Goshgarian, Rachel

Lafayette College

Research Title: Armeno-Turkish and the Space of Language in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Worlds: Manuscript Production and the Circulation of Ideas, Literature, and People

Dr. Goshgarian’s project during her ANAMED fellowship has two primary goals: 1. To uncover the ways in which Armenians living in and around the Ottoman Empire used Armeno-Turkish; and 2. To understand the usage of Armeno-Turkish within the context of the myriad other languages used by Armenian communities. Ultimately, this project will help to dissect the relationships between ethnicity, faith, and language in the early Ottoman Empire, as well as to better understand language not uniquely as a marker of community, but also as a vehicle of the circulation of entertainment, goods, ideas, and literature in the medieval and early modern worlds. By conducting research in libraries with Armenian manuscript collections (in Yerevan, Venice, Jerusalem, Moscow, Rome, Paris, London, etc.) and specifically in working with manuscripts composed from the 13th through the 17th centuries, this project will allow for an intimate and thorough analysis of the language and literature of the Armenian manuscript tradition (and its relationship to a multilingual audience) during a period of transition for Armenian communities. Dr. Goshgarian’s work will also show that the notion that Armenian “communities of circulation” were established only in the 17th century (as posited by Aslanian) must be re-visited as the number of manuscripts composed in several languages during these centuries and the circulation of ideas, literature, and people to which they bear witness begs an alternate analysis.