>> Khatchig Mouradian: Hello, my
name is Khatchig Mouradian
and I'm the Armenian
and Georgian specialist
at the
Library of Congress.
This recording features a talk
by Dr. Christopher Sheklian.
The talk is titled, "Calendars
and Communities: Our Mean and
Temporal Texts in the Library
of Congress Collection."
The talk is based on Dr.
Sheklian's work
as a Lily scholar at
the Library of Congress's
African Middle Eastern Division
in June 2024.
Dr. Sheklian is assistant
professor in the Department of
Philosophy and Religion at
Mississippi State University.
He received his PhD in
anthropology from University of
Chicago in 2017 with his
dissertation, "Theology and the
Community: The Armenian Minority
Tradition and Secularism in
Turkey." Previously, he has been
a postdoctoral researcher at the
Radboud University in the
Netherlands, part of the
"Rewriting Global Orthodoxy"
project.
The Director of the Krikor and
 Clara Zohrab Information
Center at the Eastern Diocese
of the Armenian Church of
America. A Manoogian 
postdoctoral fellow
in Armenian Studies at the
University of Michigan, an
adjunct professor at Saint
Nersess Armenian Seminary, and
a visiting assistant professor
at Wesleyan University.
He has published work on
liturgy and law in the lives of
religious minorities.
Currently, he is working on a
monograph entitled
"Liturgical Rites Armenian 
Minority Presence in Turkey."
Dr. Sheklian
>> Christopher Sheklian:
Thank you, Khatchig.
Hi, my name is
Christopher Sheklian and I
received my PhD in Cultural
Anthropology from the University
of Chicago. And I'll soon be
starting a position as an
assistant professor in the
Department of Philosophy of
Religion at Mississippi State
University.
I specialize in the
anthropology of religion,
focusing on religious minority
traditions and questions of law
and community, working largely
with Armenian Christianity.
Over the past couple of weeks
as a Lily Scholar in residence,
I've had the chance to explore
material in the Armenian
collection of the Library of
Congress related to an important
way that communities are
established and shaped.
The very organization of time.
Dozens of books and manuscripts
in the Armenian collection like
this liturgical calendar from
Yerevan for the year 1884 that
you see here, help determine
what events Armenians celebrate
and when. In other words, these
books, calendars, but also
liturgical service books,
almanacs, yearbooks give texture
to set the rhythm of, and
essentially shape the very way
that people experience time.
By doing so, what I'll call
temporality shaping genres of
books or temporal texts help to
secure a unique way that a
community like the Armenians
experience the world, which in
turn both solidifies their
internal cohesion and also marks
them as different from other
people.
After all, as anthropologists
like Benjamin Lee Whorf
suggested decades ago, a
different sense of time leads to
an entirely different
experience of the world.
The connection between
calendars and communities is an
old one. Sasha Stern, writing
about calendars in antiquity,
notes that the history and
development of ancient calendars
reflected the political and
administrative structures of the
empires, kingdoms, and cities
that used and sustained them.
That's a quote. Stern suggests
that the calendar is not only a
utilitarian device for the
organization of social life, but
that the calendar contributes
to a certain perception of
reality and hence to socially
shared worldviews.
Again, end quote.
So for communities, especially
as we will see for religious
communities, these temporality
shaping genres really are
essential for the shaping of
the communities themselves.
So let's dig into some of these
temporality shaping books and
the Armenian collection of the
Library of Congress to see how
they help form the very
contours of an Armenian
community. In the Armenian
case, many of the oldest
examples of temporality shaping
texts are connected to the
liturgical life of the Armenian
Apostolic Church and the church
services that are conducted
daily.
These liturgical books tell us
what should be celebrated when
they also, as in the case of
this leaf from a 17th century
manuscript Synaxarion, the
Armenian Haysom of work tell us
who to celebrate.
The work provides daily
readings on the lives of the
saints and other feasts
suffusing time with important
events and people for the
Armenian Christian faithful.
Saints, as examples of good
Christian living
tell us quite a bit about a
community's values and way of
life. To commemorate a saint is
also, in effect, to proclaim
what is important to a
Christian community, what is
worth emulating, and what is
considered a virtuous life.
So liturgical texts like the
[inaudible] arching through the
calendar year also announce
what and whom is important and
should be commemorated on any
given day.
The importance of calendars and
other temporality shaping texts
is underscored by the fact that
the second book ever printed in
Armenian, called the 
"Parzatumar"
was a liturgical calendar
Hakob Meghapart, 
the enigmatic figure
who printed the first books,
Armenian books in Venice,
published this liturgical
calendar in 1513.
So here in the Library of
Congress collection, we see the
centrality of temporality
shaping texts spanning the
manuscript tradition and into
the earliest era of printing.
In the history of Armenian
printing, few places have been
as important as the Mechitarist
Catholic monastery on the island
of San Lazzaro [inaudible]
 in the Venetian Lagoon.
An Armenian Catholic monastic
movement emerged in the early
18th century, founded by Abbot
Mekhitar of Sebastea, today's
Sivas. From their monastic
center in Venice, they produced
the first printed edition of
many important Armenian texts.
They also printed the lives of
saints
and liturgical calendars
that marked time.
Now, it was this Catholic
influence over saint
commemoration and liturgical
time that particularly worried
the influential Catholicos, the
head of the Armenian Church,
Simeon Yerevantsi
in the 18th century, as the
work of historian Sabu Aslanian
has explored in detail, in part
in order to counter this
Catholic influence, he set up a
printing press in Etchmiadzin.
One of the first things he
printed was his [inaudible], a
revised and edited version of
the Master Calendar of the
Armenian Apostolic Church.
His version excised Catholic
saints, asserting that proper
liturgical time and the
veneration of the correct saints
were crucial to the vitality of
Armenian, in this case Armenian
Apostolic Christian community.
After all, in the Armenian
Apostolic Church, the inclusion
in the liturgical calendars
like the [inaudible] and the
[inaudible] we will see
effectively adjudicates 
sainthood. And saints
are not only about
historical memory, but about the
values and morals of the
community.
Indeed, from a certain
theological view, we can say
that saints are actually a part
of the community.
So we can understand Yerevan's
concern to print a calendar that
only included what he
considered to be truly Armenian
saints. Yerevan's [inaudible]
and the ability to print
liturgical calendars changed
the relationship between
calendars, texts, and community
boundaries.
Shortly after this master
calendar was published,
individual sees centers of the
church hierarchy begin printing
yearly [inaudible], which
are essentially the [inaudible]
calculated out for any given
year.
We see here an example from the
Library of Congress collection,
which is digitized and
accessible as part of the
Armenian Rarities Collection of
 [inaudible]
from Theodosia that is
today's Theodosia, also known
as Caffa
in the Crimea. Caffa hosted a
sizable and important Armenian
community for centuries, and
the publication of their own
liturgical calendar in the late
19th century speaks of the
status of the community.
These, as you can see in this
other example, very small
printed books remain ubiquitous
in Armenian churches around the
world. They give all the
liturgical details necessary to
conduct the church services for
any day, including the musical
modes, scripture readings, and
any commemoration of saints or
other feasts.
These little books then give
texture and meaning to the very
fabric of time, letting people
know how to sing, what to
contemplate, whether they
should be feasting or fasting.
Now, while calendars are the
most obvious genre that shape
time and temporality literally
ordering time, we've already
seen other genres of books that
connect temporality to central
concerns and needs of
communities.
One of the most important and
influential genres of books to
be concerned with time is the
Almanac.
According to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, a book or table
containing a calendar of the
days, weeks, and months of the
year, a record of various
astronomical phenomena, along
often with climate information
and seasonal suggestions for
farmers, and miscellaneous
other data.
In the 17 and 1800s, the
popular almanac was developing
into a genuine form of folk
literature, containing, in
addition to calendars and
weather predictions, interesting
statistics and facts, moral
precepts and proverbs, medical
advice and remedies, jokes and
even verse and fiction.
Now, in the American context,
perhaps the most famous almanac
might be "Poor Richard's
Almanac," published by
Benjamin Franklin. And we see 
here a page from the Library of
Congress's copy.
Or perhaps also we could mention
the Old Farmer's Almanac with
its information on topics like
when to plant certain crops.
Armenians also took up the
almanac genre.
A recent acquisition by the
Library of Congress, the
[Inaudible] 
whether or maybe
Byzantine seasons by the
Catholic Mechitarist 
monk [inaudible]
is one of the very
first books that fit the almanac
genre in Armenian.
While some of the later
Armenian almanacs we will see
issue some of the weather and
agricultural data common to the
genre. The Mekhitarist, Monk
and Zhijian produced a richly
illustrated almanac that
includes exactly this kind of
weather and agricultural
information.
So, for instance, in the list
that we see here on August 13th
in Zhijian writes that these
are the days when the meltdown,
which is one of the named winds
of the Aegean Sea, increases.
So he's talking about the winds
and the weather here.
Now one of the oldest and
continuously produced, so now
it's mostly as a bimonthly
magazine. Annuals in the
Armenian world is the [inaudible]
Holy Savior's Armenian
Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey,
one of the most important
Armenian foundations and
institutions both in the Ottoman
era and today. It's annual
in this example from 1900 it
was first published in 1883,
begins with a liturgical
calendar.
Basically the [inaudible] which
you see on the right then
continues with a list of the
days of the year, with important
events from history or the life
of the community that happened
on each day. So here on the
left, we can see, for instance,
on August 18th, that it writes
the foundation of the new
building of the [inaudible]
National Hospital
was laid in solemn fashion.
And we're going to see this
format of lists of days and the
events that happen on those
days in other annuals.
In addition to scientific and
historical events [inaudible]
provides what are essentially
annual reports detailing the
activities and financial status
of important Armenian
foundations vakifs throughout
the Ottoman Empire, of which the
[inaudible] Hospital was one.
These reports, keeping the
public appraised of the
administration of these
institutions, also forms a kind
of temporality. They give
rhythm to community life.
We can think today of annual
financial events like Tax Day,
or regularly scheduled board
meetings that demonstrate the
connection between the rhythm
of experience time and the idea
of the overall health of the
community.
Remarkably, in the 1900 edition
of the [inaudible] the
central importance of calendars
and time for the community is
recognized through a long
section that they write on time
and the calendar, which you see
here.
It begins with a section on the
divisions of time,
then it describes different
calendars, including the
Armenian calendar and the
Armenian liturgical year.
It includes a final section
from calendar to calendar,
explaining how to convert
between different calendars and
offering examples, almost like
a math textbook.
In a striking visual
representation of this
coordination of the calendars
used by different groups.
The section ends with a set of
tables that shows all the days
of the year divided by month
for both the Julian and
Gregorian calendar, which you
see here, as well as the Arabic
calendars. By focusing on the
question of different calendars,
especially those used in the
Ottoman Empire.
The [inaudible]
demonstrates that the divisions
and organization of time not
only helps a community in here
internally. It also shows that
temporality creates divisions
between communities that then
must be bridged when these
communities interact and
encounter each other.
In the late Ottoman Empire in
the 19th and early 20th
centuries, these concerns over
temporality, calendars, and
community were not limited to
the Armenians.
Even the title of the first
entirely Ottoman Turkish
newspaper, the Official Gazette
of the Ottoman Empire,
[inaudible] means calendar of
events or calendar of affairs.
This is what you see on the
right. In this case, the
organization of the community.
In this case, the community is
the entire empire is
accomplished through the
presentation of events and
activities and the organization
of time. First published in
1831,
later issues would also be
printed in the different
languages spoken throughout the
Empire, including Armenian.
Newspapers, Benedict Anderson
has famously argued, hoped to
create a sense of nationhood
precisely by encouraging the
sensation that all members of
the nation were moving together
through homogenous empty time.
This phrase, coined by the
brilliant cultural critic
Walter Benjamin and it's used by
Anderson, has been the subject
of innumerable essays.
Here I bring it up because this
nice little phrase connects the
changes in the ideas of
community in the late Ottoman
Empire to changes of time, and
to the textual genres that shape
times. Community shaping, as
we've seen then, goes hand in
hand with temporality shaping.
With these examples from the
late Ottoman era,
we also see a linguistic
element to community formation
emerge. The other text that you
see on the left is an example of
a fascinating phenomenon known
as armeno-turkish [inaudible]
or Turkish, written
using the Armenian alphabet.
And there's a number of
contemporary scholars working on
these texts that use this
armeno-turkish.
The Armenian collection at the
Library of Congress holds a
significant number of
Armeno-turkish texts.
Many of these texts, like this
one the Chronicle of the
religion of the church of the
Messiah that is, of Jesus
[inaudible] were 
published by the
various missionary groups trying
to reach Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire, and sometimes
these Armenians only spoke
Turkish.
In this expansive book telling
the story of the life of Christ,
the Gospels, and subsequent
Christian Church history.
We see another Christian group
use the organization of time and
history as part of its attempt
to form a group, in this case an
established but still growing
community of Armenian Protestant
Christians. Towards the end of
the book, we see this list of
events by year.
Note that the chronology begins
in the year 33 with the death
and resurrection of Christ.
In other words, time is
indelibly shaped by the central
event of Christianity.
On the following page, we note
the kinds of events that this
newer Protestant community
wants to highlight.
We see on the first one on the
top, the first assembly of the
Episcopal Church in America,
1775, or the foundation of the
American Board, an important
Protestant missionary
organization in 1810.
In this atmosphere of contest
over community boundaries and
definition in the late Ottoman
Empire, these temporality
shaping texts were both popular
and consequential. Among
Armenians, the most famous of
all of these was everyone's
Almanac [inaudible]
published by Theodorus Zhijian,
better known as Teotig.
Published between 1907 and
1929, initially in
Constantinople, Istanbul,
it includes
a broad range of
material.
Teotig's format for his Almanack
proved incredibly influential.
In addition to reports on
events that have happened
throughout the previous year,
his Everyone's Almanac included
articles on arts and culture
and occasionally published new
works of poetry and fiction.
As the quote that we see here
from a friend of the almanac
writing for the journal
Armenia, published in New York
at the time, makes clear
Teotig's Almanac became the
example that many other annuals
that we're going to see
followed. Theatre Almanac
remains an invaluable historical
and literary source, sometimes
giving information about
nearly unknown figures, works
and events.
This, for instance, is how
Vazken Davidian has recently
used Teotig as a source for the
life of the late Ottoman
Armenian painter Simon
Hagopian.
So even before the Armenian
Genocide in 1915, Armenians
around the world and dispersion
were producing their own
calendars and other temporality
shaping texts.
Here in the middle, we see a
couple of examples 
of the [inaudible]
from Crimea and from other
parts of the Armenian world.
Likewise, the almanac and the
annual genre found a home in
diaspora as a way of giving
information and keeping Armenian
communities bound together in
dispersion.
Sometimes these books use the
specific word almanac,
though there is an overlap in
the form and content of almanacs
and other annuals, such as The
[inaudible], a yearbook.
Or we could translate simply as
annual.
These almanacs, like the
American Armenian Almanac from
1912, that you see the cover on
the left, or the 1926 French
Armenian Yearbook that you see
on the right, shifted their
mission after the genocide and
adapted to the new circumstances
of life in America, Europe, and
a post-ottoman Middle East.
In their form and the wide
ranging cultural and artistic
articles they publish, we see
the clear influence of Teotig.
At the same time, they also
harken back to the priggish
annual, especially those that
list events for each day of the
year. These diasporic almanacs
attest to the changes both in
the composition and the
self-understanding of diasporic
settlements. The Armenian word
kahoot is often used in these
texts over time, and these
needs shifted with the
monumental catastrophe of the
genocide.
We see these changes reflected
also in the feast celebrated the
lists of holidays and the
events put in these daily lists.
The organization of time again
organizes communities now in the
situation of diaspora, which
requires a constant negotiation
with the country where these
migrants [inaudible] live.
The introduction to the first
American Armenian Almanac from
1912, written by a bishop
[inaudible] who was living
in the United States at the
time, announces its multiple
goals and the tour de force of
different material that's found
within its pages.
It connects the Armenian living
in America to the Armenian
nation as a whole, while
keeping helping them to get to
know the country where they
live better.
A survey of the Armenian
communities in America, from
Boston to Fresno comprises a
large portion of the annual.
Notably, there are important
short articles, for instance, on
the laws of marriage and the
Armenian family in America and
American citizenship that
details the naturalization
process. At the beginning of
the book,
as with the [inaudible] Annual a
short list of Armenian and
American holidays and historic
anniversaries follows a calendar
that just gives the dates of
each month, and these are the
two pages that you see here.
It's interesting to note that
here, these two sets of holidays
and observances are integrated
together, such that
Abraham Lincoln's 
birthday appears
right before the commemoration
of the Armenian [inaudible]
the priest, and the very
important Vartanants saints.
Thus, the text brings together
the ideals of what it means to
be an Armenian in America in
the early 20th century, which
includes both knowledge of
holidays and history, that is,
time, and the political and
legal landscape of a new country
to live in the new country is
also to become accustomed to its
rhythms and its way of life.
Similar in form,
the French Armenian Annual,
published in 1926 and 1927,
bound together in the copy at
the Library of Congress, sits
clearly on the other side of
the devastation that was the
genocide. The introduction
obliquely connects the need for
an annual with the post
genocide reality of the
permanent prospect of a large
population of Armenians in
France. Beginning events have
thus brought it about that
France has become the most
important Armenian community in
Europe. As with other almanacs
and annuals, a large portion of
the book is given to
contemporary and recent events.
The editor announces, we will
combine pure documentary
contemporary topics with the
broad strokes of the general
Armenian condition, the year's
innovations and events, the
beneficial with the artistic
and the educational, alongside
the amusing and recreational.
In addition to these
contemporary reports of what is
happening among French
Armenians at the time, much of
the book is given over to the
earlier history of an Armenian
presence in France, that is,
the annual grounds, the
contemporary journalistic
accounting of Armenians living
in France now, through the
historical traces of Armenians
who had passed through or made
France their home 
in earlier centuries.
The annual thus forges an idea
of presence through duration of
community through time.
As with other annuals, it
begins with a calendar. In the
1926 edition, arranged like an
agenda that one could write
things in. This is what you see
here, followed by a list of
dates with key feasts and
events that we've seen
elsewhere. The 1926 version on
the left includes Moveable
Feast, followed by French
holidays, a kind of icon to the
fact that to be an Armenian in
France is to exist in and
through the temporality both of
the Armenian Church
and the broader French nation.
Notably, while the American
Armenian Almanac integrates
these into one list, the French
Armenian Annual keeps them as
two separate lists of holidays.
That said, in the 1927 edition
on the right, there's a more
extensive calendar listing
Saints, this one integrating
Armenian saints like Vartan
with French Catholic and
decidedly not Armenian saints
like Charlemagne.
A final example from Beirut
later in the 1950s, shows the
perduring use of the almanac
genre and the connection between
the organization of time and
the organization of community
that had been our focus today.
The 1952 preface tells us that
1500 copies of the 1951 edition
were sold, demonstrating that
the almanac, or annual genre,
continued to be of interest.
Notably in the 1952 edition,
a large part of the text
introduces readers to important
literary figures of the Middle
East, mostly writing in Arabic,
such as the highly influential
writer Taha Hussein that you see
on the page shown here.
The preface argues that it is
only through the reproduction of
the thoughts of our
neighbouring countries that we
are better able to get to know
their people's thoughts,
psychology, experience and
tendencies.
The annual, by placing this
sentiment alongside its
extensive pages 5 to 100 daily
list of events.
And this is far bigger
than we see in any of the other
annuals that make this list of
events.
This suggests that decades into
the post-genocide Armenian life
in the Middle East, a new
reality has been formed whereby
the commemoration of the most
fine grained Armenian historical
events and the knowledge of
Arabic writers combined into a
specific Armenian way of life
with its rhythms
and relationship to time.
As this impressive variety of
texts from the Library of
Congress demonstrates, calendars
and other temporal texts,
temporality shaping genres are
crucial to forming and
maintaining communities.
The shape of a community, to a
significant degree, depends on
the way that a community
experiences the rhythm and flow
of time. Armenians have used
books like these calendars and
almanacs to give shape to their
communities throughout the ages
and across the globe.
They continue to do so,
publishing [inaudible] and
yearbooks. The continued
salience of these genres
demonstrates the essential
connection between the
organization of time and the
organization of community, and
the ways that different social
and political experiences demand
their own temporal responses.
Thank you very much.