The Formation of Ethnic Groups in Early Modern Times. Interculturality and Transculturality in the Case of the Armenians in Eastern Europe

该项目审查了跨文化机构的功能和相互依存关系、跨文化规范和早期现代民族群体的形成。它聚焦于四个城市的亚美尼亚商人，这四个城市是贸易中心：波多利亚的卡米内奇、L的维夫、克拉科夫和格但斯克，时期从中世纪晚期到17世纪中叶。前两个城市展示了亚美尼亚自治的民族行政结构。然而，克拉科夫和格但斯克的亚美尼亚人不能依赖这种结构。他们的行动没有一个共同的机构种族框架。这些例子用来考察在不同法律和社会条件下生活的亚美尼亚商人的跨文化交流和族群形成战略。这项研究着眼于参与者在不断变化的社会分支中定位自己和被他人定位的方式。它并不以明确界定的族裔集体的存在为前提，而是将前现代的族裔作为一种历史现象，作为一种执行个人和集体议程的方式，这有时是对跨文化相互关系的补充，有时是相反的。

The project examines the functions and interdependencies of transcultural agency, intercultural norms and the formation of ethnic groups in early modern times. It focusses on Armenian merchants in four cities that served as centers of trade: Kamjanec in Podolia, L'viv, Cracow and Gdansk, during a period ranging from late medieval times to the middle of the 17 th century. The first two cities displayed ethnic administrative structures with an Armenian self-government. The Armenians in Cracow and Gdansk, however, were not able to rely on such structures. They acted without a common institutional ethnic framework. Everywhere they were identified by a common social marker, the byname "Armenus".These examples serve to examine strategies of transcultural communication and ethnic group-formation of the Armenian merchants living under varying legal and social conditions. The study looks at the ways the actors locate themselves and are locate by others within changing social ramifications. It does not presuppose the existence of a clearly defined ethnic collectivity, but examines pre-modern ethnicity as a historical phenomenon, as a way to enforce individual as well as collective agendas, which is sometimes complementary and sometimes adverse to transcultural interrelations.