22 Facts About Movses Khorenatsi

Movses Khorenatsi's history had an enormous impact on Armenian historiography and was used and quoted extensively by later medieval Armenian authors.

Movses Khorenatsi is called the "father of Armenian history" in Armenian, and is sometimes referred to as the "Armenian Herodotus".

Movses Khorenatsi's history is valued for its unique material on the old oral traditions in Armenia before its conversion to Christianity.

Approximately twenty manuscripts of Movses Khorenatsi's history have reached us, the majority of which date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Movses Khorenatsi identified himself as a young disciple of Mesrop Mashtots, inventor of the Armenian alphabet.

Movses Khorenatsi is recognized by the Armenian Apostolic Church as one of the Holy Translators.

The exact time period during which Movses Khorenatsi lived and wrote has been the subject of much debate among scholars since the nineteenth century, with some scholars dating him to the seventh to ninth centuries rather than the fifth.

Movses Khorenatsi gives autobiographical details about himself in his History of the Armenians.

However, Malkhasyants contends that if Movses Khorenatsi had been born in Khorni, he would have been known as Movses Khorenatsi Khornetsi or Khoronatsi.

Malkhasyants postulates that Movses Khorenatsi received his initial education at the school in Syunik founded by Mesrop Mashtots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, before being sent to Vagharshapat to study directly under Mashtots and Catholicos Sahak Partev.

Movses Khorenatsi expressed his grief in a lament at the end of History of the Armenians:.

Gyut, Catholicos of All Armenians, one day met Movses Khorenatsi while traveling through the area and, unaware of his true identity, invited him to supper with several of his students.

Movses Khorenatsi was initially silent, but after Gyut's students encouraged him to speak, Movses Khorenatsi made a marvelous speech at the dinner table.

Gyut embraced Movses Khorenatsi brought his friend back from seclusion and appointed him to be a bishop in Bagrevan.

Movses Khorenatsi's History served as a textbook to study the history of Armenia until the eighteenth century.

Movses Khorenatsi's history gives a rich description of the oral traditions that were popular among the Armenians of the time, such as the romance story of Artashes and Satenik and the birth of the god Vahagn.

Movses Khorenatsi wrote that Khorenatsi's account contained various anachronisms and inventions.

Vrej Nersessian, the curator of the Christian Middle East Section at the British Library, took issue with many of Thomson's characterizations, including his later dating of the writing and his contention that Movses Khorenatsi was merely an apologist work for the princely Bagratuni dynasty:.

Gagik Sargsyan, an Armenian scholar of the Classics and a leading biographer of Movses Khorenatsi, criticized Thomson for his "anachronistic hypercriticism" and for stubbornly rehashing and "even exaggerating the statements once put forward" by the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholars, particularly Grigor Khalatiants.

Aram Topchyan, then a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of Armenian Studies, agreed and noted that it was odd that Thomson would fault Movses Khorenatsi for failing to mention his sources because this was an accepted practice among all classical historians.

In 2000, historian Nina Garsoian wrote that the dispute over Movses Khorenatsi's dating continued and that "no final agreement on this subject has yet been reached" at the time.

Today, Movses Khorenatsi's work is recognized as an important source for the research of Urartian and early Armenian history.