Print Capital, Corporate Identity, and the Democratization of Discourse in Early Modern Armenian Society

Cowe, S. Peter · 2013

Investigates how traditional means of communication, oral and manuscript transmission, were transformed within Armenian society on the Armenian plateau and across its worldwide network of trade communities once print technology arrived. Cowe analyses print's impact on literacy and the democratization of discourse, treating the merchant middle class as financier, reader, printer and author at once. He traces a transition from biblical and ecclesiastical framings of dispersion and religio-confessional identity toward an incipient, future-oriented national project advanced by secular and ecclesiastical elites under Enlightenment influence, and argues this prefigures the fuller program articulated in the nineteenth century through the periodical press and the founding of political parties.

Citation checked against the publisher's record on 2026-07-13.