Paradigms of Mediated Translation in Armenian: An Exploration

Abstract

This paper examines four discreet issues influencing the macro-context of mediated translations into Armenian from Late Antiquity to the modern period. The first treats religious scripture, reviewing the very different contexts for the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (5thcentury) and the Qur’ān (17th century). The second analyzes the Silk Route as a vehicle for exchange between peripheral cultures facilitating the Armenian reception of two works of Sanskrit literature. The third pursues evolving literary traditions and their textual diffusion via a case study of the Alexander Romance. Meanwhile, the fourth examines the nature of colonial experiments in the 18th-19th centuries in creating regionality within the wider process of globalization that impinged on the translation processes of communities in different parts of the Armenian oikoumene of the time with special attention to Mesrop Tałiadian’s novel Vēp Vardgisi of 1846.