Kirakos Gandzaketsi's History of the Armenians is a
primary source for the study of the Armenian highlands in the
13th century. This lengthy work, which has survived in 65
chapters, is divided thematically into several sections. Part one
is a summary of Armenian church and political history from the
4th through the 12th centuries. This section, which describes the
lives and times of the heads of the Armenian Church
(kat'oghikoi), is based on earlier Armenian sources, many
of which have survived. The second section describes political
and military events in the 12th century both in Eastern (or
Caucasian) Armenia and in the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia on the
Mediterranean. The next section (chapter 10), resembling the
first, contains a biographical list of the kat'oghikoi of
Caucasian Aghbania/Aghuania (modern Azerbaijan). In chapter 11 and
subsequent chapters, Kirakos described the events of his own day:
the period of the Zak'arids, the Mongol invasions and domination,
and their impact on the Armenians and other peoples of the Middle
East. As the author himself was aware, this was by far the most
important part of his History, and he devoted much of the
work to it.
Biographical information about Kirakos Gandzakets'i is not
plentiful. In chapter 33 of his work, after a description of the
activities of the influential Syrian cleric Raban, the author
wrote: "This episode was written down in the year [ii] 1241 (690
of the Armenian Era)...when I was more or less forty years old."
Consequently the historian was born in the early part of the 13th
century, probably between 1200 and 1210.
Kirakos received his early education at the monastery of
Getik, at that time under the direction of Martiros, a student of
the great teacher and writer Mxit'ar Gosh (d. 1213). However, it
was with another of Mxit'ar's students, the historian Yovhannes
Vanakan (d. 1251), that Kirakos studied for a prolonged period.
This education commenced at Xoranashat monastery near Tawush
fortress, northwest of Gandzak. When the Khwarazmian sultan Jalal
al-Din ravaged Xoranashat in 1225, Vanakan fled with his students
to a nearby cave, near the village of Lorut, south of Tawush. He
continued teaching there until 1236 when a Mongol army under
Molar-noyin occupied Tawush. Both Vanakan and Kirakos were
taken captive by the Mongols and kept as secretaries for several
months. Eventually, Vanakan was ransomed by the Christians of Gag
for eighty dahekans, and Kirakos escaped secretly the same
night, fleeing to Getik.
Almost nothing is known about the remaining years of the
historian's life. That he participated in a movement to crush a
rebellion in the Church in 1251 is clear from chapter 48 of his
work. Around 1255 he interviewed the Cilician Armenian king
Het'um I (1224-68) at the village of Vardenis near Mt. Aragats
upon the latter's return from a visit to Batu-Khan.
[iii] Kirakos' name is mentioned in 1265 by his classmate and
fellow-historian, Vardan Arewelts'i, from whom the author
requested and received a commentary on the Song of Songs.
According to another late 13th century historian, Grigor
Aknerts'i, Kirakos died in 1271/72.
Kirakos was eminently qualified to write about 13th century
Armenia. An intelligent man trained by an intellectual of
Vanakan's caliber, the author was familiar with Church
organization and problems, with prominent contemporary churchmen
and their historical writings. He was acquainted with important
Armenian naxarars (lords) such as prince Prhosh
Xaghbakean, who participated in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in
1258/59 and narrated to Kirakos what he had seen and heard, and
prince Grigor Mamikonean, who informed Kirakos what he had heard
from a Mongol noble about Chingiz-Khan. His detailed information
about members of the Zak'arid family derives in part from Prhosh,
himself a Zak'arid relation. As mentioned above, King Het'um I
served as one informant. Furthermore, during his months of
captivity by the Mongols, Kirakos served as a secretary writing
and reading letters, and he learned Mongolian. In chapter 32 of
his History Kirakos Gandzakets'i has left us a priceless
treasure, a lexicon of some 55 Mongolian terms with their
Armenian equivalents, one of the earliest monuments of the
Mongolian language. Consequently, such an individual knew well
not only the workings of his own society, but clearly understood
aspects of the society of Armenia's conquerors and new
masters.
[iv] It is not known when Kirakos began his work. Father
Oskean, citing the aforementioned statement in chapter 33, "This
was written down in the year 690 A.E...." thinks the year 1240 a
likely time. The History ends abruptly with an unfinished
description of the war between the Khans Abaqa and Berke
(1266/67). The cause of this sudden termination is
unknown.
The critical edition of Gandzakets'i's History of the
Armenians was published by the late K.A. Melik'-Ohanjanyan in
1961. That text was based on more than thirty manuscripts housed
at the Matenadaran in Erevan, Armenia, collated with three
earlier editions. Translations have been made into French by M.
Brosset (St. Petersburg, 1870); Russian by A. Khanlarian (Moscow,
1976); and modern Armenian by V. Arhak'elyan. The present English
translation, which was completed in 1975, was made from the
Melik'-Ohanjanyan edition, but omits several lengthy sections
which are of doctrinal or theological, rather than historical,
importance. For a detailed study of the Turco-Mongol invasions
see volume five of the Cambridge History of Iran
(Cambridge, 1968 ); for Armenia in particular, see R. Bedrosian,
The
Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13-14th
Centuries (New York, 1979). Additional bibliography is
available in C. Toumanoff's article, "Armenia and
Georgia," [Chapter XIV in The Cambridge Medieval
History, vol. IV, The Byzantine Empire, part I, (Cambridge,
1966), pp. 593-637]. The transliteration system employed in this
translation is a modification of the Library of Congress
system.
Robert Bedrosian
New York, 1986
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