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职能和相互依存关系，跨文化规范和近代早期族裔群体的形成。它的重点是亚美尼亚商人在四个城市，作为贸易中心：卡贾内克在波多利亚，利沃夫，克拉科夫和格但斯克，在一个时期，从中世纪后期到17世纪中期。前两个城市展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些设施。他们在没有共同的种族体制框架的情况下采取行动。这些例子有助于研究生活在不同法律的和社会条件下的亚美尼亚商人的跨文化交流和族群形成战略。这项研究着眼于行为者如何在不断变化的社会影响中定位自己和被他人定位。它并不预先假定存在一个明确界定的族裔集体，而是将前现代的族裔划分作为一种历史现象，作为一种强制执行个人和集体议程的方式，这有时是对跨文化相互关系的补充，有时是对这种相互关系的不利影响。

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.