Hybride lecture by Polina Ivanova | Institute of Iranian Studies, ÖAW

Abstract

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the widespread destruction and population displacements caused by the Ottoman-Safavid wars and the Celali revolts plunged Armenian communities of Anatolia and the Caucasus into a profound crisis. The crisis extended to manuscript production, as the devastation of monastic scriptoria resulted in a severe shortage of books. Yet the same period also witnessed the proliferation and growing affluence of Armenian merchant communities, along with merchants’ increasing involvement in book production. This talk explores the social history of Armenian manuscript production in this era, focusing on the transformation of manuscript-makers from a copyist-artisans working as part of monastic scriptoria to mobile entrepreneurs serendipitously placed in a privileged position by the crisis in book production.

POSTER (PDF)

Attendance in person at:

Campus of the University of Vienna
Department of Near Eastern Studies' Auditorium

Or online:

ZOOM

This is the sixth lecture in the webinar series for the academic year 2025-26, this year organised by the NoMansLand research project (FWF Y 1232) dedicated to the study of Islamic manuscripts in pre-modern Iran and Central Asia in collaboration with the Institut für Orientalistik (Universität Wien) as part of the Lecture series "Beyond the Codex: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Manuscript Cultures."

Visit our YouTube channel to watch recordings of past lectures:

https://www.youtube.com/@IFI_Media

For a list of upcoming lectures in the webinar series, please see Webinar series "Pre-modern Islamic manuscripts"