Unfolding an Unacknowledged Written Cultural Heritage: Armeno-Turkish Manuscripts, Prints and Newspapers

Programme 

Wednesday, 6 August 2025

09:30 – 09:45 | Opening and Welcome

Claudia Rapp (Co-Director of Research, Cluster of Excellence EurAsian Tranformations)

Father Narek-Georges Dadourian (Prior and General Administrator of the Vienna Mekhitarist Monastery)

Yavuz Köse (University of Vienna)

 

09:45 – 11:15 | Panel I: Archives, Scripts, and Language

Chair: Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (IMAFO, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)

Talin Suciyan (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
The Imperial Language of the Empire: The Use of Armeno-Turkish in Archival Documents

Orhun Yalçın (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
Script and Governance: Armeno-Turkish and Diplomacy in the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Flora Ghazaryan-Abdin (Central European University, Vienna)
“The Richest and Most Favoured Rayahs of the Sultan”: The Armeno-Turkish Accounts of the 1819 Düzoğlu Execution in Ottoman Istanbul

Naira Poghosyan (Yerevan State University)
Upholding Toros Azatyan’s (1898–1955) Armeno-Turkish Literary Archive

11:45 – 13:15 | Panel II: History and Historiography

Chair: Sona Grigoryan (Central European University, Vienna)

Lusine Khachatryan (Yerevan State University)
Armenian-Script Turkish Medical Manuscripts and the Fusion of Medicine and Tradition in the 18th–19th Centuries

Gayane Ayvazyan (Harvard University)
The First Translation of Armenian History by Movses Khorenatsi into Armeno-Turkish

Johann Strauss (University of Strasbourg)
Vartan Pasha’s "History of Napoleon Bonaparte"

Yaşar Tolga Cora (Boğaziçi University)
An Armeno-Turkish Source for Labour History: The Culfa Epic (1899)

14:45 – 16:15 | Panel III: Multilingualism and Translation

Chair: Sebouh Aslanian (UCLA)

Anna Ohanjanyan (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Yerevan)
Encountering Languages: Armeno-Greek, Armeno-Latin, and Armeno-Turkish in the Ottoman Armenian Apologetic and Polemical Literature: The Case of Gēorg Mkhlayim Ōghlu (1681/85–1758)

Hasmik Kirakosyan (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Yerevan)
Transforming Adab in Another Light and Script: Tracing the Armeno-Turkish Translations/ Tradaptations of the Ṭūṭīnāme ("Tales of a Parrot")

Gunvald Axner Ims (University of South-Eastern Norway)
John Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress in Translation

Betül Bakırcı (Aras Publisher, Istanbul)
Re-reading Akabi Hikâyesi After 173 Years

 

16:45 – 17:45 | Preserving Armenian Cultural Heritage in Vienna and Armenia

Chair: Kübra Uygur (Brunel University London)

Tigran Zargaryan (Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of RA)
Digital Library of Armenogram Turkish Printed Materials: Resource Locator and Research Starting Point

Yavuz Köse (University of Vienna) / Dilara Kaplan (University of Vienna)
Transcribing Armeno-Turkish Heritage with AI. Challenges & Opportunities

Jeanette Kilicci (University of Vienna) / Christoph Reuter (University of Vienna)
Armenian Congregations in Vienna: Preserving Cultural Heritage (360°)

 

17:45 – 18:45 | Keynote Address

Sebouh Aslanian (Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, UCLA)
Armeno-Turkish as a heterographic literary field: Complicating Ottoman Convivencia

With an introduction by Yavuz Köse (University of Vienna)

Thursday, 7 August 2025

09:30 – 11:00 | Panel IV: Sociolinguistics, Language, and Script Discourses

Chair: Ani Sargsyan (University of Hamburg)

Çağdaş Acar (University of Chicago)
Armeno-Turkish: An Intersection Between Political and Linguistic Landscapes

Ozan Çömelekoğlu (Hacettepe University, Ankara)
“The Plaintiff is Lisan-ı Osmani”: A Debate Through Letters to the Editor Between Arakel Karamadtiosian and Hagop Pashayan

Hasmik Khalapyan (American University of Armenia)
Language, Nation, and Gender: The Role of Women in Shaping Armenian Linguistic Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire

Vahé Tachjian (Houshamadyan, Berlin)
Armeno-Turkish: A "Language with an Armenian Character" or Not? Reviewing Catholicos Papken’s Articles on the Use of Turkish as a Spoken and Written Language by Armenians

11:30 – 13:00 | Panel V: Music Traditions

Chair: Claudia Römer (University of Vienna)

Jacob Olley (Cambridge University)
Armenian Transimperial Networks and the History of Music Printing in the Ottoman Empire

Nejla Melike Atalay (University of Münster)
Armeno-Turkish Vocal Manuscripts in Ottoman Musical Heritage: Methodological Approaches and Challenges in the Critical Edition Process

Arpi Vardumyan (Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Yerevan)
Komitas Vardapet’s Armeno-Turkish Songs Manuscript

Jeanette Kilicci (University of Vienna) / Christoph Reuter (University of Vienna)
Exploring Intangible Cultural Heritage in Shared Folk Songs: A Comparative Perspective on Armenian and Turkish Traditions

 

14:30 – 16:00 | Panel VI: Printing Cultures and the Press

Chair: Hülya Çelik (Ruhr University Bochum)

Hülya Eraslan (Ankara University)
The First Example of the Turkish Press with Armenian Letters in the Ottoman Empire: Takvim-i Vekayi

Günil Özlem Ayaydın Cebe (Samsun University)
The Press and the Persona: Viçen Tilkiyan’s Self-Fashioning in Ottoman Print Capitalism

Kübra Uygur (Brunel University London)
A Comparative Analysis of the Construction of Taste Through 19th-Century Armeno-Turkish and British Newspaper Advertisements

Samuel Chakmakjian (INALCO, Paris) / Onur Özsoy (Leibniz Centre General Linguistics, Berlin)
Word-final devoicing in Armeno-Turkish cookbooks

 

16:30 – 18:00 | Panel VII: Literary Genres

Chair: Gisela Procházka-Eisl (University of Vienna)

Azra Çelik (Boğaziçi University)
A Romance Translation in Armeno-Turkish: Hikâye-i Faris ve Vena – What Kind of Genre?

Beyza Kaya (Boğaziçi University)
Hybridization of Literary Genres and Cross-Tradition Encounters in 19th-Century Literature

Hülya Çelik (Ruhr University Bochum) / Ani Sargsyan (University of Hamburg)
Making the Invisible Visible: A Close Reading of Viçen Tilkiyan’s Gülinya (1868) Using Digital Humanities

Feyza Kırkoğlu (Istanbul University) / Zehra Hamarat Yardımcı (Istanbul University)
Armeno-Turkish Anna Ross: An Analysis Among Ottoman Children’s Books 

 

Friday, 8 August 2025

09:30 – 10:45 | Panel VIII: Morality and Theatre

Chair: Ayşan Sönmez (Université Paris 8, IFG, IFEA, CETOBAC)

Melis Hafez (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Rectifying the Moral Condition of the Ottomans: A Connective Reading of Dadiryan’s Mulahazat-i Ahlakiye

Murat Cankara (Social Sciences University of Ankara)
On the Uses and Roles of Language in Armeno-Turkish Plays from the Turn of the 19th Century

Emre Görkem Onur (University of Vienna)
Performing Identity? Hagop Ayvaz’s "I Love You" and its Contribution to the Armeno-Turkish Theatrical Landscape

 

11:15 – 12:30 | Panel IX: Printing and Writing Cultures in the Post-Ottoman Era

Chair: Benedetta Contin (University of Vienna)

Talin Suciyan (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) /Orhun Yalçın (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
Preserving and Transmitting Knowledge in Exile: Hripsime Topdjian’s Armeno-Turkish Notebook of Medical Remedies

Christopher Sheklian (Mississippi State University)
Ottoman Religious Afterlives in America: Ḫelas (Խէլաս) and the Continuing Role of Armeno-Turkish in Fresno

 

14:00 – 15:00 | Book Discussion

Masayuki Ueno (Osaka Metropolitan University)

Millet in Ottoman Documents