Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T14:08:36.413Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Falling Out of Love with the Franks: The Life and Writings of an Armenian Catholic Diplomat in the Service of Late Safavid Persia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Henry R. Shapiro
Henry R. Shapiro*
Affiliation:
Polonsky Academy, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article provides a biographical vignette of the Armenian merchant and diplomat Eḷia of Erzurum (1689–1750?), based on his unpublished Armenian chronicle and personal documents which are housed in Russian archives. Eḷia’s biography demonstrates the growing influence of European missionaries and states in the eighteenth-century Ottoman and Safavid empires, while his documents yield a fresh perspective on late Safavid diplomacy and modes of socialization with Christians. Eḷia suffered twelve years of imprisonment in Russia and great disappointment seeking work in Europe. His last known act was to write a scathing critique of Roman Catholic religion and culture. In sum, Eḷia’s life provides an opportunity for exploring the dynamic of global connection and disconnection in the early modern Islamic world.

Keywords

Safavid HistoryArmenian HistoryTrans-Imperial BrokersArmeno-TurkishMissionaries in Persia
Type
Varia
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3-4 , July 2021 , pp. 573 - 603
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

He completed his PhD in August 2018 in the History Department of Princeton University and specializes in the history of the early modern Islamic empires (Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal), with a focus on the Ottoman Empire.

The author learned about Eia of Erzurum’s unpublished corpus from a conversation with Sebouh Aslanian at the Matenadaran Manuscript Library in Yerevan, Armenia in 2015, and is very grateful to him for his consistent encouragement of this project and for an invitation to present preliminary findings at a conference at UCLA, entitled “Armeno-Iranica Conference: A Shared History,” in January 2019. Funding for research in Moscow in summer 2017 was generously provided by the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University. Thanks are due both to the Center and to Igor Fedyukin of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, for facilitating my research in Russia. Finally, diverse feedback about this project has been provided by generous colleagues, including Jeremy Adelman, Jonathan Brack, Michael Cook, John-Paul Ghobrial, Dennis Halft, Jan Hennings, Elahesadat Naghib, Marc Nichanian, Michael Stone, and the anonymous readers at Iranian Studies. Hearty thanks to them all.

All translations of Armenian, Persian, and Armeno-Turkish texts are the author’s own. Thanks for help with other languages are noted as appropriate. This article provides an overview of Eia’s life and literary corpus, the first step in what it is hoped will become a larger project.

References

Abrahamyan, A.G. Eḷia Karnets’u Divanə. Yerevan: Mitk’ Hratarakch’ut’yun,1968.Google Scholar
Abrahamyan, A.G. Israyel Ōri. Yerevan: Hayastan, 1978.Google Scholar
Abrahamyan, A.G., and Gabrielyan, D.. “K’yor˙-Oḷlu Norahayt Ergerə.” Haykakan SSṘ Gitut’yunneri Akademiayi Teḷekagir 9 (1954): 71–92.Google Scholar
Amanat, Abbas. Iran: A Modern History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anasyan, H.S. XVII Dari Azatagrakan Sharzhumnern Arevmtyan Hayastanum: Patmakan Hetazotut’yun. Yerevan: Haykakan SSṘ GA Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1961.Google Scholar
Araslı, H., Guluzade, M., and Caferov, C.. Azerbaycan Edebiyatı Tarihi. Bakü: Azerbaycan SSR İlimler Akademiyası, 1960.Google Scholar
Aslanian, Sebouh D. From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aslanian, Sebouh D. “‘Prepared in the Language of the Hagarites’: Abbot Mkhitar’s 1727 Armeno-Turkish Grammar of Modern Western Armenian.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 25 (2016): 54–86.Google Scholar
Aslanian, Sebouh D. “Une vie sur plusieurs continents.” Annales 73, no. 1 (2018): 19–56. doi: 10.1017/ahss.2018.109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aslanian, Sebouh D. “The ‘Great Schism' of 1773: Venice and the Founding of the Armenian Community of Trieste,” in Reflections on Armenian Identity in History and Historiography, ed. Berberian, H. and Daryaee, J., 83-132. Irvine, CA: Jordan Center for Persian Studies, 2018.Google Scholar
Bournoutian, George A. Armenians and Russia (1626–1796): A Documentary Record. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001.Google Scholar
Burak, Guy. “Faith, Law, and Empire in the Ottoman ‘Age of Confessionalization’ (Fifteenth-Seventeenth Centuries): The Case of ‘Renewal of Faith.’” Mediterranean Historical Review 28, no. 1(2013): 1–23.Google Scholar
Chick, H., trans. A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia: The Safavids and the Papal Mission of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Vols. I–II. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.Google Scholar
Clawson, Patrick, Floor, Willem, and Matthee, Rudi. The Monetary History of Iran: From the Safavids to the Qajars. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013.Google Scholar
Csirkes, Ferenc Peter. “‘Chaghatay Oration, Ottoman Eloquence, Qizilbash Rhetoric’: Turkic Literature in Safavid Persia.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2016.Google Scholar
Davis, Natalie Zemon. Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim between Worlds. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.Google Scholar
Di Sarkis, Petros. The Chronicle of Petros di Sarkis Gilanentz: Concerning the Afghan Invasion of Persia in 1722, the Siege of Isfahan and the Repercussions in Northern Persia, Russia, and Turkey. Trans. Minasian, Caro Owen. Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1988.Google Scholar
El-Haj, Rifaʾat Ali Abou. The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1984.Google Scholar
Eliav-Feldon, Miriam. Renaissance Imposters and Proofs of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erevanli, Ak’per. “Eḷia Musheḷyani Grakan Zhar˙angut’yunits’.” Patma-Banasirakan Handes 1, no. 56 (1972): 103–114.Google Scholar
Ferrer, Jose Cutillas. “Armenians, Diplomats, and Commercial Agents of Shah ʿAbbās: The European Journey of Khvāja Safar (c. 1609–14).” Journal of Persianate Studies 11 (2018): 1–28. doi: 10.1163/18747167-12341320CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floor, Willem. The Afghan Occupation of Safavid Persia 1721–1729. Paris: Association pour l’Avancement des Études Iranienness, 1998.Google Scholar
Willem, Floor, and Javadi, Hasan. “The Role of Azerbaijani Turkish in Safavid Iran.” Iranian Studies 46, no. 4 (2013): 569–581. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2013.784516Google Scholar
Frazee, Charles A. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire: 1453–1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Ghobrial, John-Paul A. “The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon and the Uses of Global Microhistory.” Past and Present 222 (2014): 51–93. doi: 10.1093/pastj/gtt024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghougassian, Vazken S. The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seventeenth Century. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Gmelin, Samuel Gottlieb. Astrakhan Anno 1770: Its History, Geography, Population, Trade, Flora, Fauna and Fisheries. Trans. Floor, Willem. Washington, DC: Mage, 2013.Google Scholar
Gökyay, Orhan Şaik. “Cönk.” İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 8, 73–75. Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1993.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Hovhannisyan, Ashot. Drvagner Hay Azatagrakan Mtk’i Patmut’yan. 2 vols. Yerevan: Haykakan SSṘ GA Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1957 and 1959 .Google Scholar
Hulunian, Harutiun, and Hajian, Madteos. Khodorchur: Lost Paradise, Memories of a Land and Its People. Monterey: Mayreni Publishing, 2012.Google Scholar
Karapetean, Meruzhan. “ZhĒ Dari Ar˙ajin K’ar˙ordi mi erkhōsut’iwn.” Handēs Amsōreay 123 (2009): 375–476.Google Scholar
Khach’ikyan, L.A., and P’ap’azyan, H.D.. Hovhannes Ter-Davt’yan Juḷayets’u Hashvetumarə. Yerevan: Haykakan SSH GA Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1984.Google Scholar
Khach’ikyan, Sh. L. Shahvelu Ordi Sarhadi Hashvematyanə. Yerevan: HH GAA Gitut’yun Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1994.Google Scholar
Kia, Mana. “Adab as Ethics of Literary Form and Social Conduct:. Reading the Gulistan in Late Mughal India .” “No Tapping Around Philology”: A Festschrift in Celebration and Honor of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday. Ed. Korangy, Alireza and Sheffield, Daniel J.. Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz (2014): 281-308 .Google Scholar
Kia, Mana. “Space, Sociality, and Sources of Pleasure: A Response to Sanjay Subrahmanyam.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61 (2018): 256–276. doi: 10.1163/15685209-12341449CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krstic, Tijana. Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Krusinski, Judasz, Tadeusz. History of the Late Revolutions of Persia: Taken from the Memoirs of Father Krusinski, Procurator of the Jesuits at Ispahan. Trans. Jean Antoine du Cerceau. Vol. I–II. New York: Arno Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Lockhart, Laurence. The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Manandyan, Hakob and Achar˙yan, Hrach’ya. Hayotsʻ Nor Vkanerě: 1155–1843. Ejmiatsin: Tparan Mayr Atʻor˙oy S. Ējmiatsin, 1903.Google Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. “Iran’s Relations with Europe in the Safavid Period: Diplomats, Missionaries, Merchants, and Travel.” In The Fascination of Persia: The Persian-European Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Art and Contemporary Art of Tehran, ed. Langer, Axel, 7–39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Meeker, Michael E. A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Naili, Pertev. Köroğlu Destanı. Istanbul: Evkaf Matbaası, 1931.Google Scholar
Nikodēmos o Agioreitēs. Neon Marturologion ētoi Marturia tōn Neofanōn Martu. Athens: F. Karampini and K. Vafa, 1856.Google Scholar
Ohanjanyan, Anna. “Gēorg Mxlayim Ołli: An Overlooked Agent of Armenian Apostolic Confession-Building in Ottoman Constantinople,” forthcoming in volume edited by Tijana Kristic based on proceedings of conference entitled “Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on Community and Confession-Building Initiatives in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries” which took place at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary in June 2018 .Google Scholar
Poḷosyan, F.G. Datastanagirk’ Astrakhani Hayots’. Yerevan: Haykakan SSH Gitut’yuneri Akademiayi Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1967.Google Scholar
Richard, Francis. Raphael du Mans: missionnaire en Perse au XVIIe s. 2 vols. Paris: Société d’histoire de l’Orient, 1995.Google Scholar
Romaniello, Matthew P. Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, Natalie. Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Santus, Cesare. “The Şeyhülislam, the Patriarch, and the Ambassador: A Case of Entangled Confessionalization (1692–1703).” In Proceedings of Conference “Entangled Confessionalizations? Dialogic Perspectives on Community and Confession-Building Initiatives in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries,” ed. Tijana Kristic. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Shaʿbānī, Rezā. Tārīkh-e Irān dar ʿAsr-e Afshāriyyeh. Tehran: Sokhan, 1388/2009.Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Three Ways to Be Alien: Travails and Encounters in the Early Modern World. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajirean, Elizabet’. “Astrakhani Hayots’ Patmut’iwnits’ (ZhĒ Dari Ar˙ajin K’ar˙ord).” Armenian History Materials in the Archives of Central Europe. Ed. Uluhogian, Gabriella. Yerevan: Sargis Khachentsʻ, 2001.Google Scholar
Terzioğlu, Derin. “Where ʻİlm-i Ḥāl Meets Catechism: Islamic Manuals of Religious Instruction in the Ottoman Empire in the Age of Confessionalization.” Past & Present 220, no. 1 (2013): 79–114. doi: 10.1093/pastj/gtt001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tezcan, Baki. The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Touzard, Anne Marie. Le drogman Padery: émissaire de France en Perse, 1719–1725. Paris:Société d’histoire de l’orient, 2005.Google Scholar
Trivellato, Francesca. “Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?” California Italian Studies 2, no. 1 (2011): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Ernest. “Explaining Nadir Shah: Kingship and Royal Legitimacy in Muhammad Kazim Marvi's Tarikh-i Nadiri.” Iranian Studies 26, no. 1/2 (1993): 95–117. doi: 10.1080/00210869308701788CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voskean, H.H. “Eḷia A. Musheḷean ew ir Grakan Artadrut’yunnerə.” Handes Amsōrya 41 (1927): 28–36, 126–38, 237–49, 367–75, 493–501.Google Scholar
Windler, Christian. Missionare in Persien: Kulturelle Diversität und Normenkonkurrenz im globalen Katholizismus. Köln: Böhlau, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zak’aria of Agulis. Zak’aria Agulets’u Voragrut’yune˘. Ed. Ter-Avetisyan, S.V.. Yerevan: Armfani Hratarakch’ut’yun, 1938.Google Scholar
Zak’aria of Agulis. Journal of Zak’aria of Agulis. Trans. Bournoutian, George A.. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2003.Google Scholar