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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 November 2010
In 1514, the first battle between the Ottomans and the newly founded Safavid dynasty took place. The Battle of Chaldiran, as it came to be known, marked the beginning of a century-long struggle between the Sunni Ottomans and Shia Safavids that would draw to a close in 1639 with the Treaty of Zuhab. The human toll of this ongoing warfare over the Caucasus and Mesopotamia would be exacted not just from the soldiers of each empire, but also from the different ethnic groups that inhabited these regions. Some caught in the midst of these conflicts had their towns and homes razed by these troops. Others were forced to relocate and resettle. The Armenians were one such group, trapped between these Muslim forces, whose material and non-material well-being was under threat. Armenians had been coping with foreign incursions for centuries. Historical Armenia had been invaded and often laid to waste by the Arabs in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, the Byzantines in the eleventh, and the Mongols and Seljuks from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. In fact, an Armenian kingdom in ancestral Armenia had not existed since the eleventh century, leaving the people of Greater (or historical) Armenia without any native sovereignty and as a politically fragmented entity. In the sixteenth century, historical Armenia had once again come to lie at the center of unremitting wars, this time fought between the Safavids and the Ottomans.
1 For further reading on these wars, see Kortepeter, Carl Marx, Ottoman Imperialism During the Reformation: Europe and the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 1972);Google ScholarAllouche, Adel, Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (906–962/1500–1555) (Berlin: K. Schwarz Verlag, 1983);Google ScholarMazzaoui, Michael, Safavid Iran and her Neighbors (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003);Google ScholarNewman, Andrew J., Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006);Google ScholarSavory, Roger, Iran Under the Safavids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980);Google Scholar and Melville, Charles, ed., Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society (London: Tauris Parke, 1996).Google Scholar
2 For a comprehensive discussion on this period of Armenian history, see Hovannisian, Richard G., ed., The Armenian People: From Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1, The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).Google Scholar
3 The conditions under which the Armenians and other groups were deported and resettled have been a matter of debate. Some scholars such as Vartan Gregorian in his “Minorities of Isfahan: The Armenian Community of Isfahan 1587–1722,” Iranian Studies 7, no. 3/4, Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part II (Summer–Autumn 1974): 652–80; and Moreen, Vera B. in “The Status of Religious Minorities in Safavid Iran 1617–1661,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40, no. 2 (April 1981): 119–34,Google Scholar argue that the Armenians were not treated as poorly as some contemporary sources would insist. Others, such as Ghougassian, Vazken, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seventeenth Century (Atlanta: Scholars, 1998)Google Scholar, disagree.
4 Panossian, Razmik, The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 78–79.Google Scholar These numbers are still debated. See Ghougassian, Diocese of New Julfa, 30–31, which estimates that at least four hundred thousand people were deported and three hundred thousand survived.
5 One such contemporary was Arakel Davrizhetsi who made these references in his Patmutiwn. Davrizhetsi was a monk who studied under Catholicos Philip, the Armenian Supreme Patriarch, in Echmiadzin, which is the seat of the catholicosate. As a patriarchal legate, Davrizhetsi travelled across the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. Upon his return to Echmiadzin, he was asked by the catholicos to write a history of the Armenian people in the seventeenth century. The work was started in 1651 and first published in 1669 in Amsterdam. His approach to the ideas of nation and national identity are imperative to understanding Armenian ideas of self in the seventeenth century. Davrizhetsi uses phrases such as the “living Armenian nation” and the “ruined Armenian world,” among others. Davrizhetsi, Arakel, Patmutiwn [History or Book of Histories], ed. and trans. Arakelyan, Varak (Erevan: Sovedagan Grogh, 1988).Google Scholar
6 The Armenians used the word nation to denote a tribe or a set of people, that is, something a person is born into. For the purposes of this paper, the word nation will be used in the same sense, not indicating a modern conception of a nation-state, but an ethnic group, cultivated and reinforced by a shared culture, language, history, descent, and for this group especially, a shared religion. The terms ethnic and national identity will be used interchangeably. Panossian, The Armenians, provides an excellent, lucid discussion of nation and nationality as it relates to Armenians.
7 Sanjian, Avedis, Colophons of Armenian manuscripts, 1301–1480: A Source for Middle Eastern History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), preface, vii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Sanjian, Colophons, 7.
9 Sanjian, Colophons, preface, xii.
10 Hakobyan, Vazken and Hovhannisyan, Ashod, comps. and eds., Hayeren Ceragreri 17-rd Dari Heeshadagaranner [Armenian manuscript memorials of the 17th century], 3 vols. (Erevan: Haygagan SSR Gidoutiwneri Agatemiai Hradaragchoutiwn, 1974).Google Scholar
11 Nina Garsoian, “The Byzantine Annexation of the Armenian Kingdoms in the Eleventh Century,” in Hovannisian, The Armenian People, vol. 1, writes that apart from the institution of the Church, it was the succession of catholicoi (patriarchs of the Armenian Church) from the Pahlawuni house that provided a sense of continuity during the Middle Ages, even with the occasional anti-catholicos. The catholicos would continue to fill a similar role in the following centuries.
12 Khwajas were the most prosperous of the Armenian merchants in New Julfa. For more on khwajas, see McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz, The Shah's Silk for Europe's Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530–1750) (Atlanta: Scholars, 1999), 102–3.Google Scholar
13 Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, 146–60.
14 Cartwright, John, The Preachers Travels . . . (London: Printed for Thomas Thorppe, 1611), 35.Google Scholar
15 Chinon, Gabriel de, Relations nouvelles du Levant . . . [New accounts of the Levant] (Lyon: Chés Iean Thioly, 1671), 236–38.Google Scholar The account was written in 1671, after a twenty-five-year mission in the region.
16 MSS 6785, fol. 327r–333v., Matenadaran Institute of Manuscripts, Erevan, Armenia.
17 Ibid., fol. 329r.
18 Ibid., fol. 330r.
19 Ibid., fol. 330v.
20 MSS 6785, fol. 331r–v., Matenadaran.
21 MSS 519, fol. 74 r–79r., Matenadaran.
22 Ibid., fol. 74v.
23 MSS 519, fol. 75r., Matenadaran; Isaiah 1:7.
24 Ibid., fol. 75r.
25 Ibid., fol. 78r.; Jeremiah 9:1.
26 MSS 519, fol. 74r., Matenadaran.
27 The accuracy of his version of these events is questionable though. While his account is detailed and comprehensive, he, for example, incorrectly reports that Shah Abbas was in battle with Sultan Murad in 1604. The sultan at this time was Ahmed I.
28 For instance, the scribe for MSS 519 claims to be aware of battles and incidents taking place in the region around Mount Ararat, Shirakan, Kars, Julfa, Tabriz, and elsewhere, indicating that there is a communication network in the region connecting cities and provinces that are over two hundred miles apart, and more importantly perpetuating a notion of a united “Armenian world.”
29 Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, 45. As noted earlier, his History was started in 1651, nearly fifty years after the deportations. It serves as a powerful reminder that the deportations held a prominent, disturbing, and haunting place in the Armenian past.
30 MSS 519, fol. 77v., Matenadaran.
31 MSS 2745, fol. 1r., Matenadaran.
32 MSS 1282, fol. 261v., Matenadaran. The illuminations found in this manuscript are particularly noteworthy, as they reflect years of Islamic domination and Armenian absorption of certain aspects of Islamic culture. The illuminations are not restricted to typical Armenian manuscript imagery but also include images of mosques. While as a group they seem to have retained a rigid understanding of self, it is apparent from this manuscript and the eventual development of the New Julfa style of manuscript illumination that identity as well as its visible markers were fluid and dynamic, or rather had to be to some extent in order to survive in this setting. For more on this new style, see Matthews, Thomas and Wieck, Roger, eds., Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994).Google Scholar For a later example of the New Julfa style, see MSS 204, Matenadaran, that dates from 1658.
33 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:191–92.
34 For more examples, see MSS 1282, 6785, 519, 5345, Matenadaran; Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:168–69, 180–81, 181–83, 206–7.
35 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:236–37.
36 Ghougassian, Diocese of New Julfa, 83.
37 McCabe, Shah's Silk, 58. For more on Armenian Church History and these internal disputes, see Hovhannisyan, Ashod, Drvagner Hay Azatagrakan Mtki Patmutyan [Episodes from the History of Armenian Liberation Ideology], 2 vols. (Erevan: Haygagan SSR Gidoutiwneri Agatemiai Hradaragchoutiwn, 1959);Google ScholarTournebize, Henri Francois, Hayastan ev Hay Ekeghetsagan Patmutiwn [Armenia and Armenian Ecclesiastical History] (Venice: San Lazarus, 1930).Google Scholar Chapters 18 and 19 from Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, also report on these struggles.
38 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:437–50.
39 Ibid., 449.
40 His use of verse is not unique, but it is unusual. Furthermore, his verse resembles a lengthy lamentation rather than a flowery means of conveying information about the manuscript. For other scribes who chose to include verse for their hishatakarans, see ibid., 40, 41–42, 68–70, 163–64, 332–33, 638–39, as a few examples.
41 Ibid., 449.
42 Ibid., 560–70.
43 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:569.
44 See Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, chapter 5 for an example of religious freedom. For an example of religious persecution, see Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, chapter 14 where Arakel describes how the shah sent mudarris (teachers) into Armenian villages to teach the inhabitants about Islam. The shah's tolerance of the Christian segment of the population continues to be debated among scholars. Some scholars, such as McCabe and Ghougassian, insist that his reign was noted for its toleration and only occasionally interrupted by persecution. Gregorian, “Minorities of Isfahan,” describes Shah Abbas's policy as “violent theoretical opposition towards Sunnis coupled with a narrow intolerance and periodic persecution of Zoroastrianism and Jews, and a relatively benevolent attitude towards and a comparatively less harsh treatment of Armenians and Georgians” (654).
45 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:570.
46 Usta is a title ascribed to a master craftsman.
47 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:570.
48 Chinon, Relations nouvelles du Levant, 302–4; Davrizhetsi, Patmutiwn, 123–35; Chick, Herbert, comp. and trans., A Chronicle of the History of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Missions of the XVIIth–XVIIIth Centuries, 2 vols. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1939), 1:207.Google Scholar Sources agree that the Augustinians and Carmelites played a crucial role in hampering the shah's attempts to convert the Armenians to Islam.
49 MSS 519, Matenadaran; and Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:316–17.
50 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:563–65. This excerpt is from 564.
51 Mikaberidze, Alexander, Historical Dictionary of Georgia (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2007), 26–27.Google Scholar
52 The handful of hishatakarans that mention the Georgians were written after 1614.
53 Hakobyan and Hovhannisyan, Heeshadagaranner, 1:628–29. The hishatakaran was written in 1617.
54 Ibid., 629.
