Non-Professional Expertise: On the Early Modern Transformations in Armenian Manuscript Production Viewed from Ottoman Tokat and Crimea
Journal: DIYÂR
Year: 2025

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the widespread destruction and population displacements caused by the Ottoman-Safavid wars and the Celali revolts plunged Armenian communities of Anatolia and the Caucasus into a profound crisis. The crisis extended to manuscript production, as the devastation of monastic scriptoria resulted in a severe shortage of books. Yet the same period also witnessed the proliferation and growing affluence of Armenian merchant communities, along with mer