G. A. BOURNOUTIAN. THE JOURNAL OF ZAK'ARIA OF AGULIS. Annot., Transl., Com. Costa Mesa (Calif.): Mazda publishers. 2003. 242 p. (Armenian Studies Series. N 4)*

Zachary Agulisetsi's diary was translated into English by Professor G. Bornatyan, a well-known researcher of Armenian historical texts.¹ The publication was supported by a grant from the Department of Armenian Studies at Columbia University and the Iranik Institute (USA).

The Armenian text of Zachary Agulisetsi's work was published in Yerevan in 1938, and translated into Russian in 1939.

The English edition of Zacharias Agulisetsi's Diary consists of three parts: the first describes the routes and distances between the largest trading cities, caravanserais and transit points in the direction of the Bosphorus and through Syria and Cilicia to the Mediterranean; the second, which is actually a "Diary", contains short step-by-step records of notable historical events from the beginning of the year. 1647 to 1681; the third part is actually a detailed genealogy of the author himself, since it contains a chronicle of the family (family) events of the entire Agulisetsi family during the XVII century.

G. Bornatyan prefaced the English translation with a detailed description of the history of studies of the work of Zachary Agulisetsi and the political situation in the Safavid state in the XVII century, which at that time included the Yerevan and Nakhichevan Khanates (Shokure Saad), because it is these possessions that are discussed in the manuscript of the Armenian author. All the main trade routes of this period are considered by him either from Yerevan or from Agulis, one of the major trade centers of that time. It is enough to note that in the middle of the 17th century, 8,000 Armenian families lived in Agulis (p. 185), which would have made, according to the generally accepted norms of calculating the population in the Middle Ages, at least 40-45 thousand people. For comparison, in Yerevan, which was the administrative and military center of the entire Shokure Saad region, no more than 12-15 thousand people lived in 2,060 houses in the middle of the 17th century (Celebi, 1983, p. 155). residents, not counting 13 thousand soldiers-Kyzylbash of the Persian garrison, which is still less than in Agulis.

The translation of the" Diary " is accompanied by several maps showing trade routes to Europe via Ottoman Turkey-Yerevan-Yeghvard-Gyumri-Kare-Yerzerum-Amasia (Trabzon) - Ankara-Bursa-Istanbul and from there to Vienna-Innsbruck-Bohemia-Bavaria (Munich) - Frankfurt am Main - Cologne-Dusseldorf-Amsterdam-London. Another route by sea: Istanbul-Venice (Livorno) - Amsterdam-Paris-London or: Istanbul-Malaga-Alicante-Cadiz-London-Amsterdam-French Brest.

No less interesting are the trade routes through Iran to India used by Armenian merchants of the 17th century. The most important of them went from Yerevan to Nakhichevan-Julfa-Tavriz-Sultaniyeh-Karavansaray-Shah-Qom-Kashan-Isfahan, and from Isfahan it was possible to reach India. Sea route from Basra (Bandar Abbas) Before India, it was also familiar to Armenian merchants. Zacharias Agulisetsi himself traveled with silk caravans along these routes and left a description of the distances, amenities on the roads, in caravanserais, inns, food served there to travelers and the level of service on the main roads.

G. Bornatyan attached to the English text an extensive historical and geographical commentary (p. 179-204), a glossary of New Armenian terms (p.211-224), and a fairly complete bibliography of studies covering the history and trade in the seventeenth century in the Safavid states, Ottoman Turkey, the Habsburg state, and Western European countries (p. 225-228). The manuscript of Zachary Agulisetsi is interesting because it provides reliable information about the routes of merchants to Europe from the Yerevan Khanate and Safavid Iran, about the goods and products that merchants traded, and about the difficulties on the way.

It is known that already in the I - VII centuries one of the branches of the Great Silk Road (GSR) from China to Daqin (Rome - Byzantium) passed through Armenia. After the Arab conquest.

* G. A. Bornatyan. Journal (Diary) Zaharia from Agulis. Annotated translation and comments. Costa Mesa (Caliph.): Mazda Publishing House, 2003, 242 p. (Armenian studies. N 4).

¹ For S. A. Markaryan's review of the English translation of the Chronicles of Deacon Zachary Kanakertsi, made by G. Bornatyan and published in the same series, see: Orient (Oriens). 2005. N 5, pp. 201-204.

the routes in the VIII - XIV centuries somewhat changed the main direction. Now more often caravans with Chinese goods went along the "northern route": through the lake. Issyk-Kul-the shores of the Aral Sea - the lower reaches of the Volga-the Derbent (Daryal) passage to Trebizond through Armenia or to the port of Tana (Azov), or to ports on the Mediterranean coast, and in this case caravans also followed through Armenia, but trade on the GSR continued to function [Lubo-Lesnichenko, 1988, p. 371-372]. In any case, the caravans were forced to pass through Armenia on the final leg of their journey.

I note that the" northern version "of the GSR operated more intensively in the XIII-XIV centuries, but after the defeat of the Golden Horde by Timurleng in 1395, when the ports of Tana and Tanais at the mouth of the Don were completely destroyed by hordes of nomads from Central Asia, the "northern route" actually ceased to function as a trade highway in the XV century. In connection with the great geographical discoveries of sea routes to India and China in the XVI century, trade along the GSR routes finally faded.

With the revival of the Iranian nation-state in the Safavid state since 1501, the silk trade from Iran to Europe is reviving. However, silk now entered the markets of the Middle East, Ottoman Turkey (Constantinople), and Europe not from China, but from the Iranian provinces of Gilan, Ganja, Khorasan, Shirvan, Karabakh, Yerevan and Nakhichevan Khanates, Mazandaran, as well as from Kartli and Kakheti (Eastern Georgia). Armenian merchants - merchants from Yerevan, Agulis, Ordubad, Gyumri, and Old Julfa were engaged in exporting Iranian silk to Russia, Europe, Ottoman Turkey, and the ports of the Arab Mediterranean.

European travelers, noting that the bulk of silk is exported through Ottoman Turkey to Europe by Armenian merchants who enjoy the favor of the Persian shahs and have various benefits and privileges in the Iranian state precisely because of the established silk trade, which gave substantial revenues to the treasury, thereby largely confirm the information of Zachary Agulisetsi. He writes that "caravans with silk and other goods (from Safavid Iran. - SM) usually started in Tavriz or Yerevan, and Armenian merchants were sent to Turkey via Ani-Kare-Erzurum-Trebizond; to Persia via Maragu-Tavriz-Kum-Sultaniyeh; to Russia and generally to the north via Yerevan-Karabakh-Shirvan-Derbent " (p. 189).

In the Iranian province of Shirvan, the most delicate and fragile silk was produced at that time, so they tried not to transport it to Europe. Silk varieties from Khorasan, Gilan, and Karabakh were considered the most valuable among Armenian merchants, and after them - from Eastern Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti). Shirvan silk was exported to Arab countries and India. All other varieties of silk from the Iranian provinces were sold with great success in Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia. It is interesting that in the 17th century Armenian merchants came to Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark) via Arkhangelsk, and from the middle of the 18th century - via St. Petersburg. The Customs Charter of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich in 1667 recorded the number of Armenian merchants who, according to G. Bornatyan, had the right to trade silk in Russia and through the port of Arkhangelsk (p. 187).

By the end of the 17th century, despite a long period of peaceful development after the Qasri-Shirin Treaty with the Ottoman Empire, there are clear signs of crisis and decline in the Safavid state. The rulers of the provinces of Iran, completely without fear of punishments of the Shah's government, openly plunder the population under their control. This is evident from the information of Zachary Agulisetsi about the Yerevan ruler Sefi-Kuli Khan, who was arrested on the orders of Shahinshah Suleiman, and his property was confiscated. In Isfahan, confiscated carpets, gold and silver dishes, bronze and copper dishes, tents and horses, jewelry and ornaments totaling 30 thousand tumans were sent to the Shah's treasury on 800 camels accompanied by 100 Shah's horsemen (p. 141). It is not without reason that G. Bornatyan calls the reign of Shah Suleiman (1666-1694) "the beginning of the end of a long period of Safavid prosperity" (p.201). While Stepan Razin's Cossacks seized and plundered the Caspian provinces, Shah Suleiman in his capital amused himself for days in a harem and drank with foreigners, and eunuchs seized all power in the Shahin Shah palace (p. 202).

I will focus in more detail on the report of Zachary Agulisetsi about the attack of 20 thousand Cossacks of Stepan Razin on Rasht and Astrabad (the coast of the Caspian Sea) in 1668, described in the second part of his work (p. 83-84). The Russian edition of the manuscript says that the first news of the attack on Rasht came on June 26, while the English translation by G. Bornatyan somehow refers to July. In the Russian edition it is written: "... the city of Rasht was plundered by them (Cossacks. - SM),

a lot of people were killed, a lot of goods were taken away... Rasht suffered greatly" [Diary..., 1939, p. 67]. In the English edition:"...Rasht (and the region) was seized with extreme terror " (p. 83). There is a significant difference between the words "severely affected" and "extremely terrified". I think G. Bornatyan used the original Armenian manuscript of Zachary Agulisetsi.

As for the number of troops of Stepan Razin's Cossacks, it is possible that we are dealing with the usual hyperbolization of medieval authors in such cases, because according to Russian sources it is known that when in 1667 Stepan Razin crossed from the Don to the Volga, he had about 4 thousand Cossacks [Buganov, 1971, N 2; Sanin, 1969, N 3; Chistyakova, 1971, N 8]. According to the story of Jan Streis, who himself met with Razin's detachments in Dagestan and Shirvan, when Baku was captured in 1668, the Cossack troops numbered about 6 thousand people, which did not prevent them from plundering Shabran, Nizabad, Mardav, Takul, the vicinity of Mount Barmak and other areas in the Iranian Caspian provinces of Talysh and Gilan [Streis, 1935, pp. 200-201].

Even if we assume that in the spring of 1668 Razin, when he wintered on the Yaik River, was joined by several thousand Ural Cossacks, then still, according to the Astrakhan voivode I. S. Prozorovsky, in 1669 there were no more than 4 - 5 thousand Cossacks in the detachments returning to the Don. The figure of 20 thousand could appear in the reports of local officials of Rasht and Astrabad to the Shahinshah chancellery in order to justify their helplessness and complete military defeat in battles with the Cossacks of the local Safavid garrisons of the completely decomposed Iranian army. Another explanation is possible. Apparently, as it happened in other cases, on the way to the south, Razin's detachments were joined by various "free people" from the Volga region, the Astrakhan region and other places, who after the end of these campaigns to the Don did not return, but dispersed to the south of Russia.

In addition, it is known that the Don Cossacks from the Razin army during the attacks in the summer of 1668 on Rasht, Farahabad, and Astrabad took 500 prisoners from local residents, who were exchanged for Russian and Christian prisoners from the possessions of the Persian Shah in the proportion of 1 to 4, and, thus, "they were replenished with people from the Kyzylbash polon... and they were also accosted for theft by foreigners, many poor people" [Peasant war..., 1954, p. 144]. The last phrase from the document seems to indicate another source of replenishment of Razin detachments - from the lumpenized layers of the" lower classes " of Iranian villages, apparently willingly joining the Cossacks in the hope of rich military loot when capturing Iranian cities along the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is obvious that when Stepan Razin returned home to the Don, not all the "free people" who joined him followed him. It is hard to imagine that the voivode of Astrakhan, I. S. Prozorovsky, in the official report indicated underestimated numbers of Cossacks, or he did not know, due to poor information, their true number. Then it becomes clear why Astrakhan sources reported to Moscow about the number of Razin's detachments 4 times smaller than that indicated by Zachary Agulisetsi.

The toponymy of Western European cities and countries, which Zacharias Agulisetsi cites in his work, is interesting. It should be noted that in general, it has changed little over the past 350 years.

In conclusion, I would like to note that the peer-reviewed edition of Zachary Agulisetsi's book will undoubtedly allow the English-speaking reader to become more familiar with the history of trade, various events and biographies of prominent political and military figures of this era, and the seven maps attached to the translation with the routes of Zachary Agulisetsi's trade trips will clearly represent the intensity of sales of raw silk by Armenian merchants from the Safavid European countries in the 17th century.

list of literature

Buganov V. I. Stepan Timofeevich Razin / / Istoriya SSSR [History of the USSR], Moscow, 1972, No. 2.

Diary of Zakaria Akulissky. Yerevan: ARMFAN Publishing House of the USSR, 1939 (in Armenian).

The Peasant War under the leadership of Stepan Razin. Collection of Documents, vol. 1. Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1954.

Lubo-Lesnichenko V. I. Velikiy Shelkoviy put ' [The Great Silk Road] / / Vostochny Turkestan in Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, Moscow: GRVL, 1988.

Sanin G. A. On the initial stage of Stepan Razin's uprising: publication of documents of the Central Committee of ADA // Soviet Archives, Moscow, 1969. N 3.

Streis Ya. Three Journeys / Translated by E. Borodina, Moscow: Gosizdat Publ., 1935.

Chistyakova E. V. Stepan Timofeevich Razin / / Voprosy istorii [Questions of History], Moscow, 1971, No. 8.

Celebi Evlia. Travel book / Trans. and comment. Issue 3. Edited by A.D. Zheltyakov, Moscow: GRVL, 1983.

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