N. G. Garso frm A RMENIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN CRISIS ' At first glance , it seems evident from its focus that this subject lies at the periphery of the lat e antique world we are considering. Indeed , Armenian studies have often appeared as marginal not only to medieval studies in general , but to the more specialized area of Byzantium, and until recent times they were considered primarily as being at be st of lo- cal interest. This is particularly true of the field of hi story, since linguists have long recognized the importance of classical Armenian as an Indo - European language s ui gene - ris rather than as a member of the identified lndo-European family groups , and patristic sc holars have found it necessary to tum to the fifth century Armenian version of th e Bible and to such works as the De Jona of Philo , the Chronicle of Eusebius , or the Refutation of the Co uncil of Cha/cedon by the monophysite patriarch of Alexandria, Timothy JElurus, • Thi s paper makes no claim at originality It is intended as a presentation of the development of a promising a nd endangered discipline . A French version of it was published in the Revu e du monde arm enien m ode rne el co 111 e 111porain 6 (2001):7-27. Because of l imita tion s of s pa ce, only partial and ad mittedly selective bibliographical indications h ave been po ss ible in these notes. Title s in Annenian and Russian hav e been included only when of particular importan ce or if no s imilar work is available in a Western l anguage. So urce s and s tud ies referred to in a cited work hav e u sua ll y not been repeated More ex ten sive bibliogra- phies can be found i111 er ali os in Thom s on , R.W ., A Biblio grap hy of Classical Arm e 11i a11 Liler a lure lo 1500 AD (T urnhout , 1 995) ; Adontz , N., Armenia in lite Period of Jus1i11ian ( Li s bon , 1970) , 264*-303• ; Garitte , G, La Na rrali o de re bu s Arm e nia e ( Lou- va in , 1 952), ix-xli v; Garsoran, N. G, Th e Epic Hi sl ories a11ribu1 ed lo f! ' awslos Bu z a11d (Ca mbridge , MA , 1989) , 604 -64 ; and Ead., L 'Eglis e arme11ie1111e et le Grand Scltisme d' Orient (Louva in , I 999), xxi - lxxi For a survey of Arm e nian literatur e in a we s tern lang ua ge, see lngli si an , V ., "Die arm e ni s che Literatur", in H andbuclt d er Orientalistik, I/ vii : Ar men isc lt 1111d Kaukasi sc lt e Spra c lt en (Lei den -Co lo gn e, 1963), 15 6-250; al so Renoux, Ch ., "Langue et l ittcra tu re arn1 e ni e nn e," in Alben , M. et al eds ., C ltri s- t ia nism es ori e 11ta1 L r. l111lvd11 ctio 11 a /'e t11 de de s l a11g11es et d es li11 e rat11 res (Paris, 199 3), I 09-8 8. whose Greek originals are no w lo st. Even so, the study of Annenian h istory has increa s in gly proved ne cessary as a branch of By za ntine hi s tory as well as of the early de ve lopment of th e Church and most of a ll for the rec ons ti- tution of Ir a nian society, Sa sanian and especially Parthian , where the native source s are sa dly deficient and particularl y as a us eful p oint of trans i tion where the interaction b etween the cla ssica l and oriental worlds can be observed as well as one of the main component parts, together with Georgia , Syria and Egypt, of the non-Greek Christianities of the East, w hich have been attracting increasi ng attention. Con se quent ly, what I sho uld like to attempt briefly here is not so much to trace my individual path, bu t rather my per- ception of the coming of age ofa discipline , now jeopardized and possibly blighted. The rel ative neglect of Armenology is readily under s tandable Annenian history is a young field Until t he beginning of the twentieth century it remained in a s tate of relati ve i nnocence, not to say darkn ess In many case s we are still in process oflaying the ground work long taken for granted elsewhere , so that some of the aspects conside r ed may see m simplistic a nd long s in ce addres se d in more developed areas The first a ttempt to pro duce a survey da te s from th e v ery e nd of the eighteenth cen tury, when a monk from the Catholic Ann e nian Mekhitarist Congre g ation of San La zza ro in Venice, father Michael Cam~ ' ean, produced a massive compilation of Annenian so urce s e ntitl ed A Hist o,y of Arm e nia from th e B egi nning to th e Yearof011r lord I 784 1 One of the rea sons for thi s lag is that more scholarly st udi es of Ann en i an hi s tory are hampered by a series of handi caps gr ea ter than tho se nonn a ll y faced by m edieva l is t s. Two of the main tools that ha ve com e to s uppl e ment the infonna- ti on s uppli ed by contemporary narrative historie s, arc he ology a nd archival ma teri a ls , are almost tot a lly una va il ab le The tumu ltuous a nd often tragic hi st ory of the Ann e ni an plat eau totally destroyed whatever arch iv es may hav e existed I. C' am t' can , M ., Pat11111t ' iw11 H ayoc'i skzlxme minc'ewc' am Tea n1 I 784, 3 vo l s. (Venice, 17 84- 1 786). Th e Past Be fore Us, 20 04 , p. 49 ii 60 Shared by User:Bsoyka on 10/13/2024 for non-commercial educational fair use in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Any other use is likely a copyright violation. EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY 50 together with the chancelleries a nd mona steries that sheltered them, with the exception of a few charters , gran ted to Ita li an , French or Catalan merchant s by the late medie va l kin gdom of Cilician Annenia (twelfth-fourteenth centuries) out si de the homeland , that have accidentally survived in th e West. 2 Only the numerou s and often extensive colophons of Armenian manuscripts are still extant, but almost none pre- date the twelfth century. 3 After the Helleni s tic period no native medieval coins or seals are known outside of the Cilician period. 4 Archaeology is especially trouble so me for a number ofreasons. In practical te rms, only on the territory of the present Republic of Armenia equal to no more than a fifth of its historical extension has any se rious work been initiated , as against its major area now in Turkey and a s maller portion in Iran , where no excavations may be undertaken , so that even the site of the great first century B.C. capital ofTigranakert/figranocerta, pr a ised by Pliny the Elder and Plutarch, cannot be securely identified. 5 In consequence , our ignorance is aggravated by th e constant danger of drawing unwarranted conclusions from the pars pro tot o. Moreover , no solution has been found for th e mysterious all but total absence of evidence derived from the millennium separating the late sixth century B.C.- before which abundant material exists from the Urartian kingdom as well as the earlier Bronze age 6 - from the first appearance 2. Langlois, V. , Le tr eso r des c ha rtes d'Armenie (Venice, 1863). 3. Garsoran, N. G, "N otes preliminaires s ur l 'a nthroponymie ar- menienne du Moycn Age", L 'anthroponymie do c um ent de /'hi s- to ire socia /e des m ondes mediterraneens medievaux, M. Bourin, J.-M. Martin and F. Menant eds. (Rome, 1996) (= Anthropo ny- mie ], 228 n.3; re pr in Ead., Ch ur ch and Cultu re in Early Medieval Armenia (London, 1999) (= C hur ch and Cultu re ] § ix . The ma- jor pr osopographical work is Ataryan, H., Ha yoc' a njnamm eri bafaran [Dic ti onary of Arm e ni an Prop er Nam es ], 5 vols. (Erc- van, J 942-1962), which is indispensable despite occasional lapses. 4. Bedoukian, P. Z., Coinage of th e Artaxiads of Arm en ia (Lon- don, I 978); Id., Co inag e of C ili cian Armenia, 2..i ed. (Danbury, C T, 1979); Mousheghian, A. and Depeyrot, G , Hellenis tic and Ro man Arm enian Coinage (is l. c. BC - Isl c. AD) Moncta (Wette- rcn, 1999). 5. For the m os t recent discussions on th e site ofTigranakert, sec Chaumont, M.-L., "Tigranoccrte : Donnecs du problcme ct ctat des re cherches", Re vue d es etudes arme11ien11es [ = REA rm], n.s. XVI (see ilifra n. 17)( I 982): 89-110; Ead., "Quelques notes con- cc mant Tigranocerte", REA rm, XXI ( I988- 19 89): 233-49; No- garet, M., "Q uelques problcmes archeologiqucs ct topographiques clans la region de Maiyafllri(.cJn ", REA rm , n.s. XVlll (I 984): 411- 33; Sinclair, Th., "T he Site of Tigranoccrta ", I, REAm1, XXV (1994-1995 ): 83-154; II , Ibid., XXVJ (1996-1997 ): 51-118 . All of these remain hypothetical until excavations can be undertaken. 6. For the earlier Urartian documentation, see Pi otrovskij, B. 8 ., Vanskoe C ar st vo (Moscow-Leningrad, 1959); the English trans- lation, Th e Kingdom of Van is regrettably ina cc urate und incomplete; Id., Urart 11 Archreologia Mundi ( I 968), etc .; Van Loon, M. N., Urarrian Arr: /r s Di slinct ive Traits /111h e lig/11 of N. G. GARSOI AN ofChr i~ tian 111onumcnts in the fourth a nd fifth cen turi es A.O. Th e whole of the Ac l nc me nid, Hell en istic and Roman periods arc still re pre se nted by a pitifully sma ll number of sca ttered obje cts and in sc ription s, th e mo st i nt erest ing of which are the G r eek one found at Gaini, together with the mo sa ic found on th e site ne xt to th e di sp ut ed reconstruction of a s mall Hellenistic building purport ed to be a templ e,7 and th e much New Ex c ava tions (Istanbul, 196 6); Azarpay, G , Urarlian Ari and Artifacts. A Chronological S tud y (Berkeley-Los-Angeles, 196 8); Melikisvili, GA ., ed., Urarckie klinoobraznye nadpisi [ Urarlian Cuneiform lnscriplions] (Moscow, 19 60); Diakono v, I. M., ed., Urarck ie pis 'ma i dok11111 e nty [ Urart ian Lellers and Do c um e nt s ] (Moscow, 1963); the excavation reports, K an ni r Blur I-IV (Erc- van, 1950-195 S); and the numerous articles of R. D . Barnett on the British excavations at Toprak Ka le near Van and of M. J. Mellink in the Ameri ca n Journal of Archreology. The main pu- blication on the Bronze Age so far has been Xa~ •atryan, T. S, Artikskij necropo /'(Th e Arlik Necropolis] (Erevan, 1979 ), supple- mented by numerous articles. See also, Martirosyan, A. A., Arm enija v Epo h11 bronzy i rann eg o te / ez a [Ann enia in lhe Bronze and Early Iron Ages] (Erevan, 1964) and Dezelius, R., Mers am or (Vienna, 1995). For inscriptions, sec Trever, K. V., Oc'erki po islorii k11l~u ,y clrevnej Armenii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1953) [= Armenia], I04-2 88 . The Armenian Academy has published since 1968 a multivolume se ries entitled Ha yastan i hnagitakan h usa r jan n ere [The Ar cheological Monuments of Armenia]. On the earliest Christian monuments, sec Der Nersessian, S., l ' art armenien (Paris, 1977), English edition, Armenian Art( = Art] (London, 1978), 23-50; Thierry, J .M. and Donabedian, P. , L · art de s a rm eniens (= Thierry, Ari] (Paris, 19 87), English edition, Arm en ia n Art ( 1989), 50-56; Do cume /1/ s of Armenia11 Arc hi1 ec- t11r e, 23 vols. (Milan-Venice, 196 8-1998): Cuneo, P., Studi di ar c hile/lura medi oevale armena iv (Rome , 1973); Id l 'Architel/ura arm e na dal quarto al di eci n ov e,i mo secolv . 2 vols. (Rome, 1988); Gandolfo, F., l e ba s iliche ar me ne IV- VII secolo (Rome, 1982); and the multiple works o f M. Hasratyan, V. Harut 'y unyan, A. L. Jakob so n, J. M . and N. Thierry, et al ., for which sec the extensive bibliography in Cuneo, l 'architellura arm e na, 2 : 873-905 On the e xc avations of Duin , see 1-larut'yunyan, V., D v ini V-V /1 dd. cartarapetakan husarjann ere [The A rr :hit ec 111ral Monum e /1/ s of Duin , J.IV'-V /f h Ce nturies] (Ere- van, 1950); Lafadaryan, K ., Dvin k ' alak ·e ew nra pe lunmere [The City of Duin and its Ruins], 2 vols. (Erevan, 1952, 1982); Id., "Les fouillcs de la ville de Dvin (Duin)," REA rm , n.s. 11 ( 1965): 283-30 I; D'Onofrio, M., l e c hi ese di Dvin (Rome, 1973). 7. Trever, K. V., Nae/pis' o po stroe nii armi<ms ka j kr epos ti Ga'.w [The l11 scriptio 11 c once rnin g th e Co 11 s 1ru c1 io 11 of the A rm e man F or tress ofGarni] (Leningrad, 1949); Eau., Ar menia, 26-95, 174- 211 ; Bart'ikyan, X. M., "Garnii hunarcn arjanagrul'y ~n - ~ cw Movscs Xorcnae'in [The Greek Inscription from Garm nnd Movses Xoren ac' i]", PB-H ( 1965/3): 238-44. On the results of the excavations and the reconstrnction of the presumed temple. secArak'clynn, B.N ., e ra/ , Gar 11i /- V(Erevan, 19 51-1976); Id.. "Excavations at Ga rni 1949-1 950, I 951-1955: Contributions 10 the Archreology o f Armenia", in Rus sian Tmus/ a ti on Se ries 0/ th e P eabody M11 se 11111 ll/ 13 (Cambridge, MA, 19 68), 13-198. For a challenge to the identification of the building as n temple: s~ ~ Wilkinson, R. D., "A Fresh Look nt the Ionic Building at Ganu , REArm, n.s. XVI (1982): 221-44. Shared by User:Bsoyka on 10/13/2024 for non-commercial educational fair use in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Any other use is likely a copyright violation. EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY A RM EN I AN HI STORIOGRAl'IIY IN CRISIS di scussed grafliti from Amrnwir on th e north bank of the Araxes ri ver, 8 as we ll as by the meager finds from th e exca- vations of the Hellenistic and early Christian capital of Artasat begun in 1970. 9 To these should be added the few boundary stones of king Artases I in Aramaic dating from the early second century 8. C., whose importance has been noted recently. 10 The problems set by the dearth of archeological materials preceding the Christianization of the trans-Euphratine kingdom of Greater Armenia at the beginning of the fourth century find their counterpart in the realm of written sour- ces. Although historiography was to be one of the major genres of medieval Armenian literature, Armenia did not find its own voice until the creation of a separate alphabet for Armenian at the beginning of the fifth century A.D. Before this date, scholars must rely on occasional, inadequate and often hostile references in classical sources or in Iranian ins- criptions which do not reach beyond the third century A.D. 11 8. Boltunova , A. I. , "Grefeskije nadpi si iz Annavira [The Greek Inscriptions from Annavir' ], Telekagir ( 1942 / l-2); Tr e ver, K. N ., Armenia, 104-56 ; Manandy an, Greceskie nadpisi iz Arma vi ra [Th e Greek In scriptions from Armavir] (Erevan, 1946) ; a very brief account is given in Id. , Th e Trad e and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient W orld Trade , tr. N. G GarsoYan (Louvain- Li s bon, J 985), 36-8 ; Mahe , J.-P. , "Moi"se de Khorene et Je s ins- criptions grecques d'Annavir", TOnOI , 4/2 ( 1994) : 567-86. The late st interpretation of the se pu zz ling and damaged inscription s is to be found in de Lamberteric , C h., "Un po e te hellc!nistique en Annc!nie" , in Langu es en contacJ dans I 'a ntiquite, A. Blan c and A. C hri s to! , eds., (Nancy-Paris, 1999) , 151-67 Unfortunately , the rock bearing the mo st interesting and enigmati c in sc ription s was recently destroyed . See al so, Rostovtself, M. , Aparanskaja greceskaja nadpi s' carja Tiridata [Th e Aparan Greek In scrip- tion of King Tiridates] (St. Petersburg, 1911 ). 9. Arak'elyan, B. N., Ocerki po istorii isk usstva dr ev nej Armenii [Outline of th e Hi story of An cie nt Arm enian Art} (Erevan, 1976) ; Id ., Artasat I (Erevan, 1982) ; Xac'.!'atryan, Z. D., Artafat II (Ere- van, 19 81 ). 10 . Diakonov, I. M. and Strakova, K. B., "Nadpisi Artaksija ( Arta ~esa) ca rja Armen ii (The Inscriptions of Artaxias (Arta~e s) King of Annenia]", V es tn ik Drevnej /storii [J ournal of An cie nt Hi story ], (l 955 /1); Dupont-S ommer, A., "Le s in scr iption s ara- m ee nn es trouv c!es pr es du l ac Scvan", Syria, XXV / 1-2 ( 1946 - 194 8); Trever, Arm enia, 162-74 ; Perikhanian, A. G, "A ramejskaja nadpi s' iz Gami [Th e Aramaic In sc ription from Gah1i]", PB-H (1964 / 3) : 123-37; Ead ., "L'inscription aramc!ennedu roiArta~es", REArm, n .s . Ill (l 966) : 17 -29; Ea d ., " Le s inscriptions arnmeen- ne s du roi Arta c he s", REA rm, n .s. Vlll ( 19 71 ): 1 69 -74 ; Ead ., " In sc ription aramc!enne gravc!e sur une coupe d'arge nt trouv ee a Sisian (Armc!nie)" , Ibid., 5-11 and pl.I-II; Danielynn , A. M ., "ArtaSes 1-i ha s tatvac sahmanak'areri ira vak an n ~ana kut 'y un l! [Th e Legal s ignificanc e of the boundary s ton es erected by Arta Ses I]" , PB -H (sec infra n. 17) , (1977 / 3) : 235-44 11 Aficr the re fe rences in Tacitus , Plin y the E lder and Di o Cas - s iu s, the main classical so ur ce before th e creation of th e Anneni an alphabet is the His to, y of Ammianus Mar ce llinu s. D es pite so me 51 This deficiency has been compounded by a series of technical problems connected with the circumstances surrounding the appearance and preservation of original Armenian historical works. Even where these primary sources do not depend to all intents and purposes on a single manuscript, as is the case for the crucial collection of the official correspondence of the Armenian medieval Church, known as Th e Bo ok of Letter s, 12 an ominous lacuna separating the creation of the work from its earliest known manuscript has repeatedly made the task of producing critical editions particularly hazardous. To give but one example. The earliest complete text of the work, attribued until recently to an otherwise unknown P'awstos Buzand or Faustus of Byzantium, but in fact an anonymous compilation of oral records entitled, Epic his to- he s itations as to the preci se date , the cr ea tion of the Armenian alphabet is gen era lly dated in the first decade of the fifth century. Thereafter , the main By za ntine s ource s contain so me referen ces to Armenia as doc s the legisl a tion of Justinian, in particular Novella xxxi , on the creation of the four Armenias and Con s tan- tine Porphyrogenitu s, De Administrando lmperio, 2 v ol s., 2 nd ed. ( Washington , D C, 1982) for the later medieval period. Th e main Iranian in sc riptions arc tho se of the king of king Sahpur I and the great magupat Kirdir at Naq S- i Ru s tam , sec Sprengling, M ., Third c entury Iran : Sapor and Kartir (Chicago, 1953) and ofNarses at Paikuli, Th e Sasanian Ins criptions of Paikuli, ed s. and tr. H. Humbach and P. 0. Skjrerv0 , vo l. Ill (Wiesbaden , 19 83); see also, Back, M., Die sassanidischen Statinschriften (Leiden, 1978) and Gignoux, P., ed. and tr. , Les quatre in scriptions du mag e Kirdir ( Paris , 1991 ). The publication of Sassanian seals has added so me infom1ation concerning Pe rs ian administration in Greater Armenia, but the y still remain as yet partial and scatt ered See most recently, Gyselen, R ., Nouveam materiaux po ur la geog raphi e h is tori qu e de I ' Empire sassanide : sce au-r administratifs de la co llection Ahmad Sa ee di. Studia /ran ica. Ca hier s 24 ( Pari s, 2002) . Syriac chronicles, suc h as the Chronica min ora published in the Syriac sec ti on of th e Corp us Sc riptorum Chris ti a no r um Or ie ntali11m [ CSCO] ( Lou va in ), or The C hronicl e of Joshua th e Stylit e, tr. W. Wright (Ca mb ri dge , 1 882; repr Am s- terd a m, 196 8); and even la te ones, such as th e Ch ron icle of Seer /, ed. a nd Ir A. Scher, Pat rologia Ori e nta/is, eds R. Gra flin a nd F. Nau , 4/ 1, 5/ 2, 7/ 2, 13 / 4; and the work of th e late Xll th century J aco bit e patriarch of Antioch , Mi c hael th e Syrian, Ch l'Oniq ue de M ic hel le Syr ie n patriarche d 'Antio che ( II 66-1 19 9), ed. and tr. J. -B. Chabot, 4 vo ls (Paris, 1 899 -1 9 IO ; rcpr 19 63) ure proving of increas ing importance, see al so, P ig ul evskaja, N., Sirijskie is tocniki po istorii SSSR [Syriac So ur ces 0 11 th e Hi sto,y of th e USS R] (Moscow-Leningrad, 1941 ). Some attempts to collec t a nd tran s lat e into Armenian th e infonnation found in foreign so ur ces h as be en initiated in Ercv an, e.g. Melik'sct-bek, GL., Vrac · albyumere Hayas tan l ew fic, yeri masir1 [Georgian So 11r ces con ce rnin g Arme nia and th e Ar menians]. 3 vo l s. (Erevan, 1934, 1 936, 1955) ; Na lbandynn , 1-1 T., Ara b akcm a lb y 11m ere H ayasta ni ew har ewa n e rk e ri ma si,1 [ Amb Sour ces co ncerning Armenia a nd the Neig hboring lands) (Erevan, 1965 ), etc ., but non e of th ese co llecti ons ha s b ee n tran sla ted into weste rn l ang uage s. 12 Tallon , M ., l e li 11re des le /Ir es (Beirut, 1955) , 16 -20 Shared by User:Bsoyka on 10/13/2024 for non-commercial educational fair use in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Any other use is likely a copyright violation. EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY 52 ri es--0ur main source for the history of the final period of the Annenian Arsacid kingdom of Greater Annenia and its Church in the fourth century-apparently securely dated in the seventies of the fifth century, is to be found in a Jerusalem manuscript from 1599 .'3 Even more damaging is the ethos of these historical works first produced in the second half of the fifth century, in the generation immediately following the desperate stand in 451 of the Annenian magnates grouped around their hereditary commander in chiefprince Vardan Mamikonean against the Sasanian attempt to reimpose Zoroastrianism on a now Chris- tian Armenia. The ideological result of this military disaster was to be projected for centuries to come. Canonized by the Armenian Church, which to this day commemorates Saint Vardan and his companions as one of the high points of its litwgical year, the memory of their heroic martyrdom was perpetuated as the national model, even during the long periods in which no secular state provided a focus for the allegiance of all Armenians. Born under such auspices, what Robert Thomson has perceptively called "t he received tra- dition" in Armenian literature unanimously rejected any link or even memory of the country's Iranian past and obscured any record of its subsequent Muslim overlordship. 14 Consequently, Armenian sources often need to be read as distorting mirrors. The inferiority complex vis-a-vis Wes- tern civilization which overwhelmed most of the Near East in the nineteenth century reinforced this traditional point of- view, so that even in his fundamental analysis of the characteristic social system of early Christian Armenia published in I908, the great historian Nicholas Adontz anachronistically sought parallels for its fourth and fifth century institutions in eleventh century western feudalism. 15 As a result, hi sto rical studies at the beginning of the twentieth century had progressed very little beyond a narrow, traditional , exclusively Christian and Eurocentric interpretation of Armenia's past, although a number of editions of sources and studies were being provided by the Mekhitarist congregations of Venice and Vienna each of which inaugurated a learned journal devoted to Armenian studies published primarily in the so-called We st Armenian I 3. The Epic Hist ories allributed to P 'awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Pa1mut"iwnk '), tr. and co mm . N. G Garsoran (Ca mbridge, MA , 19 89) [= BP] , 601. I4. Thom so n, R.W. ed., £/ ishe Hi s1 ory of Vardan und th e Armenian War (C ambridge, MA , 19 82) [= E/ish e], Intro du cti on , 1-3; Garsoran, N. G, "Reality and Myth in Armenian H is tory ", in The Eust and the Meaning of History = Studi Orientuli dell 'U nivers ita di R om a La Sapie nza , I 3 ( Rome , 19 94) [= Reality and Myth] , I 24 -5; repr. in Ea d ., Church und Culture, §xi i. 15 . Adontz, N., Armenia in th e Period of J11 s ti11ia11 Th e Political Conditions based 0 11 th e nuzurur System, ed. an d tr. N. G. Gars oYan (Lisbon, 1970) [= Arm eniuj, 343 -61; cf Ga r so ran , Reality and Myth , 14 3-45. N. G. GARS OIAN developed by th em for th e d1 a,po ra , b ut difTcring from the one us ed by i nt ellectuals or the ho mela nd , and of Iran 16 The tum of th e twentieth centu ry marked a fundamental watershed in a ll field s. Even ea rli er, the journal Ararat had undertaken a sys tematic publication of little known sources accompanied by the sc hol a rly articles of suc h l ea rned clerics as Karapet and Galust Ter Mkrtc ' ean. 1 7 An edition, albeit a poor one, of the a II important collection of the Book of Leflers appeared in Tiflis in 1901 18 a nd was followed by a far more 16 . Both journals are st ill publishing, and contain numerous valuable articles, especia ll y in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries: Bazmavep/Pazmaveb (Venice, 1842-) and Handes Amsorya [= HA) (Vienna, 1876-). Both contain some articles in western language s. The two modem Annenian literary languages , usually ifinaccurate ly named We st and East Armenian , were developed from a multiplicity of dialects, respectively at Venice and T'bilisi, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though mutually comprehensible, the two display morphological, lexical, syntactic and especially phonetic differences. All earlier sources were compo se d in so-called classical Annenian or Grabar, first recorded in the fifth century, but obviously evolv ing to some degree since that time 17 Ararat (EJmiacin, I868- I917). In th e twentieth century, the main scholarly publications in the field of Annenian studies ha ve been the Journal of Social Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Annenian SSR and subsequently Annenian Republic [Telekagir]; name changed to Lraber [M essenger] (1956-) and especially its Historico-Philological Journal [Pa1111a - Banasirakan Handes = PB-HJ ( I 964-). The State Library of Ancient Manu scripts [Mat e nadaran] al so publis he s irregularly since 1954 an important journal Banber Matenadarani [M essenger of the Matenadaran] , of which seve nt een vol ume s have appeared to date. All three journals publi sh in modem East Armenian, with occasional articles in Ru ss ian In the West , the main journal for the pre-modern period is the Revue de s elud es armeniennes [REA rm] publi s hed in the main European l ang uage s. The first series of nin e volumes was publi s hed in Paris ( I920- 1929) . The new series, begun in 1964, comprises tw enty-eig ht volumes to date. 1 8. Girk'T'/t'oc' [The Book of Lellers = BL], ed . Y. lzmireanc' (Tillis, 190 I). A seco nd, but still not critical, edition with a new, presumably chronologi ca l, order of documents was publi s hed by Archbp. Norayr Polar ea n [Bogh a ri a n] (Jernsalem, 1994) . The V1I 1h century co ll ection of dogmatic texts accepted by the Annenian Church known as the Knik' Hawat oy [S ea l of Faith] wa s first published in tJ miacin (1914) and reprinted und er the title Ca tholicos Komita s. Le sc eau de la Joi (Louvain, 1974). The Arm enian Canon bo ok [ Kan onagirk' Ha yoc 1 wa s publi s hed in 2 vols. by V. Hakobyan (Erev an , 1964, I 97 1). It s French ver- sion with ex tensive commentaries by A. Mardirossian is soo n to appear in the CSCO. See al so Amadouni, K., Tes ti vari di dirillo c anonico arm eno (se coli / V-XV l/1) (Vatican, 195 2). The Annenian vers ion of th e patristic Apophtegmata was brought out in a Latin translation by Dom L. Leloir, Paterica a rm eniaw a PP Mechi tari sti edita (ll:J 55) 111111 c latin e re cldita CSC O, Subsidiu, vo ls. 42 , 4 3, 4 7, 51 (Louvain, 1974- 1976). A X111 "' ce ntu ry ver - s ion of th e Arm en ia n S )111axmy, "Le Sy naxuiro Arm ~ ni en de Ter Shared by User:Bsoyka on 10/13/2024 for non-commercial educational fair use in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Any other use is likely a copyright violation. EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY ARMENIA N HI STORIOGRA PII\ I:\ , ~1 '•, sc hol arly series of critical editions ofth , nwn h 1~!\ll 1 c al ~uu r- ces, likewise published in Tillis in the years imme di ately preceding th e first World \V ar. lnt cm1 pted by the c hao ti c si- tuation prevailing thereafter in Caucasia, these difficultly obtainable editions were replaced and supplemented by scholars working primarily in Erevan since the seco nd World War , so that almost all the main hi storical sources from the fifth to the thirteenth century have now become available, as did other tools. The often in adequate translations of the nineteenth century have been replaced through the unremitting activity of Robert Thomson and some others who have made a constantly increasing number of these sources available to Western scholars unacquainted with classical Armenian. 19 Thomson's copious annotations have further traced the borrowings of Armenian authors from classical and patristic Israel ", G Bayan ed. and tr. , is to be found in the P atro logia Orienta/is, 513 , 6/2, 15 /3, 16 / 1, 18 /1, 19 /1, 21/1-6 (1909-1930). Howe ver, the translated text is that of Kirakos Arewelc' i ( 1269) and not that ofTer Israyel (1240). 19. For a bibliography of Armenian manuscript catalogues, see B. Coulie, Repertoire des bibliotheques et des catalogues de ma- nuscrits armeniens (Brepols, 1992) and for medieval s ources i ncluding translations of foreign works into Armenian, R.W. Thomson, A Bibliography of Classical Armenian Literature to 1500 AD (Brepols , 1995). Among others see Id ., ed. and comm., Agathangelos. History of th e Armenians (Albany, 1976) ; Id ., Moses Khorenats 'i '. History of th e Ar menia ns (Ca mbridge , MA , 1978); Id ., E/ishe; Id ., Thomas Artsruni. Hi story of th e Hous e of the Artsrunik' ( Detroit , 1985 ); Id ., "The Historical Compilation ofVardanArewelci", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 43 (1989): 125- 226; Id ., "The Anonymous Storyteller (also known as P se udo- Sapuh)", REArm, XXI (1988-1989): 17 1-232; Id., Th e Hi story of Lazar P 'arpec 'i (Atlanta, 1991 ); Id ., Rewriting Caucasian history. Th e Medieval Armenian Adaptation of th e Georgian Chronicles (Oxford , 1996); Id ., and J. How ar d-John so n, Th e Armenian History attributed to S ebeos, 2 vols. (Liverpool, 1999) A number of translations of other medieval sources , some of un even quality , ha ve a lso a ppeared in English: Norehad, B ., The Lif e of Mashtots (New York , 1964 ; repr. Albany , 1985); BP; Maksoudian, K. H ., tr and comm. , Yovhannes Drasxanakertc 'i History of Armenia (A tlanta , 1987); Avdoyan , L., tr and co mm ., Ps . Yovhannes Mamikonean. History ofTar (J n (Atlanta, 19 93) [ = P s. YM]. Fo r versions of the differe nt acco unt s of the History of Agat 'angelos, see Lafontaine, G, tr., La ve rsion grecque ancienne du livre armenien d'Agathange (Louvain, 1973); and Van Esbroeck , M ., "Un nouveau temoin du livre d'Aga th ange", REArm, n.s. Vlll (1971): 13-167; see also Garille, G., Do c u- ments pour /' etude du livre d'Agathange (Vatican, 1946) The early tran s lati ons of Cha hn azari an , V ., Ghewond [l ewo nd. Hi s- toire des guerres et des conquetes arabes en Armenie], 2 vo ls. (Par is , I 856) and Bro sse t, M .-F., "O ukhtane s d'Our ha Hi s toire en trois partie s", in Deux historiens ar111eni e 11s (S t. Peter s burg , 1870), rem ai n pre fer ab le despite th ei r deficiencies to the inadequate recent Eng li sh transla ti ons . S imil a rly the tran s lati on of the secon d ponion of ih e 1/isloire 1111i ve rs elle par Etienne Aso /ik de Tar(Jn , tr. F. M acle r (Paris , 19 I 7) h as not ye t b ee n s uper seded 53 sources th ereby revealing the links between Armenian literature from it s earliest period to the broader medieval int e ll ectual world. Forgeries, such as the supposedly double His to,y a/ Taran traditionally attributed to the fourth century Syrian, Zenob Glak, continued in the seventh century by the Annenian, Yo vha nne s Mamikonean, has now been shown to be a s ingle te nth century construct. A growing number of trans- lations of Syriac works into Armenian, and of disguised sour- ces, among th em the works of Aphraates attributed by the Armenians to James ofNisibis or those ofTheodoret of Cyr masquerading as those of Cyril of Alexandria have been securely identified. 20 Most of the valuable colophons for the medieval period and to the fifteenth century have been publi s hed, with a selection translated into English; a systematic publication of Armenian inscriptions undertaken on a geographical b as is by the Armenian Academy. Latel y, the field of folklore has received increasing attention beginning with analyses and reconstruction of the fragments in a variety of dialects of the folk epic collected from illiterate village storytellers at the end of the preceding century and expanded by the numerous studies ofM. Abelean , K. Melik'-Ohanjanyan and at present James Russell at Harvard. 21 The recently undertaken study of personal names has revealed not only the 20. On the Ps. Zenob, see Avdoyan, Ps .Y M; For Syriac tran s la- tions into Armenian and the influen ce of th e Antiochene exegetical t radition see: Marie s, L. a nd Me rcier , Ch ., " Hymne s de saint Ephrem conserves en version arrnenienne", Patrologia Orienta/is, F. Nau ed. , 30 /1 ( 196 I); Lafontaine, G., ed and tr ., La ve rsion armenienne d es amvres d 'Ap hraat le Syri en, 6 vo l s. (Louvain , I 977-180); Ter Petro sya n, L ., " Dv a Sirij sk ih agiografi~eskih pamjatnika i zves tnih po a rrnj ans komu perevodu [Two Syriac hagiographic sources known thr oug h their Armenian t ra nsla- tion)", Palestinskij Sb orn ik [Pal estinian Co llecti on] 25(88] (1974): 144-51 ; Id. , Ancient Armenian Translations (E re van , 1984 ), E ngli sh tr (New York , 1992); Id ., Ab raham Xostovano/i "Vkayk ' Areweli c'" [Th e "Eastern Martyrs" of Abraham the Confessor] (Erevan, 197 6); Id ., "La plu s ancienne traduction arrncnienne de s chroniques", REA rm, XVIII ( 1984): 215-25; Ter P etrosy an and Outtier, B ., eds. a nd tr s. , Text es armeniens re/atifs a S. Ephre m, 2 vo ls . (Lou vain- l a-Ne u ve, 19 85); Van Es bro eck, M. , "A braham le Co nfe sse ur (V's .) t ra du c teur d es passions des martyrs pers es", Anal ec ta Bollandiana, 95 ( 1977), 169 -79; Mahe , J.-P., " Traduction et exegcsc : reflexions sur I 'exemple armenien", in Melanges Antoin~ G11illa11mo11t (Geneva , 1988), 243-55; Garso Yan , N. G., L 'E glise armenie11 ne et le grand Schisme d'Orient [= L 'Eglise a rm enie nn e] CSCO 574, Subs. 100 (Lou- va in, 199 9), 131 - 133 For authentic a nd purp o rt ed, tran sla ti ons ofEphrem in Annenian, see Murray, R ., Sym bo ls of Churc h a nd Kingdom (Ca mbridg e, 19 75), 366; Mathews, E., Th e Arme 11i a 11 Co mm entary 011 Gen es is allributed to Eph rem the Syrian, CSCO 572-573 (Louvain, 1998) an d Id ., Th e Armenian Co mm entaries on Exod11s - De 111 e ron omy allrib111 ed to Ephr em th e Syrian, CSCO 587-588 (Louvain-la-Ncuve , 200 I) 21. For lh e co l op hon s see : GarsoYa n, A 111h ropo 11 ym ie, 228 n .3 To date, six vo lum es of in scri pti ons orga ni ze d by region have been publi she d by the Armenian Acndemy of Sc ien ces : Cu rp11s Shared by User:Bsoyka on 10/13/2024 for non-commercial educational fair use in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Any other use is likely a copyright violation. EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY 54 remarkable presence of some fifty clearly distinct noble clans in early Christian Annenia, but even the specific pramomina exclusively used by each of these clans, such for instance as Vardan and Artawazd in the family of the Mamikonean. Cen- turies later these would serve to identify the Byzantine emperor of the seventh century Philippikos-Bardanes/Vardan and the son in law of the emperor Leo Ill, Artavasdos, as distant des- cendants of this family. The juxtaposition of visual Iranian and written Armenian sources, so close as to form in number of cases a single document with its illustrations, has opened new possibilities for research in both areas. 22 Numerous in- vestigations have gradually transformed Greater Armenia from inscriptionum armeniacum (Erevan, 1960-1982). The multiple versions of the national epic were published in 3 vols.: Abelyan, H .. Melik" OhanJanyan, K., Sasna crer (Erevan, 1936, 1944, 1959) and supplemented subsequently, as new fragments were identified. A " homogenized" continuous version was published by J. Orbeli, Sasunc'i Dawit ', 2 nd ed. (Erevan, 1961). The best translation of this edition is by Feydit, F., David de Sassoun (Pa- ris, 1964), which is preferable to the English one of A. K. Shalian, David of Sasoun. The Armenian Folk Epi c in Four Cycles (Athens, OH , 1965). On the folklore in general, see Abelean, M ., Da s arm e nis c he Volksglaube (Leipzig, 1895); Id., Hay io lovrdakan araspelnere [Armenian popular l ege nds) (Valarlapat, 1900); Id., Hay iolovrdakan vepe [The Armenian Folk Epi c] ( Tillis, I 908); Id "Das armenische Volkepos", Mitteilungen der Ausland-Hochschu/e an der Universitiit Ber- l in, XLII ( I 940) , 225-238; Ananikian , M ., " Armenian Mythology" in Mac Culloch, ed., The Mythology of all Races, VU (New York, 1925; repr. 1964). Among many other of his articles, Melik'-Ohanjanyan, K ., "Tiran-Trdati vep~ [The Tale ofTiran-Trdat]" , Telekagir (1947/6), 59-74; (1947/7), 59-77; Lanalanyan, A ., Avandapatum [Traditio nal History] (Erevan 1969; Russian tr 1980) ; Hambroer , J., Armenis cher Diimonenglaube in religionwis se n sc haftlic her Sicht (Vienna, 1962) ; and the multi volumed, Hay azgagrut 'yun ew banahyusut )iun [Armenian ethnography and (folk) literature] (Erevan, 1968-). For the pervading Iranian tradition in Armenia, see Ru ss ell, J. R., Zoroastrianism in Armenia (Cambridge, MA , I 984) complemented by numerous articles; and for its presence in the early Christian period, Garsoi"an, N. G,''The Locus of the Death of Kings: Armenia the inverted Image", in R. Ho vannisian ed., The Armeni an Image in Hi story and Literature (Malibu, CA, 1981 [= Loc us] , 27-64; repr, in Ead., Armenia betw ee n B yz antium andth e Sasanians [= Armenia] (London, 1985) §x i; Ead., "The Iranian Substratum of the Agat' angelos Cycle[ = Iranian Subs- tratum]", in East of B yz antium. Syria and Armenia in the For- mative Period, N. G Garsoran, Th . F. Mathews and R. W. Thom- son eds. (Washington, D C, 1982) [ * East of B yza 111ium ], 151 - 189; repr. in Ead., Armenia §x ii ; Ead., " Le guerricr des seigneurs", Studia lrani ca, 32 (2003). 22. Garsoran, Anthroponymie, 230-231; Ead. "The Problem of Armenian Integration into the Byzantine Empire", in Studies into the Internal Diaspora of the B yz allfine Empire, eds. 11. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou (Washington, DC, 1982; repr. in Ead., Church and Culture, § xiii(= Integration], 66, 97. For the juxtaposition of visual and written sources, see Garsoran, N. G., " L'art iranien N. G. GARSOIAN the term in cog n ito II had long remained. A monumental historical /\tl as of A1111c nia ha s final ly appeared 23 and numerous early Armenian sites and monuments have been identified and recorded. 24 The so-called Hellenizing school which sought to create a sc holarly vocabulary adequate for the translation of Greek philosophical and theological works, and its evolution from awkward literal equivalencies to more sophisticated fonns, was traced among others by Manandyan, Muradyan, Mercier and Terian, although its chronology remains disputed. 25 Coming from the opposite side, Benve- niste amplified and consolidated the earlier work ofMeillet to demonstrate tha t the majority of the massive Iranian borrowings in classical Armenian were to be traced to earlier Middle Parthian rather than to Pahlavi Sasanian forms. 26 comme temoin de l 'a rmement armenien sous Jes Arsacides", in Atti de/ Quinto Simposio Internazio nal e di Arte Armena, ed. 8 . Zek.iyan (Venice, 1992) (= Armement], 385-395 and pis.; repr. in Ead., Church and Culture, §x; Gar so i"an , N. G and Mahe, J. -P ., Des Parthes au Califat. Quatre leqons sur laformation de /'iden- tite armenienne (Paris, 1998) (= Parthes au Califat], 9-37, and pis. 23. Hilbschmann, H., Die altarmenische Ortsnamen (Strasburg, 1904; repr. Am sterdam, 1969); Markwart, J ., Eransahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac 'i (Berlin , 190 I); Id ., Siidarmenien und die 1igris qu e ll en (Vienna, 1930); Id., "La P ro - vince de Parskahayk"', REA rm, n.s. III ( 1966): 252-314 ; Honigmann, E., Di e Ostgenze des byzantinischen Reiches von 363 bis I 071 (Brussels, 1935); Eremyan, S. T., Ha yast an e est "Asxarhac 'oyc "' -i [Armenia acco rding to th e [Arme nian ] Geography] (Erevan, 1963), English version by R. H. Hewsen, "Armenia according to the Mx_arhac'oyc "', REA rm, n.s. 11 ( 1965 ): 319-342; Hakobyan, T' X., Hayastani patmakan as xarha gn1ty11n [Historical Geography of Armenia], 4,h ed. (Erevan , 1968); Hewsen, R. H., " Introduction to