The following is a post by Khatchig Mouradian, Armenian and Georgian Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division.
Countless researchers have consulted the more than 50,000—and growing—Armenian-language items housed at the Library of Congress over the decades. But the scholarly interest in the Library’s Armenian rarities has spiked over the past few years. In this blog, we spotlight books, journal articles, conference papers, and lectures dedicated to Armenian manuscripts and other rare items housed in the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED).
- An Early-Eighteenth-Century Hmayil (Armenian Prayer Scroll)
An Early-Eighteenth-Century Hmayil (Armenian Prayer Scroll): Introduction, Facsimile, Transcription and Annotated Translation, published in September 2024, is entirely dedicated to Library of Congress Armenian Prayer Scroll no. 1 (Constantinople, 1727). The book offers facsimile images of the Hmayil, the full text in Armenian, an English translation, and a meticulous scholarly exploration of the scroll in the introduction and annotations, which “bring to light the Scriptural and theological background as well as the folk and traditional characteristics of the Hmayil’s texts and illustrations, making this fascinating artifact accessible to the general reader in the twenty-first century,” as described by the publisher, Tarkmaneal Press, in a press release.
- The library’s oldest Armenian manuscript
The award for the Library’s oldest Armenian manuscript goes to a Four Gospels copied in Jerusalem by a scribe named Nerses Abegha in 1321-1322. In the summer of 2023, Prof. Ani Shahinian (St Nersess Armenian Seminary) conducted research on the manuscript at the Library as AMED’s Lily Residential Fellow in 2022, tracing the manuscript’s 700-year journey from Jerusalem to Washington, DC. Her research culminated in a recorded talk at the library, titled “The Life of a Medieval Armenian Manuscript: Transmission of Sacred Texts Across Space, Time & Communities.” An article by Dr. Shahinian on the 1322 manuscript is forthcoming in 2025.
- A 17th-Century Armenian Menologium
“The Magi in the Menologium: A Seventeenth-Century Armenian Manuscript in Context,” published in The Armenian Review (58:3-4, Spring-Summer 2023), examines a beautiful, full-page illumination depicting the Adoration of the Magi. The article is based on research the author, Art Historian Whitney A. Kite (Columbia University), conducted at the Library as AMED’s Lily Residential Fellow in 2022. The illumination explored in this study is one of six pages held at the library of a 587-page Menologium. A seventh page is held in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, while the remaining 580 pages are lost.
- Armenian Temporal Texts
As AMED’s Lily Residential Fellow in 2024, Prof. Christopher Sheklian (Mississippi State University) worked on the Library’s rare Armenian materials that engaged with themes of temporality; in his words, “temporality-shaping texts and materials.” These include a rich collection of lectionaries, calendars, and yearbooks in Armenian and Armeno-Turkish. His recorded talk, titled “Calendars and Communities: Armenian Temporal Texts in the Library of Congress Collection,” can be viewed on the Library of Congress website.
- A 17th-century text on sibyls and Amazons
At the Society for Armenian Studies 50th Anniversary Conference (September 13-15, 2024), Julia Hintlian (Harvard University) presented a paper based a 17th-century Armenian manuscript housed at AMED that explores two Armenian discourses on sibyls and Amazons, among other subjects. In the paper, titled “Searching for Molino: Sibyls and Amazons in a 17th-Century Armenian Manuscript,” Hintlian suggests that “by translating selections from ancient sources, Molino may have also attempted to translate this contemporary European trending interest in sibyls and Amazons, and its associated gender-related complexities and implications, for an Armenian audience in the Ottoman Empire.”
Earlier works on Armenian rare items at the Library of Congress
In the previous two decades, several other Armenian manuscripts and rare items have been researched by scholars. A study published in Revue des Études Arméniennes by Dr. Nira Stone and Dr. Michael E. Stone examined “A Pair of Armenian Manuscript Missals” (Vol. 29, 2003-2004, pp. 383-401). The same issue of the journal featured another article, co-authored by the Stones and Dr. Levon Avdoyan, titled “A Textile of the Year 1741 in the Library of Congress Bearing an Armenian Inscription” (pp. 545-549).
In 2018, Dr. Sylvie L. Merian (Morgan Library & Museum) presented a talk that featured several Armenian manuscripts from AMED, including The Acts of St. John the Evangelist (Istanbul, 1765). The talk, titled “The Eclectic Nature of Late Armenian Manuscripts from Constantinople,” was delivered during a daylong conference at the Library of Congress titled “New Topics in Armenian History and Culture” on June 26, 2018. Another treasure housed at AMED, Canto Liturgico della Chiesa Armena (Liturgical Chant of the Armenian Church), a manuscript copied by Pietro Bianchini in 1887, was explored—and chanted—by musicologist and scholar Dr. Haig Utidjian during the same conference, and in later talks.
An invitation
The Library’s Armenian manuscripts and the hundreds of other rare Armenian items await further scholarly exploration. This blog is not just a brief survey of recent work on these materials, it is also an invitation. Researchers interested in studying Armenian rare materials at AMED are welcome to contact the Library’s Ask-a-Librarian service for more information.