L’Autobiographie d’Anania Širakac'i

Autobiography was a well-known literary genre among Greek and Roman Christians in Late Antiquity: Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine, for instance, famously authored autobiographical works. In the Armenian tradition, on the contrary, no autobiographical works are attested for several centuries after the invention of the indigenous alphabet. Although references to the (real or alleged) authors can be found in the historical works of Koriwn, Agat'angełos, Ełišê, and Movsês Xorenac'i, only Łazar P'arpec'i seems to give any information about himself, in the letter to Vahan Mamikonean. The first Armenian text that can be truly considered an autobiography is the so-called Ink'nakensagrowt'iwn by Anania Širakac'i. This work is attested in a longer and a shorter version. Originally, it might have been a sort of introduction to the K'nnikon, Anania’s huge synthesis of the sciences of the quadrivium (this book would have been difficult to reproduce on account of its size and contents, but a complete copy thereof probably still existed at the time of Grigor Magistros). Anania’s autobiography provides some details on the author’s birth-place, his educational background, and his teaching activities. On a broader scale, it also gives information on the Greek and Armenian culture of his time, how difficult it was to find a good teacher, and how ignorant and arrogant some self-proclaimed professors were. On that account, Anania’s autobiography, although hardly an impartial document, can be considered a valuable source for the Armenian — and, to a lesser extent, the Byzantine — culture of the 6th and 7th centuries.