Die Entstehung der kaukasischen Alphabete als kulturhistorisches Phänomen ‒ The Creation of the Caucasian Alphabets as Phenomenon of Cultural History

The volume was created on the basis of selected contributions to an international symposium that was held in 2005 on the occasion of the 1600-year anniversary of the creation of the Armenian alphabet in Vienna at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In order to view this major event of cultural history in a larger context, the conception of the symposium was widened in order to include not only the other two South Caucasian alphabets, the Georgian and Albanian, but also the Coptic one and the conditions in the Iranian empire of those centuries. Some well-datable, relatively clear research results are often in strong contrast to the more legendary traditions, which science has not resolved sufficiently until now. That the blessed Maštoc‘, who in the later tradition is rather called Mesrop, in 405/406 created the Armenian alphabet is beyond discussion. But the Armenian tradition ascribes to Maštoc‘ also the creation of the Albanian and the oldest Georgian alphabet. For the former, there existed until recently only vague theories; only after the decoding and decryption of palimpsests discovered in the St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, to which a contribution in this volume is dedicated, founded statements are possible. For the Georgian alphabet a completely new approach is presented in a paper (creation in the Syrian-Palestinian region, just after the creation of the Armenian alphabet). On the basis of these alphabets emerged a rich literature, which reached very quickly high bloom, especially in Armenia. Thus, the volume is not only of interest for specialists in the areas of the Caucasus, but also for all researchers concerned with the development of Christian cultures in the late antique and early medieval centuries.