Universal History

St. Petersburg MS. No. B-129) and a manuscript from Venice. He also took into account the three Armenian supplements to M. Emin's Russian translation of Asoghik's book; these are the end of the fourth chapter of the second volume, and the fifth and sixth chapters of the same book, which M. Emin also translated into Russian (pp. 329–335).

However, Malkhasyants did not have at hand not only other complete manuscripts but also the original foundation and the oldest (13th c.) copy of Asoghik's book. It is now kept in the Mashtots Matenadaran (No. 2865), which according to our comparison is MS. A.

At the request of St. Malkhasyants, Archimandrite vardapet doctor of theology/teacher Kyuregh Srapyan transcribed and sent to him from another manuscript the D, E, and Z (4th, 5th, and 6th) chapters of the second volume that were missing in the first edition.

What principles did St. Malkhasyants follow when compiling the new text?

In the first place, he sought to restore the missing parts of the first edition of Asoghik's book. If there were variant readings, he took into account the period of the "History's" composition when making choices, as well as the general characteristics of the author's language and style; in some cases, he made additions himself. And since the base manuscript he compared is a 17th-century (1668) transcription, which contains various and repetitive scribal interventions, Malkhasyants in his compiled text gave priority not to the oldest and original readings, but, as he himself says, to the repetitive and more recent forms.

When compiling the first and second volumes and the beginning of the third volume, he also took into account the writings of previous historians that Asoghik had copied. And since there are different readings in the writings of different historians, Malkhasyants left various readings of the same name and the same place, especially orthographic variations, on various pages of his compiled text. While compiling the text of the third volume, which he wrote himself, he used the readings of the first printing as a basis, and in some places, he made additions himself, enclosing them in square brackets. St. Malkhasyants presented the variant readings of his compiled text in footnotes, and provided comprehensive annotations for separate corrupted or difficult-to-understand sections, personal names, ethnic names, place names, dates, and translations in 148 noteworthy footnotes. He compiled chronological lists concerning Armenians, neighbors, and even distant peoples and kingdoms, and presented the list of Armenian Catholicoi from 303 to 1004 according to Khorenatsi and Asoghik. These notes compiled by Malkhasyants are extremely valuable.

It can be said without hesitation that Malkhasyants performed a large-scale work characteristic of classical philology. The oversights and shortcomings are mainly the result of not including the 13th-century base manuscript and other manuscripts when compiling the text.

THE LANGUAGE, STYLE, AND VOCABULARY OF STEPANOS ASOGHIK'S WORK

The 9th–10th centuries are unique in the life of the Armenian people. This is the period of the founding (885) and progress of the Bagratuni kingdom. With the establishment of independent statehood, Armenian culture, including historiography, also experiences great activity.