The Georgian Chronicle
occupies an unusual position among Armenian historical sources.
Unlike the majority of Armenian literary sources, this work was
not originally composed in Armenian. The original was written
in Georgian in separate sections by several individuals between
the 6-13th centuries. Sometime in the late 12th or early
13th centuries, an unknown cleric translated or abridged the then
extant Chronicle into classical Armenian. It is this medieval
Armenian rendering which is translated here. The Chronicle
describes the history of Iberia/Georgia, Armenia's northern neighbor,
from legendary times to the 12th century, and is a rich source
of unique information on such topics as Caucasian ethnography,
Armeno-Georgian relations, the history of Iran, the history
of the Jewish community of Georgia and its role in the Christianization
of the country; the birth of Islam,and the coming of the Saljuqs.
Considerable controversy surrounds this
work. Since the Georgian original which the medieval Armenian
writer used has not survived, the very nature of the work is in
question. Was the Armenian a translation, an abrldgement, or a
version of the Georgian? Based on currently available Georgian
sources, this question cannot be resolved. This is because until
relatively recently, the only complete Georgian text was an early
18th century revision (work of a commission appointed by king
Vaxtang VI) which, regrettably, expanded some passages and removed
and/or rearranged other passages. Thls 18th century text also
incorporated additional documents from the 13-14th centuries.
Fortunately, the individual books of the Chronicle (pre-Vaxtang
revision) survived as separate works. However, as a result of
the zeal of Georgian editors, no full, unadulterated Georgian
text of the Chronicle predates the Armenian version. For
this reason alone the Armenian version is valuable.
All elght extant Armenian manuscripts
derive from a single exemplar made between 1279 and 1311 and housed
at the Matenadaran in Erevan, Armenia. M.F. Brosset published
a French translation of it in Additions et eclaircissements
a l'Histoire de la Georgie
(St. Petersburg,1851). The classical Armenian text, translated
in the present volume, was published by At'. T'iroyan as Hamarhot
patmut'iwn vrats' (Concise/Abridged History
of the Georgians) in Venice in 1884. T'iroyan
hlmself added the title, based on a colophon appearing in the
Chronicle. All surviving copies are defective, terminating
abruptly in mid-sentence. There is considerable variation
in the spelling of names of people and places and occasional anachronlsms,
such as references to "Baghdad", and the "Turks"
and "hejub". To date the most detailed study of the
Chronicle is Ilia Abuladze's comparatlve analysis of the
Armenian text and the corresponding Georgian passages (Tbilisi,1953,
in Georgian). Yustin Abuladze (1901) concluded that the Armenlan
was a translation of the Georgian, and that since the Armenian
is much shorter, the orlginal Georgian must have been shorter.
I. Javaxishvili, on the other hand, thought the Armenian was an
abrldgement. S. Kakabadze considered it a variant or version of
the Georgian. Father Nerses Akinian suggested that the translator/adaptor
may have been an Armenian diophysite, perhaps Simeon Pghndzahanets'i.
Apparently the Armenian chroniclers Mxit'ar of Ani (12th century)
and Mxit'ar Ayrivanets'i (13th century) used the Chronicle
in its Armenian edition, while the historian Step'annos Orbelean
(d.1304) referenced the Chronicle in Georgian.
Unlike the Georgian original, which
was a collectlon of individual books written by different authors
having different styles, the Armenian version is one man's work.
The style is straightorward and more chronographical than literary.
Occasionally, Armenian equivalents for Georgian words are provided
parenthetically, and it seems that the translator/adaptor had
Armenian sources such as Agat'angeghos and Movses Xorenats'i by
his side and drew upon them for additional details.
The present translation follows C. Toumanoff's proposed chronologies for the regnal years of kings and other orficials, and also his distinction between Iberia (or East Georgia) prior to 1008 and Georgia (the union of East and West Georgia) thereafter. For further information on Iberia/Georgia see C. Toumanoff's Studles in Christian Caucasian History (Georgetown, 1963), W.E.B. Allen's History of the Georgian People (New York, 1971, reprint of the 1932 edition), and D.M. Lang's Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints (Crestwood, N.Y., 1976). The transliteration employed is a modification of the Library of Congress system.
Robert Bedrosian
New York, 1991
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