyglot Amsterdam printing presses: a comparison betweenArmenian and Jewish printers, (unpublished paper).

15. See Bekius and also the excellent overview in Melin Pehlivanian, Mesrops Heirs:The Early Armenian Book Printers, Middle Eastern Languages and the PrintRevolution: A Cross-cultural Encounter, eds. E.Hanebutt-Benz, D. Glass, G. Roper.Westhofen, WVA-Verlag Skulima, 2002, pp. 5392.

16. The press in Lvov established in 1616 was also an exception to the port city patternbut it too was paid for by the towns Armenian merchants some of whom hadmaritime connections in the Black and Mediterranean Seas.

17. The document is a letter written by Primate Stepanos Jughayetsi in New Julfa andaddressed to the pious and Christ-loving Julfan Merchants residing in the city ofVenice, dated September 27, 1686, New Julfa, Isfahan. See Archivio di Stato diFirenze, Acquisti e doni busta123, nn. 777. I thank my friend Meroujan Karapetyanfor placing this document at my disposal.

18. For this well-known concept, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd and revised edition(London: Verso, 1991).

19. See Sarukhan, Hollandan ew Hayere, 102103 for the translation of a notarial doc-ument where the dispute between the involved parties is discussed, and Gregorian,Nor Niwter ew Ditoghutiwnner, 4850 for a brief discussion.

20. Anderson, Imagined Communities, and Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin,The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 14501800, English translation(London: Verso, 1976). This classic was originally published in French as LAparitiondu Livre (Paris, 1958).

21. For the Catholicosates first printing press, see Sebouh Aslanian, Dispersion Historyand the Polycentric Nation: The Role of Simeon Yerevantsis Girk or Kochi Partavjarin the Eighteenth Century Armenian National Revival, (Venice: Bibliotheque dar-menologie Bazmavep, 39, 2004), 3031.

22. The Trieste branch of the Mkhitarists was established in 1773 by Minas Gasparianand Astuatsatur Babikian (scion of a wealthy family from New Julfa) who were exiledfrom the mother convent in San Lazzaro following a violent quarrel with the thenreigning Abbot, Stepanos Melklonian. The Trieste branch was relocated to Vienna,where it continues to exist, in 1811. See Aslanian Silver, Missionaries, and Print fora detailed account of their separation from San Lazzaro.

23. I thank Meroujan Karapetyan for discussions on this matter.24. See Pehlivanian, Mesrops Heirs, 62 and Jean-Pierre Mah, The Spirit of Early

Armenian Printing: Development, Evolution, and Cultural Integration, Cataloguedes incunables armniens (1511/1695), ou, Chronique de limprimerie armnienne,Raymond Kvorkian. (Genve: P. Cramer, 1986), xvi.

25. See Aslanian, Dispersion History and Silver, Missionaries, and Print for fullerdiscussion of these works.

26. For Khaldarians stay in London, see Willem G. Kuiters, The British in Bengal, 17561773: A Society in Transition Seen through the Biography of a Rebel, William Bolts(17391808). (Paris: Indes savants, 2002)

27. Pehlivanian, Mesrops Heirs, 75.28. For an exploratory foray into this terrain, see Aslanian, A Reader Responds to

Joseph Emins Life and Adventures: Notes Towards a History of Reading in LateEighteenth Century Madras. Handes Amsorya, (Vienna, Yerevan: 2012) 9-65.

29. Teotik, Tip u Tar (Type and Font) (Istanbul, 1913); Leo [Arakel Babakhanian], Haykakan tpagrutyun [Armenian Printing] 2 vols. (Tiflis, 1901)

30. Patmutiwn Hay Tpagrutean [History of Armenian Printing] (Venice: San Lazzaro,1895).


Hakob Meghaparts pioneeringeffort exactly five centuries agothis year has made it inconceiv-able ever since to analyze and

evaluate the worldwide dissemination ofArmenian culture bypassing the mediumof printingboth books and periodicals.For a people with a long diasporic traditionand, until 1918, without a state of their own,printing technology made it easier forArmenian authors and their readers toestablish and maintain their own worldwidenetwork of printing, distribution, reading and exchanging ideas.This study focuses on one particular facet of the history ofArmenian printing: the editing and publication of the works ofArmenian medieval historians who lived in the 5th18th centuries.It analyzes the patterns of publication of both their original texts,

written overwhelmingly in ClassicalArmenian (grabar), and their more recenttranslations into both the Eastern andWestern branches of the modern Armenianliterary language (ashkharhabar).2 It thusprovides one important indicator to howthe locus of Armenian Studies researchactivities shifted across a number of citiesand institutions situated on three conti-nents over the last 300 years. At the sametime, it will be this authors humble tributeto all the prominent scholars whose effortsmade medieval Armenian histories acces-sible to their peers and lay readers inter-ested in the Armenian past.

This article covers the works of those37 Armenian authors, who were treated in a separate chapter each in Levon

Hovhannes Babayans trilogy on Armenian historiography, arguablythe most comprehensive study in this domain to date.3 To makeit easier both for the reader to follow the chronological structureof this article and for the author to make comparisons and gen-eralizations, a number of ground rules were followed during the


Armenian MedievalHistorians in Print

BY DR. ARA SANJIAN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-DEARBORN

Three Centuries of Scholarship across Three Continents1

Prof. Manuk Abeghian

presentation of the compiled data. First,the works of Tovma Artzruni andMatteos Urhayetsi are considered as asingle unit each; their continuatorsare not accorded individualized treat-ment. Secondly, if the same work hasbeen published at different timesunder the name of different authors,all of its editions are listed here underthe author, who is now accorded thewidest acceptance.4 Thirdly, only theworks of history of these 37 authorsare covered.5 Finally, if an author hasproduced more than one work ofhistorical nature, only his majorwork is considered.6 Thus all butone of the 37 authors covered doappear in this article with onlyone work, that which is generallyconsidered as their magnumopus in history.7

GRABAR EDITIONS

Medieval Armenianhistoriographyflourished not long after thecreation of the Armenian alphabet in the 5th cen-

tury. In contrast, publishing works of history was not foremostin the minds of the first Armenian printers after 1512. It tookexactly 157 yearsuntil 1669to see the first work of historyprinted in Armenian. By then, 70 titles in Armenian had alreadyseen the light.

The first printed Armenian history was that of ArakelDavrizhetsi, published by Archbishop Voskan Yerevantsi inAmsterdam. Most of the earliest Armenian language printing hadbeen carried out in Italy. However, from 1660, Armenian printershad become attracted to the Dutch capital, considered then tobe the worlds wealthiest city. Printing standards had dropped inItaly during the 17th century and, perhaps more importantly, thelargely Protestant Dutch Republic was renowned for its relativereligious tolerance. Roman Catholic censors could not hamperthe work of Armenian printers there. Voskan, often consideredas the second most important early Armenian printer afterMeghapart, arrived in Amsterdam in 1664 and printed 15Armenian-language books during his five-year stay. Foremostamong his Amsterdam publications was, of course, the first fulledition of the Armenian Bible in 166668.

Davrizhetsis History printed by Voskan is significant becauseit was published during the authors lifetime.8 The circumstancesthat pushed Voskan to print Davrizhetsis work remain unclear.The author had completed his manuscript in 1662 and had alreadyordered a number of hand-copies to be made, probably to guar-antee the works preservation in the future. Voskans print version

contains numerous gram-matical errors. Moreover, heomitted certain sections,combined or rephrased oth-ers, and made stylisticchanges to bring Davrizhetsisstyle into conformity withgrabar. All these would neces-sitate the preparation of a crit-ical edition of Davrizhetsi threecenturies later.

The choice of the nextArmenian medieval historianto go into print appears morelogical. For centuries, MovsesKhorenatsi had been consid-ered as the Father of ArmenianHistory. The Geography attrib-uted to him had already had twoeditions when the editio prin-ceps 9 of his History was printedin 1695, again in Amster dam, but

by Bishop Tovmas Nurijanian, a member of the Vanandetsi familyof printers, who published over 20 Armenian-language books inthe Dutch capital in 16851717. Khorenatsis first edition wasbased only on a single manuscript, which was full of errors.Nevertheless, it helped bring the work to the attention of westernscholars and was reprinted in Venice in 1752.

After a couple of short-lived attempts in 156769 and 167778,Armenian printing was established in Constantinople on a moreregular footing at the end of the 17th century. For the next 100years or so, the Ottoman capital consistently remained the citywhere the largest number of Armenian books was published.Among these Constantinople publications were the next foureditiones principes of medieval Armenian historians: GrigorMarzvantesi printed Agatangeghos (170910) and HovhannesMamikonian (1719); Martiros Sargsian, Pavstos Buzand (1730);and Hovhannes Astvatzatrian, Yeghishe (1764). This was an erawhere the tasks of choosing the manuscript and editing it forpublication were not yet separate from the technical process ofprinting. Therefore, the owners of the printing presses are alsoacknowledged as the publishers of the respective works, althoughthey usually had a number of associates, from those who providedthe manuscript and/or supervised the process of copy-editingand proofreading to those who covered the printing expenses.

When the Mkhitarist Father Mikayel Chamchian compiled inthe 1780s his monumental, three-volume History of the Armenians,the most ambitious such project since Khorenatsi and the first


Cover page of the 1669Amsterdam edition of ArakelDavizhetsi's History (digitizedby the National Library ofArmenia)

comprehensive Armenian history inmodern times, only five medievalArmenian histories were in print.Chamchian mentions twelve otherauthors included in this survey,whose works he probably consultedin manuscript form. Indeed, he con-tinued to receive new manuscripts aswriting was in progress. He also indi-cates awareness of the existence ofother medieval historians, whoseworks he did not have at his disposal.Among them, Ukhtanes, Sebeos,Ghevond, and Movses Kaghankatvatsiwould be discovered and published incourse of the next century.

Indeed, by 1915, all but three ofthe authors surveyed for this arti-cle were already in print, andmany of them had had multi-

plea few, even criticaleditions.These new editions came out in overa dozen different cities across theOttoman and the Russian empires, butalso in Western Europe and even theBritish colony of India. These citieswere either centers of Armenianmonastic communities, both Apostolicand Roman Catholic (Venice, Vienna,Vagharshapat, and Jerusalem), ortowns hosting vibrant Armenian com-munities (Constantinople, Smyrna,Moscow, St. Petersburg, Feodosiya,Shushi, Tiflis, and Calcutta). Paris,meanwhile, appears on this list solelybecause of the single-handed effortsof Father Karapet Shahnazariants (181465), who set up a printingpress in the French capital in the second half of the 1850s andpublished the series Shar hay patmagrats (Armenian HistoriansSeries), including the editiones principes of Ghevond, StepanosTaronetsi Asoghik, Stepanos Orbelian, Kaghankatvatsi, and TovmaMetzopetsi. The 19th century is also the period when the publi-cation of new editions of medieval histories gradually becameassociated with their editors, who were otherwise famous as aca-demics or scholars, rather than with the entrepreneurs who ownedand ran the printing presses, as had been the case previously.

The first ever Armenian-language book printed in Calcuttawas the editio princeps of Abraham Kretatsi (1796). Thereafter,the printing press of Jentlum Avetian issued reprints of HovhannesMamikonian (1814) and Yeghishe (1816), both based on the 18th-century editiones principes published in Constantinople.

The Mkhitarist Congre ga tion, founded in 1700, joined theefforts to print medieval histories relatively late. By the end of

the 18th century, it was still in theprocess of acquiring manuscripts tobuild up the rich library of over 4,000Armenian manuscripts it now has onthe isle of San Lazzaro. Indeed, thecompilation of Chamchians Historyprovided an important catalyst tothat process. The History of GhazarParpetsi, which had been discoveredin a monastery in Taron in 1782 andimmediately sent to Venice, waseventually published in 1793.However, it was only after 1826 thatthe Mkhitarists began publishingmedieval Armenian literature, includ-ing histories, in a consistent manner.The works of eleven historiansincluded in this survey eventuallycame out in two parallel and long-lasting series: Entir matenagirk(Outstanding Medieval Authors) andMatenagrutiunk nakhniats (AncientWritings). Among them, Khorenatsiand Yeghishe were printed in bothseries. However, there were only twoeditiones principes: Koriun andAristakes Lastivertsi. Instead, theMkhitarists of Venice played a pivotalrole in disseminating on a wider scaleworks, which had been published ear-lier, but mostly as poor editions andwith limited printruns. Altogether,between 1827 and 1914, they printedYeghishe nine times; Khorenatsi, six;Pavstos and Koriun, three each;Agatangeghos, Parpetsi, HovhannesMamikonian, and Lastivertsi, twice

each; and, finally, Vardan Areveltsi and Kirakos Gandzaketsi, onceeach. These editions enjoyed the advantage of having been basedon comparing larger number of manuscripts than the earlier edi-tions of the same authors.

In 1773, some Mkhitarist monks broke away from the con-gregation in San Lazzaro and eventually settled in Vienna in 1810.However, the Vienna Mkhitaristsunlike their peers in Venicepublished only one medieval Armenian history before 1914:Constantinople-based Vahram Torgomian edited and publishedYeremia Chelepi Keomiurchians History of Istanbul in serializedform in the journal Handes Amsorya in 1909-13. Thereafter, thefirst volume of this work appeared under a separate cover in 1913.

Most Mkhitarist monks were from Armenian communitiesin the Ottoman Empire, and primarily from Constantinople.Nevertheless, various printing presses in Constantinople alsocontinued the legacy of printing medieval Armenian histories inthe 19th century, including the editiones principes of Sebeos


Cover page of the first edition of Khorenatsi (Amsterdam,1695)source: Hay girke 15121800 tvakannerin, p. 116

(1851) and Artzruni (1852). In Smyrnareprints were issued of both Koriunand Yeghishe.

The Sts. James Armenian Conventin Jerusalem was the third and onlyother location on Ottoman territorywhere medieval Armenian historieswere printed in the 19th century,including the editiones principes ofHovhannes Draskhanakerttsi (1843),Urhayetsi (1869), and Grigor Aknertsi(1870).10 Medieval Armenian histo-ries were never printed in Western(Ottoman) Armenia and Cilicia,although limited Armenian-lan-guage printing activity occurredthere after 1860.

Finally, the uncovering of thefull range of reasons that put anend to the printing of medievalArmenian histories in Ottomanlands from the last quarter of the19th century necessitates an in-depth study in the future. Thesteady suppression of variousforms of Armenian nationalistexpression under SultanAbdlhamid II was probably among these causes. The restora-tion of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908 did not alter this trend;the only medieval Armenian history published in grabar in theYoung Turk era was the editio princeps of Grigor Daranaghtsi inJerusalem in 1915.

In the Russian Empire, Armenian printing developed laterthan under the Ottomans. Nevertheless, medieval Armenian his-tories were printed in the second half of the 19th and early 20thcentury not only in the Russian Empires large cities with vibrantArmenian communities, like Moscow, St Petersburg, Feodosiya(Crimea), and Tiflis, but also in two other important Armeniancultural centers in Eastern Armenia, Vaghar shapat (Ejmiatzin)and Shushi.

In Moscow, almost all the scholarly work in this domain istied to the name of Mkrtich Emin, a professor of Armenian Studiesat the Lazarev Institute. He published the editiones principes ofKaghan katvatsi (1860),11 Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi (1860), and Areveltsi(1861), as well as new and better editions of Draskhanakerttsiand Orbelian. The editiones principes of Smbat Sparapet (1856)and Gandzaketsi (1858) also appeared in Moscow, but they arenot endowed with the scholarly qualities of Emins works.

The first medieval Armenian history printed in St. Petersburgand in the Russian Empire in general was Yeghishes second edi-tion (1787). The printing of medieval Armenian histories resumedin the Russian capital exactly eight decades later and, for the next20 years, it was largely associated with the academic career ofKerovbe Patkanian, Professor of Armenian Studies at the St.

Petersburg Univesity. Hepublished the editionesprincipes of Aknertsi(1870) and Mkhitar Anetsi(1879). Moreover, his neweditions of Ayrivanetsi(1867), Sebeos (1879),Pavstos (1883), andArtzruni (1887) surpassedin quality earlier editions ofthese works. Also in theRussian capital, StepanMalkhasiants published anew edition of Asoghik; andKarapet Yeziants, of Ghevond.

Armenian Apostolic cler-gymen and monastic institu-tions played a pivotal role inthe publication of medievalArmenian histories in Eastern(Russian) Armenia, beginningwith the editio princeps ofCatholicos Yesayi Hasan-Jalaliants in Shushi in 1839. The

Holy See of Ejmiatzin, in Vagharshapat, became prominent inthis field beginning in 1870. Its printing press released the edi-tiones principes of Zakaria Kanakertsi (1870), Ukhtanes (1871),Ghukas Sebastatsi (1871), Simeon Yerevantsi (1873), Samuel Anetsi(1893), and Khachatur Jughayetsi (1905).

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Tiflis, the administra-tive capital of Russian Transcaucasia, challenged and eventuallysurpassed Constantinople as the city where the largest numberof Armenian-language books was being printed. Among the his-tories released in Tiflis were reprints of Yeghishe, Khorenatsi,Agatangeghos, and Pavstos, published mostly for popular con-sumption. More prominent among these popular reprints werethe 16 volumes of the series Ghukasian matenadaran (GhukasianLibrary), published in 190417 with money bequeathed by AvetisGhuakasian, an Armenian oil entrepreneur from Baku. Never -theless, the most important, at least from an academic viewpoint,was the launching in 1903 of the series Patmagirk hayots(Historians of Armenia). It aimed at the preparation of criticaleditions of the most important medieval histories, based on allearlier printed editions and all the extant manuscripts accessibleto the specialists involved in this project. Galust Ter-Mkrtchianand Malkhasians published the critical edition of Parpetsi (1904);Ter-Mkrtchian and Stepan Kanayants, of Agatha ne gelos (1909);and Manuk Abeghian and Set Harutiunian, of Khorenatsi (1913).The outbreak of the First World War brought this project to a


Cover page of the 1709Constantinople edition ofAgatangeghos (digitized bythe National Library ofArmenia)

halt. However, both Malkhasiants and Abeghiancontinued to study and publish medievalArmenian histories in subsequent decades.

The period between 1914 and 1923 wouldbring dramatic changes to Armenians living inthe Ottoman and Russian empires. Prior to theSovietization of Armenia in 1920, however, 34of the medieval Armenian historians surveyedin this article were already in print. Of these,many, especially 5th-century authors, hadhad numerous editions and reprints. Yeghishewas the most popular; by 1914, his grabartext had been printed on 27 occasions.Khorenatsi had had twelve printings; andAgatangeghos, seven. There was less interestin post-10th century historians, who onlyhad between one and three printings each.

The genocide, followed by the TurkishNationalist takeover of Cilicia and Smyrna,destroyed almost all of the Armenian communities across theformer Ottoman world. Survivors would end up constituting theArme nian Diaspora. An important Armenian community per-sisted in Constan tinople (now, Istanbul), but its cultural freedoms,especially overt expressions of Armenian nationalist sentiment,were severely curtailed.

At the same time, a new Communist order replaced Tsaristrule in Eastern Armenia, and an Armenian republic emergedwithin the new Soviet federal structure. The Soviet nationalitiespolicy accorded this new entity and other constituent republicsof the federation wide cultural privileges, and hundreds ofArmenian-language titles were thereafter published in SovietArmenia every year. However, their content was carefully censoredto make sure that the guidelines of Communist ideology andSoviet foreign policy were followed. At the same time, otherArmenian cultural hubs across former Russian Tsarist territory,especially Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Tiflis, gradually becameextinguished. Yerevan thus became the undisputed center ofArmenian Studies scholarship throughout the Soviet Union andeven the world.

Moreover, it was also around this period when grabar, havingbeen gradually pushed out of Armenian school curricula, ceasedto be a language enjoying a wide readership. With it the traditionof commercial publishers printing affordable grabar reprints ofArmenian medieval histories faded away. All new grabar printingsof these histories would now target a small readership of scholarsand college students in the humanities and social sciences. InYerevan, the publishers were usually the Soviet ArmenianAcademy of Sciences and the Matenadaran, the repository ofArmenian manuscripts. The only exceptions were those few edi-tions by the State Publishing House (Haypethrat) and YerevanUniversity Press, where the grabar texts were reprinted alongsidethe ashkharhabar translations of these histories.

Aside from the History of Ananun Zrutsagir, which was com-piled by Galust Ter-Mkrtchian and Bishop Mesrop Ter-Movsisian

and published by the Scientific Instituteof Ejmiatzin in June 1921, just a fewmonths after the Communist takeover ofArmenia, Soviet Armenian scholars didnot devote themselves to publishing neweditions of medieval histories until theappearance of the editiones principes ofZakaria Aguletsi and Abraham Yerevantsiin 1938. Thereafter, Malkhasiants publisheda new edition of Sebeos (1939); andAbeghian, a critical edition of Koriun (1941).That same year, Ashot Garegin Abrahamian,a relatively young scholar, issued what hedescribed as the critical edition ofHovhannes Mamikonian, based on all pre-vious editions and 23 manuscripts housedin the Matenadaran. However, this edition

was heavily criticized soon after its publication and did not winacceptance from respected scholars.

After a hiatus of nearly two decades, Yervand Ter-Minasianpublished a critical edition of Yeghishe (1957); Karapet Melik-Ohanjanian, of Gandzaketsi (1961); and Karen Yuzbashian, ofLastivertsi (1963). Separately, the Soviet Georgian Academy ofSciences published the critical text and parallel Georgian trans-lation of chapters XXIVLXVII of Draskhanakerttsi by E. V.Tsagareishvili. During the next decade, Margarita (Margo)Darbinian-Melikian reissued in 1971 the original text of AnanunZrutsagir, alongside its Russian translation. Two years later NarpeyGhorghanian published a critical text of Kretatsi and its Russiantranslation. A critical edition of Sebeos by Gevorg Abgarian wasprinted in 1979. Finally, the last decade of Soviet rule witnessedthe publication by Joseph Avetisian of the editio princeps ofKeomiurchians Concise Four Hundred-Year History of the OttomanKings (1982). The next year, Varag Arakelian published the criticaltext of Kaghankatvatsi, while Hayrapet Margarian issued the firstedition of Mkhitar Anetsi under a separate cover. In 1990, LenaKhanlarian published a critical edition of Davrizhetsi, while the1913 critical edition of Khorenatsi was reprinted in 1991, withAshot Sargsian adding collations of manuscripts in theMatenadaran, Venice, and Vienna in an appendix.

In the period of independence in the last 20 years, other rep-utable publishing houses from the Soviet era, plus newly estab-lished private firms, have joined the market of releasing theoriginal grabar texts of medieval histories. However, the schol-arship leading to these new editions is still carried largely byphilologists working in the Matenadaran and trained in the lateSoviet era. In 1994, the volume of Koriun in the newly establishedHayots matenagirner (Medieval Writers of the Armenians) series,published by the Hayastan publishing house (the formerHaypethrat), included a new critical text compiled by ArtashesMatevosian. In 1999, Magaghat Publishers posthumously released


Cover page of the 1879 St Petersburg editionof Sebeos

Levon Khachikians critical text ofMetzopetsi. In 2005, the Zangak-97Publishing House issued a reprint ofthe 1979 critical text of Sebeos,together with a new ashkharhabartranslation. The next year,Darbinian-Melikian published thecritical text of Artzruni, againthrough Magaghat Publishers.Finally, Nairi Publishers (the formerSovetakan Grogh) published in 2011the critical text of Samuel Anetsi,compiled by Anahit Hayrapetian.That same year, the newaskharhabar translation of Aknertsialso reprinted the 1974 critical textby Archbishop Norayr Pogharian,upon which it was based.

Within this context of reprints,mention should also be made of the2007 edition of Hasan-Jalaliants,which was compiled by ArtoMartirosian and published by DizakPlus in Stepanakert, and includeda reprint of the grabar text of the1868 Jerusalem edition.

The contribution of YerevanUniversity Press to the publication of the grabar texts of medievalArmenian histories has been extremely limited in both the Sovietand post-Soviet periods. This press has concentrated on the pub-lication of the ashkharabar translations of these works, initiallythrough a series called Usanoghi gradaran (the Students Library).For example, the ashkharhabar translations of Khorenatsi,Parpetsi, Agatangeghos, Artzruni, Pavstos, Yeghishe, Urhayetsi,and Draskhanakertts were printed in this series next to thereprints of earlier grabar editions. The new ashkharhabar trans-lations of both Sebastatsi (1992) and Areveltsi (2001), publishedby Yerevan University Press as well, but outside this series, alsoinclude the grabar texts. Finally, the 1941 grabar critical text ofKoriun is included in the Yerevan University Presss multi-lingualeditions of 1981 and 2005.

In the post-genocide Armenian Diaspora, the publication ofthe original texts of medieval Armenian histories also decreased,again because of the inability of the younger generations to readgrabar. Here, too, the realm of reading the grabar texts becamerestricted among a small community of scholars.

After 1915, the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic monasticinstitutions went on for some time playing an important role inthe domain of publishing and disseminating medieval Armenianhistories. Until 1955, the Mkhitarists of Venice periodically re-issued reprints of their 19th-century editions of Agatangeghos,Parpetsi, Pavstos, Yeghishe, Koriun, and Khoren atsi. However, sincethen, the Mkhitarist editions of the grabar texts of medievalArmenian histories have all been critical editions targeting a narrow

circle of scholars. A new edition ofSmbat, edited by Father SerobeAgelian, appeared in 1956. In 1977,Father Sahak Chemchemian pub-lished a new edition of AbrahamYerevantsi, and, the next year, FatherSamuel Aramian released a new edi-tion of Sebastatsi.12 Finally, FatherPoghos Ananian prepared a new crit-ical text of Koriun, which was pub-lished alongside its Italian translationin 1998.

The contributions of theMkhitarists of Vienna to this domainremained modest even after 1915.Volumes II and III of KeomiurchiansHistory of Istanbul, prepared byTorgomian, were published in 1932and 1938, respectively. Later, FatherNerses Akinian prepared a new crit-ical text of Koriun (1950).

Three medieval histories sur-veyed in this article have been pub-lished in Jerusalem since the end of

the First World War. Garnik Fntglianreleased a new version of Koriun in1930, while Archbishop (later

Patriarch) Mesrop Nshanian compiled the editio princeps ofKeomiurchians Diary. Finally, the critical edition of Aknertsi waspublished by Archbishop Norayr Pogharian in 1974.

Outside monastic institutions, medieval Armenian historiesin the post-genocide diaspora have been printed the most in theUnited States. Outside North America, we can only point to twocases where the grabar texts of medieval Armenian histories wereprinted outside a monastic context. Of these, the more importantis the editio princeps of Keomiurchians History of the Burning ofIstanbul by Gevorg Bampukchian (1991). The other is the grabartext of Koriun, which appeared in the 1954 Cairo reprint ofAbeghians 1941 critical edition.

Among the numerous grabar texts of medieval Armenian his-tories printed in the United States, two were original works ofscholarship. In 1951, Stepan H. Banian published in Boston anew critical text of Koriun. The second was Levon Khacherianscritical edition of Sebastatsi. The editor had compiled the textwhen he still lived in Yerevan, but the book was published in LosAngeles in 1988, after he had emigrated from Soviet Armenia.

All other printings of medieval Armenian histories in theUnited States have been reprints of earlier editions, sometimesin facsimile format. In 1949, the English translation of Aknertsiby Robert Blake and Richard Frye appeared in the HarvardJournal of Asiatic Studies, and the grabar text was printed along-side the translation. The same work was re-published under aseparate cover in 1954. Ten years later, Abeghians critical textof Koriun was printed alongside its new English translation by


Cover page of the 1946 ashkharhabar translation of Yeghishe

Petros Norhat (Bedros Norehad). Robert W. Thomsons 1976English translation of The Teaching of St. Gregory (which con-stitutes an important segment of the History by Agatangeghos)included a reprint of the 1914 grabar text of GhukasianMatenadaran. In 198093, Caravan Press, in Delmar, N.Y., printedthe Classical Armenian Texts Reprint Series, as many grabar edi-tions from the 19th and early 20th centuries had become difficultto find for scholars engaged in research in the United States.Agatangeghos, Draskhanakerttsi, Khorenatsi, Pavstos, Parpetsi,Koriun, Artzruni, Areveltsi, and Yeghishe were reprinted in thisseries. Finally, a facsimile reprint of the 1868 Jerusalem text ofHasan-Jalaliants was included alongside George A. Bournoutians2009 English translation.

The last serious effort to reprint medieval Armenian historiesas part of the Classical Armenian Literature of the 5th18th centuriesis the series Matenagirk Hayots (Medieval Writers ofthe Armenians), a collaborative effort among the Digital Libraryof Armenian Classical Literature, based at the AmericanUniversity of Armenia (Yerevan), the Catholicosate of Cilicia(Antelias), and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon).Fifteen volumes were published in 200312, but all the scholar-ship behind this series emanates from post-Soviet Armenia. Thediasporan contribution is confined to providing the money andthe printing facilities to publish these volumes. The works ofKoriun, Pavstos, Yeghishe, Agatangeghos, Khorenatsi, Sebeos,Hovhannes Mamikonian, Ghevond, Ananun Zrutsagir, Artzruni,Draskhanak erttsi, Kaghankatvatsi, Ukhtanes and Asoghiki.e.authors, who lived until the 11th centuryhave already beenprinted. Most of these texts are reprints of earlier criticalorwhat are still considered as the besteditions of these histories.However, in five cases, new critical texts were published. GevorgTer-Vardanian prepared the new critical texts of Ghevond,Artzruni, and Draskhanakerttsi; Aleksan Hakobian, of HovhannesMamikonian; and Gurgen Manukian, of Asoghik. Moreover,Petros Hovhannisian and Gevorg Matoyan, the editors of thetext of the History by Ukhtanes in this series, have attemptedto correct the errors which had crept through the 1871 editioprinceps of this work. The works of later historians will probablyappear in the forthcoming volumes.

In the post-genocide era, Yeghishe has lost the top spot asthe most frequently published medieval historian in his original,grabar text to Koriun. The latters grabar text has had nine editionsprinted since 1920. Among these, no less than six are new criticaltexts. We can surmise that not only does the importance ofKoriuns topicthe life of Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of theArmenian alphabetmake the work attractive for new criticaleditions, but its relatively concise nature does not demand per-severance extending over a number of years, as would be thecase with longer works.

As of now, most of the opera magna of medieval Armenianhistorians living in the 5th-10th centuries have had their criticalgrabar texts prepared. Pavstos is the only notable exception.However, more effort is needed to prepare critical editions of anumber of later historians, including Urhayetsi, Arevelsti,

Ayrivanetsi, and Orbelian, particularly if the authors originalmanuscript has not survived and all that we have are a numberof copied manuscripts independent of one another.

ASHKHARHABAR EDITIONS

TThe imperative of having ashkharhabar translations ofthe important works written originally in grabar arosein the second half of the 19th century when Armenianschool curricula shifted toward a wider use of the mod-

ern vernacular as the language of instruction, and the readingpublic in good command of grabar narrowed. From then on, crit-ical editions and reprints of the grabar texts targeted mainly thecommunity of scholars, while the ashkharhabar translations arestill primarily for the wider lay public.

The first efforts to render the medieval Armenian historiesinto ashkharhabar go back to the 1860s, and most of these trans-lations were into the Eastern branch of the modern Armenianlanguage. The first historian translated in full and published asa separate book was Yeghishe. Martiros Simeoniantss EasternArmenian translation was printed in 1863. Thereafter, three otherashkharhabar translations of Yeghishe appeared until 1914, mak-ing him a leader not only in the total number of grabar but alsoof askharhabar editions for the pre-World War I period. Amongthese, Hakob Varzhapetians translation (Constantinople, 1911)was the only Western Armenian rendering of a medieval Armenianhistory before 1914, as well as the first medieval Armenian his-torian to be printed in the Ottoman Empire since the beginningof the Hamidian Era. The only other medieval historians trans-lated into Eastern Armenian prior to 1914 were Khorenatsi,Parpetsi, and Lastivertsi. Khorenatsi had two separateashkharhabar editions, both by Father Khoren Stepane, whilethe translations of Lastivertsi and Parpetsi were both accom-plished by Rev. Minas Ter-Petrosian and published inAlexandropol.

Thereafter we observe a lull of nearly three decades duringwhich no new ashkharhabar translations were pub-lished, nor earlier pre-war editions reprinted. The sit-uation changed drastically in the 1940s, and since then

many medieval Armenian histories have been translated to themodern Armenian literary languagemostly to Eastern, but ina few cases also to Western Armenian.

In Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia, all translations have beenmade in Eastern Armenian. In 1940, Haypethrat launched a seriesentitled Hay patmagirneri matenashar ashkharhabar targmanu-tiamb (the Armenian Historians Series in AshkharhabarTranslation). The translations of four medieval histories appearedin this series. The first was Malkhasiantss translation ofKhorenatsi. The second, published the following year, wasAbeghians critical grabar text of Koriun and the accompanyingashkharhabar translation. Ter-Miniasians translation of Yeghishecame out in 1946, and, finally, Malkhasiants issued a translationof Pavstos in 1947. In 1958, Ter-Minasian revised his translation


of Yeghishe based on the new critical grabar text, which he hadpublished the previous year. These four ashkharahabar editionshave since reappeared (with small editorial changes) on a numberof occasions in Armenia and the diaspora.

Following its publication of the revised ashkharhabar trans-lation of Yeghishe, Haypethrat also reprinted in the early 1960sthe 1940s translations of Khorenatsi and Koriun. In 1964, thispublishing house was renamed Hayastan and in 1968 launchedthe Hay matenagirner (Armenian Medieval Writers) series to makethe famous works of medieval Armenian authors available inEastern Armenian. When the Sovetakan Grogh (Soviet Author)publishing house was separated from Hayastan in 1976, the taskof continuing the Hay matenagirner series passed on to the newentity. Thirteen of the 16 volumes, published in this series between1968 and 1989, are the works of medieval Armenian histories cov-ered in this article: the reprints of Khorenatsi, Pavstos and Yeghishe,plus new translations of Kaghankatvatsi (by Varag Arakelian),Lastivertsi (Vazgen Gevorgian), Urhayetsi (Hrach Bartikian),Agathangelos (Aram Ter-Ghevondian), Artzruni (Vrezh Vardanian),Ghevond (Aram Ter-Ghevondian), Gandzaketsi (Varag Arakelian),Orbelian (Ashot Arsen Abrahamian), Davrizhetsi (Varag Arakelian),and Hovhannes Mamikonian (Vardan Hakob Vardanian).

Ashkharabar translations of medieval Armenian historiesalso appeared as part of the Yerevan University Presss Usanoghigradaran series, launched in 1981. Khorenatsi, Pavstos, Yeghishe,and Urhayetsi were reprints, but the translations of Parpetsi (byBagrat Ulubabian) and Draskhanakerttsi (Gevorg Tosunian)were new. The Usanoghi gradaran edition of Agatangeghos(1983) also included the ashkharhabar translation of the sectionknown as The Teaching of St. Gregory, which had been omittedin the 1977 Sovetakan Grogh edition. Moreover, Vrezh Vardanianreportedly introduced important improvements in the 1985Usanoghi gradaran edition of Artzruni to the ashkharahabartranslation, which he had first published in 1978. Finally, itshould be added that two separate editions of Khorenatsi werereleased in 1981 as part of Usanoghi gradaran. One was simplyanother reprint of the 1940 Malkhasiants translation; the other,however, printed in parallel both the 1913 grabar critical textand Malkhasiantss ashkharhabar translation. This last approachwas later followed for the Usanoghi gradaran editions ofParpetsi, Agatangeghos, Artzruni, Pavstos, Yeghishe, Urhayetsi,and Draskhanakerttsi.

Efforts toward producing new ashkharhabar translations ofmedieval Armenian histories have continued in the independenceperiod. Yerevan University Press and Hayastan continue to remainthe most consistent publishers in this domain, although they havebeen joined by a few newly established private publishing firms.

Almost two decades after yielding the privilege of publishingthe ashkharhabar translations of medieval Armenian authors toSovetakan Grogh, the Hayastan publishers returned to thisdomain in the early 1990s with an ambitious new series, Hayotsmatenagirner (Medieval Writers of the Armenians). However,economic difficulties after the disintegration of the Soviet systemlimited the total number of volumes eventually published in this

series to just four. The ashkharhabar translations of Yeghishe andKhorenatsi were reprints, but Koriuns new translation by ArtashesMatevosian (1994) was based on significant amendments the lat-ter had proposed to Abeghians 1941 critical text. Varag Arakelians2006 ashkharhabar translation of Ukhtanes was also entirely new.

In addition to publishing a new trilingual edition of Koriun(2005), Yerevan University Press printed in the independenceperiod new ashkharhabar translations of Sebastatsi (by ArshakMadoyan), Asoghik (Vardan Hakob Vardanian), Areveltsi (GevorgTosunian), and Metzopetsi (Arshak Madoyan).

The other new ashkharhabar translations released by variousprivate publishing firms in Armenia and Mountainous Karabaghin the 21st c

the armenian weeklyarmenianweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/aw_sept_armenian...this marks the...

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