Research on the Bay of Bengal Area 1-Armenian Communities and Their Economic Activities

本研究项目的目的是对亚美尼亚社区在近代定居的港口城市的历史和意义进行基本调查。众所周知，孟加拉湾有着悠久的历史，是亚洲、欧洲和非洲各国人民的迁徙路线和各种商品的交换。因此，孟加拉湾沿岸的港口城市在世界近代史中占有重要地位。在从西亚迁移到孟加拉湾沿岸这些港口城市并定居下来的民族中，亚美尼亚社区是突出的。虽然人数很少，但他们在英国或荷兰公司的中介贸易商、翻译、小商人、政治代理人等方面发挥了重要作用。我们将通过亚美尼亚社区的活动概述这些港口城市的特点。从2002年到2005年的三年研究调查结果如下：1)亚美尼亚人迁移并定居在孟加拉湾沿岸和该地区以外的更广阔的范围内。主要的定居地区是南亚的孟买、马德拉斯、加尔各答、吉大港和达卡，马来半岛的新加坡、马六甲和槟城，爪哇岛的巴达维亚、法甲、三宝郎、杰帕拉和泗水，中国的香港，可能还有上海，以及日本的神户和横滨。他们留下了“亚美尼亚街”的名字，并在他们定居的几乎每个港口城市建立了亚美尼亚教堂和寄宿学校。因此，我们可以从“亚美尼亚人”的街道名称中追溯他们足迹的历史，并从他们墓葬的石刻碑文中读出片断文献。3)在新加坡国家档案馆和横滨保存了一些20世纪在新加坡和日本生活的亚美尼亚公民的书面文件和磁带文件。通过这些有价值的文件，我们可以发现，一些亚美尼亚人在马来半岛建立了几家国际酒店，如Ruffles和E&O，此外还有相当小的寄宿公寓，供外国游客和印度、印度尼西亚和日本的同胞使用。我们可以发现，定居地区的旅馆在亚美尼亚社区中有着重要的意义。4)通过对南亚、东南亚和东亚的亚美尼亚人的简短调查，我们有了进一步的假设对象。亚美尼亚人在亚洲各地有广泛的迁徙和定居；他们在亚洲贸易、酒店业、保险业、银行业、采矿业、电影公司和铁路技术等领域发挥了积极作用，其中大多数是20世纪初的先驱行业。我们将继续研究分析他们在孟加拉湾地区占领和统治这些工业的原因。少

The object of this research project is to conduct basic survey on the history and the significance of the port-cities where Armenian communities settled down in the modern period.As well known, the Bay of Bengal had long history of transmigration route of peoples and exchange of various commodities of Asia, Europe and Africa. Therefore the port-cities along the Bay of Bengal occupied the vital position in the context of modern world history. Among the peoples who migrated and settled down on these port-cities along the Bay of Bengal from West Asia the Armenian communities are prominent. Though they are rather small in number, they played the vital roles as intermediary traders, translators, small merchants, political agents of the British or Dutch companies. We shall overview the characteristics of such port-cities through the activities of Armenian communities.The findings of the research surveys during three years from 2002-2005 are as follows:1) The Armenians migrated and settled do … More wn over the wider range along the Bay of Bengal and beyond the area. The main settlement areas were Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Chittagong and Dacca in South Asia, Singapore, Malacca and Penang in Malay peninsular, Batavia, Tegal, Semarang, Jepara and Surabaya in the Java island, Hong Kong and probably Shanghai in China, and Kobe and Yokohama in Japan.2) However they had left little documents of their activities and communities, they had left the name of "Armenian Street" and built Armenian Church and boarding schools in almost every port cities where they settled down. Therefore, we can trace the history of their footprint in the Street name of "Armenian" and read the segmental documents in stone inscriptions of their tombs.3) In Singapore National Archives and Yokohama there are kept some written documents and tape documents of several Armenian citizens who lived in Singapore and in Japan in 20th century. By these valuable documents we can find that some leading Armenians established several cosmopolitan hotels such as Ruffles and E＆O in the Malay peninsular besides rather small boarding houses both for foreign travelers and fellow countrymen in India, Indonesia and Japan. We can find out that the hotels in the settled areas had a significant meaning in the Armenian communities.4) By this brief survey on Armenians of South, Southeast and East Asia, we have furthermore hypothetical subjects. The Armenians had the wide range migration and settlement all over Asia; they had played an active part in the field of the Asian trade, hotel industry, insurance management, banking, mining industry, and film company, and railway technician most of them were pioneer industry of early 20th century. We shall continue the research analysis reason why they occupied and they could dominate these industries on the areas of Bay of Bengal. Less