The Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Explores how mass migration and a refugee crisis transformed Armenian culture in the 17th-century Ottoman EmpireProvides the first English book on Armenian cultural history in the early modern Ottoman EmpireUtilises original research on Armenian manuscripts and Ottoman Turkish archivesResonates with contemporary concerns about climate change, migration and refugeesIncludes 20 black and white photographs of Armenian ruins, documents and historical sitesThe Rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire traces how Armenian migrants changed the demographic and cultural landscape of Istanbul and Western Anatolia in the course of the 17th century. During the centuries that followed, Ottoman Armenian merchants, financiers (sarraf), authors, musicians, translators, printers and bureaucrats would play key roles in Ottoman trade, art and even governance that is, in most spheres of the empire's economic and cultural life. This book shows how that cosmopolitan world came into being. Using both Ottoman Turkish and little-known Armenian sources, Henry Shapiro provides the first systematic study of Armenian population movements that resulted in the cosmopolitan remaking of Istanbul. Part I documents the Great Armenian Flight, showing how the global crisis of the 17th century (war, climate change, famine) impacted the historical Armenian population centres of the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia and led to mass migrations and resettlement in Western Anatolia, Istanbul and Thrace. In Part II, Shapiro links this history of migration and the refugee crisis with the development of intellectual and cultural life in Istanbul and Western Anatolia: the rise of the Western Armenian Diaspora.