The Preparatory Stage of the Activity of the Basel Missionaries in Shushi (1820-1824)
Edilyan, Hayk · 2025
Using Armenian and German-language sources, Edilyan reconstructs how the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society established itself in Shushi between 1820 and 1824. He traces the society's entry into the Russian Empire, the 1821 mission of Dittrich and von Zaremba to St Petersburg, their petition for a Christian colony, and Yermolov's refusal of colony status while permitting a school and printing house. The missionaries reached Shushi in October 1823, toured the surrounding regions, met Armenian clergy including Nerses Ashtaraketsi, and settled there in January 1824. He argues the missionaries planned from the outset to work among Armenians first (through schools, Armenian Bibles and a press) and that this period laid the foundation for the celebrated Shushi printing and school enterprise.
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Edilyan, Hayk 2025. The Preparatory Stage of the Activity of the Basel Missionaries in Shushi (1820-1824). Fundamental Armenology, Issue 2(22) 2025, History; DOI 10.54503/1829-4618-2025.2(22)-6 (National Academy of Sciences of RA / All Armenian Foundation Financing Armenological Studies); ISSN 1829-4618. https://doi.org/10.54503/1829-4618-2025.2(22
What this offers a reader
Shushi as a nineteenth-century centre of Armenian schooling and printing: a side of Artsakh rarely taught.
Source-based study using the Basel mission archives and the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission acts.
Shushi was a city of presses and schools long before it was a battlefield.
How Shushi became a printing and education centre in the 1820s.
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