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A Neglected Passage in the History of the Caucausian Albanians
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
In the majority of the extant manuscripts of the Patmut'iwn Aluanic by Movses Kalankatuai, and subsequently in the printed editions and the Russian translation of this work, a passage containing some not unimportant historical information concerning Caucasian Albania in the ninth century A.D. has come to be omitted. In 1897 
Dadean reproduced in Ararat the text of this passage as he found it in two manuscripts in the patriarchal library of Etchmiadzin, but owing to the comparative inaccessibility of the said journal and perhaps also to the fact that the passage has never been translated, it has been overlooked by Western scholars.
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- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1957 , pp. 456 - 468
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957
References
page 456 note 1 i.e. in those manuscripts first classified as forming Group I by X. Dadean, ‘The MSS of Movsē‘s Kalankatuai’ [in Armenian], Ararat, 1895, 235, 333–88, 425; 1897, 67, 161. The passage is contained in Etchmiadzin MSS nos. 1725 (seventeenth century) and 2561 (A.D. 1664), British Museum MS Or. 5621 (seventeenth century), Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale) MS no. 220 (A.D. 1857), Venice (San Lazzaro) MSS nos. 1485 (seventeenth century) and 1146 (c. A.D. 1842), and in a Qarabagh manuscript, variants from which were noted in Venice MS no. 1146; all these manuscripts belong to the so-called Group II and will here be referred to as E1725, E2561, BM, P220, VI, V2, and Q respectively. I am able to quote the Etchmiadzin variants through the kindness of Dr. N. Akinean of Vienna, who allowed me to consult lists of variants in his possession prepared by Dadean. Al'tman, M.M., Istoricheskii ocherk goroda Gandzhi, chast’ 1 (publication of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaidjan S.S.R.), Baku, 1949, p. 15, n. 1Google Scholar, mentions an article by T. I. Ter-Grigoryan [Tēr-Grigorean] entitled K voprosu ob ‘Istorii strany albanslcoi’ Moiseya Kaganhatuishogo (‘neizdannaya rukopis’ [unpublished manuscript] n/arkhiva In-ta Istorii A. N. Azerb. S.S.R. no. 991 ’). From Al'tman's brief summary of this article we see that Tēr-Grigorean also considers the passage under discussion to have been part of the original History. Al'tman (or Tēr-Grigorean) rightly points out that ’the inclusion [of the missing folios] in the published text of the History of the Albanians adjusts those discrepancies in the chronology of Dasxorani [Kalankatuai] hitherto unexplained’. I owe this reference to Professor Minorsky who has just (June 1957) received Al'tman's interesting work.
page 456 note 2 Sahnazarean, K., Patmut’iwn Aluani arareal Movsisi Kalankatuawoy, Paris, 1860Google Scholar, 2 vols.; Emin, M., Movsēsi Kalanhatuawoy Patmut'iwn Aluani ašxarhi, Moscow, 1860, reprinted Tiflis, 1912.Google Scholar
page 456 note 3 Patkanov, K.P. (Patkanean), Istoriya Agvan Moiseya Kagankatvatsi, St. Petersburg, 1861.Google Scholar
page 456 note 4 Dadean, X., Ararat, 1897, 161 ff.;Google Scholar part of the Armenian text is also quoted by Barxutareanc, M., Patmut'iwn Alnani, Part I, Valarsapat, 1902, 134–5.Google Scholar
page 456 note 5 MS no. Or. 5261; see Conybeare, F.C., A catalogue of the Armenian manuscripts in the British Museum …, London 1913, p. 292.Google Scholar My thanks are due to the Director and Trustees of the British Museum for permission to reproduce fol. 242r–243v of this manuscript here.
page 456 note 6 Ed. Šahnazarean, vol. II, p. 58, ed. Emin (III.21), p. 265, tr. Patkanean, p. 270; these works will henceforth be referred to as S, E, and Patk. respectively.
page 457 note 1 This name has been much distorted in the various manuscripts and editions: E, Badol; S, Badoli; S, var., Bardoli; BM, Q, Badx mi; VI, V2, Badsxi; Patk., 270, Badsli; the form Badsli is contained in a list of variants (in the possession of Dr. N. Akinean of Vienna and microfilmed for me, with his kind permission, by my friend Dr. W. C. H. Driessen of Nijmegen) from a Tabriz manuscript. This is clearly al-Ḥasan b. ‘Āli al-
, who was appointed governor of Armenia either under the caliph al-Ma'mūn (c. A.D. 786–833) according to Ya‘qūbī, II.566 (followed by Ghazarian, M., Armenien unter der arabischen Herrschaft, Marburg, 1903, p. 42, no. 61Google Scholar, and Laurent, J., L’Armeénie entre Byzunce et I'Islam, Paris, 1919, pp. 344–5, no. 74)Google Scholar, or under al-Mu‘taṡim (A.D. 833–42), according to 
, 211. Vasmer, R.R. (Fasmer), Chronologie der arabischen Statthalter von Armenien, Wien, 1931, 102–3Google Scholar, dates his governorship as A.H. 218–20 (A.D. 833/4–835/6). Movsēs' dating is couched in terms too vague to decide the question, but seems rather to support 
. Markwart, J. (Osteuropäischc und ostasiatische Streifzüge, Leipzig, 1903, 462)Google Scholar, followed in this by Laurent (op. cit., p. 345, no. 76—‘l'amiral Badoli’) and Vasmer (op. cit., 89— ’Badogi’), has been misled by the form Badol(i). Markwart's analysis of 
Badoli as 
Azdi (i.e. Muḥammad b. Sulaimān al-Azdī al- Samarqandī) with its far-fetched explanation of the initial 
is to be rejected. A correct Armenian form of the name would be *Badlsi; in the form Badoli u s has been confused with n o and displaced.
page 457 note 2 Patgos is the title of ‘governor’, also given below (p. 461, n. 3) to Muhammad b. 
(Bulxar Xoyta Patgos). Hübschmann (Armenische Orammatik, Leipzig, 1895, 223, s. patgosapan)Google Scholar considers the form patgos-k' in Arcruni, T'ovma, Patmut'iwn tann Arcrunea, ed. StPetersburg, , 1887, 286Google Scholar, hardly correct. Its occurrence (in the singular) here and below, however, confirms this usage.
page 457 note 3 cf. Ya'qūbī, II.587; Ghazarian, op. cit., p. 42, no. 64, and p. 50; Vasmer, op. cit., 89; Laurent, op. cit., p. 345, nos. 78, 79, 81; Markwart, op. cit., 408, 410–11, 461. Taroneci, Step'annos (Asolik), Patmut'iwn tiezerakan, II. 2, tr. Dulaurier, Paris, 1883, pp. 134–5Google Scholar, gives the date of his march on Tiflis as 290 A (30 April 841–29 April 842 A.D.) and says that he died (not specifically that he was killed) in the village of Xosapir in 
. Ibn 
(tr. Slane, IV.230–1) says that he became ill on his way to Tiflis and died at Dwin in A.H. 230 (A.D. 844–5), while the Georgian Chronicle supports Movsēs' statement that 
was killed: ‘Xalil [i.e. Xalid] returned a third time and was killed in
’ (Qauxč‘išsvili, S. (ed.), K‘art‘lis c‘xovreba, Tiflis, 1955, i, 255;Google Scholar Brosset (tr.), Histoire de la Géorgie, 265).
page 458 note 1 See below, p. 461, n. 7.
page 458 note 2 The text reproduced here follows the original manuscript exactly, except that it has been divided into paragraphs and that proper names are printed with capital initials, the original being inconsistent in this respect.
page 458 note 3 P220 
page 458 note 4 P220 
page 458 note 5 P220 
page 458 note 6 P220 
page 458 note 7 P220. Q. E2561; E1725 
VI, V2 om.
page 458 note 8 P220 V1, V2 
page 458 note 9 P220 
E2561, Q … 
V1, V2 … 
E1725 … 
page 458 note 10 E2561, E1725, Q; P220 
V1, V2 
page 458 note 11 P220 
page 458 note 12 P220 
page 459 note 1 P220 
page 459 note 2 P220, E2561, Q; E1725 
V1, V2 
page 459 note 3 P220 
page 459 note 4 P220 
page 459 note 5 E2561, Q; P220, E1725 
page 459 note 6 P220, V1, V2, Q; E2561, E1725 
page 459 note 7 E2561, E1725, Q; P220 
V1, V2 
page 459 note 8 P220, E2561, Q; E1725, V1, V2 
page 460 note 1 Q; P220 
E2561 
E1725 
V1, V2 
page 460 note 2 P220, Q, E2561, E1725; V1, V2 
page 460 note 3 i.e. A.D. 835/6, one year after 
arrival in 834/5; see p. 457, n. 1.
page 460 note 4 Dawit‘ of Mazaz (cf. Asolik, II.2, tr. Dulaurier, p. 134).
page 460 note 5 VI, V2, om.; E1725 ‘who of the same‘ (?).
page 460 note 6 Or ‘by whom’; V1, V2 ‘by the sword’.
page 460 note 7 VI, V2 ‘of Surhal’; E1725 ‘of Surhar’; BM might be read ‘of Sur the concubine (harČ)’.
page 460 note 8 P220, ApuČap’r; V1, V2, 
page 460 note 9 i.e. the ’Amīr al-Mu'minīn, the caliph.
page 460 note 10 i.e. the 
page 460 note 11 i.e. 286 A (1 May 837–30 April 838).
page 460 note 12 See Commentary, section A, below.
page 460 note 13 The identity of this martyr George is not clear.
page 461 note 1 287 A (1 May 838–30 April 839 A.D.) is the correct date for the capture of Amorium by Abu Isḥāq Muḥammad al-Mu‘taṡim; the town fell in 838 according to Theophanes Cont., III.31 (ed. Bonn, p. 127), more precisely on 23 September 838 according to Arab historians (cf. Weil, , Geschichte der Chalifen, Mannheim, 1846–1862, II, 315;Google Scholar Daghbaschean, op. cit., 10). According to Byzantine sources, the caliph was aided in his campaign by the Armenian army (cf. refs. in Laurent, op. cit., p. 212, n. 6; Grousset, R., Histoire de l'Arménie, Paris, 1947, 354Google Scholar).
page 461 note 2 This Lord of Lords Yovhannēs who supplicates the caliph through Bulxar Xoyta Patgos (i.e. Muḥammad 
governor of Armenia under al-Mu‘taṡim; cf. Markwart, op. cit., 410, 461; Ghazarian, op. cit., p. 42, no. 62; Laurent, op. cit., p. 345, no. 77; Vasmer, op. cit., 84, 87, 88, 89, 103) in A.D. 838/9 is Yovhannēs of Ova, Catholicos of Armenia A.D. 833–55. He was for a time deposed by Bagarat of Tarōn, and it was the pro-Arab Smbat Ablabas who summoned the synod which restored him to the catholicosate (cf. T‘ovma Arcruni, II.6, pp. 114–15; Vardan, , Haivak‘umn patmut‘ean, XLIII, ed. Venice, 1862, 80;Google Scholar John Catholicos, XIII, tr. St. Martin, 103–4; Step‘annos Ōrbēlean, I.37, tr. Brosset, p. 102; R. Grousset, op. cit., 350–1). The present passage indicates that a direct appeal was made to the caliph to settle this ecclesiastical dispute, just as in 704 an appeal was made to the caliph by the patriarch Elia to intervene in the Nersēs Bakur affair (see Movsēs Kalankatuai, III.5). We now have a date for Yovhannēs' restoration, elsewhere assumed to have taken place circa A.D. 841 (e.g. R. Grousset, op. cit., 350). Movsēs' dating affects also 
Vasmer (op. cit., 89) gives the date of his appointment as ‘beginning of 225’ (inc. 12 November 839 A.D.), whereas the present passage implies that he was governor already in 287 A (1 May 838–30 April 839 A.D.), which falls in A.H. 224 (23 November 838–11 November 839 A.D.). AS Vasmer suggests (loc. cit., n. 11), Laurent's date (op. cit., p. 345, no. 77) for the beginning of 
governorship (A.D. 840/1) is too late.
page 461 note 3 BM, Q, E1725, E2561 have an erroneous punctuation (Bulxar, Xoyta, Patgos) which I have corrected above; P220 has (correctly) Bulxar Xoyta P‘atkos; V1, V2 (incorrectly) Bulxarxoy Tap‘atgos (!).
page 461 note 4 i.e. 289 A (30 April 840–29 April 841).
page 461 note 5 E1725, V1, V2, Balakanaik‘.
page 461 note 6 Amaras is normally referred to not as a canton (
) but as a village in the canton of Miws Haband in the province of Arcax; see InČiČean, , Storagrut‘ium hin Hayastaneayc, Venice, 1822, 306;Google Scholar Hübschmann, ‘Ortsnamen’, 350. In two other instances it is called a canton in Movsēs (below, p. 464). Sisan Jor (Sisan Valley) seems to be otherwise unknown, unless it is to be connected with the canton of Sisakan i kotak in the province of Arax (Hübschmann, loc. cit., pp. 349–50, no. 130; Sis + suffix -ān ?, cf. Sisakan apud Hübschmann, loc. cit., 467).
The reading K‘alak‘akanacik‘ seems to point to k‘alak‘akan ‘pertaining to the town, urban ’ and k‘alak‘aik‘ ‘townsmen’, but is as it stands an unlikely formation. It has been left in the above translation because this follows BM, but Balakanaik‘ seems to me the better reading; see below, p. 463.
page 461 note 7 At this point the other manuscripts and editions take up the story: ‘When another two years had passed after this [i.e. 287 A + 2 + 2 = 291 A (A.D. 842/3)], Xazr Patgos, a furious and merciless man, came and was killed in the same year; his son [Muḥammad] came, however, and took our land by the sword and enslaved us and burned down many churches and then went to Baghdad. Returning thence at the king's command and expense, he built the city of Ganjak in the canton of Aršakašēn [BM add. in the year 295 (A.D. 846/7)]. After this he raided the land of Siwnik‘ and enslaved the territory of Balk‘ [St. Orb., I.xxxiii Balasakan (!)] and descended into a village called Ark‘unaget and straightway ordered the church dedicated to St. Gregory to be burned down…’.
page 462 note 1 Ed. S, II, p. 54, ed. E, 263, tr. Patk., 266.
page 462 note 2 Mos. Kal., II.17, ed. S, I, p. 288, ed. E, 136 (
), tr. Patk., 136.
page 462 note 3 Slreifz., p. 457, d: ‘If Sahl i Smbatean receives the title of 
already in 821/2, this, unless perhaps it denotes his descent from the old princely house of the 
[sic], is incorrect, since Sahl, as we learn from Ya‘qūbī, took possession of Arran only under al-Mu‘taṡim’.
page 462 note 4 Daghbaschean, op. cit., 6, takes Sahl to be the son of the contemporary generalissimo of Armenia, Smbat Bagratuni; this is completely without foundation and his surprise that Sahl ‘is nowhere called the son of Smbat the Generalissimo but merely the son of Smbat’ is wholly unjustified. Smbat is hardly an uncommon name in Armenian history.
page 462 note 5 Minorsky, V., ‘Caucasica IV’, BSOAS, XV, 3, 1953, 506–8;Google ScholarToumanoff, C., ‘The early Bagratids’, Le Muséeon, LXII, 1949, 54.Google Scholar
page 462 note 6 Laurent, 113; V. Minorsky, op. cit., 510.
page 462 note 7 VII, p. 126 (Laurent, p. 113, n. 10); Ṭabarī, III.1272, mentions 1,000,000 dirhams for himself, 100,000 for his son Mu‘āwiya, a gem-studded belt, the title of 
with a tiara; cf. V. Minorsky, op. cit., p. 510, n. 2.
page 462 note 8 Laurent, 74, 113.
page 463 note 1 Markwart, Streifz., 461; Laurent, p. 114, note; Ghazarian, op. cit., 50.
page 463 note 2 Vardan, XLII, ed. Venice, 1862, p. 79.
page 463 note 3 III.ll, ed. St. Petbg., p. 191; V. Minorsky, op. cit., 506.
page 463 note 4 XIII, tr. St. Martin, p. 114.
page 463 note 5 loc. cit., n. 32.
page 463 note 6 Mos. Kal., III.22, ed. S, II, p. 69, ed. E, 273, tr. Patk., 278.
page 463 note 7 See below, p. 464.
page 463 note 8 Mos. Kal., III.19, ed. S, II, p. 54, ed. E, 263, tr. Patk., 266.
page 463 note 9 Mos. Kal, III.22, ed. S, II, p. 69, ed. E, 273, tr. Patk., 278.
page 463 note 10 ed. S, II, p. 55, ed. E, 264, tr. Patk., 269.
page 464 note 1 ed. S, II, pp. 53–6, ed. E, 263–4, tr. Patk., 267–9.
page 464 note 2 Probably modern Goris (see Gerüsy on map appended to Lynch, H.F.B., Armenia: travels and studies, London, 1901,Google Scholar 39° 50´ N., 46° 35´ E.). T‘ovma Arcruni, III.7O, mentions it (p. 186) as a ‘high place (barjrawandak teli)’ and says (p. 187) that it lay ‘near the mountain of K‘t‘iš’, the headquarters of Esay Abu Musē. Professor Minorsky has calculated (op. cit., 513) that K‘t‘iš (and therefore Goroz) lay in the region of Shusha. Uxtanēs Urhayei mentions ‘the canton of Goroz near the plain of Partaw, called P‘aytakaran’ (Brosset, M., Deux historiens arméniens …, St. Petersbourg, 1870, 344;Google ScholarEpiskopos, Uxtanēs, Patmut‘iwn bažanman Vra i Hayo, Ch.64, Valarsapat, 1871, Pt. 2, p. 121Google Scholar).
page 464 note 3 Hübschmann, ‘Ortsnamen’, 351–2.
page 464 note 4 ibid., 352.
page 464 note 5 For the biography of Esay Abu Musē see V. Minorsky, op. cit., 512 ff. Laurent has considerably confused Esay's genealogy. He takes Varaz-Trdat's son Step‘annos (actually killed as an infant ‘on his mother's breast’ in 821; cf. Mos. Kal., III. 19, ed. S, II, p. 54) to be Step‘annos Ablasad (p. 112), whence it would follow that Esay, correctly called a nephew of Ablasad elsewhere (p. 113, n. 6), would be Varaz-Trdat's grandson, which is absurd. On p. 113 Esay is said to be the son of Atrnerseh son of Sahak of W. Siwnik‘, whereas Atrnerseh's sons are specifically named (Mos. Kal., III.22, ed. S, II, p. 69, tr. Patk., 278) as Grigor and Apuset‘.
page 465 note 1 op. cit., 513.
page 465 note 2 St. Orb., XXXIII, ed. Tiflis, pp. 158, 159, tr. Brosset, I, p. 96 (both following Šahnazarean's Paris edition of 1859). There are references to this discrepancy in V. Minorsky, op. cit., 513, and Honigmann, E. and Maricq, A., Recherches sur les Res gestae divi Saporis, Bruxelles, 1953, p. 88,Google Scholar note.
page 465 note 3 Brosset, I, p. 96, n. 3.
page 465 note 4 St. Orb., XXXIII, tr. Brosset, I, p. 95; Mos. Kal., III.19, ed. S, II, p. 54, ed. E, 263, tr. Patk., 266.
page 465 note 5 Jonah ii, 11.
page 465 note 6 Marr, N.Y., Fiziolog—Armyano-gruzinskii izvod (Teksty i razyskaniya … kniga VI), St. Petersburg, 1904, 26,Google Scholar 98.
page 465 note 7 e.g. Gen. i, 21; Jonah ii, 1, 2.
page 465 note 8 N.Y. Marr, op. cit., 27.
page 465 note 9 ibid., 26.
page 466 note 1 ibid., 26; cf. the German translation by Graf, G., ‘Der georgische Physiologos’, Caucasica, fasc. 2, 1925, pp. 105–6.Google Scholar
page 466 note 2 Marr, op. cit., 27, 57.
page 466 note 3 e.g. Exod. vii, 9, 10. Hebrew tannīn, Authorized Version ‘serpent’; Job vii, 12, tannīn ‘whale’; Job XX, 16, pethen ‘asp’; Amos ix, 3, naḥaiš ‘serpent’.
page 466 note 4 Kluge, T., ‘Die griechischen, armenischen und persischen Lehnwörter im Georgischen’, WZKM, XXX, 1917–1918, p. 114,Google Scholar nr. 20.
page 466 note 5 N. Y. Marr in Marr, N.Y. and Smirnov, J., Les vichaps, Leningrad, 1931,Google Scholar and Fiziolog, 98, concludes that the Armenian Bible first had višap in this passage, translated by the Georgians as vešap'; then the Armenians revised it on the Greek text to kēt, while the Georgians retained the old reading.
page 466 note 6 Vardan Vardapet, HarmunJc‘ ew patasxanik‘ ‘Questions and answers’, quoted from Etchmiadzin MS no. 453 (A.D. 1628) by Marr, N.Y., ‘Iz letnei poezdki v Armeniyu IV’, Zapiski Vostochnogo Otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Arkheologicheslcogo Obshchestva, v, 1890, [publ.] 1891, 219–23.Google Scholar
page 466 note 7 ibid.
page 466 note 8 Kolbai, Eznik, Elc alando ‘Refutation of the Sects’, I.25, ed. Venice, 1926, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar
page 466 note 9 Vardapet, Gēorg, ‘Commentary on Isaiah’, quoted by Nor bafgirk‘ haykazean lezui, II, Venice, 1836–1837, 823,Google Scholar 824.
page 466 note 10 Maišo, ibid., 824; cf. 1 Samuel v, 1–4.
page 467 note 1 Bobrinski, N.A., Opredelitel' mlekopitayushchikh SSSR, Moscow, 1944, p. 198:Google Scholar ‘they [Delphinidae] do not occur in enclosed basins, in particular the Caspian (v zamknutykh basseinakh, v chastnosti v Kaspii, otsutstvuyut)’.
page 467 note 2 Berg, L.S., Ryby presnykh vod SSSR i sopredelnykh stran, Moscow, 1948, I, 57;Google ScholarBolshaya Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, IV, 1950, 538Google Scholar (sub art. ‘Beluga’).
page 467 note 3 Berg, op. cit., p. 61, n. 2.
page 467 note 4 Bolsh. Sov. ents., XX, 1953, sub ‘Kaspiiskoe More’, plate facing p. 327.
page 467 note 5 Berg, op. cit., 61.
page 467 note 6 Lang, D.M., Lives and legends of the Georgian Saints, London, 1956, 85–6.Google Scholar
page 467 note 7 Harmunk‘ ew patasxanik‘, loc. cit.
page 467 note 8 Patmut‘iwn Hayo, III. 37, ed. Venice, 1881, p. 476.Google Scholar
page 467 note 9 Treatise on seismology, quoted by Nor bafgirk‘ II, 824.
page 468 note 1 Etc alando, I. 25, ed. Venice, 1926, pp. 113–15;Google Scholar cf. Movsēs Xorenai, I.30, ed. Venice, 1881, p. 125, etc.
page 468 note 2 See M. H. Ananikian, in Hastings, J. (ed.), Encyclopedia of religion and ethics, I, 1908, sub Armenia (Zoroastrian), para. 3, pp. 799–800;Google ScholarTchéraz, Minas, ‘Notes sur la mythologie arménienne’, Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, London 1893, 827–8.Google Scholar On the Iranian origin of the višap, see Benveniste, E., ‘L'origine du višap arménien’, Revue des Études Arméniennes, VII, 1927, 7–9.Google Scholar On the large stone images of fish found in the Caucasus, see Marr, N.Y. and Smirnov, J., Les vichaps, Leningrad, 1931,Google Scholar and refs. in von Wesendonk, O G., ‘Über georgisches Heidentum’, Caucasica, fasc. 1, 1924, p. 37, n. 2.Google Scholar