Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh

The Missing Pages

The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She is the award-winning author of The Image of an Ottoman City: Architecture in Aleppo (2004). Her writing has also appeared in the Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 436
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. Februar 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 161mm x 35mm
• Gewicht: 749g
• ISBN-13: 9780804790444
• ISBN-10: 0804790442
• Artikelnr.: 50907661

Autorenporträt

Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She is the award-winning author of The Image of an Ottoman City: Architecture in Aleppo (2004). Her writing has also appeared in the Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Survivor Objects. Artifacts of Genocide
chapter abstract
The Canon Tables of the Zeytun Gospels at the Getty is a section of a
gathering from the Zeytun Gospels. The Canon Tables is a "survivor object,"
a category of artifacts that have survived genocide and symbolize violence
but also resilience. Their provenance provides information about their
whereabouts since their creation, as well as evidence of struggles and
contests over art. Survivor objects like the Zeytun Gospels provide a
window on to the Armenian Genocide and the destruction of culture that
accompanied it, but they also tell us about survival.
2Hromkla. The God-Protected Castle of Priests and Artists
chapter abstract
The chapter reconstructs the historical context in which the Zeytun Gospels
was created. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia flourished on the
Mediterranean shore. It was a meeting point of cultures but also a
strategic territory where regional and global conflicts played out,
involving the Byzantine Empire, the Seljuk dynasty, the Mamluk dynasty, and
the Crusader states. The Armenian Kingdom forged an alliance with the
emerging Mongol Empire, which enabled it to survive longer than its rival
states, until 1375. The chapter also explores the role of the arts in
Cilicia, the career of the illuminator Toros Roslin, and the importance of
the Gospel Book in Armenian Christianity. It provides an overview of
medieval discussions of Canon Tables, which were always among the most
lavishly illuminated parts of Gospels manuscripts.
3Zeytun. The Lost World of Ottoman Armenians
chapter abstract
This chapter reconstructs the lost world of Ottoman Armenians, notably the
mountain town of Zeytun. It reconstructs the unique spirit of the
mountainous stronghold of Zeytun, its architecture, its religious
institutions, and the importance of the Zeytun Gospels for that society. It
recounts the destruction of this world during the genocide of Ottoman
Armenians, along with the exile of Armenians from Zeytun and the removal of
the Gospels from its liturgical context.
4Marash. The Holy Book Bears Witness
chapter abstract
The Zeytun Gospels was brought from Zeytun to Marash, a larger town in the
same province, where it passed to a doctor and amateur historian. After
World War I, French forces occupied Cilicia with a plan to establish a
French colonial enclave there. Having survived the war and the genocide,
the manuscript was caught in an episode of intercommunal violence and was
lost. When it was found again, it was sundered into two. The larger part
was entrusted to an American missionary, as the Armenians of Marash were
exiled and became refugees, many of them in Aleppo.
5Aleppo. Survivors Reclaim Their Heritage
chapter abstract
From the vantage point of Aleppo, where many genocide refugees ended up,
this chapter examines some of the effects of the Armenian Genocide, notably
its economic effects and the dispossession of the Armenians, its religious
effects and the destruction of the Armenian Church, and finally its
cultural effects and the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage. The
chapter examines how survivors, especially religious leaders, reclaimed
Armenian cultural heritage after the genocide by making demands for
restitution and by salvaging and preserving artifacts that had survived.
The chapter focuses on Archbishop Ardavazt Surmeyan, a proponent of
cultural preservation, who penned a thorough description of the Zeytun
Gospels.
6New York. The Zeytun Gospels Enters Art History
chapter abstract
The Canon Tables arrived in the United States with an immigrant family.
This chapter follows the split history of the Canon Tables and the mother
manuscript, and provides an overview of the Armenian American community in
the first half of the twentieth century. The gradual process through which
the Canon Tables was identified as the missing pages from the Zeytun
Gospels unfolded just as Armenian art was becoming an established category
of art history. Key figures in this chapter are the scholarly Archbishop
(later Catholicos) Karekin Hovsepian, who examined the Canon Tables, and
the art history professor Sirarpie Der Nersessian, who examined the mother
manuscript. Each participated in the process by which the artist Toros
Roslin and medieval Armenian art entered the Western art history canon.
This chapter considers how the lingering effects of the genocide shaped the
way in which scholars wrote the history of Armenian art.
7Yerevan. Toros Roslin, Artist of the Armenian Nation
chapter abstract
The mother manuscript of the Zeytun Gospels made its way to Yerevan,
capital of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, where it ended up at the
Matenadaran Institute of Ancient Manuscripts. This chapter examines the
Armenian SSR's cultural institutions. There scholars crafted a modern
historiography that showcased medieval Armenian culture and creators such
as Toros Roslin as "makers of the Armenian nation." The chapter briefly
returns to New York around 1994, when the Getty Museum purchased the Canon
Tables from an Armenian American family for almost one million dollars.
8Los Angeles. The Contest over Art
chapter abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the Armenian community of Southern
California and the history of the Armenian Genocide restitution movement in
the United States. It surveys the successes of Armenian Genocide litigation
in the 1990s and 2000s, notably against insurance companies. It provides an
overview of the lawsuit Western Prelacy v. Getty, its settlement, and
reactions in the press as well as within the Armenian community. The
chapter concludes with a broader consideration of debates regarding
reparations and restitution movements, and the writing of art history
through the courts.