Asian and African studies blog

News from our curators and colleagues

5 posts categorized "Armenian"

17 April 2025

Not Fowl: Feathered friends in Coptic and Armenian Manuscripts

A cream sheet of paper the top two thirds of which include an intricate geometrical design in blue, red and gold, with miniatures of people, birds and animals, above large Armenian letters shaped like birds in the same colours and smaller Armenian letters in black, red and gold.
The start of Genesis in the Armenian Bible donated by Baroness Zouche. (Copied by Yovhannēs Lehts'i, 1648). (Or 8833, f 3r)
CC Public Domain Image

In the run-up to Easter, we had a little surprise. By “we” I mean my family, not the Library. Late in March, two pigeons showed up to scope out our flower box. Then they brought twigs. Then they built a nest. Finally, one Monday, coming back from a weekend away, we noticed two unattended white eggs. One of the adults soon returned and stayed put. Pigeons take turns incubating their eggs, which means that one of the two parents was always there eyeing us suspiciously. Eventually, the eggs hatched and now two beautiful little pigeons (or squabs, to use the technical term) have their breakfast and dinner along with us – separated, naturally, by several layers of glass.

Eggs are, of course, associated with Easter. In this blog, however, I’m going to look at what comes after the egg: the bird. In the last week and a half of Lent, as our little soon-to-be-feather friends grew, I saw birds everywhere I looked. Some were even in the manuscripts.

A cream page with writing in Coptic on the left three quarters of the page and in Arabic on the right quarter in black and red inks, with a three-arch break in yellow at the bottom and a bird in yellow, red and black to the right of the arch
The beginning of readings for the Saturday of Light, starting a midnight on Good Friday. (Nitria, Egypt. 1274 CE) (Add MS 5997, f 260r)
CC Public Domain Image

The first fowl incident came while helping a researcher in Canada locate a passage relating to the Saturday of Light (سبت النور) or Holy Saturday in Add MS 5997, a Bohairic Copto-Arabic Lectionary completed in 1274 CE. A lectionary is a collection of readings from Scripture tied to specific dates and events throughout the year. The practice isn’t unique to Christianity; Jews also make use of Parashat ha-Shavua (פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ), or weekly readings from the Torah, although these are not compiled into a separate book. As I learned recently, Copts have a variety of different lectionaries. Some might be for the whole year, others for Lent. Add MS 5997 is one intended just for the Easter period (كتاب البصخة المقدسة), containing explanations at the start of each selection informing readers when the passages should be read and where they come from.

A detail of cream paper with text in black and red inks in Coptic and Arabic scripts, along with a three arch motif in yellow and a bird with stylized tail in yellow, red and black to the right
A detail of the triple arch beginning the text for the Saturday of Light and the fowl motif on the right. (Nitria, Egypt. 1274 CE) (Add MS 5997, f 260r)
CC Public Domain Image

Lo and behold, at the bottom of folio 260r is the start of the Reading for the beginning Holy Saturday and with it, a long-necked bird with a black head and red comb, looking shyly at the margin above. This feathered friend caught my eye – once I had confirmed that I had the passage I need – and so too did dozen of their mates and siblings scattered across the manuscript. As Maria Cramer explains, birds and indeed animals of various types - dogs and gazelles among them - have featured in Coptic manuscripts from the first millennium onwards. And this continues on a long tradition from Ancient Egyptian artwork, which is itself heavily imbued with imagery from the animal kingdom. 

While the presence of birds was a welcome surprise – especially given our recent guests – it also rang a bell. Fowl, of course, feature in manuscripts in many other cultures. Whether in margins and letters, or as images for literary or historical accounts, which illustrator or illuminator didn’t love birds? But birds also play a special role in manuscripts from a nation in communion with the Copts: Armenian ones. Here, the use of birds to form capital letters is so common as to have its own name, t’rch’nagir (թռչնագիր), or bird-letter.

Where better to see the tradition than in one of the most stunning examples of this art, the Armenian Old and New Testaments copied in 1646 CE and donated to the Library by Darea Curzon, the 16th Baroness Zouche (Or 8833)? While the 13th-century Copto-Arabic Easter Lectionary features feathery friends with personality, the Armenian masterpiece brings them to us in their finery. The most impressing example, by far, is the start of Genesis. Here, a glorious frontispiece features the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus, the four Apostles (including John with his associated eagle), and four elegant gold-and-navy peacocks. But below this panoply of visual sensations is the first word of the Old Testament, featuring an angel killing a dragon as the letter ini (Ի), followed by the rest of the word skězpanē (Սկըզբանէ; in the beginning) with each letter spelled out by intricate, lavish birds.

Cream coloured paper with Armenian letters fashioned out of birds in red, pink, green, purple, yellow and gold pigments
The Classical Armenian word for "beginning" fashioned from birds. (Copied by Yovhannēs Lehts'i, 1648). (Or 8833, f 3r)
CC Public Domain Image

Father Vrej Nersessian, our former Lead Curator of the Christian Orient, provided a detailed explanation of the significance of various birds. In doing so, he relies on the analysis conducted by Catholicos Nersēs IV the Gracious: “The Bible has for Nersēs Šnorhali a paradigmatic value. It traces the parameters within which all history is to be understood.” As such, it should not be a surprise that the birds appearing in Biblical manuscript illustration and illumination are themselves steeped in meaning. And, when it comes to the decoration of the Canon Tables, which provide internal correspondences between the four Apostles’ accounts about Jesus’ life, as well as those that are unique: “Through the visual pleasures of the Canon Tables one is supposed to ascend to the spiritual enjoyment of the Gospels themselves.” So then, to what heights are these winged friends carrying us? 

A cream coloured page with two peacocks at the top facing each other in blue, gold and pink pigments, above a four-column classical facade in orange, blue, gold and pink, with the spaces between the columns filled with Armenian text. To either side of the structure are small plants and a third peacock on its right eaveTwo roosters in gold, yellow and blue atop a Classical facade with a roundel in pink, blue, gold and green, atop three columns with Armenian text in the spaces between. On either side of the structure are small plants and a yellow lion on its right eave
Canon Tables from the Armenian Bible donated by Baroness Zouche. (Copied by Yovhannēs Lehts'i, 1648). (Or 8833, ff 462r and 466 r) 
CC Public Domain Image

The discussion here is quite complicated, but to summarize: the eagle represents Christ, although it can also be the sign of the Apostle John; the cock is the advent of Christ; doves are the gift of the Holy Spirit; partridges are the sex workers who feature in Jesus’ story; fishing birds are symbols of the Apostles; and peacocks are the “purity of angelic spirits.” Monkeys and lions, Father Vrej informs us, are later additions coming from Western European sources.

A cream page with Armenian text in black and red and a stylized, elongated bird in pink, purple, gold, blue and green on the right
A detail of a page of the Gospels showing a marginal avian decoration. (Copied by Yovhannēs Lehts'i, 1648). (Or 8833, f 699r)
CC Public Domain Image

Given this rich collection of different symbols and allusions, it should be no surprise that we find peacocks, roosters and, yes, even monkeys and lions, in the Canon Table menagerie. And, of course, other birds embellishing the margins. These are harder to identify, but it might just be that I’m not much of a birder.

A cream page with the top half covered in intricate geometric patterns and two stylized birds looking at one another in deep red and blue above drawings of a man with a staff and halo in robes on the bottom left and a seated man in robes with a halo, pen and paper in the bottom middle
The frontispiece of the Gospel of John featuring the Apostle below two birds. (Monastery of Yaspisunkal, Arjish, now Erciş, Türkiye. 1281 CE) (Or 2679, f 222v). 
CC Public Domain Image

Or 8833 is a high point of illustration and illumination. But birds and their various stylizations can be found in other manuscripts as well, sometimes less elegant or intricate, but still eye-catching in their own way. The two Bible manuscripts Or 2679 and Or 2680, both acquired from Reverend S. Baronian in 1883, provide us with a few interesting examples. The former contains a delightful frontispiece to the Gospel of John where the Apostle, presumably seated with pen and paper in hand, is under two gormless long-tailed birds. Throughout the manuscript, these cartoonish, elongated fowl can be found in the margins of pages, their tail feathers and crowns so crenellated they look almost like ferns.

A dark off-white page with brown vegetal frontispiece with two half-human half bird creature. In the middle is an empty space with text in red in Armenian script and a blue stamp. Below is text in Armenian script in red and black with a large stylized man to the left with his right arm curled up to his head
The start of the Gospel of Matthew with "harpies" and human-as-letter. (Copied by Astuadzatur, 1317 CE) (Or 2780, f 10r)
CC Public Domain Image

In many ways, however, the birds – whatever their species – quickly fade from memory as soon as you encounter another inhabitant of the pages of both Or 2679 and Or 2680. These are fantastical creatures that marry the body of a bird and the head of a man, which Conybeare identifies as harpies. I think this is likely an unfair assumption. In the latter manuscript, an early 13th-century copy of the Bible, two sit in the frontispiece above the start of the Gospel of Matthew, their bobs immaculate, looking suspiciously at the gutter and margin. In Or 2679, by contrast, the bird’s crown is never unequivocally converted from feathers to metalwork, providing a delightful ambiguity between what is human and what belongs to our flying friends. As with the full birds, the half-man, half-bird creatures in Or 2679 have expressions that often dance between stupor and wonder, leaving this birdwatching newbie to ponder their meaning vis-à-vis the Biblical text.

A dark cream page with the drawing of the body of a stylized bird with elongated tail and the head of a man looking towards the left.
A detail of marginal decoration featuring a half-man, half-bird creature. (Monastery of Yaspisunkal, Arjish, now Erciş, Türkiye. 1281 CE) (Or 2679, f 222v). 
CC Public Domain Image

This Easter season, whether you celebrate or not, I hope that this blog has brought a little bit of curiosity about our feathered neighbours as well as the rich art found of Armenian and Coptic manuscripts. While you bite into your creme egg, take a moment to ponder the wonders of avian world and how it inspired artists and creators for millennium.

Dr. Michael Erdman, Head, Middle East and Central Asia 🐦
CC-BY Image

I’d like to thank Émile Tadros for his patience in guiding me through Add MS 5997, and to the Coptic clergy from the Diocese of London for sharing their accumulated wisdom and experience.

Works consulted

Conybeare, Frederick Cornwallis, A catalogue of the Armenian manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1913).

Cramer, Maria, Koptische Buchmalerei: Illuminationen in Manuskripten des christlich-koptischen Ägypten vom 4. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Recklinghausen: A. Bongers, 1964).

Cramer, Maria, 'Studien zu koptischen Pascha-Büchern: Der Ritus der Karwoche in der koptischen Kirche,' Oriens Christianus (September 1963), Vol. 47, pp. 118-128.

Crum, Walter Ewing, Catalogue of the Coptic Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1905).

Nersessian, Vrej, A catalogue of the Armenian manuscripts in the British Library acquired since the year 1913 and of collections in other libraries in the United Kingdom (London: The British Library, 2012).

26 February 2024

Restoring access to the British Library’s Asian and African Collections

Following the recent cyber-attack on the British Library, the Library has now implemented an interim service which will enable existing Registered Readers to access some of our printed books and serials and a significant portion of our manuscripts. This service will be expanded further in the coming weeks. 

We understand how frustrating this recent period has been for everyone wishing to access our Asian and African Collections and we would like to thank you for your patience. We are continuing to work to restore our services, and you can read more about these activities in our Chief Executive's post to the Knowledge Matters blog. 

The Using the Library page on our temporary website provides general information on current Library services, and advice for those without an existing Reader Pass. Please read on for information about the availability of specific Asian and African collections. 

 

Printed books and serials 

You can now search for printed items using a searchable online version of our main catalogue of books and other printed material. Online and advance ordering is unavailable, so Registered Readers will need to collect a paper order form from staff in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room and fill in the required details. Please write the shelfmark exactly as it appears in the online catalogue. 

Only a small portion of the printed books and serials in the Asian and African Collection will be available for consultation in the Reading Room. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee availability of any printed items. Materials stored in Boston Spa are current unavailable, and items stored in our St. Pancras location might be in use by another Reader or restricted for other reasons. If you wish to gain greater assurance on the availability of a particular item before you visit us, please contact our Reference Services Team by emailing [email protected].

 

Manuscripts and archival documents 

Although the Library’s online catalogue of archives and manuscripts is not currently available, the Reference Services Team can assist with queries about these collections, checking paper catalogues and other sources. Please speak to the team in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room or email [email protected] Some of our older printed catalogues have been digitised and made available online without charge. For quick access to the digitised catalogues of manuscript and archival material, or to online repositories of images, please make use of the links below:

Africa 

Catalogues 

 

East Asia 

Catalogues 

Digitised Content

Middle East and Central Asia 

Catalogues 

Digitised Content

South Asia        

Catalogues    

Digitised Content

South-East Asia

Catalogues

Digitised Content

Visual Arts (Print Room)

Catalogues

Digitised Content

Microfilms

 

 

 

Africa 

East Asia 

Chinese 

Japanese 

  • CiNii Books - National Institute of Informatics (NII), a bibliographic database service for material in Japanese academic libraries including 43,000+ British Library books and periodicals. Please use FA012954 in the Library ID field 

Korean 

 

Middle East and Central Asia 

  • FIHRIST (Largely Persian, but also includes some Kurdish, Pashto, and Turkic materials) 

 Arabic 

Armenian 

Coptic 

Hebrew  

Persian 

Syriac  

Turkish and Turkic  

 

South Asia 

Early printed books:

South Asian language manuscript catalogues:

Bengali and Assamese 

Hindi, Panjabi and Hindustani

Marathi, Gujrati, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Pushtu and Sindhi 

Oriya 

Pali 

Sanskrit and Prakrit 

Sinhalese 

 Tibetan 

 

South-East Asia 

Burmese 

Thai 

  

Access to some archival and manuscript material is still restricted, but the majority of special collections held at St Pancras are now once again available. Our specialist archive and manuscripts catalogue is not online at the moment so you will need to come on-site to our Reading Rooms, where Reading Room staff will be able to help you search for what you need, and advise on its availability.

To place a request to see a manuscript or archival document, Registered Readers need to collect a paper order form from staff in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room and fill in the required details, including the shelfmark (manuscript number). The Library has created an instructional video on finding shelfmarks.  

 

Visual Arts 

The Print Room, located in the Asian and African Reading Room, is open by appointment only on Monday and Friday between 10.00 am-12.30 pm. Prints, drawings, photographs and related visual material in the Visual Arts collection can be consulted by appointment. Please contact the Visual Arts team via email (apac[email protected]) to check the availability of required items and to book an appointment. Please note that advanced booking is required. Restricted items including the Kodak Historical Collection, Fay Godwin Collection, William Henry Fox Talbot Collection are not currently available to Readers. 

  • Catalogue of Photographs is digitally available via the National Archives, including the Archaeological Survey of India, Stein Photographs, and architectural and topographical photographs relating to South Asia. This also includes the Kodak Historical Collection

 

Microfilms 

The Reference Services Team in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room has a list of microfilms of printed and manuscript materials. 

 

Digital resources 

A number of our early printed books are available on Google Books. 

We regret that our digitised manuscripts and electronic research resources are currently unavailable. Nevertheless, some of our digitised manuscripts are available on external platforms: 

East Asia 

Middle East 

  • Digital Edition of the Coptic Old Testament, including leaves of British Library Coptic papyri interwoven with images from other institutions  
  • Ktiv (Manuscript Database of the National Library of Israel), including all digitised Hebrew manuscripts from the British Library
  • Qatar Digital Library, including digitised Arabic manuscripts from the British Library

South Asia 

  • Jainpedia, including digitised Jain manuscripts from the British Library

South-East Asia 

  • South East Asia Digital Library, including a collection of digitised rare books from South East Asia held at the British Library 
  • National Library Board, Singapore, digitised Malay manuscripts and Qur'ans, papers of Sir Stamford Raffles, and the accounts by Colin Mackenzie on Java held at the British Library
  • Or 14844, Truyện Kiều (The tale of Kiều) by Nguyễn Du (1765-1820), the most significant poem in Vietnamese literature 
  • Or 15227, an illuminated Qurʼan,19th century, from the east coast of the Malay Peninsula
  • Or 16126, Letter from Engku Temenggung Seri Maharaja (Daing Ibrahim), Ruler of Johor, to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, dated 1857
  • Mss Jav 89, Serat Damar Wulan with illustrations depicting Javanese society in the late 18th century
  • Or 14734, Sejarah Melayu (Malay annals), dated 1873
  • Or 13681, Burmese manuscript showing seven scenes of King Mindon's donations at various places during the first four years of his reign (1853-57) 
  • Or 14178, Burmese parabaik (folding book) from around 1870 with 16 painted scenes of the Ramayana story with captions in Burmese 
  • Or 13922, Thai massage treatise with illustrations, 19th century 
  • Or 16101, Buddhist Texts, including the Legend of Phra Malai, with Illustrations of The Ten Birth Tales, dated 1894 
  • Or 16797, Cat treatise from Thailand, with illustrations, 19th century 
  • Or 4736, Khmer alphabet, handwritten by Henri Mouhot, c.1860-1 

Visual Arts 

 

We thank you, once again, for your patience as we continue to work to restore our services. Please do check this blog and the temporary British Library website for further updates. 

 

 

26 June 2017

A Rainbow in Stormy Skies: LGBT Writing in the northern Middle East

On May 28, 2013, a small group of environmentalists gathered at Istanbul’s Gezi Park to protest the removal of trees. The police’s brutal response sparked the indignation of the city’s residents, and soon Gezi Park was flooded with ordinary citizens and activists. They voiced a number of grievances, chief among them the government’s refusal to engage with citizens about urban planning. The protests lasted for weeks, and the makeshift camp erected in the Park featured a dizzying array of groups: ecologists, Armenians, Kurds, Zazas, Alevis, Communists, syndicalists, anti-capitalist Muslims and LGBT rights organizations. The diversity of identities on display brought into the open the complex and sometimes confusing imbrications composing individuals’ self-identification in contemporary Turkey. Since the 1980s, sexual identities have played an increasing role in this construction, and over the last decade the stories and struggles of Turkish sexual minorities have been featured in a number of different media.

Neoliberalizm ve Mahremiyet ©Metis, 2011 and Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards ©University of California Press, 2005.

Neoliberalizm ve Mahremiyet ©Metis, 2011 and Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards ©University of California Press, 2005.

To be certain, homosexuality, lesbianism, transgenderism and cross-dressing are far from new concepts to Turkish culture. Same-sex intercourse has been legal in Turkey (and the Ottoman Empire, its predecessor state) since 1858; 110 years before the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain. The topic of gay and lesbian relations in Ottoman society and its imagining among Orientalist writers  is particularly popular among Western scholars.

While Turkish authors do treat similar subjects within their works, contemporary issues of social, political and economic equality, as well as the battle against discrimination, are more likely to be explored within Turkish academic publishing. Scholars Cüneyt Çakırlar and Serkan Delice, have been particularly active in their writings, whether in collections of contemporary Turkish studies on gender, queer identity and politics or in their participation in the Queer Düş’ün series by *SEL Yayıncılık, which seeks to bring English-language Queer writing into Turkish. Other writers, too, address difficult issues, whether theoretical or practical. Evidence of such comes to us from works such as Neoliberalizm ve Mahremiyet: Türkiye’de Beden, Sağlık ve Cinsellik (Neoliberalism and Intimacy: Body, Health and Gender in Turkey), where we find Cenk Özbay’s study of neoliberal sociology and the case of rent boys, as well as Yener Bayramoğlu’s look at heterosexism and homosexuality within contemporary advertising.

Despite the early legalization of same-sex relationships in Turkey, social stigmas remain. Istanbul’s pride parade has been routinely attacked and/or banned in the past five years. Images of police brutality as a response to attempts at organizing celebrations appear frequently on social and mainstream media. Social and political pressures notwithstanding, those who refuse to conform to gender and sexual norms are still very much visible in Turkish culture and society. The image of the transvestite, in particular, is an exceptionally poignant one in referencing Turkish LGBT communities. The novels of Elif Şafak, one of Turkey’s foremost female novelists, routinely feature LGBT and transvestite characters. Şafak herself has spoken out about LGBT issues in Turkey in the English and Turkish media is filled with the sort of fluid concepts of gender and sexuality that provide three-dimensional, realistic portrayals of LGBT people in Turkey today. Transgendered people find their way into other media, too, including graphic novels, such as Büşra, a wry, satirical look at piety, political power and hypocrisy in the first decade of the 21st century. Even more striking are the novels in Mehmet Murat Somer’s series Hop-Çiki-Yaya, which feature a cross-dressing amateur detective who often interviews her clients in drag. Somer’s works are bold and flamboyant in both their characters and their treatment of a number of topics that would be considered taboo in most countries: transgender sex work; married heterosexual men having sex with men; and the interactions of religion, tradition and sexual identity.

In many ways, Turkey offers the most liberal of régimes with respect to sexual minorities. Among its immediate neighbours, consensual sexual relations between men are permitted in Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia and Azerbaijan, while they continue to be illegal in Iraq, Syria and Iran. Among the former group, only Greece and Bulgaria offer legal protection from discrimination. Despite this, authors, activists and artists producing in Armenian, Persian and Kurdish all continue to address LGBT issues and the struggles for recognition and acceptance across the region.

The Prophet Murders, the story of two murders at a transvestite club ©Serpent’s Tail, 2008; Me As Her Again, Nancy Agabian’s autobiographical work ©Aunt Lute Books, 2008 The Prophet Murders, the story of two murders at a transvestite club ©Serpent’s Tail, 2008; Me As Her Again, Nancy Agabian’s autobiographical work ©Aunt Lute Books, 2008
The Prophet Murders
, the story of two murders at a transvestite club ©Serpent’s Tail, 2008; Me As Her Again, Nancy Agabian’s autobiographical work ©Aunt Lute Books, 2008

While homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism continue to be highly stigmatized inside Armenia proper, gay and lesbian issues are nonetheless present in Armenian literary and cultural circles. An example of one pioneer in this realm is the writer Armen of Armenia, whose trilogy Mayrenik’ Drash (Mommyland) tells the tragic story of three LGBT men in Armenia. The novels are unique in their presentation of the complexity of queer existence inside the Republic of Armenia, and the demands placed upon gay and bisexual men by the institutions of the military, the church and patriotism.

An estimated 7 to 10 million Armenians live in the diaspora, and among them are a number of writers who address the complex relationship between sexual and ethnic identity. Nancy Agabian, an American-Armenian author, has been particularly active in this respect. Agabian’s Me as Her Again, published in English in the United States, provides a moving vignette of the life and struggles of lesbians in the Armenian diaspora. In it, Agabian explores issues relating to sexual, gender and ethnic identity, interweaving the trials of a woman expressing her sexuality with those of an Armenian recovering her family’s buried past in Anatolia.

South-east of Armenia, the regional juggernaut Iran presents an even more complex case. Homosexuality remains illegal and punishable by death in the Islamic Republic. Nonetheless, gender reassignment is permitted according to a legal decision by the régime’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini. Social stigmas around transgenderism are still rampant, and considerable confusion between gender and sexuality causes no end of distress to a great number of people. Nonetheless, homosexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism appear in many English- and Persian-language publications by authors in Iran and in exile. Academic works about LGBT relationships and the fluidity of gender in Iran are numerous, including the wryly-titled Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards  by Afsaneh Najmabadi. Although this work is a historical analysis of these concepts in Iranian society, Najmabadi has also turned a critical eye on the contemporary period with her study Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-sex Desire in Contemporary Iran. Najmabadi is currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her long history of activism in Iran, the United Kingdom and the United States demonstrates the saliency of issues of gender and sexuality for Persian-speakers throughout the diaspora.

Such topics come up in a myriad of different narrative products. Early 20th century poetry, such as that of Iraj Mirza, featured homoerotic themes similar to those in earlier Persian poetry. To paraphrase Najmabadi, sin was the realm of deeds rather than thoughts, and a man extolling the beauty of another man or boy was not necessarily deemed to be off bounds for Sufi and other poets of the Qajar period. By contrast, the historian Ja’far Shahri claims that it was modernization and the social change of the early 20th century that brought about a conscious “corruption” of the city of Tehran and a gradual hardening of attitudes about sexual and gender norms.

Professing Selves, on the complex and often problematic construction of gender identity in Iran today ©Duke University Press, 2013  The Moonlike
Professing Selves, on the complex and often problematic construction of gender identity in Iran today ©Duke University Press, 2013; The Moonlike, Behjat Riza’ee’s fictionalisation of a gruesome murder in Rasht that follows upon a forbidden love affair between two young women ©Bra Books, 1992

Among exile groups and communities, LGBT issues are alive in both magazines and monographs. As early as 1991, Bra Books in London published The Moonlike by Bahjat Riza’i, a barely fictionalized account of a lesbian affair gone wrong, ending in an honour killing near the city of Rasht in northern Iran. The Paris-based publisher Naakojaa most recently released a translation of the French graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Colour, which became a hit movie in 2013. This follows on its translations of Gore Vidal, the legendary bisexual American author. France has also provided us with filmic expressions of LGBT love in Iran with the 2011 movie Circumstance, by Iranian-American director Maryam Keshavarz. The film explores an illicit relationship between two young women in contemporary Tehran, and the various legal, political and socio-economic barriers that come make their love impossible.

Finally, the issue of gender and sexual identity within Kurdish sources is among the most difficult to piece together. Kurdish publishing is largely in its infancy, as the use of the language for mass publications in the regions in which Kurds live became a possibility only in the 1990s. Since then, identity construction, democratization, gender and income equality and the instability of an existence amongst seemly hostile nation-states has loomed large for many Kurdish writers. Despite this, there are instances of LGBT issues coming to the fore among Kurds at home and in the diaspora. In Turkey, Kaos GL has devoted a portion of its activities to bringing Kurdish-speaking members of sexual minorities out of the shadows. Whether endowing their Kurmanji-speaking readers with a new vocabulary to describe themselves and their communities in a positive and stigma-free way, or publicizing the efforts of a film director to bring to the screen the story of a Kurdish trans-woman living in rural Anatolia, Kaos GL has been forceful in bringing issues of sexual identity to the fore within the broader landscape of Kurdish social change.

In Iraq, Kurds have benefitted from more than 25 years of virtual and legal autonomy from Baghdad to build their own cultural institutions. The result has been a new confidence in self-expression, but one that is not always accepting of sexual minorities. Indeed, a number of campaigns regarding LGBT rights in the region – whether initiated by foreign bodies or domestic ones, such as the NGO Rasan – have been met with vociferous opposition. It may indeed still be too early for the publication of Kurdish LGBT fiction and non-fiction on the scale seen in other cultures across the region, but the seeds have undoubtedly been sown.

Among these various movements and trends, the British Library’s Asian and African collections remain committed to reflecting the diversity and richness of expression from across the Middle East. In doing so, we hope to provide students, scholars and the curious with a window onto the struggles and triumphs of a myriad of communities.

I would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in connecting me to LGBT authors and publishers across the region: Armen of Armenia, Cüneyt Çakırlar, Kyle Khandikian, Hakan Sandal and Ayaz Shalal.

Michael Erdman, Curator, Turkish and Turkic Collections
 CC-BY-SA

Meanwhile don't forget to visit the exhibition Gay UK: Love, Law and Liberty which is currently open at the British Library until 19 September 2017.

Gay UK: Love, Law and Liberty

27 February 2017

Armenian Diaspora Publications at the British Library

During my time at the British Library working on the Asian and African Collection backlog cataloguing project I have come across a number of thought-provoking printed works in the Armenian Collection. The following post describes three examples which for me highlight the fascinating adaptability and ever changing nature of diasporas. They describe Armenian communities which reached their zenith long ago, and are now seldom remembered, but at the same time they exemplify a willingness to embrace the host culture while remembering and respecting their own cultural roots.

The title page and portrait of Doctor Sarkis Tateosian Avedumiants in Ardi Hndkahay Bzhiskner: Masn A. Vienna: Mkhit’arean Tparan, 1896 (BL 17033.d.23(7)) The title page and portrait of Doctor Sarkis Tateosian Avedumiants in Ardi Hndkahay Bzhiskner: Masn A. Vienna: Mkhit’arean Tparan, 1896 (BL 17033.d.23(7))
The title page and portrait of Doctor Sarkis Tateosian Avedumiants in Ardi Hndkahay Bzhiskner: Masn A. Vienna: Mkhit’arean Tparan, 1896 (BL 17033.d.23(7))

Ardi Hndkahay Bzhiskner ‘Modern Armenian Doctors’ by Doctor Vahram Y. Torgomian (BL 17033.d.23(7)) printed in 1896 by the Mkhitarian Press, Vienna, describes the lives of Armenian Indian doctors. One of the more interesting life stories in the book is that of Doctor Sarkis Avedumiants, who was born in 1854 in Calcutta and baptised in Saint Nazareth Armenian church of Calcutta. He attended the La Martinière School, Calcutta — where there were many Armenian students — and was awarded a gold medal for excellence. He subsequently graduated from St. Thomas’ Hospital in London in 1879 before training with the military in Britain and then returning to India as a British army doctor. contributing to campaigns in Afghanistan and Baluchistan. He achieved high ranks within the army becoming the Commander in Chief of the Bombay Army and Surgeon Major in addition to receiving many awards. He afterwards continued his medical studies, studying at Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and publishing research on combatting dysentery in the British Medical Journal. Dr Avedumiants’ career is described in detail in the book but, published at a time of growing political consciousness, is interpreted from a nationalistic point of view in terms of an achievement of an Armenian in India that Armenians should be proud of.

Dr Avedumiants’ record can also be found in the India Office Records at the British Library under the name Sarkies Thaddeus Avetoom ( L/MIL/9/408 f.129).

The coat of arms on the left is Diana Apcar’s rendition of a potential coat of arms for an independent Armenian nation. Notice the elements of Armenian culture she highlights in the drawing compared with the coat of arms of the modern Armenian Republic and the 1918 Armenian Republic. The Japanese text gives the publication details: printed 15 May in year 43 in the Meiji period (1910) by the Japan Gazette in Yokohama (BL 08028.ddd.24)
The coat of arms on the left is Diana Apcar’s rendition of a potential coat of arms for an independent Armenian nation. Notice the elements of Armenian culture she highlights in the drawing compared with the coat of arms of the modern Armenian Republic and the 1918 Armenian Republic. The Japanese text gives the publication details: printed 15 May in year 43 in the Meiji period (1910) by the Japan Gazette in Yokohama (BL 08028.ddd.24)

My second title is ‘Betrayed Armenia’, a pamphlet by Diana Apcar published in 1910 by the Japan Gazette in Yokohama (BL 08028.ddd.24). Having married into the famous Apcar trading dynasty the author lived in Yokohama, Japan and spent a lot of her time trying to raise awareness of the conditions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Subsequently she did humanitarian work before becoming the Armenian ambassador to Japan in 1920 after Armenia’s independence. The author specifies that this second edition was intended for circulation in the United States in consequence of the massacre of Armenians in 1909 in Adana. Linking events closely to Armenia’s ancient Christian tradition, she writes, for example, ‘that Armenians may be led again “as sheep to the slaughter” and the work of extermination may be completed’, a prophecy which would become an unfortunate reality in 1915 and subsequent years. My fascination with this text, however, is less concerned with the content than the context. Publishing in Japan, Apcar demonstrated an ability to adapt to the local environment despite being so far from her homeland. The distance from Armenia did not deter her ‘diaspora nationalism’ and appreciation for her ancient culture.[1] It is the passion of this Japanese-Armenian author which makes this printed work so special.

The Lise Teferi Magoneni School students and their Armenian teachers. The teacher on the left is Kevork Nalbandian, a prominent Armeno-Ethiopian musician who taught at the school and wrote the music for the Imperial Ethiopian National Anthem[2]. From Ardi Et’ovpian ew Hay Gaghut’ ě. Venice: S.Ghazar, 1930 (BL HEC.1994.a.509)
The Lise Teferi Magoneni School students and their Armenian teachers. The teacher on the left is Kevork Nalbandian, a prominent Armeno-Ethiopian musician who taught at the school and wrote the music for the Imperial Ethiopian National Anthem[2]. From Ardi Et’ovpian ew Hay Gaghut’ ě. Venice: S.Ghazar, 1930 (BL HEC.1994.a.509)

My final choice is Ardi Et’ovpian ew Hay Gaghut’ ě ‘Modern Ethiopia and the Armenian Community’ (BL HEC.1994.a.509). Like many works in the Armenian collection, it was printed in 1930 in Venice in the famous Saint Ghazar printing press. The first half of the book describes in detail Ethopia’s politics, society, economics, culture and religion. The second half explores the Armenian community in Ethiopia detailing the lives of prominent Ethiopian-Armenians in fields as diverse as religion, economics, government, education, the military, artists, musicians and commerce.

The book includes a brief Armenian-Ethiopian dictionary of 1300 words. Here the Armenian word is given on the left followed by the Ethiopian word in Ethiopian script in the middle, and a phonetic transcription of the Ethiopian word in Armenian script on the right.

An Armenian-Ethiopian wordlist (BL HEC.1994.a.509)
An Armenian-Ethiopian wordlist (BL HEC.1994.a.509)

Armenian emigration is much older than the exodus following the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as is shown by two of the examples above. In time the communities adapted to modern political-economic circumstances and either assimilated or emigrated once again. This has led to the near extinction of long established communities in India and Ethiopia and the Armenian presence in Japan is hardly remembered at all. Nonetheless, new diaspora communities have arisen in many more locations globally. Tragic as it is that many prestigious communities have been forgotten, their achievements and existence survive through their literary works preserved, for example, at the British Library and are available for anyone who wishes to remember them.

I am grateful to Momoko Sekido and Eyob Derillo for their assistance in translating Japanese and Amharic script respectively.


Vahe Boghosian, Curatorial Intern, Armenian Books
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[1] For more on diaspora nationalism see Smith, Anthony et al., The Call Of The Homeland. Leiden: Brill, 2010 and Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.

[2] For more on Kevork Nalbandian and the Royal Imperial Brass Band formed of Armenian orphans ‘Arba Lijoch’ see ‘In The Company of Emperors: The Story of Ethiopian Armenians’.

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