REWRITING CAUCASIAN HISTORY the Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles the Original Georgian Texts and the Armenian Adaptation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
OXFORD ORIENTAL MONOGRAPHS REWRITING CAUCASIAN HISTORY The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles The Original Georgian Texts and The Armenian Adaptation Translated with Introduction and Commentary by ROBERT W. THOMSON Published with the Support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD Oxford Oriental Monographs This new series of monographs from the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, will make available the results of recent research by scholars connected with the Faculty. Its range of subject-matter includes language, literature, thought, history and art; its geographical scope extends from the Mediterranean and Caucasus to East Asia. The emphasis will be more on special ist studies than on works of a general nature. Editorial Board John Baines Professor o f Egyptology Glen Dudbridge Shaw Professor of Chinese Alan Jones Reader in Islamic Studies Robert Thomson Calouste Gulbenkian Professor o f Armenian Studies Titles in the Series Sufism and Islamic Reform in Egypt The Battle for Islamic Tradition Julian Johansen The Early Porcelain Kilns of Japan Arita in the first half of the Seventeenth Century Oliver Impey Rewriting Caucasian History The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles THE ORIGINAL GEORGIAN TEXTS AND THE ARMENIAN ADAPTATION Translated with Introduction and Commentary by ROBERT W. THOMSON CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD 1996 Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6 d p Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a trade mark o f Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Robert W. Thomson 1996 A ll rights reserved. No part o f this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing o f Oxford University Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect o f any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, or in the case o f reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms o f the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data K'art'lis c'xovreba. Polyglot. Rewriting Caucasian history: the medieval Armenian adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles: the original Georgian texts and the Armenian adaptation / translated with introduction and commentary by Robert W. Thomson. (Oxford oriental monographs) Includes bibliographical references. I. Georgia (Republic)— History— To 1801. 2. Georgia (Republic)— Kings and rulers— Biography. [ /. K'art'lis c'xovreba— Translations into Armenian— History and criticism.] I. Thomson, Robert W., 1934- . II. Title. III. Series. DK675.2.K37R48 1996 947'.95— dc20 95-40306 IS B N 0-19-826373-2 13579 10 8642 Typeset by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd. Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., Guildford & King’s Lynn PREFACE A r m e n i a n literature is rich in historical writing. Although ori ginal compositions account for by far the greatest number of his tories, Armenians also translated some foreign historical works into their own language, which were influential in the formation of the Armenian literary tradition. The two most significant are the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius of Caesarea (translated via the Syriac version in the fifth century) and his Chronicle (translated directly from the Greek some time later). Other examples include the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, also re-edited in an abbreviated fashion, and the Jewish Wars of Josephus, now lost save for a seventeenth-century revision. In the thirteenth century two other foreign histories were translated: the Syriac Chronicle of the Patriarch Michael, and the collection of Georgian Chronicles known as ‘The Life of Georgia’, K 'art’lis C'xovreba. These later translations are of interest, not merely for their infor mation about foreign lands, which now became available to medieval Armenian writers, but also for the mode of translation. For both are abbreviated renderings of the originals into which some new, specifically Armenian, material was incorporated. Before their impact on the succeeding generations of Armenian writers can be properly assessed, it is therefore necessary to distin guish the adapted version from the original text. That is the pur pose of the present study of the Armenian version of the Georgian Chronicles. My attention was first drawn to the Armenian rendering of the Georgian Chronicles a decade ago as one of the possible sources of the ‘Historical Compilation’ by Vardan Arevelc'i. It was known in Armenian as the ‘History of the Georgians’ (Patmut'iwn Vrac'), though the ninteenth-century editor ascribed the whole text to the author of one of its parts, JuanSer. My original intention had been to publish the translation with a commentary. But I was soon prompted to take up the original Georgian text. The prime reason was that a commentary on the Armenian rendering (which is much abbreviated yet contains some additions of its own) would run to vi Preface great length if all the changes and omissions had to be._explained. It seemed thät a juxtaposition of the two texts would be not only simpler, but also much more useful for a potential reader. A quick glance would then suffice to note the variations between the two works. It should be made clear from the outset that this is a study of the Armenian version of the Georgian Chronicles. It is not a crit ical study of the original Georgian. There are others far more competent in Georgian historiography who have addressed, and who are now engaged in studying, the historical and literary prob lems of the collection of texts known as the K ’art'lis C'xovreba. Two reasons prompted this English rendering of that part of the Georgian Chronicles which was rendered into Armenian, namely the sections from the mythical origins of Georgia down to the accession of Demetre, son of David the Builder, in 1125. In the first place, no English rendering of all these texts has been made before, although K. Vivian has translated the History o f David, King of Kings (section VI below). The French translation by Brosset (St Petersburg, 1848-52) is a splendid work to which all scholars remain greatly indebted. But since Brosset’s time new manuscripts have been discovered. My translation is thus based on the critical edition of the Georgian published in Tbilisi in 1955. There is a recent German rendering by Pätsch, but it lacks a com mentary. I therefore hope that those interested in the history of the Caucasus in early and medieval times will find this translation of some use. But far more important for the present undertaking is the fact that the Georgian translation is in effect the commentary to the translation of the Armenian; for it is the latter which is my prime target. Over the years I have studied numerous Armenian histori cal works. What interests me is how the Armenian authors put together their histories, how they used their various sources, what literary models they followed or adapted, what moral ideas they wished to present to their readers, and the impact their works had on succeeding generations. I have been trying to trace the devel opment of a specifically Armenian point of view about the past, and the ways in which those views formulated by the earliest writ ers were picked up by later writers. So far as the Georgian Chronicles are concerned, therefore, the Georgian is the ‘given’. The historical accuracy or veracity of the original text is not my Preface vii concern. What matters—in the present enquiry—is what the Armenian translator made of the text before him. How accurate was his rendering, what did he omit, what did he introduce, and what were his reasons for making changes? So this book is not an attempt to write the history of Armenia and Georgia from the origins down to the early twelfth century. It is an attempt to understand the Armenian text as a document of its own time. This means that the commentary will be more con cerned with matters philological than historical, though I have attempted to guide readers through the tricky maze of Caucasian dynasties. Luckily, for this there is already an excellent guide. Cyril ToumanofPs Studies in Christian Caucasian History is to some extent an elaborate commentary on the Georgian Chronicles and related texts down to the tenth century; the attentive reader will notice how deeply I am also indebted to his numerous articles on specific questions and his invaluable Genealogie. It seemed to me superfluous to repeat at any length information available else where; so my only claim to originality is in the translation of the Armenian and Georgian and the annotation to the differences between the two texts. In the preparation of this work I am particularly grateful to Carol Cross, who put the entire first draft of the translation and commentary into the computer and thus saved me an enormous amount of time when it came to corrections and additions. Once more I must acknowledge the cartographical skill of Robert Hewsen, to whose fine map at the end all readers will be indebted in their search for sites to match the places named in the text. Various other colleagues have helped in solving particular prob lems.