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

该项目考察了跨文化机构的功能和相互依存关系、跨文化规范和近代早期族裔群体的形成。它聚焦于四个曾经作为贸易中心的城市：波多利亚的卡米亚内茨、利沃夫、克拉科夫和格但斯克，时间跨度从中世纪晚期到17世纪中叶。最初的两个城市显示了亚美尼亚自治政府的民族行政结构。然而，在克拉科夫和格但斯克的亚美尼亚人无法依靠这种结构。他们的行动没有一个共同的制度性种族框架。无论在哪里，他们都有一个共同的社会标志，即绰号“亚美尼亚人”。这些例子有助于研究生活在不同法律和社会条件下的亚美尼亚商人的跨文化交流策略和种族群体形成。这项研究着眼于行动者在不断变化的社会影响中定位自己和被他人定位的方式。它没有预设一个明确定义的种族集体的存在，而是将前现代种族作为一种历史现象，作为一种强制执行个人和集体议程的方式，这有时是跨文化相互关系的补充，有时是不利的。

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.