History of Aristakes Lastivertts'i

The first printing was prepared in a manner typical of the Mekhitarists: variants are not presented in their entirety, but selectively. The publishers do not indicate which manuscript a given reading comes from, but are satisfied with vague references: "one copy," "two copies," "other copies," "three also have it this way," etc. A description of the manuscripts is entirely absent. It is clear that such a publication cannot be considered critical by modern standards. Nevertheless, the first publication, on the whole, represented Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi's text correctly and, for its time, must be viewed as a successful work.

In the "Report" of the editio princeps, we read:

"The style of the author is highly Armenized; however, there are some inversions in it due to poor syntax, though this is likely to have happened in many parts due to the ignorance of the copyists."

Certain irregularities that appear even during internal examination have been removed in the present edition. However, it must be said that lapses in language cannot be attributed entirely to the scribes; even such a magnificent stylist as our author often departed from classical Grabar Classical Armenian.

The present edition presents a comparative text of Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi's History, compiled based on 10 manuscript copies, as well as the study of the Venetian printing and its variants.

The following manuscripts have been used:

A — Matenadaran named after Mashtots, Collection of Armenian Manuscripts, No. 2865 (Gevorkian series, No. 249), 312 folios, size 33.5 x 25, material: paper, binding: leather-covered wood boards with embossing, has parchment uncial protective flyleaves, written in two columns, 28—30 lines, bolorgir rounded book hand, by different scribes. It contains the History of Movses Khorenatsi (1a—132a), the History of Asoghik (137a—212a), and the History of Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi (212b—312b). For the description of the manuscript, see History of the Armenians by Movses Khorenatsi, edited by M. Abeghyan and S. Harutyunyan, Tiflis, 1913, pp. XIX—XXI.