In the Greek, Latin, and Armenian traditions, there are dispersed references to a chronicle by Epiphanius of Salamis (fourth century). This is certainly a sixth-century work that probably was created in the late sixth-century controversy about the date of Christmas. It defended, like Annianus, a start of the Christian era in AM 5500.

Andreas composed an Easter table and 200-year list of Easter dates that started in 352. It was based on the work of Anatolius of Laodicea and Hippolytus. To this a chronography was added, which is attested in Syriac but mostly in Armenian. Indeed, at the end of the sixth century, the work of Andreas travelled to Armenia, where it became the basis for the Armenian calendar. Andreas is the first known author to combine computus and chronography. He is also the earliest author to defend 6 January as the date for Christmas, and he is unique in proposing AM 5600 as the start of the Christian era.

The chronography of Heron dates from the sixth century (before AD 555) and defended an adapted version of the chronology and computus of Annianus. In the debate about Christmas of the 560s, it supported Justinian’s position in favour of 25 December. Armenian sources offer most information on this work, although their information is very unreliable. Heron may have been responsible for recirculating Annianus and thus for the latter’s enduring popularity.

By the late fifth century, Armenian writers had developed a local historiography including the idea of righteous kingship linked to and assisted by the new institution of the Christian episcopacy.This essay considers the Letter of Macarius and the royal establishment of Christianity from the perspective of several early Armenian historians.

The Apamea peace conference after Magnesia included Roman demands for Hannibal’s extradition; he forestalled this by going on his travels again. These are poorly documented. A Cretan visit is probably historical but hard to explain. It was unconnected with attested contemporary Roman official visits. A Polybius fragment may allude to a financial ploy by which he kept his savings intact. He moved to Armenia, where inscriptions attest familiarity with Greek poetry; his stay is attested mainly by Plutarch’s Lucullus. He helped King Artaxias to found Artaxata, but moved on again, for reasons unknown. His next choice, King Prusias’ Bithynia, is puzzling (closer to Italy), but Prusias was at war with Rome’s friend Eumenes of Pergamum. Hannibal won a sea battle for Prusias, but weird details are suspect. Here too he helped a king found a city: Prusa. But Prusias succumbed to Roman vindictiveness and Hannibal took poison. His tomb site is unknown.

This chapter documents the constellation of films and literary works extending outward from the Eastern international in the late- and post-Soviet years when socialist internationalism pivoted from an east–west to a north–south axis and then dissipated (1960s–1990s). It affirms the enduring coherence of the Persianate literary space, now bound together by Soviet models of literary representation. The chapter samples the occasional poetry produced by Eastern literary representatives involved in Soviet–Third-World cultural diplomacy at Cold War literary congresses, especially through the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association. However, it also shows how artists gripped by classical Persianate forms continued to find and respond to each other after Soviet-backed literary institutions lost international legitimacy. The chapter discusses several Persian and Uzbek texts from the Soviet–Afghan War, including a leading Afghan communist literary bureaucrat’s mystical love poem to an Islamist insurgent, written continuously from 1980–2020. Its other central case study is the impact of the Soviet Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov’s film The Color of Pomegranates as a model for Persianate poetics on film, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran, including in the art films of Muhsin Makhmalbaf. The chapter tempers the elegiac impulse of the post-Persianate left with an affirmation of the tradition’s continued vitality.

The conclusion reviews the arguments developed throughout the book. This summary is framed by a consideration of the changing meanings of the poetic figures of the rose and nightingale in the Persianate twentieth century. Accordingly, each chapter is elucidated through a reading of that chapter’s classical Persian or Turkic epigraph.

Armenia is a country of approximately 3 million people . In the spring of 2018, peaceful street protests led to the ouster of the country’s long-time leader when he tried to extend it rule, dubbed the Velvet Revolution. since the 2009 recession the economy has been a different story with low economic growth, stagnated poverty reduction and increasing economic disparities. Before 2009 the average growth per capita was 12.3%, and after the recession growth was 3.2%. During Soviet times, public universities were under ideological and administrative control of the state, although Armenian higher education has centuries-old roots.Armenian higher education consists of 61 universities, 24 of which are public, including 16 universities, 12 foundations and 4 state noncommercial organizations. Public universities operate under a variety of laws, including the 1999 Law on Education, the 2004 Law on Higher Education and Post Graduate Education, the Law on State Non-Commercial Organizations 2002-2003 (SNCO), and the Law on Foundations (2002), which applies to some universities. Different laws pertain to different public universities depending on their classification.

This chapter tells the story of the how the Ottoman Empire and the Allies negotiated the blurred line between war and peace that existed from the signing of Sèvres to the Lausanne peace conference.

Chapter 2 focuses on the Armenian Relief Fund and the Armenian Australasian Orphanage in Antilyas, in modern-day Lebanon. Children are rarely identified as the agents of change in international diplomacy, but during the immediate post-war period, the plight of the children was viewed as vital to the Armenian Relief Fund, created in 1915. This organisation defined Australian internationalism and humanitarianism during the interwar years. The Australasian Orphanage was established in 1923 and supported by the Near East Relief Fund in collaboration with American humanitarians. The Orphanage was a direct way to promote saving the refugees, and the campaign attracted significant support in Australia. The leading figures of this campaign – humanitarian activists Loyal Lincoln Wirt, Mary Serle, Reverend James Creswell, Edith Glanville and Ernest and Mary Bryce – energetically promoted the cause of those affected by the Armenian genocide, and the Orphanage became the focus of their efforts. This campaign is significant too because on many occasions efforts were made to transport Armenian orphans to Australia to save them, challenging the rigidity of the White Australia policy. Importantly, Mary and Ernest Bryce were the only activists who connected both the Armenian and Indigenous causes, identifying the destruction of Indigenous Australians as a genocide in the same way the destruction of the Armenian communities was described. In the Australian context, this campaign, it is argued, also marked a new break from British ties to a collaboration with American humanitarians.

The Sultanate drew upon concepts of martial skill, valor and aggression attributed to the Mongol Imperium and its unprecedented conquests. While idealizing these traits, Mamluk Sultans exploited them to thwart Mongol expansion into their territories. They welcomed renegades from Mongol armies (Wafidiyya) to mimic their prowess while limiting their aggression. Mamluk cadets were imported initially from the Qipjaq Steppe in Central Asia, subsequently from Circassia in the Caucasus, with numerous other regions represented. They were instructed in Arabic, Turkish and Islam prior to being trained in arms. The Mamluk military hierarchy consisted of elite Mamluks imported as cadets in the Sultan’s service, Mamluks of senior officers, soldiers of former rulers restive over their loss of status, and descendants of 1st-generation Mamluks who served as infantry and assimilated into Arabic civil society (awlad al-nas). Advancement through the military hierarchy was marked by endemic factional rivalry in which conspiracy was expected not repudiated. Whether conspiracy enhanced the Sultanate’s military prowess or destabilized its governance remains a debated issue.