The Polish-Ottoman War in Armenian Perspective The Armenian Chronicle of Kamianets and the Battle of Khotyn in 1621
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Abstract
The Battle of Khotyn, which took place in 1621, as one of the most important stages of the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is well documented by the correspondence and memoirs of the Polish military (Jakub Sobieski, Stanisław Lubomirski) and an anonymous report of a German mercenary. As direct participants in the military events, they, on the one hand, had first-hand information, but, on the other hand, their reports often reflected their personal attitude to the participants of the Battle of Khotyn, so very often in their memories there are exaggerations and inaccuracies in the dates of the active phase of the battle and human losses. For a more objective coverage of this event, in addition to the diaries of the Polish nobility and military who took part in the war on the side of the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it is worth involving other important historical sources.
One of the central sources that presents information about the battle from a different perspective is the Armenian Chronicle of Kamianets, which is partly written as an eyewitness account and partly based on information on behalf of members of the Polish command staff. What is it that makes it such an interesting historical source about the battle and its background? First of all, it is its distancing from military actors. The value of this source lies in the fact that it presents little-known and even completely unknown facts from the history of Ukraine.
The chronicle of Kamianets was written from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 17th centuries and gives a brief overview of the position of the Armenian population in this region. The manuscript of the chronicle begins with an entry dated October 15, 1560, and then returns to a historical overview of events since 1430.
In the Chronicle, quite a lot of attention is devoted to the Battle of Khotyn. Against this background, it is important from what perspective the chronicle considers the events near Khotyn, how it depicts different participants. First of all, it is important to have factual information that is of great importance for the study, but the story is also interesting from another perspective. The chronicler not only conveys reliable factual knowledge to his readers, but also paints an emotional picture of victory and defeat, sacrifice and barbarism.
Of course, like most sources of this kind, the accounts of direct witnesses of contemporaries, the chronicle, of course, is also quite subjective. Therefore, it is important to take into account its own informational bias, as well as the horizon of the audience to which the chronicle is addressed, regardless of its informational value for modern historical science.
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