The History of Sebeos

The text provides a detailed history of the philological questions that have arisen surrounding the section by the Anonymous writer. It presents the opinions of M. Brosset, T. Mihrdatyan, H. Gatryan, M. Emin, K. Patkanyan, V. Langlois, H. Hübschmann, A. Gutschmid, M. Garagashyan, G. Zarbhanalyan, the A. Baumgartners, Jester, Norayr Byuzandatsi, A. Ter-Mikelyan, N. Marr, Gr. Khalatyan, N. Adontz, Gh. Alishan, H. Topchyan, S. Matikyan, N. Akinyan, and the author's own views. This is an essential reference that remains valuable today and can provide proper service to those interested in the Anonymous writer.

In the publication, there are some instances where the manuscript and printed texts are not presented correctly. For example, manuscript No. 2639 has the words "lightness"14, "from above until"15, "He went and himself with weapons"16, "all"17, "to him"18, and other words and phrases that are missing from Malkhasyants’s edition. A number of important variant readings are also not noted ("the small giants," "mother-city," "Khosrov," "and nourished," "Tigha," "Dklat," "of the red ones," etc.).

Sometimes, variant readings are incorrectly attributed to previous editions when they do not actually exist: "in this" (p. 26), "from the face" (p. 27), "in the sides" (p. 33), "in one" (p. 30), etc. It often appears that previous editions or manuscripts do not have a certain word, yet in reality, they are present. For example, on page 109, we read: "T.T. (= printed editions — G. A.) missing: as they arrived." But Mihrdatyan has the emphasized words. On page 111, it is mentioned that the word "house" is missing from the printed editions, whereas Patkanyan's edition has this word, and conversely, the oldest manuscript does not. Similar examples can be found especially in the Anonymous section (pages 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, etc.).

Among the nearly 200 typographical errors, there are some that leave the impression of scribal variants and can confuse specialists. For instance, on page 63, the name of the village of Khekewand located in the Komshnahang district is printed. In the footnote regarding this, it is stated that in the oldest manuscript of "History of Sebeos," this name is written as "Khekesane." This is an important variant that specialists cannot ignore. The question arises: which of the two names (Khekewand, Khekesane) is more accurate? We turn to the oldest manuscript, and it turns out that the variant noted in the footnote of Malkhasyants's edition does not exist there. In the manuscript, instead of "Khekewand," it is simply written "Khikewand," and Malkhasyants had noted only this minor difference in the footnote on page 63. However, the printers mistakenly turned "Khikewand" into "Khekesane."

¹⁴ Malkh., p. 15, line 3.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. 27, line 15.
¹⁶ Ibid., p. 44, line 6.
¹⁷ Ibid., p. 49, line 27.
¹⁸ Ibid., p. 50, line 12.