ABSTRACT
Step`anos Nazaryan (1812-1879), an Orientalist scholar and teacher founded the first reformist Armenian journal in the Caucasus, Hyusisap‘ayl [Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, 1858-1864]. Although pre-revolutionary Armenian and Soviet academics have produced a considerable historiography highlighting this writer and editor’s national significance, English-language scholars on modern Armenia—with the exception of a few studies briefly pointing out his progressive role—have overlooked Nazaryan’s efforts. Nazaryan has not received the comprehensive attention he deserves because he was not the first to write in the modern Armenian vernacular, nor was he the first to use the press for polemical or patriotic purposes. The dense, theoretical articles in Hyusisap‘ayl were hardly accessible to the general reader with a weak background in the humanities or sciences; the journal’s low circulation numbers verify its modest popularity. In its first year, 1858, the journal sold 300 issues; subscription rates initially increased to 340 the following year but slowed down to 170 subscribers by 1862. In this sense, Nazaryan was only indirectly responsible for carrying out the reforms he had long advocated as crucial for the flourishing of Armenian culture. By the late nineteenth century, the vernacular had become the common literary language, Armenian journals were flourishing in the Caucasus, and a growing number of schools and independent scholarly and cultural societies were founded. So why indeed did Nazaryan and his journal Hyusisap‘ayl become such powerful symbols of Enlightenment for so much of the Armenian intelligentsia, and why should we view their successes and failures as decisive episodes in nineteenth-century Russian-Armenian relations?
