Clinging to the Classical: The National Education Council and Armenian-Language Instruction in Constantinople, c. 1860 – c. 1890
Manoukian, Jennifer · 2025
Manoukian, a historian of the modern Western Armenian language, challenges two widely held assumptions in Armenian studies about nineteenth-century Ottoman Armenian schooling: that the Armenian National Constitution and its National Education Council were transformative reformers of Armenian education, and that Armenian schools spread Modern Western Armenian from the outset. Drawing on primary sources from Constantinople, she shows that Armenian-language instruction in this period stayed wedded to Classical Armenian (grabar), complicating the standard story of a smooth rise of the modern vernacular.
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Manoukian, Jennifer 2025. Clinging to the Classical: The National Education Council and Armenian-Language Instruction in Constantinople, c. 1860 – c. 1890. Études arméniennes contemporaines, No. 16 (2025), Varia, pp. 147–181 (Bibliothèque Nubar / AGBU); DOI 10.4000/15gmi. https://doi.org/10.4000/15gmi
What this offers a reader
Corrects a tidy textbook story: modern Western Armenian did not simply march into the schools; grabar held on for decades.
Archivally grounded revision of the National Constitution's educational reach and of language-instruction periodization in Ottoman Armenian schools.
A careful look at how our grandparents' schools actually taught Armenian, versus the version we tell ourselves.
Why the modern Western Armenian we speak took longer to reach the classroom than usually assumed.
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