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 mem- bers 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 gen- eral introduction to the Armenians in this period is Hovannisian; see also Zekiyan; fur- ther 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 vis- ited 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 inde- pendent Armenia of one of the princes, Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate. After consulting with his countrymen in Etchmiacin in 1699 and a subse- quent 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.