Book Description

History of Armenia, from B. C. 2247 to the year of Christ 1780, or 1229 of the Armenian era is a translation of an abridged version of the three-volume history of Armenia, originally written in Armenian by Father Mik'ayel Ch'amch'yants' and published in Venice in 1784-86. Ch'amch'yants' was born in Istanbul in 1738, and in 1762 he became a member of the Armenian Catholic Mekhitarist order at the St. Lazar Monastery in Venice. Written in chronicle style and based on Armenian and non-Armenian primary source materials, this work by Ch'amch'yants' was the first critical examination of the history of the Armenian people. In 1811 Ch'amch'yants' produced an abridged version of the history, which Hovhannēs Avdaleantsʻ (Johannes Avdall) translated into English and which was published in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in 1827. The translation includes a dedication by Avdaleantsʻ to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a preface by Avdaleantsʻ containing an overview of the history of Armenia and assessments of the most important Armenian historians, and a postscript containing a summary of events in Armenia from 1780 to 1827.