The Armenians of New Julfa and Their Cultural Heritage
THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE
VAZKEN S. GHOUGASSIAN
During the first half of the eleventh century, the Bagratuni and Arcruni kings and most of the prominent princely families of Greater Armenia were coerced by the Byzantine Empire to exchange their lands with imperial territories in Armenia Minor, Cappadocia and Cilicia or were forced into permanent exile to the interior parts of the Empire. Consequently, by the middle of the century, Armenia was deprived of its political leadership and military force and was almost completely annexed by Byzantium. In 1071, at the battle of Manazkert to the north of Lake Van, the Byzantine army suffered a devastating defeat in the hands of the Seljuk Turks and retreated from the eastern provinces of the Empire, leaving Greater Armenia wide open before invading Turkic tribes from Central Asia.1 Except for a few decades of relative peace under the Zakarid Armenian dynasty in early thirteenth century, Armenia was subject to successive Seljuk, Mongol, and Turkmen invasions and domination between 1064 and 1500. Under the yoke of these Turkic tribes, the country was physically and economically devastated, the remnants of old Armenian principalities and landlords were oppressed and most of their ancestral lands were gradually confiscated either by Muslim tribal lords or in the name of Islam. Some were compelled to convert to Islam to save their properties. Others donated their lands to monasteries to avoid confiscation. But most of them were forced to flee with only their movable belongings to safer areas in the region or emigrate in increasing numbers to the west.2 With the emergence of the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor and the Safavid Kingdom in Iran at the turn of the sixteenth century, Armenia turned into a battleground between these two ferocious enemies for a period
1 N. Garsoian, ‘The Byzantine Annexation of the Armenian Kingdoms in the Eleventh Century’, The Armenian People, ed. R.G. Hovannisian, I (New York, 1997), pp. 187-198. 2 H.P. Papazyan, ‘Socio-Economic Relations in Eastern Armenia in the XVI-XVIII Cen- turies’, History of the Armenian People, IV (Yerevan, 1972), pp. 247-248. 202 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN of one and a quarter century, beginning with the battle of Chaldiran in 1514 and ending with the treaty of Zuhab in 1639. During this period, the Ottomans and the Safavids waged a chain of eleven wars, always advancing or retreating through Armenia. Both sides frequently adopted the scorched earth policy, which aimed at massacres, forced deportations to slavery and total destruction of populated areas, to deny supplies and labourers to their advancing enemy. According to the Ottoman historian Ibrahim Pechevi, in 1554 alone, during the Ottoman invasion of Yerevan, Qarabagh and Nakhitchevan in Eastern Armenia, “to the length of four-five days journey, all villages, towns, fields, and constructions were destroyed to such a degree that there was no trace of construction and life”.3 In 1588 Shah Abbas I ascended to the Safavid throne at age sixteen. The following year he concluded a peace treaty with the Ottomans and ceded to them large territories, including Northern Iran and Eastern Armenia. In 1603, having reorganized his army and fully secured the internal stability of his Kingdom, the Safavid Shah marched against the Ottomans, recaptured Tabriz, Nakhitchevan and Yerevan and in the summer of 1604, the Safavid army advanced to Van and Erzrum.4 But facing a strong counter-offensive from a large Ottoman army, the Shah decided to retreat and adopt the traditional scorched earth policy. He ordered his troops to deport to Iran all the inhabitants on their way of retreat and “burn the crops and pastures, with the object of denying supplies to the Ottomans for a period of several days as they marched through that region”.5 In a matter of a few days, the retreating Safavid troops deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians from the provinces of Ayrarat and Nakhitchevan, destroyed the vacated towns and villages, and hastily pushed the deported people across river Arax into Iran, before the arrival of the advancing Ottoman army. Three hundred thousand refugees survived the ordeal of the forced deportations and the months long torturous journey to be settled in north-eastern and central parts of Iran, mainly in Gilan,
3 Turkish Sources on Armenia, Armenians and Other Peoples of Transcaucasia, transl. H.D. Safrastyan (Yerevan, 1961), p. 34. 4 V.S. Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seven- teenth Century (Atlanta, 1998), pp. 22-24. 5 Eskandar Beg Monshi, History of Shah Abbas the Great, transl. R.M. Savory, II (Col- orado, 1978), p. 857. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 203
Mazandaran, Kashan, Qazwin, Shiraz, Hamadan, Isfahan, and its neigh- bouring districts in 1605.6 With the forced deportation of almost half a million people from Armenia and the subsequent destruction of the country, Shah Abbas achieved his immediate military objective against the Ottomans. In addition, he ordered the distribution and settlement of the surviving refugees according to his economic agenda. Thirty thousand Armenian families were taken to Gilan and Mazandaran region to serve as labourers in the production of silk, which was a royal monopoly, the backbone of the Iranian economy and the main commodity for export to Europe. Tens of thousands of villagers were settled in rural areas divided into seven districts between Isfahan and Hamadan, to serve as agricultural labourers for the royal household or Muslim feudal lords. Thousands of artisans and craftsmen were placed in urban centres, including Isfahan, the Safavid Capital. Finally, a mercantile community of two thou- sand families from Julfa – which is the main subject of this study – was settled in a suburb of Isfahan, across the river Zayenderud.7
Julfa, the emergence of a mercantile community Julfa was a very old but until late fifteenth century a little known village established on a rocky and arid strip of land, more or less two kilometres long and five hundred metres wide, between the river Arax and a steep mountain range, twenty miles to the southeast of Nakhitchevan. Its sudden emergence as a densely populated mercantile town in the sixteenth century is quite puzzling and little explored, mainly due to scarcity of contemporary sources. The rise of Julfa seems to be a direct result of the fourteenth-fifteenth century political turmoil in Armenia and the Levantine trade of raw silk in the sixteenth century. Seventeenth century Armenian patriarchal encyclicals, manuscript colophons and epitaphs address or identify the male members of the most prominent merchant families of Julfa with titles of social distinc- tion, such as prince (ishkhan or melik), lord (agha), sir (paron), gentry (azat) and a person of noble descent (azatadzin or payazat).8 Certainly, these titles were of very old and hereditary origin and could be traced back in the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, when as already indicated, the remnants of
6 Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa (see n. 4), pp. 25-32. 7 Ibid., pp. 33-47. 8 Ibid., pp. 47-48. 204 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN the old Armenian princely families and nobility had lost their ancestral lands under Muslim rule and were compelled to move elsewhere. According to the seventeenth century Armenian writer Stepanos Dashtetsi, under foreign occupation, Armenians were not entitled to military or civil service, were subject to physical persecutions and lootings and were left with no other choice but to turn to trade and disperse around the world.9 Indeed their agricultural based economy being ruined, the Armenian nobility had to leave with their movable wealth and settle along trade routes to try their chances in commerce. Being ideally located near an international trade route, which passed from Tabriz to Yerevan, Julfa must have attracted a large number of these people, who have settled there in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. The economic prosperity of Julfa was closely connected to a surge in Europe for raw silk in the sixteenth century and the Levantine trade of that commodity. Being in reasonable proximity to silk producing centres of Qarabagh, Shirvan, Gilan and Mazandaran, the Armenians of Julfa ventured in the traffic of silk, from the points of production to the two most impor- tant silk markets of the time, namely Aleppo and Bursa. The raw silk was sold for silver to European trade companies, who lacked the flexibility and the mobility to reach the remote areas of silk production in a century which was marked with long lasting wars in the region. By the end of the sixteenth century, the merchants of Julfa had expanded the geographical scope of their trade, reaching Europe in large numbers.10 It is very difficult to understand the prosperity of Julfa and the commer- cial success of its merchant population, amid wars and general insecurity in the region. Unlike other towns and villages, Julfa seems to have largely remained free of plunders and destruction for the greater part of the six- teenth century, as indicated in a manuscript colophon copied in 1595.11 Was this because its geographical location far from common battlefields, its neutrality as a town inhabited only by Armenians, or its financial means to pay large ransoms and secure peace? We simply do not know. But certainly
9 V.A. Bayburdyan, The International Trade and the Armenians of Iran in the 17th Cen- tury (Teheran, 1996), p. 16. 10 L. Alishan, Hay Venet (Venice, 1896), p. 160. 11 S. Ter Avetisyan, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts of All Saviour’s Monastery of New Julfa, I (Vienna, 1970), p. 84. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 205 the security of Julfa to some degree was guaranteed by its status as a royal estate (khas or khassaye sharife). This was a privileged status, because in royal estates taxes were collected only in the name of the royal household and by special officials called khasedar, who were also in charge of the security of the estate against external or internal violators of the law and order. At least during the last two decades of the sixteenth century, the office of khassedar in Julfa was held by a local headman or merchant.12 During his military campaign in 1603, before reaching Yerevan, Shah Abbas passed through Julfa and found a three days lavish hospitality in this mercantile town, which three years earlier, in 1600, was estimated by the English traveller John Cartwright to include 2000 houses and 10,000 inhabi- tants.13 In a procession Shah Abbas was led to the house of Khwaja Khachig, the local headman, passing through decorated and carpeted streets and pre- sented with trays full of gold coins. Obviously the Shah was impressed by the wealth and the commercial success of the Armenian merchants of Julfa, because, the following year, during the mass deportation of the Armenians to Iran, he treated the Armenians of Julfa as a privileged class of refugees. Before the evacuation and the final destruction of their town by Persian troops, the Armenians of Julfa were given a three days grace period to prepare for the road to Iran and were allowed to take with them their movable belongings. Horses and camels were provided for their transportation and they were shel- tered for the winter months in Tabriz, before reaching Isfahan in the spring of 1605 to lay the foundations of New Julfa.
New Julfa Upon their arrival to Isfahan, the Armenians of Julfa were granted a large parcel of royal land at the bank of river Zayenderud, across the Safavid capital, and were encouraged to build their own town named New Julfa, isolated from the local Iranian people. They were also granted unlimited commercial opportunities, internal autonomy and freedom of worship. The destruction of Old Julfa and the establishment of New Julfa was cer- tainly related to the long term economic policy of Shah Abbas. From the early days of his reign he had pursued a systematic policy, aimed at the economic
12 Ibid., p. 271. 13 J. Cartwright, The Preachers Travels … (London, 1611), pp. 35-36. Cited by J. Carswell, New Julfa (Oxford, 1968), p. 73. 206 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN development of his realm. He had established royal monopoly on the produc- tion and export of raw silk14 and had reorganized the customs services of his Kingdom. Also, he had established special security forces for the safety of the trade routes in his Kingdom and had built caravanserais15 on many roads for the use of the trade caravans.16 After two decades of unsuccessful attempts, in 1622 he finally captured the port of Gambrun and the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and expelled the Portuguese, who had established full control over the sea borne trade between India, the Persian Gulf and Europe, since the sixteenth century.17 Shah Abbas must have realized that, with their decades long experience in the international trade and under his direct control, the Armenian mer- chants not only would be instrumental in the large scale export of raw silk and the development of Iran’s international trade, but also they would help increase the state revenue and their profits would be channelled back to Iran. He had explained his protective attitude towards the Armenian mer- chants of Julfa in the following words: “After spending fortunes, with great effort and many plots, I was able to transfer them to this country, not for their own sake, but for our own benefit, so that our country may develop and our nation may grow.”18 The royal monopoly established on the trade of silk and the failure of large European trade companies to conclude solid and long lasting trade agreements with Shah Abbas, gave the Armenian merchants of Julfa a unique opportunity for close collaboration with the Shah. In 1618, they outbid the European companies and gained the exclusive right for the export of the Iranian raw silk to the European markets.19 Following the death of Shah Abbas in 1629, royal control of the trade gradually diminished. Being free of royal patronage, the Armenian mer- chants of Julfa expanded their trade independently and for almost a century,
14 K. Bayani, Les relations de l’Iran avec l’Europe occidentale à l’époque safavide (Paris, 1937), p. 223. 15 Places where goods were received, weighed, assessed and stored. 16 J. Chardin, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse et autres lieux de l’Orient, III (Am- sterdam, 1735), p. 55. 17 R.M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 115-117. 18 Arakel Davrijetsi, History (Vagharshapat, 1896), p. 60. 19 V.A. Bayburdyan, ‘The Trade of New Julfa and the Economic Expansion of West Euro- pean Capital in Iran’, Patmabanasirakan Handes (Yerevan, 1966), 3, p. 220. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 207 until the fall of the Safavid Kingdom in 1722, they managed alone the for- eign trade of Iran and established international trade networks between India, Russia and Western Europe. In the seventeenth century, the majority of the adult male population of New Julfa was actively involved in the local or international trade. The English traveller John Fryer, an official of the East India Company, who visited New Julfa in 1677, has made the follow- ing observation on the merchants of New Julfa:
“They improved the glory of Spahan by their unwearied industry, there being many of them credible merchants at this time, accounted worth an hundred thousand Thomand (each Thomand being three pounds and a noble): so mightily do they increase under this umbrage, in riches and freedom: for whilst they sit lazily at home, their factors abroad in all parts of the earth return to their hives laden with honey: to which exercise, after they themselves have been brought up, they train their children under the safe conduct of experienced tutors, who instruct them first to labour for a livelihood, before they are permitted to expand.”20
New Julfa was considered the right and property of the Queen Mother, who was entitled to receive, on behalf of the royal household all taxes collected in this town. The Armenian merchants were under her protection and most of them maintained shops and warehouses in a large caravanserai, owned by the Queen Mother.21
The town was constructed on a plan reflecting its communal structure. The main avenue named after Khwaja Nazar, the most influential leader of the community in early seventeenth century, crossed the town from east to west. Ten parallel streets crossing Nazar Avenue from north to south, formed twenty quarters or wards. Each quarter was dominated by one of the most prominent families of Julfa and was represented in a council of wardens by the headman (tanuter) of that family. The inhabitants of each quarter were
20 J. Fryer, A New Account of the East India and Persia … (London, 1698), p. 268. Cited by Carswell, New Julfa (see n. 13), p. 77. 21 Cornelis De Bruyn, Travels into Muscovy, Persia, and Divers Parts of the East Indies (Lon- don, 1759), p. 253. John Baptista Tavernier, The Six Travels of John Baptista Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne, Through Turkey and Persia to the Indies (London, 1684), pp. 152-153. 208 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN affiliated with their respective warden either as family members, followers or trade associates.
New Julfa was granted a semi-autonomous status in administrative matters. The chief civil administrator of the town was the mayor (kalantar), who was selected by the council of wardens and confirmed in his office by a royal decree. He was the liaison between the Safavid state and his community and the chief judge in civil matters related to his community. He was also responsible for the timely collection and transfer of taxes to the royal house- hold. The mayor was partly accountable to the council of wardens, com- posed by the headmen of twenty quarters or wards of New Julfa, who played an important role in the administrative and economic affairs of the town. A Persian official called darugha (police prefect) was in charge of criminal cases and the security of the town.22 According to Islamic law, the Armenians of Iran as a Christian minority in a Muslim country were entitled to public and personal rights, including freedom of worship, as long as they were loyal to the Muslim state and were paying a special poll tax called jizya or kharaj. They were permitted to build their own churches, establish their religious institutions and own properties in the name of the Church. However, these rights were fully applied only for the community of New Julfa, which was a small segment of the total Armenian population of Iran. The great majority of the Armenian refugees scattered in Gilan, Mazandaran and the rural areas between Isfahan and Hamadan were given limited freedom of worship and periodically they were subject to religious persecutions by state or Muslim officials.23
Shah Abbas I, whose principal goals included the economic development of his country and the creation of an alliance with European powers against the Ottoman Empire, made special efforts to please the Armenian merchants and the Pope of Rome, by granting the Armenians of New Julfa full relig- ious freedom and permitting the establishment of Catholic missionary orders in Iran. In 1614 he issued a decree, announcing his decision to build for the Armenians “a large, magnificent, high and elegantly adorned church
22 Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa (see n. 4), pp. 59-76. 23 Ibid., pp. 59-76. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 209 in the capital, which will serve for them as a place of worship and where they may pray according to their tradition and rules”. This would have also pleased Rome and the Western Christian states, with whom he had “friendly relations” and he was prepared “to send a messenger to the Holy Pope of Rome and ask him to send a Christian priest as cleric to the Capital of Isfahan to pray in the said church so that people may learn”.24
To make the new cathedral a sacred place for the Armenians, the Shah ordered the cathedral of Echmiadzin, the holiest place in Armenia disman- tled and its sacred stones transported to Isfahan for the construction of the new cathedral. Initially, fifteen large stones, taken from the altar and the four corners of the cathedral of Echmiadzin were transported to Isfahan the following year. But due to the efforts of Armenian merchants, the Shah was persuaded to abandon that project and the cathedral of Echmiadzin was saved from total destruction. The stones already brought from Echmiadzin were later placed at St. Geworg Church of New Julfa, where, almost four hundred years later, they still serve as a site of pilgrimage. For the Armenian refugees in Iran, building their own houses and churches seems to have been equally important. Immediately after their arrival in 1605, they built the All Saviour’s Monastery of New Julfa, which would serve as a seat for their Archbishop and would accommodate a group of monks, for- ming a religious order. In addition, during the following two decades, in New Julfa and the city of Isfahan alone, they built sixteen churches for a combined community of not more than three thousand five hundred families in and around the Safavid capital.25 Hundreds of Armenian clerics, including priests, monks, bishops and Catholicos Davit, the spiritual head of the Armenian Church, who were forced by the Persian troops to abandon their churches and monasteries in Eastern Armenia and join their deported people in exile to Iran, were available to serve the spiritual needs of the Armenian refugees scat- tered in different parts of Iran. According to an Armenian manuscript colophon dated 1607,26 more than two hundred Armenian clergymen partic- ipated that year in the celebration of Christmas/Epiphany and the traditional
24 See the text of the decree, ibid., pp. 204-207. 25 See the complete list of churches, ibid., pp. 291-292. 26 V. Hakobyan, Seventeenth Century Armenian Manuscript Colophones, I (Yerevan, 1977), p. 259. 210 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN ceremony of water blessing at the river Zayenderud, which flows between Isfahan and New Julfa. With the establishment of the All Saviour’s Monastery, a small diocese was created under Archbishop Mesrob, the Primate of Old Julfa, who had accompanied his deported people to Iran. The administrative jurisdiction of this diocese was limited to only the parishes of New Julfa. Other Armenian communities or parishes in the city of Isfahan and rural areas located between the Safavid capital and the city of Hamadan were headed by other clerics and were mostly considered pontifical domains, directly subject to the spiritual head of the Armenian Church, the Catholicos of Echmiadzin.27 The year 1623 marked a turning point in the history of the Armenian diocese of New Julfa, when Archbishop Khachatour Kesaratsi, a highly edu- cated and talented clergyman was appointed Primate of New Julfa. During his long tenure of 23 years, the All Saviour’s Monastery flourished as a relig- ious and cultural centre, new churches were built, schools were established, a young generation of educated clergymen were trained for the service of the Church and most importantly, all the Armenian refugees scattered in the north-eastern and central parts of Iran were brought under the spiritual and administrative jurisdiction of the diocese of New Julfa. Having the full sup- port of the Armenian merchants of New Julfa and of the Catholicoi Movses Siwnetsi and Pilibos Aghbaketsi of Echmiadzin,28 and being an Archbishop with his seat in proximity of the Safavid capital, Khachatour Kesaratsi created one of the strongest and most influential dioceses of the seventeenth century Armenian Church. Khachatour Kesaratsi was succeeded by Davit Jughayetsi, his student and close assistant, whose long tenure (1652-1683) and wise leadership gave a new boost to the prosperity of the Armenian diocese of New Julfa. As a great teacher, he personally educated and trained yet a new generation of monks, more than 40 in number,29 who played a crucial role in the religious, administrative and cultural life of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Armenian Church. His students included three future catholicoi of Echmiadzin, namely Stepanos, Alexander Jughayetsi and Astvatsatour Hamadantsi.
27 Ibid., p. 87 28 Archbishop Khachatour Kesaratsi’s former teacher and classmate respectively. 29 Ter Avetisyan, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts (see n. 11), p. 751. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 211
The tenure of Archbishop Davit was marked by large scale construction activities. With the financial support of the Armenian merchants, in 1655 he undertook the huge task of completely rebuilding the All Saviour’s Monastery, which until then was a modest compound. On a two acre parcel of land the cathedral of St. Joseph of Arimathea, a monastic school and new living quarters for the growing number of monks were built. Almost simul- taneously Davit Jughayetsi sponsored the construction of a second monastery in the village of Hazarjarib, one hundred miles to the west of Isfahan, for the spiritual and educational benefit of Armenian peasants set- tled in the rural districts of Peria and Burwari. Due to religious differences and difficult cohabitation between Muslims and Christians, between 1655 and 1659 the Armenians of Isfahan were deported by Shah Abbas II to resettle on the south-western edge of New Julfa, which almost doubled the town in size and population. Consequently six churches were built in the newly established quarters, increasing the number of parish churches in New Julfa alone to 24. Under Khachatour Kesaratsi and Davit Jughayetsi the All Saviour’s Monastery of New Julfa reached the highest stage of its religious mission in creating a vibrant Church in a Muslim country. It also assumed a leading role in the revival of Armenian education, culture and art.
The Cultural Heritage of All Saviour’s Monastery After almost two centuries of stagnation due to political turmoil, physical insecurity and economic hardship, the end of the Safavid-Ottoman wars in early seventeenth century gave birth to a movement of religious and cultural revival. The leading figure of this movement was Movses Siwnetsi, known also as Tatevatsi, one of the best educated and most respected clergymen of his time. During his youth he had spent more than ten years as a student and preacher in Asia Minor, Egypt and Jerusalem. Returning to Eastern Armenia in 1615, he established schools in several monasteries and gathered hundreds of students around him, before taking full control of the Holy See of Echmiadzin, first as Sacristan, and later, from 1629 until his untimely death in 1632, as Catholicos of Echmiadzin. Movses Siwnetsi estabished very good relations with the Armenian mer- chants of New Julfa and with their help gained the confidence of the Safavid court. In 1623 he spent a few months in New Julfa and the neighbouring 212 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN areas, preaching, consoling the Armenian refugees and strengthening them in their faith.30 Before returning to Armenia, he helped elevate Khachatour Kesaratsi, his senior disciple and long time associate, as Primate of the dio- cese of New Julfa. Khachatour Kesaratsi, a highly educated person and a good teacher in his own right, started his tenure in New Julfa in very promising conditions. He was young, energetic and was morally and financially suported by the com- munity of New Julfa. His election was approved by the Safavid court and he had the liberty of serving the spiritual needs of his people. According to his student, Oskan Erevantsi, during the first years of his tenure, Khachatour Kesaratsi introduced many reforms, established Church orders, schools and educated many people in religious literature.31 Immediately after his elec- tion, he built the St. Katarine Nunnery and established an order of nuns. In 1628 he supervised the construction of Holy Bethlehem Church, the largest, most beautiful and richly decorated church of New Julfa. According to a manuscript colophon dated 1629, in a few years, Kesaratsi “gathered many students, built hermitages and established schools”.32 From the very early years of his tenure in New Julfa, he was commonly praised as a saintly figure, a doctor of the Church, a great preacher and a talented writer, scribe, painter and singer.33 In 1629, Khachatour Kesaratsi was sent with his disciple Simeon Jughayetsi to Lwów, Poland, as legate of Catholicos Movses Siwnetsi, to set- tle a dispute between Nikol Torosovicz, the young and controversial Arme- nian Bishop of Poland and his community. The mediation efforts of Kesaratsi in Lwów proved fruitless, as Nikol Torosovicz sought the protec- tion of the Catholic Church and converted to Catholicism. Khatchatour Kesaratsi and Simeon Jughayetsi returned to Echmiadzin in 1631 and remained there for several months to study under Melkiset Vjanetsi, the best known Armenian teacher of liberal arts, and to remedy the inferiority they had felt during their theological, philosophical and grammatical disputation with catholic missionaries.34
30 Davrijetsi, History (see n. 18), p. 296. 31 ‘Biography of Oskan Erevantsi’, in History by Arakel Davrijetsi (Amsterdam, 1669), p. 629. 32 Hakobyan, Seventeenth Century Armenian Manuscript Colophons (see n. 26), II, p. 336. 33 Ibid., pp. 100, 136, 138, 301, 307, 336, 430. 34 Davrijetsi, History (see n. 18), pp. 397-399. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 213
Khachatour Kesaratsi and Simeon Jughayetsi returned to New Julfa in late 1631 and concentrated their attention on the school of All Saviour’s Monastery. They introduced a new curriculum, which included grammar, philosophy, rhetoric, natural sciences, geometry, music, theology and bibli- cal studies, creating a centre of higher learning or ‘University’.35 The fame of All Saviour’s school was widely spread and in 1641 Simeon Jughayetsi was called to Echmiadzin by Catholicos Pilibos to establish a new school at the Holy See for 50 students.36 His three books of grammar, logic and a com- mentary on the works of Proclus were widely used as textbooks in Armenian monastic schools until early nineteenth century. For Khachatour Kesaratsi the All Saviour’s school had both a cultural and religious mission. On the one hand it had to serve for the cultural revival of Armenians, while on the other hand, it was essential for the higher educa- tion of the Armenian clergy, who were facing the growing and aggressive missionary activities of Catholic religious orders in Iran and Armenia. Indeed, many graduates of this school assumed important roles in the seven- teenth and early eighteenth century religious and cultural life of the Arme- nian people, as Church leaders, theologians, teachers, painters and printers. Besides the theological school, a parochial school was established at the All Saviour’s Monastery and was headed by Kostand Varjapet (teacher), where 250 children of merchants were taught reading, writing, book keeping and the rules of trade.37 A textbook written by Kostand and entitled Ashkharhajoghov (General Collection) introduces the basic rules of trade, the international trade centres and roads, and the currencies, weights and measures used in sev- eral Asian and European countries. In the seventeenth century, New Julfa was one of the most important Armenian scriptoriums. Many scribes and miniaturists at the All Saviour’s Monastery and most of the parish churches of New Julfa were constantly occupied with copying and illuminating manuscripts for churches, clergy- men and members of merchant families. Financially they were supported by wealthy individuals, for whom, as is often indicated in the colophons, the manuscripts were imperishable treasures and the warrants of their salvation.38
35 Khachatour Jughayetsi, History (Vagharshapat, 1905), p. 117. 36 Hakobyan, Seventeenth Century Armenian Manuscript Colophons (see n. 26), III, p. 5. 37 Ter Avetisyan, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts (see n. 11), p. 752. 38 Hakobyan, Seventeenth Century Armenian Manuscript Colophons (see n. 26), I-III. 214 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN
More than 350 manuscripts copied in New Julfa, including 30 manuscripts by master scribe-illuminator Mesrob Khizantsi, have survived and are cur- rently part of several collections around the world.39 A great number of man- uscripts copied in New Julfa were permanently lost during the Afghan inva- sion of Isfahan in 1722 and more particularly in 1748-1755, when a large number of manuscripts were sold to grocers, spice sellers and gun powder makers of Isfahan to raise funds for the payment of 6000 tomans imposed on the Armenians of New Julfa by Azadkhan, the Afghan chieftain, who had occupied Isfahan and had terrorized the people.40 After his encounters with Catholic missionaries in Poland and Iran, Khatchatour Kesaratsi had realised the importance and the potentials of a printing press for his efforts at the religious education and cultural revival of his people. Printed books would best serve to reach out to a wider segment of his community, in order to educate and protect them against Catholic influences. But the technology of printing was not yet introduced in the Near East and there was an acute shortage of type, paper and printers. Khatchatour Kesaratsi was very fortunate to find in his community a very talented man named Hakobjan, who was later to be famous in the position of Safavid naggash-bashi (head of the royal painters). According to the French traveller John Baptista Tavernier, Hakobjan was a genius in mechanical arts and the author of many inventions, who introduced the art of printing into Iran and personally created the fonts.41 With the assistance of Hakobjan, in 1636 Kesaratsi established a printing press at the All Saviour’s Monastery and in 1638 achieved the printing of Saghmos Davti (The Psalms of David). During the following four years he printed Harants Vark (Lives of the Church Fathers), Khorerdatetr (Missal) and Jamagirk Ateni (Breviary). In the colophons of these publications Kesaratsi explains that the whole printing process was created locally and even the paper and the ink were produced at his monastery. The printing project of Kessaratsi was to be continued by his disciple, Hovannes Jughayetsi, also known under the name of Khrtshents, who was sent to Europe by Kesaratsi in 1639, to learn the art of printing. Hovannes
39 L.G. Minasian, Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts of All saviour’s Monastery of New Julfa, II (Vienna, 1972), p. IX. 40 H. Ter Hovhaniants, History of New Julfa, II (New Julfa, 1881), p. 16. 41 J.B. Tavernier, Les Six Voyages en Turquie et en Perse (Paris, 1930), p. 225. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 215 had first gone to Venice before moving to Livorno, where in 1644 he completed the printing of the Book of Psalms. In 1646, a few months after the death of Kesaratsi, Hovannes returned to New Julfa with a printing press, new fonts and many engraved illustrations of biblical scenes and the torments of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Amidst temporary confusion resulting from the absence of a successor to Kesaratsi and the opposition of scribes who made their living from manuscripts, Hovannes established his printing press and in 1647 produced an impressive publication of Girk Tumarats vor yev Parzatumar kochi (Books of Calendars). Soon after he attempted the first publication of the Armenian Bible, but due to the grow- ing opposition of the scribes, he was forced to abandon his project and move to Armenia in 1650.42 During the height of tension between the Armenian Church and Catholic missionaries in New Julfa in 1687, the printing press of All Saviour’s Monastery was reactivated again and the following three books were printed: 1. Girk Atenakan vor kochi Vijapanakan (Book of Discourse or Polemics) by Alexander Jughayetsi; 2. Girk Joghovatso Endem Erkabnakats (A Collection against the Dyophysites); 3. Girk Hamarot Vasn Iskapes Jshmarit Havato (A Brief Book about the True Faith) by Hovannes Jughayetsi-Mrkuz. After these publications the printing house of the All Saviour’s Monastery was closed again not to be reopened for nearly two centuries, until 1863. According to the eighteenth century Armenian historiographer Khachatour Jughayetsi, the closing of the printing house was ordered by Shah Sultan Husayn, due to allegations made by Catholic missionaries against Stepanos Jughayetsi, the Primate of New Julfa.43 The decorative arts which were primarily expressed through wall paint- ings, ceramic tiles, stucco decorations and stone or wood carvings, occupied a dominant place in the seventeenth century cultural life of New Julfa. In a treatise against the iconoclasts, Vrtanes Kertogh has presented in early seventh century an extensive cycle of paintings in the Armenian churches of his time and has added: “All that the Holy scriptures relate is painted in the churches.”44 However, only traces of wall paintings can still be found in a
42 Ghougassian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa (see n. 4), pp. 174- 176. 43 Jughayetsi, History (see n. 35), p. 120. 44 E. Durian, Studies (Jerusalem, 1935), pp. 304-305. 216 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN few seventh-thirteenth century Armenian churches and it is generally agreed that the Armenian Church was very moderate in the use of monumental painting, partly due to its antagonism to the extreme iconophile position of the Byzantine Church, and possibly because the stone construction of Armenian churches lent itself better to carved than to painted decoration. The seventeenth century was marked by an enormous upsurge of Arme- nian painting in New Julfa, mainly due to the following reasons: a. European painters, employed by the Safavid court, were settled in New Julfa and were in daily contact with the Armenian community. b. Armenian Merchants had developed a taste of paintings during their trav- els to Europe and were eager to decorate their churches and homes in Euro- pean fashion. c. Architecturally, the Armenian churches of New Julfa were a combination of Armenian and Persian styles. The Armenian style pertained primarily to the grand plans and the internal divisions of the churches, based on litur- gical considerations. The Persian style, which was probably dictated by the Safavid court, in order to not provoke Muslim fanaticism, was expressed through the onion-shaped domes. In order to realize this architectural fea- ture, brick-building techniques with a plaster coating were used. For the sake of strengthening the Christian character of the church and taking advantage of the plaster surfaces, wall paintings were extensively used for didactic as well as decorative purposes. Wall paintings or paintings on canvas are found in almost all the thirteen surviving churches in New Julfa. The largest number of paintings are to be found in the church of the Holy Mother of God, the Bethlehem Church and the All Saviour’s Cathedral. Large series of wall paintings, mostly plas- tered over have also been discovered during the recent years in several other churches, including St. Stephen, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Sargis and St. Minas. The few available studies on the wall paintings of New Julfa churches are primarily focussed on the All Saviour’s Cathedral, which presents a complete cycle of Old and New Testament scenes. Little attention is paid to the Bethle- hem Church, which was built in 1628 and decorated a little later. The surface of the interior walls of this church, including the drum of the dome is fully covered with biblical scenes, depictions of saints, the torments of St. Gregory the Illuminator, floral designs, stucco decorations and ceramic tiles. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 217
The paintings of All Saviour’s Cathedral, which are fully executed in Euro- pean style, must be dated between 1661 and 1680.45 They are modelled mostly on the Biblia Sacra by the engraver Christoffel van Sichem, which were used in the first printed Bible by Voskan Erevantsi.46 The paintings are arranged hori- zontally. The Old Testament illustrations occupy the drum of the dome and the upper row on the side walls. The New Testament illustrations are presented in the second row. In the third row, biblical parables, the seven sacraments and episodes from the life of Christ are presented in oval shaped pictures. A series of twenty four smaller pictures on the life of St. Gregory the Illuminator as narrated in the History of Agatangeghos, form the fourth row. A huge picture of the last judgement is painted on the western part of the north wall of the nave of the cathedral. A row of ceramic tiles below the paintings encircles the interior walls and the altar of the cathedral. According to the observation of T.S.R. Boase, the paintings of the cathe- dral “are worked out with remarkable thoroughness and with some unusual typological features”.47 In the upper two rows of the paintings, the scenes from the Old and New Testaments are harmonized with clear theological understanding and are presented as 26 typological pairs. Certainly Davit Jughayetsi, the Primate of New Julfa, who supervised the construction of the cathedral played a decisive role in the selection and the typological classifi- cation of these paintings. The painters of New Julfa churches have mostly remained anonymous. A few Western experts who have studied the wall paintings have been guided by stylistic considerations and have attributed most of the paintings to European artists. Armenian scholars however, primarily based on tradi- tion and secondary information, have attributed the paintings to Armenian artists. Until recently, only a few painters could be linked to any particular paint- ing. The names of Davit and Apov were known as the painters at the church of the Holy Mother of God, through an inscription dated 1666. According to another inscription at the Saint Hagop Church of Baghatay, the altar of
45 An inscription on the ceiling of the altar, dated April 27, 1661 mentions Khwaja Avetik as the sponsor of the decorations. 46 Amsterdam, 1666. 47 T.S.R. Boase, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Typological Cycle of Paintings in the Armenian Cathedral of Julfa’, Journal of Warburg and Courtland Institutes, 13 (1950), 3-4, p. 324. 218 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN the said church was painted by Karapet. A painting of the Virgin Mary at the All Saviour’s Monastery was signed by Stepanos, the picture maker. However an important discovery was made in 1972, during the restoration of the Bethlehem Church, where on the ceiling of the altar the following inscription was found: “The paintings were drawn by Minas and Martiros. The floral decorations were drawn by Astvatsatour.” Thus the painters of one of the two most richly decorated churches of New Julfa were being identified. Arakel Davrijetsi who concluded his history in 1662, provides detailed information about Minas, the greatest among the Armenian painters of New Julfa, who, during his youth, was trained in Aleppo, Syria, under an European master painter. After his return to New Julfa, he was the favourite painter of Safavid officials, including the Shah, and the Armenian mer- chants of New Julfa. He was a master in painting, with equal success, plants, animals, birds or human portraits.48 At the conclusion of Davrijetsi’s history, Minas was still alive, and therefore would have naturally participated in the decoration of All Saviour’s Cathedral. Besides Minas, as a famous painter and a “source of pride and benefit for our nation”,49 Davrijetsi mentions the name of Hakobjan, without provid- ing additional details. Fortunately, through the travel accounts at John Tavernier and yet unpublished documents in the archives of All Saviour’s Monastery, we discover in Hakobjan a leader in the Armenian community of Isfahan and later New Julfa, and as already indicated, the inventor of the printing press of All saviour’s Monastery and the head of royal painters at the Safavid court. Another famous painter-theologian at the All Saviour’s Monastery was Hovannes Mrkuz, also known as Tiezeraloys (universal illuminator). Eigh- teenth century historiographer Khachatour Jughayetsi has devoted a consid- erable part of his book to the life and educational, theological and artistic merits of Mrkuz. He also has credited him with the wall paintings of All Saviour’s Cathedral. As already observed by T.S.R. Boase and a number of other experts, a group of twenty paintings forming the fourth row of the cathedral paintings,
48 Davrijetsi, History (see n. 18), pp. 409-413. 49 Ibid, p. 409. THE ARMENIANS OF NEW JULFA AND THEIR CULTURAL HERITAGE 219 and above them thirteen other oval shaped paintings of the Holy sacraments, parables, and scenes from the Gospels form a separate series and must be the work of a single artist. The last painting of that series presents a white bearded monk, hooded and in Armenian style monastic outfits, praying before the Holy Virgin and the Child. According to an oral tradition in New Julfa, the monk depicted in that picture is Hovannes Mrkuz, the artist of the wall paintings in question. A comparison between the paintings attributed to Hovannes Mrkuz and recently discovered and printed engravings which were brought from Livorno in 1646 by Hovannes Jughayetsi, the printer, clearly shows that the wall paintings depicting the torments of St. Gregory the Illuminator, were basically modelled after these engravings and only details were added in the paintings to place the scenes in an Armenian environment. A document submitted to the Russian court in 1666 by Khwaja Zakar reports that several painters were employed in every artistic workshop in New Julfa. A painting of the Last Supper, produced in one of those work- shops and presented to Tsar Aleksej Michajlovic by Khwaja Zakar was very appreciated and Zakar was asked to arrange the transfer of the artist of that painting from New Julfa to Moscow. In 1667, a young painter from New Julfa named Astvatsatour was already employed by the Tsar and was soon acclaimed as a great artist, who painted in Moscow for more than 35 years under the names Bogdan Sultanov or Ivan Ievlievic Sultanov.50 With the decline of the Safavid Kingdom in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century and due to religious and economic pressures during the reign of Shah Sultan Husayn, the Armenian merchants of New Julfa gradu- ally relocated their trade abroad. The Afghan occupation of Isfahan in 1722 devastated the town and caused a mass exodus of merchants and their fam- ilies, leaving behind mostly the poor and the elderly. But despite its ultimate decline, New Julfa created a long lasting cultural legacy. The influence of the Armenian culture of New Julfa was not limited to the geographical boundaries of Isfahan or Iran in general. The religious and cul- tural roles of the graduates of All Saviour’s School was far reaching and influenced the life of the Armenian people in Armenia and in the diaspora.
50 M. Ghazaryan, The Armenian Painting Art in XVII-XVIII Centuries (Yerevan, 1975), p. 51. 220 V.S. GHOUGASSIAN
The merchants of New Julfa were the main sponsors of all kinds of religious and cultural endeavours around the Armenian world. Even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, merchant families of New Julfa origin settled in India, Russia and Europe, continued to play important roles as benefactors of religious and educational institutions and of publications and as pro- moters of Armenian enlightenment and liberation. The cultural legacy of New Julfa is best defined in the following words of the nineteenth century Armenian writer Mesrob Taghiatiants:
“Alas Julfa! With all the savants of the world Greece was barely able to build an Athens during her entire history. But your sons, all of whom wandered during their entire lives, Wherever they reached, there they built an intellectual Athens.”51
51 Ghougasian, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa (see n. 4), p. 185.