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Armenians consistently composed works in Turkish (with Armenian letters), from the thirteenth through the twentieth centuries. Most historians have had a tendency to shy away from using Armeno-Turkish as a means of getting at myriad aspects of both pre-Ottoman Anatolian and Ottoman pasts. In fact, aside from a few unique examples, Armeno-Turkish texts have almost uniquely been used by historians when considering aspects of Armenian history, literature, or identity, rather than as a tool for looking at realities present inside an overarching Turkish language space, or the Ottoman Empire. In reflecting upon the volume of texts composed in Armeno-Turkish from the late medieval through the modern periods, one can’t help but understand that many Armenians—whether monolingual, bilingual or multilingual—were engaged with oral and written Turkish linguistic and literary cultures. And that they participated in the shared space of the Turkish lyric throughout—and before and beyond—the Ottoman Empire.

Rachel Goshgarian is Associate Professor of History at Lafayette College. She is a social historian who is interested in the circulation of ideas, patterns of social organization and the communication of cultural ideals. She works with primary sources composed in Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Armeno-Turkish, and her academic work is also deeply informed by interrogations and interpretations of material culture. Her first monograph, The City in Late Medieval Anatolia: Inter-faith Interactions and Urbanism in the Middle East, is forthcoming with I.B. Tauris in 2022. Goshgarian has also co-edited Architecture and Landscape in Medieval Anatolia, 1100-1500 with Patricia Blessing (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017) and co-authored Kendi Kendine Ermenice (or, Teach Yourself Armenian) with Şükru Ilıçak (Istanbul: Armenian Patriarchate, 2006). Rachel Goshgarian is a member of the Middle East Studies Association, the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, and is the vice president of the Society for Armenian Studies. She serves as Reviews and Reconsiderations Editor of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies.

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