History of Aristakes Lastivertts'i

also another label: Cod. Armen. Dom. Cultur. Armen. (Lazar. Inst.) 38.
On the unnumbered leaf preceding the first leaf, it is also recorded:
"No. 15. From the books of the library of the two brothers Avetik and Hambardzum Enfiadjian." Leaves: 150, dimensions: 21.6 x 16, material: paper, binding: leather-covered cardboard, script: single-column, 16, 18, 24 lines, shghagir slanted cursive script. Contains only Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi’s History. On the title page is written: "Conceived from an old manuscript written in the Armenian year 1214, this history was copied for the use of himself by Hovhannes Harutyunyan Yerznkants; the old manuscript was found in the cave of Zarner, a storage place for monastery goods in 1827, in Haghpat. 1840. In the monastery of the Holy Sign." Thus, the codex was transcribed in 1840 by Hovhannes Yerznkants from a copy from the year 1214.

The text of the History has no chapter numbers; the heading for Chapter XI is missing. We mark the few corrections made with the lowercase i.

L — Institute of Oriental Peoples of the USSR Academy of Sciences, collection of Armenian manuscripts, B-66 (Brosset collection), kept in Leningrad. Leaves: 83, dimensions: 19.9 x 16.2, material: paper, binding: gray cardboard, script: single-column, 20 lines, shghagir slanted cursive script. Contains only Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi’s work. On the spine of the manuscript in the hand of Brosset: Aristacès Lastihvard. On the cover, in the same hand of Brosset: Histoire d'Arménie par Aristacès de Lasthivard copiée sur le manuscrit de Mr. Carapiet par Joan Nazarof, 1843. Below, in Georgian mkhedruli military script is Brosset’s signature: Brosset.

Thus, the manuscript was transcribed in 1843. As F. Macler notes, Hovhannes Nazarov was a priest of the Armenian church of Petersburg,¹ and belonged to the group of scribes who, on the instruction of Brosset, copied Armenian and Georgian manuscripts.²

We see that the described manuscripts (as well as the published text) have insignificant editorial differences. The circumstance that the majority of codices do not have the heading for Chapter XI can be explained only by the fact that this heading was missing in the master manuscript of this group. Chapters X and XI differ in composition from each other; besides, it would be unbelievable that Aristakes Lastiverttsʻi, who divided the entire work into very small chapters, would have tolerated one huge chapter in that case. As for the division of the first chapter (manuscripts GH, printing), it is clearly seen here as an arbitrary approach. First of all, all the headings of the work have "Events throughout the land of Armenia," which should be viewed as the heading for Chapter I. Some of the scribes, as well as the Mkhitarist publishers, were confused by the fact that Chapter I is sharply divided in its structure into two parts. The author first gives in a condensed form a general characterization of his time, then, interrupting that part, writes: "And these are

¹ F. Macler, Catalogue des manuscrits arméniens et géorgiens, p. 120, No. 220.
² R. R. Orbeli, Georgian manuscripts of the Institute of Oriental Studies, issue I. M.—L., 1956, p. 5.