Grigor Aknerts'i's History of the Nation of Archers tr from Classical Armenian by Robert Bedrosian.pdf

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Grigor Aknerts'i's
History of the Nation of Archers
Translated from Classical Armenian
by Robert Bedrosian
Sources of the Armenian Tradition (Long Branch, New Jersey, 2003)
This translation is in the public domain. It may be copied and distributed freely.
Translator's Preface
A Note on Pagination
At rbedrosian.com:
Chronological Tables
Maps
Chapter 1.
Concerning the Nation of Archers, where they came from and from what line they arose, and
how they came to rule over many lands and districts.
Chapter 2.
Regarding their life-style, religion, laws and ruler.
Chapter 3.
The first war of the T'at'ars with the Iranians, then the Aghuans and Georgians. The [Mongols']
resistance and long lifespan. The subjugation of the Armenians and Georgians.
Chapter 4.
A comet; the renewed attack of the T'at'ars followed by an end to the destruction of the
conquered lands and their division among the chiefs.
Chapter 5.
Taxation of the princes of the Georgians and Aghuans; and about Vanakan,
vardapet
of the
Amenians.
Chapter 6.
The wars and destructions of Baiju
noyin
in the city of Karin and in Rum.
Chapter 7.
The council of the pious king of the Armenians, Het'um, and his payment of taxes to the T'at'ars.
Chapter 8.
The return from prison and the reign of the Georgian king's son, Dawit', by the order of the Great
Khan, through the efforts of Varham.
Chapter 9.
The death of Chormaghun. Lord Kostandin,
kat'oghikos
of the Armenians.
Paron
Kostandin,
former king of the Armenians and Het'um's father. Dawit', king of the Georgians, is betrayed by
his own princes. Vanakan
vardapet
dies.
Chapter 10.
Locusts; the census in the east; Het'um, king of the Armenians, goes to Mongke-Khan and is
exalted with honor; seven sons of the seven khans; Xul the impious; the martyrdom of lord
Step'annos, the abbot of Geret'ni Monastery; the illness of Xul, caused by his criminal acts; Xul's
succession by his son, Mighan.
Chapter 11.
The taking of Baghdad and the capture of the Caliph (Xalip'a); also, the surrender of the city of
Martyropolis, and the [discovery of] right [hand] of the blessed apostle Bartholemew.
Chapter 12.
By the order of Mongke-Khan, Hulegu is seated as khan; the disobedience and punishment of
four of the seven sons of the khan; two wrestlers and their match.
Chapter 13.
The wars of Hulegu-Khan against Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and his death.
Chapter 14.
The death of Prince Kostandin, father of Het'um, king of the Armenians; Abagha, Hulegu's son,
succeeds him; the death of Lord Kostand,
kat'oghikos
of the Armenians; the attack on Het'um by
P'ntuxtar (Baibars), sultan of Egypt; the capture of Lewon, crown prince of the Armenians; the
pain and sorrow of Het'um at the loss of his son.
Chapter 15.
Het'um's treaty with Baibars; Lord Yakovb,
kat'oghikos
of the Armenians; the return of Lewon
from captivity; the joy of Het'um, his abdication from the throne, his living in solitude and his
death; and the death of Dawit' king of the Georgians.
Chapter 16.
The rebellion and devastations of Teguder (T'agudar); his imprisonment by the order of
Abagha-Khan.
Chapter 17.
Lewon succeeds his father with the approval of Abagha-Khan. Lewon's course with the
treacherous princes. Revelation of the remains of Nerse's the Great. End.
History of the Nation of Archers
Attributed to Grigor of Akner
Translator's Preface
[i] Very little is known about the author of this work which treats the forty-four year period from 1229/30 to
1273. He is presumed to have been born in Cilicia around 1250, and his death has been placed around 1335.
Nothing is known about his parents, although by his own testimony Grigor did have a brother, Mxit'ar, who
had died by the time Grigor completed his work. A colophon dated 1312/13 speaks of Grigor as the abbot of
Akner monastery in Cilicia, a noted center of medieval Armenian scholarship. The most detailed secondary
sources on Aknerts'i are those of father Nerse's Akinean in the journal
Hande's Amso'reay
[Nerse's Akinean,
"Grigor
k'ahanay Aknerts'i patmagir T'at'arats' Patmut'ean 1250-1335
(Grigor the Priest of Akner, Historian
of the History of the T'at'ars)", (1948) pp. 387-403, and, in the same volume, "Akants'
kam Akneri vank'e"
(The Monastery of Akants' or Akner)", pp. 217-250. More accessible is the introduction to the 1949 English
translation of the
History of the Nation of Archers
made by Robert Blake and Richard Frye which appeared
in the
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
(1949) #3-4 pp. 269-283.
The
History of the Nation of Archers
(hereafter
HNA)
differs from the works of other Armenian historians of
the Mongol period. First, as the product of a Cilician author in his early 20's when the work was completed in
1273, this history lacks the immediacy found in the compilations of eastern Armenian eye-witnesses to the
Mongol conquest and domination, such as those of the well-educated and polished churchmen Kirakos
Gandzakets'i, Vardan Arewelts'i, and Step'annos O'rbelean. This circumstance probably accounts for some of
the chronological inaccuracies committed by Grigor in the early portion of his work. For example, Grigor
incorrectly dates the first appearance of the Mongols in the Caucasus to 1214, years earlier than other
historians; the defeat of Ghiyath al-Din in 1244 is recorded as occurring in 1239; Arghhun's census of
1253/54 is consigned to 1251/52 by Grigor. For the post-1249 period, however, Grigor is generally accurate.
A second difference between Grigor's work and the histories of Kirakos, Vardan, and Step'annos concerns the
scope of his undertaking. Aknerts'i wrote a relatively short history of a forty-four year period. Far from being
a universal history of the Armenians, the author focused on but two principal areas, Greater Armenia and
Cilicia in the thirteenth century, devoting considerable space to the latter. A third important difference is that
Grigor, clearly, was not a well-educated or deep individual. His occasional lapses into fantasy compromise the
credibility of other information for which he is our only source. Despite its limitations, the
HNA
remains a
valuable source for thirteenth century Armenian and Mongol studies.
[ii] What were Aknerts'i's sources of information? Fr. Akinean observed a number of them. Apparently among
the most important were oral accounts of events provided by Armenian visitors to Akner monastery such as
Dawit' Bjnets'i, Kirakos Getikts'i, and king Het'um I, people who either were from the East, or had travelled
there. One informant, in Akinean's opinion, had been a student of Vanakan
vardapet
(doctor of the Church).
It was from such informed individuals that Grigor learned the meanings of the large number of Mongolian
military and juridical terms which he incorporated into the
History.
Akinean also detected a few written
sources, including the Bible, a commentary on the Names of the Hebrews, the
Chronography
of Michael the
Syrian, and the lengthy colophon of Vardan Arewelts'i (1246) providing a legendary genealogy of the
Mongols, which Grigor incorporated into his own work with few alterations. It is also possible, as Akinean
and Blake suggested, that Grigor may have had access to Vanakan's now-lost history.
The
HNA
is contained in ms. 32 housed at the Library of the Monastery of St. James in Jerusalem. Ms. 32
commences with the Armenian translation of the
Chronography
of Michael the Syrian (done by Vardan
Arewelts'i in 1246) which concludes with the events of 1195. The
Chronography
is followed by a
continuation made by the same translator or some other person which briefly comments on the period
1216-1229. This section is succeeded by a colophon of the copyist Grigor Aknerts'i, which states that the
latter completed his copy of the above portions in 1273, and then adds: "by the grace of God we too shall
write what is lacking from it for forty-four years". This is followed immediately by Grigor's
HNA
which the
author apparently saw as a continuation of the chronologies he had been copying. At the end of the
History,
Grigor stated: "In the year 720 of the Armenian era (A.D. 1271/72) these chronographies were written by the
command of the blessed, glorious father Step'annos of this retreat of Akants' with the consent of Vardan,
warden of the holy retreat, and of the entire brotherhood of priests and clerics, by the hand of the miserable
scribe Grigor, servant of the Word... "(Akinean,"Grigor k'ahanay", p. 390, also R. Blake,
op. cit.,
Introduction, pp. 281-82 n.6). All publications of the Armenian text and all translations of it prior to the
issuance of R. Blake's text and English translation have incorrectly named a certain
vardapet
Maghakia as the
author. Two scholars, H. Zhamkoch'yan and Nerse's Akinean, independently established Grigor of Akner as
the true writer [Akinean, "Grigor
k'ahanay";
Zamkoch'yan, "The Author of the Work
HNA"
(in Arm.)
Scholarly Works of the State University of Erevan
23 (1946) pp. 367-68]. Maghakia, it was revealed, was
none other than the 17th century
vardapet
Maghakia T'oxat'ets'i who had recopied Grigor's work and whose
own colophon gave rise to this confusion.
The Armenian text of the
HNA
first was published in 1870 at Jerusalem based on the oldest extant ms. (#32 of
the Patriarchal Library of St. James, Jerusalem) dated 1271, and another ms. dated 1602 [Nshxark'
hay
matenagrut'ean patmut'iwn T'at'arats' Vardani patmich' haneal i dzer'agir orinakats' (Fragments of
Armenian Literature: Vardan the Historian's History of the T'at'ars,
printed from manuscript copies
(Jerusalem, 1870). Also in 1870 K. Patkanean published the Armenian text in St. Petersburg based on a
Venice ms. of 1624 [Maghak'ia
Abeghayi patmut'iwn vasn azgin netoghats' (Maghak'ia the Monk's HNA)].
The following year Patkanean published a Russian translation [Istoriia
Mongolov inoka Magakii (Maghak'ia
the Monk's History of the Mongols]).
The
History
previously had been translated into French by Brosset in
1851 [based on the Venice ms. dated 1624. Ouvrage de Malakia-Abegha, ou Malakia-le-Moine, in M
Brosset's
Additions et éclaircissements à l'Histoire de la Géorgie
(St. Petersburg,1851) pp. 438-67].
[iii] The Armenian text, compared with all previous editions and accompanied by an English translation made
by Robert Blake and Richard Frye, was printed in vol. 12 of the
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
#3-4
(1949) pp. 269-443. Appearing in the same journal was Francis Woodman Cleaves' important article, "The
Mongolian Names and Terms in the History of the Nation of the Archers by Grigor of Akanc'"
(pp. 400-443).
Subsequently, in 1954, Blake's text and translation and Cleaves' article were reprinted together in book form
[History
of the Nation of the Archers (the Mongols) by Grigor of Akants',
hitherto ascribed to Maghak'ia the
Monk, the Armenian text edited with an English translation and notes by Robert P. Blake and Richard N.
Frye (Cambridge, Mass., 1954)]. Blake's translation, without a doubt a great contribution to Armenian and
Mongol studies, nonetheless has a sufficient number of inaccuracies to warrant a retranslation. Some of these
inaccuracies are due to typographical errors, others to the scholar's unfamiliarity with certain conventions in
Classical Armenian and with Armenian place names. The most serious of these mistakes have been identified
in Akinean's review of the publication (Hande's
Amso'reay,
1955, pp. 275-77). Here are three noteworthy
examples among many:
Blake:
zMtsbnay berd
"the citadel of Nisibis" (ch.3 p.297).
Should Read:
zMatsnaberd
(=Matsnaberd, a fortress near Gandzak).
Blake:
zNorberdn,"the
new fortress" (ch.3 p.297)
Should Read:
zNorberdn
(=Norberd, a fortress near Tawush).
Blake:
yurdgahs,
"royal tent" (ch. 6 p. 313).
Should Read:
yurdgahs
(ordugah, "camp").

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