The Prophecy of Liberation

THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION

MARGAR XOCENC’ EREWANC’I AND CATHERINE THE GREAT’S CONQUEST OF THE CRIMEA (1783) A paragraph in the history of the Armenian Church in Russia

THEO MAARTEN VAN LINT *

Introduction The purpose of this article is to present a work entitled Translation and Commentary of the Poems and Prophecies of Veysi Efendi concerned with the conquest of the Crimea by Catherine the Great in 1783. It was written six years after the event by Margar Xocenc’ Erewanc’i, an Armenian author, translator and copyist working in St. Petersburg. It is remarkable that the work turns out to be based on a qasida by the Ottoman poet Veysi, written in the early seventeenth century, entitled Nasihat-e Islambol, ‘An Admoni- tion to Constantinople, the City of Islam’. No less interesting is the fact that it was understood by its translator as a prophecy, a claim substantiated in the commentary. There Margar Xocenc’ uses a method of interpretation which he calls cabalistic and which is found both in the Arabic Kitab al-Jafr and in the principal Armenian work on magic, the Vec’hazareak or ‘Book of the Six Thousand’. Margar’s work must be read against the background of the double quest for independence and enlightenment of the Armenian people. This was supported by the Armenian Church, the merchants from New Julfa in

* To the authorities of the Matenadaran, The mastoc’ Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, Armenia, I gladly express my gratitude for placing a microfilm of manuscript 2048 at my disposal. This article could could not have been written without the consent of the Director, Prof. Dr. Sen Arevshatian, the former curator of the Manuscript Hold- ings, Dr. Gevorg Ter-Vardanian, and the actual photographing by Mr. Samuel Agraman- ian and Mrs. Suzanna Hayrapetian, all given and executed in the shortest possible period of time. I also would like to thank Mr. Arend Jan van Lint, who allowed me to use his photolaboratory. For aid with microfilm reading machines at the Oriental Languages Reading Room at the Leiden University Library I am beholden to Mr. Hans van de Velde, MPh. For abbreviations used in the footnotes see pp. 308-309. 270 T.M. VAN LINT

Persia and their associates in India and Russia, some of whom became members of the Russian hereditary nobility. It was carried out by means of the printing press, which produced educational works varying from instructions to read Armenian to religious matters and edifying novels, translated from European languages. In order to place the work in its context, introductory sections are devoted to the Armenian quest for independence and the increasing role Russia played in it, the development of the Armenian diaspora on the Crimea and in Russia, the conquest of the Crimea, the Nor-Nakhichevan printing house and the other works Margar Xocenc’ wrote, translated and copied. The work provides insight into interpretational practises considered incompatible with enlightenment thinking, but which contribute to the quest for independence. It also sheds light on the relationship between Christian theology and Muslim sufi thinking. The article presents a brief, first exploration of Margar Xocenc’’s work.

Armenian aspirations for freedom and the growing role of Russia After the fall of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, many an Armenian dreamt of restoring independence, or, more modestly, of being governed by a Christian rather than by a Muslim ruler. Meanwhile they formed part of the Armenian millet in the Ottoman Empire, or of the Armenian minority in Safavid Persia. In both Empires the picture of the vicissitudes of the Armenians are painted with all the colours on the palette of human experi- ence: they include wealth, honour and respect as well as exclusion from many professions, dire poverty and persecution. Forced conversions occurred in both Empires, while in the earlier centuries the rounding up of Christian boys to be converted to Islam and serve in the Janissary corps in

1 V.S. Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seven- teenth Century, University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies, 14 (Atlanta, GA, 1998), pp. 1-2, 59-60; I. Baghdianz McCabe, The Shah’s Silk for Europe’s Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530-1750), University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies, 15 (Atlanta, GA, 1999), pp. 271-288. A general introduction to the Armenians in this period is Hovannisian; see also Zekiyan; further chapters 2, ‘Images of the Armenians in the Russian Empire’; and 3, ‘The Emergence of the Armenian Patriotic Intelligentsia in Russia’, in R.G. Suny, Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1993), pp. 31-51 and pp. 52- 62. On the earlier part of the period see D. Kouymjian, ‘From Disintegration to Reinte- THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 271 the Ottoman Empire was a possibility that filled families with fear and grief.1 This is not the place to give a detailed description of the Armenian expe- rience between 1375 and 1918, the loss of independence and its brief recov- ery in the wake of the genocide. Nor can we describe how the Armenians, rather than continue to live in an independent state, guaranteed by the European powers and the United States had to witness how the Republic of Armenia was partitioned between Turkey and Soviet Russia. Instead, a brief sketch must suffice to provide the background to the document and its author who will be presented below. It is hard to overestimate the central role the Armenian Church played in preserving and guiding the armenianness of the Armenians through these ages. In the absence of any other national institution, it was the Church which took the lead in political matters, in concordance with the newly emerging wealthy civilians in the Ottoman Empire and their counterparts, mainly merchants, in Persia and Russia. In the course of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries several con- sultations concerning the possibility of liberation from Muslim rule were held under the leadership of a catholicos, the head of the Church. The first of these took place in 1547 on the invitation of Catholicos Step’anos Salmastec’i (1544-1567) and convened secretly in Etchmiacin, the seat of the Catholicos, then under Persian rule. High clergymen and some laymen were present. It was decided to send the Catholicos to Europe, where he visited three crowned heads of the secular and the ecclesiastical world, Pope Julius III in Rome, with whom a church union was decided, which remained ineffective, the German Emperor Charles II in Vienna and Sigis- mund II, King of Poland in Lwow. Nothing came of this journey, except the understanding that church union with the Catholic Church was a prerequi- site to European action on behalf of the Armenians.2 A second secret council was held in 1562 in Sivas, on Ottoman territory, convened by the Catholicosal co-adjutor Mikayel Sebastac’i (1566-1577) and consisting mostly of bishops. This time the council dispatched Abgar Dpir

gration: Armenians at the Start of the Modern Era XVIth-XVIIth Centuries’, Revue du monde arménien moderne et contemporain, 1 (1994), pp. 9-18. 2 Kouymjian, p. 31. 3 Ibid. 272 T.M. VAN LINT

Tokatec’i, a layman, to Europe, whose efforts remained as fruitless as those of his predecessor.3 A third council was convened by Catholicos Azaria Ju¥aec’i in 1585, its results were as disheartening as the previous two.4 Almost a century later, in 1678, once more a secret meeting was organ- ized. Under the supervision of Catholicos Hakob Ju¥aec’i (1655-1680) not only leading clergymen were invited to Etchmiacin, but also the secular leaders of the semi-autonomous regions of Karabagh and Zangezur, the latter in the Southern part of the present day Republic of Armenia. Thanks to the inaccessibility of the areas, several meliks and their families had with- stood direct Persian or Ottoman control. The Persian shahs had accepted this situation and had given the meliks jurisdiction over their territories. Headed by the Catholicos, a delegation of seven persons went on its way to Europe. The Catholicos died on the way to Constantinople and all but one member of the delegation considered the plan cancelled. Israel Ori, the young son of melik Haikazian of Zangezur did not want to give up and spent years on a trip to promote Armenian interests. His journeys brought him to Venice, France and Prussia, where he won the support for an independent Armenia of one of the princes, Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate. After consulting with his countrymen in Etchmiacin in 1699 and a subsequent visit to the court in Vienna, it became clear that nothing could be undertaken without Russian consent. Ori managed to be received by Peter the Great in 1701, whose interests at that time coincided with those of the Armenians. However, immediate Russian action was impossible because of the Russian-Swedish war. After this war was over, Ori took service with Peter the Great and in 1708 was given a military title and appointed special envoy to Persia. However, his mission was hampered by various intrigues and Ori died on his way back to St. Petersburg, in Astrakhan, in 1711. A tangible result of Ori’s endeavours lay not so much with the political outcome of the mission itself, as with the rapprochement of the Armenian leaders, both laymen and clergy, with the Russian state, which they began to see as their natural ally.5 This had become a possibility since the southward expansion of the tsarist Empire had reached the Caspian Sea.

4 For this and the following paragraphs on Armenian emancipatory and liberational movements, see Bournoutian, esp. pp. 85-93. 5 Bournoutian, p. 87. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 273

Ever since the Russian conquests of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid sixteenth century, Armenian merchants, who had been present in Russia for centuries, could much more easily and safely travel with their goods between Persia and Russia, which now had a port on the Caspian. Astrakhan became the first stop on Russian soil and the number of Armeni- ans settling there grew. After Shah Abbas I had forced the migration of Armenians from Julfa to Isfahan in 1604, the Armenian merchants were given various trading privileges and their wealth, which in the case of some was very impressive already before the migration, grew more and more.6 Their successes in trade were such that in 1660 a group of Julfa merchants could present Tsar Alexej Michajlovic (1645-1676) with a magnificent throne, which was richly decorated with diamonds. In 1667 a trading agreement ensued, by which the Armenians became the solitary merchants entitled to sell certain Persian goods, mainly silk, in Russia.7 Armenian presence in Russia grew. In Astrakhan (1639) and in Moscow (by 1630) churches had been built and new warehouses and a tanning fac- tory were added in the course of the century.8 But trade was not the only field where Armenians were active in the Russian Empire. Some entered the Russian diplomatic service, others became soldiers or worked as artisans. This growing wealth and influence of the Armenians in the various colonies was not confined to Russia. The affluence of the New Julfa merchants, who had set up trading colonies in Europe and India and beyond as well, had given them a certain political leverage, or at least made them think about the political future of their people.

6 Arak‘el Dawrizec’i, Girk’ Patmut’eanc’ [Book of History] (Yerevan,1990, originally Am- sterdam, 1669), p. 69, relates the lavish reception the visiting Shah Abbas I was given by the Armenian merchants of Julfa. See also Ghougassian, pp. 17-32; McCabe, The Shah’s Silk (see n. 1), pp. 35-66, who, stressing the special treatment the merchants were given, contests the forced character of their move to Isfahan. 7 S.L. Xac’ikyan, Nor Ju¥ayi hay vacarakanut’yune ew nra arevtratntesakan kapere Rusas- tani het XVII-XVIII darerum [The Armenian Merchants of New Julfa and their Commer- cial Relations with Russia in the 17th-18th Centuries] (Yerevan, 1988), pp. 15-36. 8 V.A. Xac’atryan, ‘Hay zo¥ovrdi azatagrakan sarzumnere ew Astraxani hay ga¥ut’e XVIII darum’ [The Liberation Movements of the Armenian People and the Armenian Colony in Astrakhan], in XVI-XVIII dareri hay azatagrakan sarzumnere ew hay ga¥ut’avayrere [Libera- tion Movements of the XVIth-XVIIIth Centuries and the Armenian Colonies] (Collec- tion of Articles) (Yerevan, 1989), p. 145, gives 1660 as the year a church was built in Astrakhan; Bournoutian, p. 82, mentions 1639 and gives the other dates. 274 T.M. VAN LINT

Israel Ori had placed the Armenians’ plight clearly before Peter the Great. This Tsar encouraged Armenian immigration to his new capital and granted the Armenian Church formal recognition. In 1716 Archbishop Minas Tigranian received the title of Prelate of All Armenians in Russia. The location of his see was Astrakhan. The next chapter in Armenian bids for living under Christian sovereignty or for independence is connected with the name of David Bek. In 1722 he was sent to Zangezur on request of the meliks there, who had invoked help from the Georgian King Vakhtang VI, in whose service David stood, against Muslim harassments. In 1723 The Ottomans, using the absence of Persian troops because of the war with Russia, invaded Persian Armenia. The fortresses of Ganja and Yerevan fell into Ottoman hands, anticipated by a flight of part of the Armenian population into Russia. In spite of promises made to the contrary, Russian help was not forthcoming, but the Armeni- ans in Zangezur and Karabagh persevered in their armed resistence against the Ottoman invader. Next year an agreement was sealed between the Rus- sians and the Ottomans, dividing Caucasia in a Russian and an Ottoman part, but in 1725 Peter the Great died, resulting in Ottoman occupation of all of the Caucasus. David Bek and his men in Zangezur had decided to continue their fight, keeping much of the Armenian highland out of the hands of the Ottomans until the Persians resumed sovereignty in the area in 1735. By that time David had died, but a telling example was set. Nader Shah, crowned in 1736, rewarded the meliks of Zangezur and Karabagh by recognizing these regions as semi autonomous enclaves. The Ottoman interlude in the Caucasus had been enough, however, to cause two new streams of emigration to a welcoming Russia, in 1734 and 1744 respectively. Russia was by now felt as a safe haven for the Caucasian Christians, although it had not proven to be a reliable ally in case of war on Caucasian soil. Under the reign of Catherine the Great, which lasted from 1762 to 1796, contact between Russians and Armenians intensified. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century political thinking developed in the various Armenian colonies. Armenian economic and political influence at the Russian court was presented by the Lazarian family, originally merchants from New Julfa, which engaged in founding Armenian schools throughout the Empire and in 1815 would found the famous Lazarev Institute for Ori- THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 275 ental Languages in Moscow. They also fostered plans for Armenian sovereignty under Russian protection, encouraged by the Empress’ renewed interest in the Caucasus. Meetings to this end were held at which Lazarev, who had his own quarters in the palace, was present, as well as Potemkin, the Empress’ most important minister, and Iosif Argutinskij-Dolgoruki (Hovsep’ Ar¥utin), Archbishop of Astrakhan. Argutinskij was the Russian favourite at the election of a new catholicos in 1800, and indeed was chosen, but his death the next year on the way to his inauguration in Etchmiacin prevented his taking office. A supporter of the ideas of Armenian independence was Joseph Emin (1726-1809), an Armenian from India, where his family had migrated to from New Julfa. Having seen the British military power in India, he believed that modern military technology and education could give the Kingdom of Georgia and Russia the power to overthrow Persian rule in the Caucasus. Mindful of the Russians’ unfulfilled promise of help earlier in the century, reactions from the meliks and the Church were lukewarm at best. Catherine had all her attention turned to the war with the Ottoman Empire and the problems posed by Poland and was reluctant to engage Persia. Disappointed, the rejected liberator left Russia in 1768.9 Emin had travelled widely in the Armenian heartland, the most backward part of the country, and was struck by the gross ignorance of the Armenian clergy and peasant population alike. It is significant that a merchant’s son from India should come to Russia and propagate these ideas of liberation. Armenian printing in India boasts to have issued the first periodical, Azdarar, printed in Madras in 1794, but already 22 years earlier a short work on the politics of liberation was published there by Movses Baghramian, spokesman for an important group of people strongly favouring enlightenment ideas. In 1772, in the publishing house of Yakob Shahamirian, a book appeared entitled: Nor tetrak or koc’i Yordorak (‘New Booklet which is Called Exhorta- tion’), meant to “awaken the Armenian youth from their lazy sleepy drowsi- ness”.10 It contrasts the glorious past of Armenia with its present sorry state

9 Emin wrote an autobiography: The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian: Written in English by Himself (London, 1792); reprinted and ed. by A. Apcar as Life and Adventures of Emin Joseph Emin 1726-1809 Written by Himself (Calcutta, 1918). 10 Zekiyan, p. 64. 11 Ibid. 276 T.M. VAN LINT under the yoke of tyrannic despots. The main causes for the difference lie, according to Baghramian, in the “despotic rule of the old monarchy, the lack of unity, industry and intellectual pursuits”.11 He therefore calls for a new Armenian state with a republican constitution. A sequel to this work, published anonymously a year later, but believed to be written by Baghramian as well, describes what the constitution should look like. In this work entitled Orogayt’ p’arac’ (‘Snare of Glory’) enlightenment ideas are clearly present. Zekiyan discerns most prominently the influence of Locke and Montesquieu. Mention is made of George Washington and the aspiration for freedom of the British settlers in America.12 This work is of interest also in the context of this article, since in 1805 Margar Xocenc’ made a handwritten copy of it, most probably for his own use, in Petersburg. This positions him clearly as a man with a double focus, like so many other Armenians of the time, worldly as well as ecclesiastical, whose interest lay with the moral uplifting of the people as well as with its growing awareness of the changeability of their political situation.13 Next to these emancipatory ideas, harboured by middle-class and well-to- do Armenians who had embraced the principles of the Enlightenment, the Church, in the person of Mxit’ar Sebastac’i (1676-1749) was aware of the dire need of the people, the majority of which lived in the rural areas of historical Armenia. Mxit’ar was a person of outstanding qualities. Dissatisfied with the spiritual level of the Church and its flock, as well as with the deplorable level of education of the Armenians, who were in danger of los- ing all awareness of their ancestry, Mxit’ar embarked on an ambitious plan to re-spiritualise and re-educate the Armenian people. Having found no opportunity to realise his plans in Constantinople, he and his followers accepted the offer to establish their Catholic order on the isle of San Lazzaro opposite the Lido in Venice, in 1717. After the split of a group which settled first in Trieste, then in Vienna, it flourished eventually in two branches. The Mekhitarian brotherhood is responsible for a work of education among the people which is highly remarkable, as is their contribution to Armenian

12 Ibid. See also Irazek. See on Azdarar, Irazek, pp. 444-455; and Hay girk’e, pp. 700-702, no. 912; on Nor tetrak, Irazek, pp. 54-61; and Hay girk’e, pp. 489-491, no. 647; on Orogayt’ parac’, Irazek, pp. 61-79 and Hay girk’e, pp. 492-493, no. 650. 13 M1477, Sahamir Sahamireanc’, Orogayt’ p’arac’: Nsawak [Snare of Glory, Guide] (St. Petersburg, 1805). See Matenadaran, I, col 560. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 277

Studies, most of all throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Zekiyan’s words the two main contributions of Abbot Mxit’ar and his order are: “a) a full Christian humanism as to their cultural content; b) an ecu- menism ahead of times as to their strictly religious-theological dimension.”14

The Armenian colony and the Russian conquest of the Crimea We must now proceed to the immediate background of the subject of this paper: Catherine the Great’s conquest of the Crimea. The southward expansion of Russia took place in several steps, during the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The first of these was the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan and of Astrakhan in 1552 and 1556, which brought the Russians to the Caspian Sea. We have seen that this was an important incentive for Arme- nian trade from Persia. Astrakhan became the main port for Oriental trade in Russia.15 In this same period, Ivan IV’s armies tried to seize the Khanate of the Crimea three times, but were pushed back. The third attempt brought them briefly on the Crimea itself.16 The second phase was the conquest of the Crimea. We will return to this in a moment. The third and final step, the conquest of the Caucasus, was taken after the period with which we are concerned in this article, between 1801 and 1864. Eastern Armenia was incorporated in 1828, when the Treaty of Turkmenchai brought thousands of Armenians from the Persian Empire to the newly established Erevanskaja Gubernija. The seat of the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian Church in the monastery of Etchmiacin in the city of Vagharshapat, about 18 kilome- tres from Yerevan, now lay within the boundaries of a Christian state. Depending on the goals of the individual Armenians, this was a partial or complete fulfilment of their aims. A further consequence was that with these additions to the Russian Empire the geopolitical situation as we knew it until the collapse of the Soviet Union was established. The second stage of the gradual southward expansion of Russia was the conquest of the Crimea.17 This meant the overthrow of the Khanate of the

14 Zekiyan, p. 52. For the section on Mxit’ar, with extensive biblography, see pp. 51-56. 15 Kappeler places these conquests at the beginning of the ‘Multi-ethnic Russian Empire’: Kappeler, pp. 29-36. On their significance for trade through and with Russia, see Grego- rian, pp. 171-172. 16 Riasanovsky, p. 147. 17 Riasanovsky, pp. 265-267; Fisher. 278 T.M. VAN LINT

Crimea, which consisted not only of the peninsula, but also of the steppes to the north and to the east of the Black Sea. In earlier centuries the Crimean Khanate had been an economically, politically and socially prospering country. Nomads bred cattle, there was agri- culture, wine was produced, and trade in slaves, luxury objects and cattle was thriving.18 Since 1475 it had been a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, of interest to it mainly as a defensive outpost against northern invaders and for the supply of light cavalry.19 By the eighteenth century it was no longer as prosperous as it had once been. Inner strife and a less flourishing economy weakened the country, Ottoman grip on it tightened, and as a consequence of this Russia’s relations with the Crimea had an ever greater bearing upon Russian-Ottoman ones. The rulers of the Crimean Khanate, the Giray Khans, were descendants of Dchengis Khan. The aristocracy consisted of Crimean Tatars, who had become sedentary, like most of the other members of their people living on the peninsula. The rest of the population consisted of different peoples. There were the nomad Nogai, who lived in the steppes; Greeks, who lived in the cities next to Armenians, many of whom spoke Kipchak; and two groups of Turkish speaking Jews, Krymcaki and Karaim.20 Armenians had settled on the Crimea when they fled the Mongol inva- sions, which took place in waves from 1221 on. Subsequently, waves of immigrants arrived from the beleaguered Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which eventually succumbed to Mamluk attacks in 1375.21 They settled first in Ak Sarai near Astrakhan, then continued to the Crimean cities of Theo- dosia (Caffa) and Solxat (Surxat, Eski Krim), where they rose to prosperity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the vicinity of Solxat they built the monastery of Surb Xac’ (the Holy Cross), which became the most important centre of Armenian culture on the Crimea. An original branch of Armenian manuscript illumination developed in the productive scriptoria,

18 Kappeler, p. 48. 19 Fisher, p. 15. 20 Kappeler, p. 48. 21 Schütz convincingly disproves the often repeated tenet that the Armenian settlers in the Crimea and beyond into present day Ukraine and Poland were the former inhabitants of Ani, fleeing before the Seljuk conquest of the city in 1064. Schütz, no. XV. Source material from Armenian colophons concerning the migration from Ak Sarai to the Crimea is adduced by Maksoudian, esp. pp. 53-54. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 279 while many churches were built and trade with Europe, with Constantino- ple, Trabzon and other cities on the southern littoral of the Black Sea flourished. The Genovese still had their trading post in Caffa. Their records provide us with information about the presence of the Armenians in Caffa, showing that they made up two thirds of the population of the city on the eve of the Ottoman conquest of 1475. The Ottomans made the Crimean Khanate into a vassal state, which caused the emigration of many Armeni- ans and Greeks. The Armenians emigrated mostly to present day Poland and the Western Ukraine.22 From about 1600 on, new waves of Armenian immigrants came to a far less prosperous Crimea. They came from East Anatolia fleeing before the Jalali movement. Many came from Tokat, which was destroyed by the Jalalis in 1600. By this time however, the Crimea had lost its attraction as a major centre of immigration, since these usually were made up of the more prosperous colonies.23 The last main phase of the Armenian history on the Crimea was the emigration in 1778 on the order of the Russian Empire, when the Armeni- ans were resettled in Nor-Nakhichevan, close to Rostov-on-the-Don, and several villages in the vicinity. The list drawn by general A.V. Suvorov shows that 12,598 Armenians emigrated, 5511 from Caffa, 2809 from Karasu Bazaar, 1375 from Bakhchisaray, the remainder from other cities, towns and villages.24 In the nineteenth century a new immigration of about 6000 Armenians into the Crimea took place, consisting of new settlers and of people repatri- ating from the Nor-Nakhichevan region.

22 Schütz, pp. 130-132. A general history of the Armenian settlement on the Crimea is V.A. Mik’ayelyan, ™rimi haykakan ga¥ut’i patmut’yun [History of the Armenian Colony on the Crimea] (Yerevan, 1964). For more detailed information on Armenian cultural life on the Crimea, see N. Stone, The Kaffa Lives of the Desert Fathers: A Study in Armenian Manuscript Illumination, CSCO, 506, Subs. 94 (Louvain, 1997); and E.M. Korxmazian, Armjanskaja miniatjura Kryma (XIV-XVII vv.) [Armenian Miniature Painting of the Crimea (XIVth-XVIIth centuries)] (Yerevan, 1978); on architecture, see O.Kh. Khal- pakhchian, ‘Chiese armene in Crimea’, Atti del quinto simposio internazionale di arte armena (Venice, 1991), pp. 499-516. 23 Schütz, p. 133. 24 Mik’ayelyan, chapter 6: ‘™rimahayeri artaga¥t’ec’ume ew ga¥ut’i verac’ume (1778 t’.)’ [The Emigration of the Crimean Armenians and the End of the Colony (1778)], pp. 337- 383. Suvorov’s list, see Mik’ayelyan, p. 369; and Schütz, p. 135. 280 T.M. VAN LINT

The Russian conquest of the Khanate had been in the making for a long time. After Ivan IV’s repeated futile efforts at invasion, the Russian army was successful in 1735, during the Russian-Ottoman war. Russian troops burned Bakhchisaray, the town where the Khan’s palace stood. In 1739 the war ended with no clear victor. Only in 1762, at the beginning of Catherine’s reign a new assessment of the situation was made. The Empress’ advisors urged that a consulate be opened and exact information about the Khanate’s inhabitants, politics and economy be gathered. In his memorandum on foreign affairs, Voroncov stated that: “only when the Crimean peninsula came under Russ- ian rule, or was freed from dependence upon the Porte, would the danger for Russia be removed.”25 Catherine accepted the proposal to seek the establish- ment of a consulate, which came about in 1763, but, on the advice of Nikita Panin, the Empress’ leader of foreign affairs in the 1760s, she declined imple- mentation of the memorandum’s more aggressive part.26 In 1765 the consul was expelled from the country under some pretext. The next three years there was little or no contact between the Khanate and Russia. The Empire, like Europe, overestimated the strength of the Crimean Khanate, while in reality there was much internal disunity. In 1768 war broke out between Russia and the Crimea, and by 1783 the Crimean Khanate no longer existed. In 1771 the Crimea was invaded by Russian troops, an action facilitated by Russian promises of indemnity to those who would choose to free themselves from Ottoman sovereignty. Thereupon the Khan accepted the Russian terms and proclaimed an independent Khanate. A new Khan, Sahip Giray, was installed, who asked for subjection to his state of the Nogay, to whom independence had been granted by Catherine in 1771, in favour for his abdication of all Ottoman allegiance. With this favour obtained, the treaty of Karasu Bazaar was signed in 1772.27 By this time the Pugacev rebellion in South-Eastern Russia broke out and the military was needed to suppress it. The Ottomans had given up neither the fortress of Özi on the northern shore of the Black Sea, nor the religious overlordship of the Sultan over the Muslim Crimean Tatars. In 1774 the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca was signed, where the abovementioned stipulations were taken into consideration. The Russians obtained two harbours on the Black Sea: Kilburunu in the west

25 Fisher, p. 26. 26 Fisher, p. 27. 27 Fisher, pp. 40-51. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 281 and Yenikale-Kerch in the east. The Russians now could maintain a fleet in the Black Sea and were allowed to use the Straits for trade by sea. “Also, Russia acquired the right to build an Orthodox church in Con- stantinople, while the Turks promised to protect Christian churches and to accept Russian representations on behalf of the new church to be built in the capital. The provisions of the treaty relating to Christians and Christian worship became the basis of many subsequent Russian claims in regard to Turkey.” 28 The balance of power was to be drastically changed as a consequence of this. As Fisher states, “for the first time since the sixteenth century, the Black Sea no longer was an Ottoman lake”.29 It had far-reaching consequences also for the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Barsoumian, who calls the treaty “the turning-point in Russian-Turkish relations”, writes that “this treaty set the tone for relations between the two neighbouring states until their dissolution by the end of World War I”.30 This treaty inaugurated a three-year period of Crimean independence, which ended in 1777 with a second Russian invasion, due to the policy of Khan Devlet Giray to allow the Ottomans to have influence in Crimean matters beyond the realm of religion. Many Crimeans actually went to Con- stantinople to plead their cause. The Russians once more gave independence to the Nogay at Kuban, under the tractable ≤ahin Giray, who assumed power over the Crimea, after Devlet Giray had left for Constantinople.31 ≤ahin Giray introduced a range of reforms aimed at westernizing his state, which in reality meant taking Russian autocracy as a model. These reforms were deeply resented by his Muslim subjects, less so by the Christian ones. This led to a full-scale rebellion, followed by an Ottoman attempt to regain control, when they sent the expatriate Crimean Selim Giray there to assume power. However, when Selim arrived in January 1778, he was too late, since by then Russian troops had all but finished their third conquest of the Crimea, and he sailed back to Constantinople. On ≤ahin’s return to his 28 Ryasanovski, p. 265; see also I.S. Dostjan, ‘Znacenie kjucuk-Kajnardzinskogo dogo- vora 1774 goda v politike Rossii na Balkanach’, in Vek Ekateriny II: Rossija i Balkany, ed. I.I. Lescilovskaja (Moscow, 1998), pp. 40-56. 29 Fisher, p. 56. 30 H. Barsoumian, ‘The Eastern Question and the Tanzimat Era’, in Hovannisian, p. 176. 31 Fisher, pp. 57-81. 282 T.M. VAN LINT palace in February, the only support left for him in the Crimea came from the Christian inhabitants, Greeks and Armenians. He was thereupon left in power by Catherine, but brought over to the Kuban, east of the Sea of Azov.32 The Russian rulers decided that under the given circumstances the Chris- tians would be at risk when the Russian army would retreat after crushing the revolt. Moreover, the main economic factor in the Crimea were precisely the Christians. With his economic support gone, as well as that for his reforms, ≤ahin’s state would lack vitality and be ready for Russian annexation. With the Nogay nomads now at the steppes north of the Caucasus, those north of the Crimea were open for resettling. As was said above, Catharine the Great decided to settle the Crimean Greeks and Armenians there, with other sedentary Christian peoples, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs and Kosacks. The Greeks were settled at Mariupol’ and Elizavetgrad, the Armenians at Nor-Nakhichevan, where their colony flourished.33 After another revolt against ≤ahin Giray, Russia annexed the Crimea. The proclamation of annexation, dated April 8, 1783, came as a surprise neither to ≤ahin, nor to the Ottoman Empire, which, contrary to expectations in Russia, did not declare war.34

The Greek Project The annexation of the Crimea brought Russia to what is often called its natural southern boundary, the shore of the Black Sea. Although eventually proven partly wrong, the Ottoman Empire did not think that with this conquest Russian designs on what was perceived as Ottoman territory had been exhausted. I refer here not only to the gradual conquest of the Caucasus, which was to occupy the Russians from the end of the eighteenth to well over half of the nineteenth century, but also to a scheme known as the Greek Project.35

32 Fisher, pp. 82-99. 33 Fisher, pp. 100-105; Kappeler, pp. 49-51; Gregorian, pp. 173-174; Bruess, pp. 120- 121. 34 Fisher, pp. 135-136; Bruess, pp. 116-117. 35 D.M. Griffiths, ‘The Greek Project’, in J.L. Wiecynski, The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, 13 (Academic International Press, 1979), pp. 128-132. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 283

Antecedents of this plan reach from the time that the tables between the Ottoman Empire and the often divided European powers turned and the latter took the initiative. As early as in the beginning of the sixteenth century the conquest of Constantinople was suggested to Tsar Vasilij III by a papal envoy, together with the idea of turning the Black Sea into a Russian lake. Usually, however, among European powers the concord necessary for such plans to be feasible, was lacking. Peter the Great had harboured such ideas and assured himself of the necessary backing of the Habsburg Empire. His policy was revived by Catherine the Great. Armenian pleas for liberation from Islamic sovereignty must not have sounded strange to European ears, but were subject to the national policies prevailing at the moment they were voiced. Moreover, not only crowned heads devoted their energy to the question of how the Ottoman Empire could be contained. In the correspondence between Catherine and Voltaire, the latter several times incites her to conquer Constantinople, on account of the backwardness of the country. On December 22, 1770 he writes:

“I shall certainly die of grief at not seeing you on the throne of Con- stantinople. I am well aware that people only die of grief in novels, but then, you have inspired me with something of a romantic passion, and with an Empress such as your-self, my novel must have a noble ending. I shall carry away with me the consolation of having seen you as mis- tress of the Black Sea and the Aegean …”36

With the policy of Peter the Great, Catherine had a tradition to build on. She came to the conclusion that the Northern alliance with Prussia, amongst others, could be abandoned after Joseph II of Habsburg had acceded to the throne late in 1780. She was therefore in a position to continue Peter the Great’s southern policies, aiming at territorial gain towards the south. Her main aid in this plan was Potemkin. In June 1781 the swing towards the southern approach had taken place, and planning for execution of the plan could be made.

36 Voltaire and Catherine the Great: Selected Correspondence, trans., with commentary, notes and introduction by A. Lentin (Cambridge, 1974), p. 95; letter no. 55; (Bester- mann 15829). 284 T.M. VAN LINT

Before this came about, Catherine already had her second grandson named Konstantin, and had a medal struck in his name. It depicts the three theological virtues, with Charity holding the baby in her arms on the shores of the Bosporus, while Hope points out to him the Eastern star. Love holds up the cross and connects the rays shining from heaven with the child. On the right side the Hagia Sophia is depicted, on the left side a small fleet seems to be sailing toward the city. The text on top reads “With these”, referring to the three ladies, the one at the bottom: “Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovic was born at Tsarskoe Selo on April 27 of the year 1779.”37 The child was given a Greek nurse and spoke Greek before it did Russian. “Allegedly”, Griffiths writes “maps were also drawn up revealing an independent Greek kingdom on the Bosporus with Constantinople as its capital.”38 The Greek Project as formulated in the spring of 1780 by Catherine’s private secretary, A.A. Bezborodko, consisted of three stages. In 1782 it was presented to the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II, who reluctantly gave his approval, since it offered him a golden opportunity to sever Russia from its ‘Northern ally’, the Prussians. Griffiths concisely sums up the whole plan as follows:

“In the event of the outbreak of war with the Turks (which was by no means unexpected), Catherine would demand the fortress of Ochakov, the land between the Bug and the Dnestr rivers, the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and one or two islands in the Greek archipelago. If the war were to prove extremely successful, but the final destruction of the Ottoman Empire seemed impossible or undesirable, the provinces of Moldavia, Wal- lachia and Bessarabia would be transformed into an independent state of Dacia, to be governed by a Christian monarch ‘if not from our Imperial house, then at least someone in whom both allies could place their trust’.”

(Presumably Catherine and Bezborodko had in mind Prince G.A. Potemkin, who would need a refuge once Catherine’s son, Pavel Petrovic, would ascend the throne).

“Should the Porte prove obstinate and military and diplomatic circumstances so warrant, the Ottoman Empire would be totally destroyed, and

37 Description from Griffiths, p. 130, and from the picture in Breuss, p. 238, fig. 7. 38 Griffiths, p. 130. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 285

the ancient Greek Empire would be reestablished and placed under the rule of the Empress’ grandson, Konstantin. Joseph II would of course be entitled to commensurate compensation in Southeastern Europe. If Great Britain, France and Spain chose to contest the destruction of the Porte, they would be mollified with acquisitions in Egypt or along the African coast.” 39

The execution of the project was thwarted by three circumstances: the lenient reaction on the part of the Ottoman Empire to the Russian annexation of the Crimea, which did not lead to war; secondly, the end of the war of independence between Britain and the United Colonies in North America together with the vain efforts by Spain to conquer British Gibraltar, which enabled the parties to press for the maintenance of the status quo in Eastern Europe, and finally, the quarrel of the allies over the spoils yet to be won. This seemed to be the rather inglorious end of this project, but it was revived several years later, with the outbreak of the Russian-Ottoman war in 1787. Catherine had made a tour of her new provinces in the south, and visited the Crimea, accompanied by Emperor Joseph II, Potemkin, and several members of the court. The conservative faction in Constantinople decided that this was enough to declare war on Russia. For Russia the moment did not augur well. The political situation in Europe now would allow the allies of the Ottoman Empire to come to its aid, while in 1790 the Emperor Joseph II died and with him support for the Greek Project. The piece of Jassy, signed in 1791, did not in any way bring about the materialization of the Greek Project, although its stipulations contained many advantageous elements for the Russian side. In the year left until her death, Catherine devoted more energy to the Polish question, but the Greek Project was still not entirely forgotten. Her will contains the phrase: “My intention is to place Konstantin on the throne of the Greek Eastern Empire.”40 Also, the Austrian-Russian treaty of 1795 contains a secret clause mentioning the execution of the project in the case of war with Turkey. Griffiths places the Greek Project in perspective: in the nineteenth century Russian and European policy alike was to preserve the Ottoman Empire, if in a truncated form, resulting in the ever more central place occupied by the Eastern Ques- tion.41 This is an apt conclusion from the point of view of the Armenians look-

39 Griffiths, pp. 130-131. 40 Griffiths, pp. 131-132. 41 Griffiths, p. 132. 286 T.M. VAN LINT ing at Russia and Europe for help in their struggle for emancipation, self-deter- mination and independence within or from the Ottoman Empire.42

Margar Xocenc’ and his works We are now in a position to place the work of Margar Xocenc’ Erewanc’i against the background of Russian politics, Armenian emancipatory aspirations and their expressions in print in several Armenian settlements, within and outside the Russian Empire. Let us therefore turn to Xocenc’ and to the works with which he was involved. Who was Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’ Erewanc’i? ‘Margar Zacharia from the family of the Xoja’, a term indicating a merchant of some wealth, ‘from Yerevan’, sometimes also called or zmiwrnayec’i (‘from Smyrna’). He sometimes adds a modern-style family name, Ge¥amean. Margar Xocenc’ worked as a copyist, translator and author in his own right in St. Petersburg. In 1793, in the newly founded printing house of the monastery of Surb Xac’, called after the famous monastery in the Crimea, his translation of François Fénelon’s Aventures de Télémaque was produced in two volumes.43 The first volume was reissued in 1794, the 42 The place of the Greek Project within the framework of Russian foreign policy and the extent to which it was a serious endeavour, is discussed in H. Ragsdale, ‘Evaluating the Tra- ditions of Russian Aggression: Catherine II and the Greek Project’, Slavonic and East Euro- pean Review, 66 (1988), pp. 91-117; V.N. Vinogradov, ‘Mectanija i dejstvitel’nost’: O gre- ceskich proektach Ekateriny II i Aleksandra I’; O.I. Eliseeva, ‘“Balkanskaja tema” vo vnesne politiceskich proektach G.A. potëmkina’; and G.L. Ars, ‘Nekotorye soobrazenija po povodu “Greceskogo proekta”’, in Vek Ekateriny II (see n. 28), pp. 57-62; 63-67; and 68-80. 43 François de Fénelon, Aventures de Télémaque (1699). The author’s full name was François de Pons de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon (1651-1715). Télémaque was written about 1696 for the then twelve year old Duc de Bourgonge, heir to the throne of France, and was published in 1699 without knowledge or consent of its author, who by then had fallen into disgrace with Louis XIV and his court. It became immensely popular in France, where it was reissued with an average of an edition a year, and a translation every two years for over 150 years. See A. Levi, Guide to French Literature: Beginnings to 1789 (Detroit etc, 1994), p. 289. It enjoyed great popularity in Russia and among Armenians, and besides its edifying contents, it had a model function in the development of Russian literature, which integrated Western examples into its own, original mould. An original work which in a way is an ‘updated version’ of Télémaque, is the enigmatic Fedor Aleksandrovic Emin’s (1735?- 1770), Themistocles, published in 1763. Emin dedicated his work to Catherine the Great, as a pedagogical instrument for the upbringing of the then nine year old heir, Paul. Just as the French author he meant his work to be a Mirror of Princes. In 1766 Vasilij Tre- tjakovskij made a translation of it in the form of a reworking in hexameters, the first time this metre was used in Russian poetry, entitled Tilemachida. Influence of Télémaque, as well THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 287 second a year later.44 Télémaque was translated into Armenian no less than four times, and was one of the most widespread books among the Armenians at the end of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries. Margar’s translation is the first one. It is worthwhile to quote the titlepage of the first volume in full, because it tells us something about the way the work was translated, the person who ordered it, and the way the endeavour was financed. It sheds light on the intimate relationship between the merchants from New Julfa, their fellow-merchants, often family members, in India, the Armenian Church at the catholicossate in Etchmiacin and the Archbishop of the diocese of Russia, Iosif Argutinskij. The long title reads: “History of Télémaque the Son of Ulysses, made and composed by the great Francesco45 Fénelon, Archbishop of Salignac, who was the tutor of the August Prince of France, who later became Archbishop and Duke of Cambrai, and Royal Knight. Once more corrected again and rectified from the manuscript of the author and translated from the French language into the Italian idiom. And now rendered from the French and Ital- ian languages into the Armenian idiom through the efforts and labour of Margar, son of Zak’areay, Xocenc’ from Yerevan. Corrected carefully from the manuscript of the translator by T’addeos Vardapet Kostantinopolsec’i Marugean. Printed during the august patriarchate at the illuminating Holy See of Etchmiacin, built by Christ, of ™ukas the thrice-blessed, most holy Catholicos of All Armenians. On the order of most elevated nvirak46 of

as of Masonic journeys, which themselves took Fénelon’s work as a model, can be detected also in a work of the first Russian liberal, the free mason Aleksandr Nikolaevic Radiscev (1749-1802). In 1790 he published his Putesestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu [Journey from Petersburg to Moscow] anonymously on his private press. The work contains strong criticism of Catherine’s Russia. See Handbook of Russian Literature, ed. V. Terras (New Haven and London, 1985), pp. 124, 307, 362, 482, 507. The first Armenian translation did not appear out of the blue. The influence of Western literary and cultural models in Armenian culture made itself felt independent of a parallel Russian development. Study of a possible relationship between the popularity of the work in Catherine the Great’s Russia and the Armenian translation must await another occasion. 44 Hay girk’e, pp. 686-688, no. 899; p. 706, no. 917; and p. 714, no. 928. 45 The translator states that he has made use not only of the French original, but also of an Italian version, which left its trace in the name of the author: he is called Francesco, not François. 46 The appearance of this term is significant for assessing the importance Argutinskij’s office and its bearer were held in. It affords us “some insight into the movements of men of the 288 T.M. VAN LINT

the Holy See of Etchmiacin and of the Apostolic Leader of those of the Armenian people who abide in Northern climes, the Mighty47 Sanahnc’i Ar¥ut’eanc’, Prince and Lord, His Holiness Archbishop Yovsep’, founder of the cities of Nor-Nakhichevan and Grigorupol’. Through the means and expenses of the pious and faithful Paycar Isxan A¥ay Yohanjean Gerak’ean from New Julfa, living in India, in Surat. Anno domini 1793, on Febru- ary 20. And according to the Armenian calender 1242. Volume one. In the printing house of his High Holiness, who like the sun dispenses splen- dour with liberal and profitable donations in India, in various cities inhabited by the virtuous Community of our people, under the auspices of the celestial monastery of the Holy Cross, which is in Nor-Nakhichevan.”48

This elaborate title unfolds a whole net of connections, while the colophon expressly states that the purpose of the book is to serve the enlightenment of the people. We have a good example here of the combined effort of Church and affluent citizens to raise the level of awareness of the people. The second and third renderings were produced by members of the Mekhi- tarian order in Venice under the titles: Fénelons Adventures of Télémaque, the son of Odysseus, translated from the original by P. Manuel Vardapet49 Jaxjaxean of the Mekhitarian Congregation in Venice in 1826; and Télé- maques Adventures, told by Fénelon, translated by Archbishop Hiurmiuzean,

cloth in a world where there was almost no system of communication comparable to that of our own. Throughout the late Middle Ages and modern times, until the mid-nineteenth century, the major hierarchical sees of the Armenian Church and some of the major monasteries sent bishops or priests especially to affluent communities to raise funds and promote interest among the people for pilgrimage. This institution, which has been studied only superficially, was called nvirakutiun and the holder of the office a nvirak. The functions and duties of the nviraks included bearing the blessings of the particular holy institution he rep- resented, carrying encyclicals and letters, distributing holy chrism among the different churches, raising money for various purposes, and performing a series of other errands that focussed the attention of people living in distant communities on the monasteries of the homeland. The nviraks usually were learned monks who spent several years in important communities … and busied themselves with intellectual pursuits, preaching in local churches, writing, copying codices, and teaching in schools. These men kept the cultural and religious traditions of the Armenian people alive in distant lands.” Maksoudian, p. 61. Insert- ing this paragraph in his section on the Crimea, Maksoudian focuses on the situation there; the words replaced by three dots are “such as Kaffa”, one may read Astrakhan in their stead. 47 Erkaynabazuk. 48 Hay girk’e, p. 686. 49 Doctor of Theology. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 289

Venice, 1850.50 Nine years later an edition of both the French text and a new Armenian translation were published by Galfayean, teacher at the Armenian School in Paris, “à l’usage de ceux qui étudient les langues française et arménienne”.51 These translations of the work of the famous classicist and precursor of the French Enlightenment formed part of the Mekhitarists’ pro- gram of education of the Armenian people. Designated “a political novel in the guise of a Homeric epic”52 it was written for the twelve year-old heir to the French throne, with a clear educational purpose. It gained, however, wide popularity among adult readers. From Margar’s translation and the fact that it was printed on the monastery’s printing press, it is clear that also the Armenian Church proper served these aims. The work combined classical literary traditions with morally edifying elements, and was thus a valuable tool in the hands of a church aiming at spiritually uplifting and educating the people to an awareness of their language and cultural heritage, as well as that of humanity, so as to be better equipped for life in this world. Another aspect of interest is the fact that the monastic printing house in Nor-Nakhichevan was endowed by Grigor Xaldaryan, the owner of the St. Petersburg printing house. Founded in 1780 by Iosif Argutinskij and Grigor Xaldaryan, it had stopped functioning in 1787. It was moved to the Surb Xac Monastery two years later, where it started to print in 1790. Hav- ing produced 21 books up to 1795, it was moved again in 1796, now to Astrakhan, Seat of the Armenian church-province of Russia.53 There it

50 A.M. Incikyan, ‘Neracut’yun: Hay hasarakakan k’yanke, kulturan ev grakanut’yune XVIII dari verjin k’arordin ew XIX dari arajin kesin’ [Introduction: Armenian Public Life, Culture and Literature in the Last Quarter of the XVIIIth and the First Half of the XIXth Centuries], in Hay nor grakanut’yan patmut’yun [History of Modern Armenian Literature], I (Yerevan, 1966), p. 33. 51 Télémaque. Telemak’ – Ga¥¥iaren bnagirn ew hayeren asxarhabar, t’argmanut’ean varzelu hamar: Erkasirec’ Ambrosios vardapet Galfayean [Télémaque – The French Original and Armenian Vernacular, for the Training in Translation: Made by Ambrosios Vardapet Gal- fayean] (Paris, T’pagrut’iwn Aramean, 1859 RYE) [1308 of the Armenian era, i.e. 1859]. The title page of the French translation contains the quotation given above, the compiler and translator’s name is given as Ambroise V. Calfa; as editors are mentioned: “L’auteur- éditeur, au collège national arménien” and “Maisonneuve et Cie, Libraires”, not inappro- priately established at “15, Quai Voltaire”. 52 M.A.S. Burgess, ‘The Age of Classicism (1700-1820)’, in An Introduction to Russian Language and Literature, ed. R. Auty and D. Obolensky (Cambridge, 1977), p. 116. 53 Hay girk’e, nos 845-847 (1790); 858, 859 (1791); 874-878 (1792); 896-899 (1793); 913-917 (1794); 927, 928 (1795). 290 T.M. VAN LINT remained in function until the twenties of the nineteenth century.54 The transfer of the printing house from St. Petersburg to Nor-Nakhichevan, while remaining with the same owner, explains the perhaps unexpected place of publication of Margar’s translation. From a manuscript preserved in Yerevan, we know that the translation was ready in written form in 1790, after the Petersburg printing house had ceased its activities.55 Besides Margar’s translation from Fénelon, what else was published at the Nor-Nakhichevan press? There were religious works such as the Psalms, several prayer books, the Menologion, the Holy Liturgy, a clerical calender indicating feast-days as well as the length of day and night in the region of Nor-Nakhichevan and the works by Yakob Nalian, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, originally published in 1746. Also, as witness to the practi- cal professional needs met by the publishing house, a Turkish-Armenian Dictionary in rhyme. Further, a book commemorating the foundation of the Armenian city of Grigorupol’ in the Government of Ekaterinoslav on the banks of the Dnestr, under Potemkin’s rule. In the colophon of another work Iosif Argutinskij is mentioned again as the co-founder of the city, as well as of Nor-Nakhichevan. There is a medical work, with dictionary, written in 1789, published in 1793, which confirms the pattern of close cooperation between the Church and the wealthy merchants for the benefit of the Armenian people. It is written by Petros K’alant’arean, a medical doctor from New Julfa, produced at the order of the Mother See of Etchmiacin and of the Prelacy of the Russian diocese of the Armenian Church in Russia, in the person of Archbishop Yovsep’ (Iosif Argutinskij), and paid for, once more, by Paycar Isxan A¥ay Yohanjean Gerak’ean from New Julfa, living in Surat in India. Argutinskij’s role as a founder of cities, mentioned here once more, clearly places him on a pedestal. He paves the way for the community to tread new ground, creating a safe haven for them.56 From among older Armenian literature we find the two versions, in prose and in poetic form, of Yovhannes Erznkac’i Pluz’ (1220-1293) About

54 Hay nor grakanut’eyan patmut’yun (see n. 50), I, pp. 530-531. 55 M2907, Franc’esk’o Fenelon, Patmut’iwn kam Patahark’ Telemak’i [The History or Adventures of Télémaque], copied in St. Petersburg in 1790 by the translator, Margar Xocenc’ (Matenadaran, I, col 900). 56 Hay girk’e, no. 897, pp. 683-685. For the Armenians in Surat, and in India in general, see Mesrovb Jacob V. Seth, Armenians in India (New Delhi and Madras, Asian Educa- tional Services, 19922; originally Calcutta, 1937); for Surat see pp. 225-292. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 291 the Movements of the Heavenly Bodies; and a collection of Elegies and Pleas, written by Step’anos Siwnec’i at the behest of the poet and clergyman Khachatur Kecharec’i, in 1299. The last publication to come from the Nor-Nakhichevan press was a ser- mon by Archbishop Iosif Argutinskij, who had ordered most of the other books, alone or in concord with the Catholicos at Etchmiacin, while financ- ing of the printing was in several instances taken care of by another party, mostly merchants from New Julfa. From the list of these other works, from their colophons, as well as from the one in Fénelon’s translation, it appears that Fénelon’s work was perceived as an educational tool for the people to sharpen both their moral and their political senses. Other work by Margar was published well into the nineteenth century, while at least as late as 1835 a copy of his work was made in the old manuscript tradition, and Margar still later, in 1857, figures as participant in a rhymed dialogue, copied in Astrakhan: Harc’munk’ Margar Xocenc’ Zmiwrnac’ioy ew patasxank’ Serovbe Vardapeti Polsec’woy (‘Questions by Margar Xocenc’ from Smyrna and Answers by Vardapet Serovbe from Constantinople’). It is not clear whether this work was written by Margar himself or by someone else.57 Margar’s printed work consists of at least five titles. After the publication of Télémaque the next work was published in 1812 in Sint-Petersburg, in deacon58 Yovsep’ Yovhannisean’s printing house, where also his third and fourth books would be printed. The work has a title in Armenian and in Russian; the Armenian one reads as follows: Bararnakan dimarnut’iwn baroyakan. Aysink’n‘ Roman morali i dimac’vardoy ew lusneki, ayn e piwlpiwli … Saradreal i natvorni savetnik Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’ Ge¥ameane, ew i haykakane t’argmaneal i N. Yovsep’ Yohanniseane Yazderxanc’woy59 (‘A Moral Allegorical Tale, or, Roman Morale about the Rose and the Little Moon, that is the Nightin- gale’… made by court counsellor Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’ Ge¥amean, and

57 M9897, copied by Yovsep’ Zalalean. See Matenadaran, II, col 1012. 58 Sarkawag in Armenain, archidiakon in the Russian title of a work, translated by this same Yovsep’ in 1811. Davt’yan, no. 167, p. 49. 59 Davt’yan, no. 191, p. 50. The Russian title is shorter: ‘Allegorical Tale about the Rose and the Nightingale: A work by Court Counsellor Markar Chocencov Gelamskij’. A ‘court counsellor’ was a civil servant of the seventh class, equivalent in rank to a lieu- tenant-colonel: The Oxford Russian Dictionary, rev. and updated C. Howlett (Oxford and New York, 1995), 251a. I do not know whether this classification pertains to our period. 292 T.M. VAN LINT translated from the Armenian by Yovsep’ Yohannisean Yazderxanc’i). This tale of the rose and the nightingale, a favourite of, among many others the Persian, Armenian and Ottoman poetic traditions was generally taken to be a genuine work by Margar. In the Matenadaran, the Mastoc’ Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan two manuscripts are preserved which contain poetic works by Margar.60 Comparison of this manuscript evidence with the printed work will reveal whether we have to do with the same text. Margar has added an introduction to the printed edition, in which he gives a theoretical exposition about the value of literature and its interpretation, leaning on the fourfold interpretation of the Bible, of which he only retains the historical and the moral ones. The historical layer presents us with the events and actions – with the subject matter –, while the moral layer, called by Margar the essence or kernel, is the content, the ideology of the author. No distinction is made between the auctorial or another narra- tive voice. Without this kernel the work would be void of meaning, and reading it without proceeding from the rind towards this kernel would be an empty action, for the brain would not be touched.61 We will return to Margar’s preoccupation with interpretation below. The Rose and the Nightingale enjoyed some success. In 1826 the Armenian text was produced as a lithography in Paris. After the title of the work we read: “Translated into the French idiom by Mister Le Vaillant de Florival, teacher of Armenian at the School of Living Oriental Languages at the Royal Library and member of the Armenian Academy at San Lazzaro in Venice.” In 1832 a separate French translation appeared, also a lithography, from the hand of the same translator.62 The received idea that Margar’s work was an original one led to its publication in Archak Chopanian’s journal Anahit, which began to appear in 1898. It brought Chopanian’s reworking in Modern Armenian from the first

60 The first is M6998, is a Zo¥ovacu, a collection of various works, mostly ta¥s, short poems, copied in 1839 in St. Petersburg by Manuel Abrahameanc’. See Matenadaran, II, col 438. The other is M3751, a collection of works by Armenian asu¥s and singers, copied in the nineteenth century in Tiflis by the collector Georg Haxverdean; Matenadaran, I, 1075. 61 This section is based on Davt’yan, LV – LVIII. Margar’s introduction is entitled ‘Hamarot zekuc’umn ar nrbamit ent’erc’o¥s’ [Brief Exposition for the Subtle-Minded Reader]. 62 Davt’yan, pp. 134-135, no. 530. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 293 issue on, thus emphasizing the high literary quality of Margar’s work. Only in 1900 the editor wrote a correction, stating that Hammer Purgstall’s publications of Ottoman poetry and the perusal of a work by Charles Jore, La rose dans l’antiquité et au moyen-âge (Paris 1892) had convinced him that Margar’s work was a compilation and reworking of other oriental models. The redaction of The Rose and the Nightingale which had appeared in Anahit, was published separately in Fresno, as late as 1950.63 In 1819 in St. Petersburg a ‘List of the Testaments’ was published.64 A manuscript copy of a work entitled Ktakagir hogesah banic’ (‘Testament of Matters Advantageous for the Soul’) has come down to us. It was copied by Manuel Alt’unean in 1804 in St. Petersburg. Comparison of the printed work with the manuscript will clarify their relationship to each other, but it does not seem likely that they are identical.65 The work is preserved in another manuscript, Galatha 220, and was printed in Jerusalem, at the Patriarchal Press at SS. Jakob, in 1853.66 The same year Margar’s translation of the New Testament into Turkish appeared in print.67 This leaves us with the remainder of Xocenc’’s manuscript legacy as it is preserved in the Matenadaran in Yerevan, the largest depository of Arme- nian manuscripts in the world.68 Still, this represents about only one third

63 Davt’yan, LVI-LVII. 64 Davt’yan, p. 92, no. 361. ‘C’ank ktakaranac’: Troheal yeris masuns: … As- xatasirut’eamb Ge¥amean Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’ Erewanc’woy’ [List of the Testaments. Divided into Three Parts. Through the diligence of Ge¥amean Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’ from Yerevan] (St. Petersburg, H. Hovhannisean’s Printing House, 1819). 65 M3757. See Matenadaran, I, col 1077. 66 Babgen at’orakic’ Kat’o¥ikos, C’uc’ak jeragrac’ ™alat’ioy azgayin matenadarani Hayoc’ [Catalogue of the Manuscripts at the Galatha National Library of the Armenians] (Antelias, Katholikossate Press, 1961), col 1129-1130, no. 220. This Catalogue was composed by B. Kiwleserean in 1901. Many of the 285 manuscripts are now in the Library of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul; no. 220 does not occur on the list of those which have ‘disappeared’, see B. Coulie, Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits arméniens, Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout, 1992), p. 92. 67 Davt’yan, p. 92, no. 362: Rappimiz Yesu el Mesihin Yaht i cetiti. Aysink’n Nor Ktakaran tearn meroy Yisusi K’ristosi: … Targmaneal i haykakane i t’urk’ac’ barbar Ge¥amean Mar- gar Zak’areay Xocenc’e” [New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. … Translated from the Armenian into the idiom of the Turks by Ge¥amean Margar Zak’areay Xocenc’] (St. Petersburg, in the printing house of H. Hovhannisean, 1819). 68 About 11,000 Armenian manuscripts out of an estimated total of 30,000. I have not yet checked the holdings of other larger depositories of Armenian manuscripts. 294 T.M. VAN LINT of all Armenian manuscripts thought to be still extant today and therefore no firm conclusions can be drawn from the evidence based on this body of texts alone. A complete census of manuscripts containing works written and/or copied by Margar Xocenc’ is still to be compiled. The manuscript evidence gives us an impression of the variety of subjects Margar Xocenc’ turned his mind to. Two manuscripts preserve his Arabic Grammar, which was written by 1810, since the autograph we possess of it bears that date.69 Five manuscripts contain his Hamarot orpisut’iwn eke¥ec’woy (‘Short Description of the Condition of the Church’).70 Three of them are dated 1799, another was begun that year, but finished at some unspecified date in the nineteenth century. The fifth manuscript dates from 1803. Four of these five manuscripts were copied by the author himself, in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the audience Xocenc’ had, nor of the circulation of his work.

Veysi’s qasida on Islambol and Margar Xocenc’’s interpretation of it as a Prophecy about the conquest of the Crimea by Catherine the Great Six more manuscripts in the Matenadaran in Yerevan preserve what is cata- logued as ‘Margar Xocenc’’s matenagrut’iwnk’’, his writings.71 The dates of

69 M2323: K’erakanut’iwn Arabac’woc’ [Grammar of the Arabs], copied in 1810 in St. Petersburg by the author (Matenadaran, I, col 774); and M6270: Girk’ K’erakanut’ean Arabac’woc’ [Book of the Grammar of the Arabs], copied in 1823 in Tiflis by Bet’¥ehem Awetik’ean from New Julfa (Matenadaran, II, col 283). 70 M3597: Hamarot orpisut’iwn Eke¥ec’woy, 1799, St. Petersburg, copied by the author (Matenadaran, I, 1047); M5084: Zo¥ovacu [Collection], 1799, and nineteenth c.; St. Petersburg, copied by the author, who seems to be one of at least two copyists. The manuscript contains Hamarot orpisut’iwn Eke¥ec’woy, and a work Canuc’munk’ vasn zakobenist koc’ec’eloc’: these are certainly by Xocenc’. Other works in this manuscript are Ya¥ags t’e part e ergel zSurb astuacn xac’ec’ariw: Gusakut’iwnk’ i veray ZB kendanakerpic’: Vicak Danieli margarei (Turkish in Armenian script): Tesil Nersisi (Matenadaran, II, 31); M6613: Orpisut’iwn Eke¥ec’woy, 1799, St. Petersburg; copied by the author (Matenadaran, II, 356); M6880: Hamarot orpisut’iwn Eke¥ec’woy, 1803, St. Petersburg, copyist Manuel Kiwmiwsxanac’i (Matenadaran, II, 412); M7345: Hamarot orpisut’iwn Eke¥ec’woy, 1799, St. Petersburg, copied by the author (Matenadaran, II, 511). 71 M2048, copied in 1789 in St. Petersburg by the author (Matenadaran, I, col 708-709). M2749, copied in 1789-1809 in St. Petersburg by the author; judging from the information provided by the catalogue, the contents are identical with M2048 (Matenadaran, I, col 868). M6297 is a Zo¥ovacu, a collection of works, copied in 1825 in ™arasu k’a¥ak’, i.e Karasu Bazaar on the Crimea, by Gabriel Mazlumov. It contains the Margareut’iwn THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 295 their copying lie between 1789 and 1835; one of them is undated, another one vaguely dated to the nineteenth century. Xocenc’’s writings collected under the title of matenagrut’iwnk’ are concerned with prophecies on the fall of the Ottoman Empire as a step in God’s salvation work. They are divided into two parts, containing four different writings. The first part consists of the first work only, a document as curi- ous as it is interesting. It is entitled “Translation and Commentary of the poetic works and prophecies of a famous man of the Mevlevi Dervishes called Veysi Efendi, who speaks, some hundred and thirty years before our time, about the deprivations and injustice caused by the powerful of the State of the Turks and prophesies the taking of the Crimea from their hands by the Great Catherine the Second, Tsar of all the Russians, etc., etc., etc.” The author proceeds: “And further about the ending of Muhammadan sovereignty extracted from their own writings compared with the prophesies of the prophets and other excellent people of the Church and various other savants.” The basic texts of this first part are Islamic texts, as opposed to those in the second, which are biblical ones. The second part puts the first one into the perspective of the demise of the Muslim powers: it opens with a commentary on the Revelation of John, briefly summarizing chapters one through eleven, to elaborate upon the remaining chapters, twelve to twenty-two, which contain – so our author – information on the rise of the Muslims and those that came after them, and about the decline of their sovereignty. The following is a work on the Visions of Daniel, the fourth and last work is a short interpretation of the fourth chapter of Ezekiel, taking it as a prophecy of the history of the second temple period.72 We will be concerned here only with the first work, dervish Veysi’s Prophecies.

Heronimos Agat’ange¥osi (Agat’on) [the Prophecy of Heronimos Agathangelos (Agat’on)], followed by Xocenc’’s four works which usually appear together (Matenadaran, II, 290). M9035 is another Zo¥ovacu copied in 1835 in Astrakhan by Yarut’iwn ™ukasean – Yari- canean P’arakec’i: it contains the four works usually found together, preceded by Nerses Snorhali’s Lament on Edessa. The manuscript contains old colophons dating from 1789, 1794, 1809 (Matenadaran, II, 857). M9608: Matenagrut’iwnk’, 1809 [s.l.] contains the usual four works, author’s colophons dating from 1789, 1804, and 1809 (Matenadaran, II, 959). M10003: Matenagrut’iwnk’, 19th century [s.l.], contains the first two of the usual four works (Matenadaran, II, 1028). 72 M2048, 2r. 296 T.M. VAN LINT

In two cases the manuscript contains another work as well: the Lament on Edessa by Nerses Snorhali and a prophecy, the contents of which are unknown to me.73 Xocenc’ held Snorhali’s Lament in high respect. Its appearance in a manuscript in which Margar’s work is preserved may well point to a deliberate inclusion on the basis of perceived thematic affinities. The work was often put in one manuscript with Jesus the Son, probably Nerses’ best known work, a long poem, both epic and lyric. Snorhali’s Lament on Edessa relates the fall of the Christian city of Edessa after the siege by the Muslim Zengi in 1144. It calls for the liberation of the holy places of Christianity, unambiguously places Christianity on the side of the truth and beholds in Islam no more than an imposition of it, and finally prophesies the perdition of Mecca. Margar writes that it could not be printed within the Ottoman Empire, “out of fear of the Turks”. It was indeed published for the first time after Margar had written his manuscript, in Madras in 1810, which, as we have seen, was the place where more literature with a clear tendency for throwing off the oppressor’s yoke saw the light. Margar, who is much given to number symbolism, states that:

“In this way it fits most aptly with the word of our Holy Nerses Snorhali, who writes in the Lament on Edessa (which can only be found in the manuscript Jesus the Son, for because of the fear of the Turks it is not put into print) that ‘When the number of the cross will be fulfilled, the Muhammadans will perish; then the mounted people of the Franks and the Nobles will completely destroy Mecca’, etc.”74

No number of the cross is mentioned by Nerses, who announces the second crusade and comforts his desolate flock with the prospect of utter destruction of those who destroyed their city, and writes in the strongest possible terms:75

73 For a translation into English, see Lament. I take the opportunity to correct an omis- sion committed in the notes. Reference is made to Kechichian’s French translation, without giving the full details of the work. These are: Nerses Snorhali, La complainte d’Edesse, introduction, trans. and annotation by I. Kechichian, S.J. (Venice, 1984). 74 M2048, 15v, (p. 24). 75 Lament, pp. 100-101, lines 958-969. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 297

Anew the Frank is on the move, unfathomable numbers of horsemen and foot-soldiers Like the waves – wave upon wave – of the sea in anger and ferocious fury, Multitudes like the sand on the shore of the rivers, or like the stars of heaven in their order, They fill the bottom of every land like woolen snow They blow like the cold northern wind, they expel the contrary clouds. They clean this whole earth, they empty it of unbelievers, The whole of the Muhammadan nation they will sack and fall upon. They will captivate the depths of Khorasan, Babel they will utterly reduce to rubble, And the desert, inhabited by devils, Mecca, they will raze to the ground, That, which is devoid of all goodness, empty of divine water, Where the Lord sent all the demons, which he drove out. The stone, the black one, they will roll, and throw to the bottom of the Red Sea

Strong words indeed. Why does Margar invoke them? Why did he chose to comment upon the qasida of a Muslim poet to predict the loss of Muslim territory to a Christian monarch? Who is this dervish Veysi, and how is it possible that he predicts the fall of the Crimea and its conquest by Russia? The last section of this article will be concerned with these questions. The poet Veysi of the qasida which Margar quotes in the Ottoman original, then transliterates, translates and comments upon, is a somewhat enigmatic figure in Ottoman literature. Gibb, following von Hammer, is inclined to identify him with Veysi Efendi, one of the two leading writers of prose of the seventeenth century, as Margar does himself.76 Veysi was the 76 Gibb, pp. 210-211. 298 T.M. VAN LINT penname or makhlas of Uveys ibn Muhammed. He was born the son of a judge in 1561/1562 in Ala-Shehr, ancient Philadelphia, and was a jurist by profession, occupying many important assignments in Europe, Asia and Africa. At his death in 1627/1628 he was Kadi of Uskub. He is known for two greater works in prose, a Life of the Prophet [Siyer-i Veysi ‘the Life of Veysi’] written in the most mannered Persian style, and a Vision [Váqi’a Náme, or Khwáb-náme] in which he beholds the Sultan in conversation with Alexander the Great, a work written in straightforward Turkish. In Gibb’s opinion, the quality of his poetry does not stand up to that of his prose, the one extraordinary exception being the qasida translated and interpreted by Margar.77 Here the makhlas ‘Veysi’ is absent, but in the latter part the poet calls himself Uveys, which is the real first name of Veysi. Several other arguments, such as the sorry state the country was in at the time the poem was purportedly written, and the loss of Baghdad, convince Gibb of the plausibility of the identification of the writer of the qasida with Veysi. If this is correct, Veysi must have felt constrained to assume another name and another identity. For such is the unheard of sincerity of the poem, and so devastating its criticism of the Ottoman Empire, its high officials and of the Sultan himself, that identification with the poem would surely have caused trouble. So Veysi assumed the guise of a Mevlevi dervish, hailing from “the Land of Konia”, that is, from the very centre of the Mevlevi order founded by Jalal-ad Din Rumi in the thirteenth century. Gibb’s characterisation of the voice ringing from this poem is remarkably in tune with the purpose Margar used the work for: “We seem to be listening to some ancient Hebrew prophet rebuking a degenerate King of Israel rather than to an Ottoman poet inditing the Padishah.”78 Gibb draws attention to the fresh- ness of the unadorned style, the repeating of the name of Allah as rhyme word, and to the absence of the insertion of a short vowel after the second consonant in a sequence of three, which draws it closer to Turkish folk poetry, away from Persian prosody, where this would be obligatory. The authenticity of the title of the poem cannot be vouched for, it is sometimes given as Nasihat-e Islambol (‘An Admonition to Constantinople’). The great- est part of the poem, however, is addressed to the Sultan.79 In order to give

77 Gibb, pp. 208-209. 78 Gibb, p. 212. 79 Gibb, pp. 212-213. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 299 an impression of the poem’s character, I quote its opening part in Gibb’s translation:80

“Give ear, ye folk of Islambol! and know forsooth, and learn for good, The day’s at hand when swift on you shall fall the sudden ire of God. The day of wrath is broke, and yet ye will not heed but things of earth; ‘Tis time the Mehdi81 should appear, and should descend the Breath of God.82 Ye build the earthly house, and ye lay waste the mansion of the Faith: Nor Pharaoh built nor Sheddad83 reared aloft such house as this, by God! How many a poor and hapless heart do ye through tyranny still break! Is not the faithful’s heart then, O ye tyrants base! the house of God? Although a thousand times his cries and prayers for aidance mount the skies, Ye pity not, nor ever say, ‘no sigh is left on earth, by God!’ Ye feel not for the orphan’s plight, but fain would spoil him of his goods; Doth Allah not behold his heart? or thereunto consenteth God? I know not what your Faith may be, or what your creed (God save us!) is: It holds not with the Imáms’ words, nor chimes with the Four Books of God.”84

Margar Xocenc’’s Translation and Commentary of the Poems and Prophecies of Veysi Efendi never appeared in print. It was written on the first of October, 1789, in St. Petersburg.85 It is prompted by the author’s admiration for Catherine the Great, in whom he beheld the vessel used by Providence for delivery of the Christians from Muslim sovereignty. The previous sections of this article hopefully will have made clear that educational projects by the more enlightened sections of the Church and Armenian society went hand in hand with a desire to maintain awareness of an Armenian identity in traditions, language and religion, and a zeal to restore if not Armenian independence, then at least Christian – which had come to mean Russian – sovereignty over Armenia and the Armenians. A split between the entirely

80 Gibb, pp. 214-215. The part translated by Gibb: Gibb, pp. 214-218. 81 The notes to these verses follow Gibb, pp. 214-215. The Mehdi: the last of the twelve Imams, now hidden, but revealed to save the faithful. 82 Special title of Jesus, who will descend from Heaven before the last days begin. 83 Types of pride and vain glory. 84 The Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Koran. 85 The second part of the manuscript (Margar writes hator, ‘volume’), containing the other commentaries, was started on the same day, but finished only five years later, on August 22, 1794. 300 T.M. VAN LINT secular formulation of Armenian political and cultural aims and an ecclesiastical one was to occur only some 70 years later. Margar, then, dedicated his work to the victorious Empress, as the letter prefaced to it makes clear. It lies outside the scope of this article to investigate whether Margar’s work was translated into French, German or Russian and actually presented to the Empress. We may safely assume that predictions arrived at by means of a rather rudimentary form of ‘cabalism’, as the author calls it, and comfort- ably presented after the event had taken place, would not have made much impression on the non too religious and politically shrewd Catherine. It does not make any difference for our purpose, which is to present this piece of work as part of a stream of writings aimed at the realization of Armenian independence by means of Russian help. Before the author starts his interpretations, he makes clear what the premises of his approach are. He has gathered the prophecies from the writings of various persons. He hopes not to become the laughingstock of benevolent scholars, since they will be sensitive to the argument that humans are made in the image of God, and therefore capable of knowing each in its turn past, present and future. Margar’s apology allows us an insight into the tensions of the age. The risk of being laughed at must have been real enough. The bold claim to knowing the future because mankind is made in the image of God, in whom there is no today, no past and no future, but an encompassing knowledge of all things of all times, is a radically pre-enlightenment argument. Microcosm and macrocosm still mirror each other, the world is one. The intellect of the mind enables humanity to know the future, a claim no philosophe in the age of reason would have dreamt to make. There are three ways of arriving at the knowledge of past, present and future. The first is by means of astrology, studying the influence of the stars, the sun and other signs of the firmament, in the way of the Magi; the second is the natural way, the illumination of the mind through the intellect. The third way is the supernatural, by pure prophecy, which God from time to time bestows upon his chosen ones, and “also sometimes on such and such of his servants, sometimes through revelations, and sometimes through dreams”.86

86 M2048, 3v. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 301

Margar elaborates on this to prove that the many Muslim authorities he is going to quote are not entirely without insight, for of the three criteria mentioned each one is gifted with one or more.87 Margar idiosyncratically distinguishes two main groups within Islamic theology: the Sunnites, and the dervishes. He seems to place much more trust in the words of the (Mevlevi) dervishes, whom he groups as a special branch of Islam. In the next part of his introductory remarks he will characterize them, along with various other groups, such as the Bektashi’s. He will then compare the words of the Islamic prophecies with those of the Christians.88 Here, he concludes that the Islamic prophets, be they dervish or Sunni, or of another group within Islam, have taken their prophesies from the Revelations of John, and from the book of Daniel, because there mention is made of the Kingdom of the South, which must point to the realm of Islam, since Mecca and Medi- nah are in the south.89 The next step provides the necessary link between the Arabic realm and the Ottoman Empire by pointing out the Ottoman conquest of Arabia and the holy places, and the religious function of the Sultan as the head of Islam.90 After a long interlude concerning the role of the Mehdi as indicator that the end of time has begun, Margar concentrates again on the Ottoman Empire and its struggle with the Kingdom of the North, Russia. He adduces many examples to substantiate his equations, the cornerstone of which is always an instance of cabalism, i.e. counting the numerical value of the different letters of the alphabet. Once more the tide of the interpretation is temporarily stemmed by an explanatory aside. Margar explains that the system according to which numerical value is given to the letters of the various alphabets is found in a book called Jifr jami’ in Arabic, and that it is essentially the same as the system adduced in the Armenian Vec’hazareak (‘Book of the Six Thousand’).91 This is the “principal Armenian magical text of the Middle Ages. It contains knowledge about mathematics, botany, theology and astrology, all pressed

87 “ c’en bolorovimb ante¥ik’”, M2048, 3v. 88 M2048, 3v. 89 Daniel 11. 90 M2048, 14v-15r (pp. 24-25). 91 Russell, pp. 221-243. 302 T.M. VAN LINT into the service of magic for the purpose of obtaining the object of one’s desire or predicting the future”.92 The Arabic book called Jifr jami’ by Margar is a reference to an esoteric literature subsumed under the name of Kitab al-Jafr.93 It originated in the Shiitic tradition among the descendants of ‘Ali, and has an apocalyptic character. It is believed among Shiites, that the family of the prophet, the descendants of his daughter Fatima, enjoy special privileges, such as the pos- session of prophethood. Among these are the prediction of the future and the destinies of nations. The concept of prophecy among the Shia is closely connected with ancient gnosis, and traces the genealogy of poetic inspira- tion from Adam via Muhammad to the ‘Alids. The prophecies, grouped under the name of jafr (Margar writes jifr) have different forms, accompanied by either jami’a or its adjective jami’, as with Margar. In its later form it is summarized in tablets, with the jafr representing fate (Èa∂a) and the jami’a destiny (Èadar). The jafr contains the Universal Intellect, the jami’a the Universal Soul. The jafr therefore presents a vision of the world on a supernatural scale. It ceased to be reserved to the ‘Alids, and assimilated into a divinatory technique available to wise men, whatever their origin. The technique was developed by a multitude of authors.94 In the course of time, many different procedures from various strands of occult thought were added, adding up to all of those used in the cabala, hence the use by Margar of this word to characterize the work. Several aspects can be identified. Important, and of foremost interest in the context of the poem discussed here is the speculation on numerical value of the letters of the alphabet, important in Muslim mysticism, and recognized as such in Margar’s work. The astrological aspect is among the other important ones in the Jafr literature. In Margar’s work it is not a factor to be reckoned with, unlike its final determining aspect – the one which was originally most important, the apocalyptical aspect. It ties in with one of the other works that usually form part of Margar’s unpublished writings, which is an interpretation of the

92 Russell, p. 221. 93 In the next few paragraphs T. Fahd, ‘Djafr’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, II, pp. 375-377, is followed closely. 94 Ibid., p. 376, mentions four particularly famous ones: MuÌyi al-Din Abu’ l-’Abbas al- Buni (d. 622/1225); MuÌyi al-Din b. Arabi (d. 638/1240); Ibn †alÌa al-’Adawi al-Radji (d. 652/1254); ‘Abd al-RaÌman al-Bis†ami (d. 858/1454). THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 303

Visions of Daniel. The book of Daniel actually was the starting-point of the speculations accumulated in the Jafr, and it is reported that a bookseller in Baghdad by the name of al-Daniyali sold ancient books attributed to the prophet, in which prominent persons, with their descriptions would figure. This antiquarian enjoyed great popularity with the men of state. An important aspect of these works is their status within Shia Islam. We have seen that Margar seems to oppose Sunnism and Shiism, the latter grouped under the name of the total of Dervishes’ orders, and that he is in favour of the Shia interpretation of the religion. One of the elements that may account for this is the jafr’s use in a spiritual and mystical interpretation of the Ëur’an as opposed to the traditional and lexicographical exegesis of the Sunnis. It would be worthwhile to investigate whether this is a pattern in Armeno-Muslim relations throughout the ages, or whether this is peculiar to Margar himself, or to his period. The Kitab al-Jafr proper contained remarkable interpretations of the inner meaning of the Ëur’an and was ascribed to the sixth imam according to the twelver Shia, Ja’far al-ÒadiÈ (ab. 700-765).95 The Arabs, Margar states, have acquired their knowledge from the Egyp- tians and from the Jews. He maintains that nowadays the lore is hard to find, and those who possess it often hide it, for if a powerful person hears about it and acts upon the prophecies that issue from it, and the prophecy proves false, the possessor of the knowledge is in danger.96 It is in this way that Margar eventually brings together not only the Ottoman and the Russian Empires, but Catherine the Great and the Crimea. Only at the end of the 61 beyts the secret is revealed. The crux of the whole work is the correspondence of the numerical value of the letters contained in Catherine’s name and that of the Crimea, counting from the Arabic alphabet: in both names the value of the separate letters added up have a value of 370. This emerges from beyt 59.97 Corroboration is found in beyt 61, the last one of the poem, containing the poet’s makhlas. The corre-

95 M.G.S. Hodgson, ‘Dja’far al-ÒadiÈ’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, II, pp. 374-375. 96 M2048, 26r (p. 45). 97 Gibb’s assessment of the philological status of this stanza must not be withheld from the reader: “The poem winds up with a hopelessly corrupt passage about the Sultan and the Crimea…”; Gibb, p. 218. Gibb gives only beyts 1-44 in his translation and in his version of the text; Gibb, VI (1909), pp. 179-182. 304 T.M. VAN LINT spondance of the numerical value of Veysi’s name with the date of the event according to the hijra, is 1190, i.e. 1783 A.D.98 An example from Margar’s interpretation of Veysi’s verses may serve to show his approach, as e.g. in beyt 59, for which he provides both a literal and a mystical interpretation:99

“™arimi olamus anen Kerimin xani sult’ani Mukabil olmaye ruyi zeminde anka hij bir sah Dimamart kam sosx oc’kare linil nmay isxann ew kaysrn Grimay, Dimakac’ oc’lic’i nmay t’agavor mi i veray eresac’ erkri.” “Adversary nor rival can be for him100 the prince and emperor of the Crimea, There will be not one king that resists him on the surface of the earth.” “Well, the whole secret of his art he indicated in the second line of this fifty-ninth beyt of his poem, in which he indicates the conquest of the Crimea and the defeat of its prince, which is the khan, and also of the Ottoman emperor, by the word sultan, who will not be the [successful] adversary of that victor who is to come forth. And this is the general and descriptive meaning of the poem, and its revealed interpretation. But his mystical intention [is], [that] by means of saying this, he wants to show also that which is going to come. In accordance with the second line of this beyt, which precisely speaks about that which is coming, also the first one, therefore, must be taken to be about the victor to come. Knowing the intention of the author, [it is] as follows.”

Here Margar repeats the transliterated Ottoman text and his own Armenian translation. This repetition of the translation gives the author the opportunity 98 M2048, 27v-28r; 28v-29r (pp. 48-49, 50-51). 99 Here, I leave out the text written in Arabic characters, but quote its transliteration into the Western variant of Armenian. It has the advantage of indicating the pronunciation of the Ottoman Margar knew. The second pair of lines is Margar’s translation into Arme- nian, followed by their rendering into English. The translation into English is thus based on Margar’s Armenian translation of Veysi’s Ottoman text. An assessment of the quality of Margar’s translation and of eventual departures from the Ottoman original cannot be our subject here. The text is taken from M2048, 26v (p. 46). 100 Neither Ottoman Turkish, nor Armenian possess gender distinctions. The word may mean ‘for him, for her, for it’, depending on the context. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 305 to indicate his interpretation of the two lines. He slightly changes the syntacti- cal divisions, with the following result:101

“Adversary nor rival can be [anyone for him], prince and emperor of the Crimea [is], [he, for whom] there will be not one king that resists him on the surface of the earth. Which in this way is interpreted supremely right, and thus the second line agrees with the first one, as it is very clear, the poetical and artful style of the Turkish language being understood in the right way. Because in the fifty-fifth beyt he swears: ‘Without rancour do I wish to offer ado- ration freely to the whole world because of God.’ And in the fifty-eighth beyt, I have come to know by a manifest name and form, that he says that some victor will come forward, but not, which name he gives, therefore, we must look for it in the fifty-ninth beyt, that the author’s poem may not remain half-done and obscure. And behold, in this way, from the fifty-fifth to the sixty-first and last beyt, revealing also the time of the coming of this same victorious emperor, he shows the appearance and the reinstatement of [the emperor’s] victory in his last beyt: ‘the appearance is confirmed by the word and the order of God.’ And because this author gives so much assurance about his coming, as well as about his victory and its time, it is therefore impossible that he would fail to give a sign about his name, and would pass over it.”

It is in order to establish the name of the victorious emperor, that Margar resorts to the cabalistic devices he introduced earlier:102

“Therefore, ‘king and emperor of the Crimea’, we should not in the least take simply in this way that he will fall in defeat. In accordance with which he says: ‘he who will come and who will be victorious’, will be known by name and form through my art,103 therefore we are also obliged to know him who will be defeated, and according to the artful meaning also the other, who will be victorious, will become known. Therefore also his name is indicated in this fifty-ninth beyt.

101 M2048, 27r (p. 47). 102 Ibid. 103 Armenian arhest. Margar means his method of interpretation. 306 T.M. VAN LINT

And if this were not the case, and we should have to understand only according to the descriptive104 meaning the king who has conquered, then who would be the one that is to come and to be victorious? About whom it is said in the sixtieth beyt: ‘to him was given a sword out of God’s hand, and he cannot be swept aside.’ Thus the true thought of this author is this, like we said: the same one [about whom] he wrote in the fifty-eight beyt that he was to come forward, is the true king of the Crimea, whom he indicated in the first line of the fifty-ninth beyt of his poem, and about whom he in the second line confirmed that he would be unconquerable and incomparable. [27v, (p. 48)] It is therefore secure, that in these seven beyts, from the fifty- fifth to the sixty-first, throughout these two levels are designated, that is, according to the general meaning: the taking of the Crimea, and the defeat of the first king and emperor of it. But according to the artful meaning it signi- fies: the one who is coming and who is the real khan and sultan of the Crimea, that is to say, its king and emperor. Whereby he also indicated his name and his form. And the time of his coming is reaffirmed in the sixty-first beyt. Now, the name of this victorious emperor is revealed only by the word ‘Crimea’, when [the poem] says: ‘of the khan and sultan of the Crimea.’ (so according to the explanation of Sayet Ali Efendi of Baghdad, who had been the student of a student of Veysi and who was very well versed in this art of jifr, which was in the time that Ali Beg was in Egypt. As he fled from there he came to live in Smyrna, and I listened to him, since I became well acquainted with him. He interpreted as follows, according to the tradition of Veysi: this word ‘sultan’ means ‘emperor’ among the Arabs, of which the defining genitive105 is this word ‘Crimea’, by which through the art of jifr is revealed the name of this coming victorious emperor. Because this word Crimea is written in Arabic in this way: [ ],106 as also the author has written it, and it consists of these following five letters: qaf,

104 Opposing two levels of interpretation, the hidden mystical one and the revealed one, Margar uses descriptive as a term for the literal, factual level of interpretation. Cf. pp. 292 of this article, with the description of the preface to The Rose and the Nightingale, where Margar opposes the historical layer to the moral one. 105 Armenian yatkac’uc’ic’, a grammatical term indicating a word in the genitive which defines another word: ‘of the Crimea’ is such a word, here defining ‘sultan’. 106 Here the author writes out the name of the Crimea in Arabic letters. THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 307

ere, i, mim and k’yaf, which according to their abjad107 notation are counted thus: qaf 100, ere 200, i 10, mim 40, and k’yaf 20, of which the sum is 370. And in the same manner the name ‘Katherina’, as it sounds in the Russian language, [28r, (p. 49)] and which among the Arabs is written [ ]108 and not in whatever different way. For if it would have been written in [such and such, or even such a way]109 which are by no means correct according to their pronunciation, therefore also by the correct pronunciation of the letters in comparison with the numbers he showed the genius of his writing. It indicated by the one word Crimea alone the conquest of the Crimea, and it also made known the name of its victor, who is not called sultan. For among the Ottoman Empire the word sultan is to be taken also as the feminine form, and means empress. And the word Katherina is written among the Arabs with these six letters: qaf, t’e, ere, i, nun, elif, which according to their numerical value represent: qaf 100, t’e 9, ere 200, i 10, nun 50, elif 1, of which the sum total is 370. And this is the style (called) jifr, that is their art of the cabala.”

Such is the system Margar Xocenc’ Erewan’ci places his trust in. The subject of this paper revealed an instrument in the Armenian struggle for independence from Muslim rule which one would hardly expect: the work of a Sufi dervish, a Muslim, interpreted as a prophecy by means of a cabalistic method, here quoted in a Muslim variety. The way in which Margar approaches Muslim wisdom raises questions about the way Armenian Chris- tians and Muslim dervishes interacted. This man of the enlightenment con- tinues to use the numerical lore known in the Armenian tradition from the Book of the Six Thousand, betraying a definition of ratio which was super- seded by the modern one as he wrote. Margar’s case is a vivid testimony of the way in which several layers of cultural influence can coexist. They work

107 Margar writes epcet pronounced ebjed yielding the Arabic terminus technicus used in the text. It denotes “the first of the eight mnemotechnical terms into which the twenty-eight consonants of the Arabic alphabet were divided”. See G. Weil – [G.S. Colin], ‘Abdjad’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, I, p. 97. In the jafr not only various procedures were followed, but also different classifications. Margar faithfully gives his. The method following al- abjadiyya is called al-jafr al-Òaghir and consists of 700 roots, in distinction to two other methods. See Fahd, ‘Djafr’ (see n. 93), p. 376. 108 Here the author writes out the name ‘Catherine’ in Arabic letters. 109 Here Margar gives several variants of the name written in Arabic letters. 308 T.M. VAN LINT together for the education of the Armenian people, and for the furthering of the case of Armenian independence, advocated by émigrés risen to the rank of the Russian nobility, merchants, meliks, and people of the cloth alike.

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE FOOTNOTES

Bournoutian = G. Bournoutian, ‘Eastern Armenia from the Seventeenth Century to the Russian Annexation’, in Hovhannisian, pp. 81-107. Bruess = G.L. Bruess, Religion, Identity and Empire: A Greek Archbishop in the Russia of Catherine the Great, East European Monographs, 474 (Boulder, Colorado (distributed by Columbia University Press, New York), 1997). I would like to thank dr. R. Smeets, reader in Caucasian Languages at Leiden University, for drawing my attention to this work. Davt’yan = Hayk Davt’yan, Hay girk’e 1801-1850 t’vakannerin: Matena- grut’yun (Yerevan, Myasnikyan State Library of the Armenian SSR, 1967). Fisher = A.W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea 1772-1783 (Cambridge, 1970). Gibb = E.J.W. Gibb, M.R.A.S., A History of Ottoman Poetry, III, ed. E.G. Browne (London, 1904). Gregorian = V. Gregorian, ‘The Impact of Russia on the Armenians and Armenia’, in Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples, ed. W.S. Vucinich, Hoover Institution Publications, 107 (Stan- ford, California), 1972, pp. 167-218; 426-441. Hay girk’e , N.A. Oskanyan, K’.A. Korkotyan and A.M. Savalyan, Hay girk’e 1512-1800 t’vakannerin: Hay hnatip grk’i matengitowyown (Yerevan, Myas- nikyan State Library of the Armenian Socialist Soviet Republic, 1988). Hovannisian = The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, 2, Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. R.G. Hovannisian (London,1997). Irazek = Y. Irazek (Yakob Ter Yakobean), Patmut’íwn hndkahay tpagrut’ean [History of Armenian Printing in India] (Antelias, 1986). The bulk of this work was written by 1940, while additions continued to be made up to 1951; the author’s death precluded a final redaction, which was carried out by Vazgen ™ukasean. Kappeler = A. Kappeler, Russland als Vielvölkerreich: Entstehung. Geschichte, Zerfall (Munich, 19932 (1992)). THE PROPHECY OF LIBERATION 309

Kouymjian = D. Kouymjian, ‘Armenia from the Fall of the Cilician King- dom (1375) to the Forced Emigration under Shah Abbas (1604)’, in Hovannisian, pp. 1-50. Lament = ‘Lament on Edessa by Nerses Snorhali’, trans. and annotated by Th.M. van Lint, in East and West in the Crusader States, II, Context – Con- tacts – Confrontations, ed. K. Ciggaar and H. Teule, OLA, 92 (Leuven, 1999), pp. 49-105. Maksoudian = K. Maksoudian, ‘Armenian Communities in Eastern Europe’, section ‘Crimea’, in Hovannisian, pp. 52-60. Matenadaran = O. Eganyan, A. Zeyt’unyan, P’. Ant’abyan, C’uc’ak jeragrac’ Mastoc’i anvan Matenadarani, 2 vols. (Yerevan, 1965-1970). Riasanovsky = N.V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (New York and Oxford, 19935 (1963)). Russell = J.R. Russell, ‘The Book of the Six Thousand: An Armenian Magical Text’, Bazmavep (1989), pp. 221-243. Schütz = E. Schütz, ‘The Stages of Armenian Settlement in the Crimea’, Transcaucasica, II (Venice, 1980), pp. 116-135, with bibliography; reprinted in E. Schütz, Armeno-Turcica: Selected Studies, Indiana Univer- sity Uralic and Altaic Series, 164 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1998), XV. Zekiyan = B.L. Zekiyan, The Armenian Way to Modernity: Armenian Identity Between Tradition and Innovation, Specificity and Universality, Eurasiatica, 49 (Venice, 1997).