InternationalSebouh Aslanian: “Quedah Merchant was no ordinary vessel”
Expert puts legendary ship’s story in historical context
Published: Thursday June 18, 2009
The Armenian merchant marine flag had three horizontal stripes (red, yellow, red) with the Lamb of God in the middle stripe. Pictured here is a replica in the possession of Pavel Galoumian. Armenian Reporter photo
Related Articles
Long-lost Armenian ship, the stuff of legend, to become a “living museum” in the Caribbean
In Ann Arbor, Sebouh Aslanian to discuss Julfan Armenian trade
Sebouh Aslanian discusses 18th-century Armenian trade networks
Sebouh Aslanian, Fuat Dundar selected as post-doctoral fellows
The Julfans invested in the Quedah also appealed to the Safavid state to intervene on their behalf. A letter from the last Safavid ruler Shah Sultan Husayn (ruled 1694–1722) addressed to King William III of England asking the English Crown to render justice to the Shah's Armenian subjects has been preserved both in the British Library as well as the PRO.
Similarly when the Santa Catharina was confiscated by the British navy in 1748, the ship's Armenian merchants appealed to the court of Bengal's governor, Aliverdi Khan (r. 1740–1755) who went so far as to wage a small war against the East India Company in Bengal in order to have the property of his Armenian and other merchants restored.
Imagining a larger Armenian nation
In all these cases what Julfan merchants did to retaliate against their more powerful state-backed rivals was in some ways similar to what we would today call "diaspora lobbying." The cases mentioned above illustrate that when push came to shove, Julfans were indeed resourceful at finding ways to defend the larger collective interests of the Julfan network and its Julfan members. This is not the same thing as pursuing a "national interest," since the latter would have to involve the interests of other Armenians who were not members of the Julfan network and its community of merchants.
We should keep in mind that Julfan identity was place- and culture-specific. It was defined by one's family and cultural ties to the suburb of New Julfa in Iran. There was a strong tendency among Julfans to define themselves as a "diaspora within a diaspora" and this meant that the identity in question was more specific and regional than a larger collective Armenian "national identity."
To be sure, the Julfans came to radically "re-imagine" and re-invent themselves not only as Julfans but as members of the larger Armenian nation mostly in the late 18th century when a small group of Julfan neo-intellectuals in Madras (India) including Shahamir Shahamirian began to formulate republican ideas and wrote constitutional treatises for a future republic of Armenia that would not exist on the map for another 140 years or so.
But this shift from a strictly regional Julfan identity to a national Armenian one did not occur until the Julfan network along with the hayrenik (homeland/patria) of the Julfans in New Julfa had collapsed in the second half of the 18th century, compelling the Julfans to re-invent themselves as members of a larger and modern Armenian nation.
