The Stranger's Voice: Integrated Literary Cultures in Anatolia and The
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The Stranger’s Voice: Integrated Literary Cultures in Anatolia and the Premodern World by Michael Bedrosian Pifer A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Professor Kevork B. Bardakjian, chair Associate Professor Kathryn Babayan Associate Professor Catherine Brown Professor Kader Konuk Professor Karla Mallette “There was one and there wasn’t one.” —the beginning of a story in Persian, Turkish, and Armenian, usually referring to a hazy time and place, long ago. © Michael Bedrosian Pifer, 2014 For my family ii Acknowledgements In the Armenian manuscript tradition, it is customary to find a bit of information on the scribe at the end of a work. These snapshots of the scribe’s life, known as colophons, usually request a few things of the reader—to remember a beloved teacher, for instance. Or, to say a prayer for the scribe’s father and mother. Or, to appeal to the reader’s good nature—which surely is great!—and ask that she not frown too severely upon any errors, shortcomings, or omissions. The scribe is, after all, only flesh and blood. Colophons are written at the end of a work, but the style today is to place them upfront. I want to begin by thanking, first and foremost, my teachers: Kevork Bardakjian, Kathryn Babayan, Catherine Brown, Kader Konuk, and Karla Mallette. None of this would have been possible without Prof. Bardakjian, whom I have known since my days as an undergraduate, and who has kindled in me a great love of languages. Simply put, he has shaped my education, and enriched my life, in more ways than he could know. Prof. Babayan has similarly opened up new worlds for me. If it were not for her unfailing guidance, warmth, and ability to help me see beyond my own limits, this project simply would not exist. To Prof. Brown, I am especially indebted both for her infectious enthusiasm, critical eye, and willingness to help me think through nearly any problem, no matter how big or small. Prof. Konuk has similarly shaped my thinking in fundamental ways, always helping me to see the larger questions at stake. Finally, I am grateful to Prof. Mallette, who joined this project at a crucial point in its later stages, for helping to give shape and weight to my final chapter. I would also like to thank the Horace H. Rackham Graduate School, the College of Literature, Science, & the Arts, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Armenian iii Studies Program, and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund for their financial and institutional support over the years. I also owe a debt of gratitude to both chairs of the Department of Comparative Literature while I have been a student, Yopie Prins and Silke Weineck, as well as from the departmental administrative staff, Nancy Harris, Paula Frank, Judith Gray, and Sonia Schmerl. To my many teachers, but especially to Anton Shammas, Julia Hell, Benjamin Paloff, Vassilis Lambropoulos, Leslie Stainton, Gerard Libaridian, Sebouh Aslanian, Mahdi Tourage, Behrad Aghaei, Fatemeh Misharifi, Saeed Honarmand, Nilay Sevinc, Bilge Özel, Michael Bonner, Waheed Samy, and so many others: thank you for your time, kindness, and giving me so many things to aspire to. In truth, I owe everyone here a greater debt than I can express, so I will leave it at that. To my father, Steven Pifer, my mother, Janice Bedrosian, my sister, Kate Pifer, and all my grandparents, but especially to my grandmother, Marg Pifer: I would not be here today without your encouragement, astounding support, and love. To my friends, especially to Steven Assarian and Justin Lindsay: I doubt I could have completed this dissertation without pausing, from time to time, to laugh with you. To my fiancée, Knar Callan, thank you for sharing with me the most difficult and rewarding part of all: the day-in, day-out, everyday routine of life (and everything in-between). For me, that has been the real adventure. Finally, a word on the ‘scribe.’ I had my first brush with poetry on the gharib, or stranger, while living for a year in Aleppo, Syria, before beginning my graduate education. At the time, I was renting a small bedroom in an apartment shared by four siblings—Hovig, Alice, Shake, and Azniv Arabian. On evenings, I would go for walks with Hovig, who would softly murmur, upon passing a particular neighborhood, iv “Armenians used to live here,” or, “an Armenian used to live there.” He seemed to possess a mental-map of the all the places where Armenians were not, but should have been. Something about the experience made an impression on me; when I finally came across the large body of Armenian poetry and songs on leaving one’s home, or being forced to create a new home without helper or friend, I found these words hard to forget. In a way, this dissertation begins with the Arabian family, many years ago, and so I leave my final thanks with them. v Table of Contents DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………….ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………….………………………...iii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………….…….…………….vii TRANSLITERATION, DATES, AND TRANSLATIONS………………….…………viii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………….…………x INTRODUCTION: WHENCE THE STRANGER? READING LITERARY CULTURES IN THE LANDS OF RŪM…………………………………………………………..……1 CHAPTER ONE — A STRANGE QURʾĀN: CONSTRUCTING AN INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK IN RŪMĪ’S KONYA……………………………………………….….26 CHAPTER TWO — A COVENANT OF STRANGERS: EARLY CONFIGURATIONS OF LITERARY TURKISH…………..………………………………………………….91 CHAPTER THREE — ‘THE GHARIB’S LORD IS GOD’: INTERSECTING POETICS IN MIDDLE ARMENIAN……………...…………………………………………..….171 CHAPTER FOUR — THE STRANGER’S VOICE: MAPPING INTEGRATED LITERATURES IN THE LANDS OF RŪM…………………………………………..257 EPILOGUE: FOLLOWING STRANGERS ELSEWHERE………………………...…314 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..321 vi List of Figures Fig. 1: Anatolia and its neighboring regions in the late 11th century…………….…….…6 Fig. 2: The Lands of Rūm and neighboring regions in the early 13th century……….…..20 Fig. 3: Rūmī’s birthplace………………………………………………………………...55 Fig. 4: Kheżr the ‘green’ gharīb attends a sermon by Rūmī…………………………..…60 Fig. 5: Rūmī’s funeral……………………………………………………………………88 Fig. 6: Community activity in Konya……………………………………….……...……99 Fig: 7: The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia…………………………………………...…175 Fig: 8: New Testament illuminated by MkrtichʿNaghash…………………...…………237 Fig. 9: Āq Qoyunlū principality, 1451………………………………………...………..238 Fig. 10: Tagh by Mkrtichʿ Naghash…………………………………………………….256 vii Transliteration, dates, and translations Transliteration of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish words and names follows the conventions of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, with a few minor exceptions. In Persian, the short vowels “a,” “u,” and “i” are rendered as “a,” “o,” and “e.” The silent “h” at the end of Persian words, such as Shāh-nāma or gorba, is omitted. The eẓāfa in Persian names is also omitted, unless appearing in a transliterated block of text. Compound words (such as Shāh-nāma, the Book of Kings) are hyphenated. In the few cases where the linguistic context of a word common to both Arabic and Persian is not clear, I have relied on the Arabic transliteration or provided the alternative pronunciation in brackets. The transliteration of Armenian words follows the system of the Library of Congress, which represents the Classical Armenian and Eastern Armenian pronunciation, with one exception. I have rendered the Armenian transliteration of ‘gharip’ as ‘gharib,’ reflecting a Western Armenian pronunciation, to maintain some conformity with the Arabic and Persian romanization of the word. Note also that proper Armenian names are generally transliterated according to the Armenian spelling: thus, Aṛakʿel Baghishetsʿi and not Aṛakʿel of Bitlis; Mkrtichʿ Naghash and not Mkrtichʿ Naqqāsh. I have also preferred to transliterate Arabic, Persian, or Turkish loan-words in Armenian texts according to the Armenian spelling. In general, I have not imposed my own romanization on the titles of books, articles, or within citations which have already adopted a different transliteration system. For readers unfamiliar with the Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman Turkish scripts, note that ‘gharīb’ is spelled the same in all three languages, although the OT transliteration is viii ‘garīb.’ When a particular context is not specified, I fall back on the Arabic/Persian transliteration of the word as ‘gharīb.’ Places generally follow current English usage. For simplicity’s sake, dates are given according to the Common Era. Finally, translations are my own unless otherwise noted. ix Abstract This dissertation intervenes in debates within Comparative Literature on the connectivity between premodern literary cultures. In particular, it focuses on the migration of a single loan-word, the gharīb, meaning stranger or foreigner, across Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Armenian literatures in Anatolia during the 13th-15th centuries. I treat the ubiquitous gharīb, which cuts across Islamic, Christian, and Jewish texts during this period, as a potent figure for rethinking what is fundamentally non-native and even ‘cosmopolitan’ about premodern literary production itself. Therefore, in telling the story of the ever- wandering stranger, this study seeks to shed light on a much larger question: how and why literary conventions traveled beyond the orbit of any single language before our own globally interconnected age. Chapter one explores how Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī shaped his multi-religious community through translocally