4 - The Armenian merchant network: overall autonomy and local integration

Summary

Armenian commercial activities between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries somehow seem to be more a part of the history of the other nations than of the history of Armenia itself – for they seem to have found little outlet within Armenian society. At least this is the impression given by an initial acquaintance with the sources traditionally utilized; but it is contradicted by a more balanced study of the sources, which reveals not simply a resolve to take part in the main currents of trade between the countries of the East and the countries of the West, but also a concern to enable the Armenian nation to exercise her prerogatives. The experiences of the merchants contributed to the structuring of Armenian society at a period of change and, by putting an end to its isolation, generally helped the process of transition to modernity. They played a part in the construction of two interconnected models, that of the city – through the foundation and development of its most astonishing metropole New Julfa – and that of an original and promising advance towards capitalism, which although absent from subsequent historical accounts, is most illuminating.

Basing our argument on the proposition that this merchant activity constituted a real network, we shall go on to consider its autonomy and coherence together with the autonomy of its constitutive elements and with their integration in economic systems and local societies, and we will indicate the importance of modes of capital accumulation.