Between Mercantilism, Oriental Luxury and the Ottoman Threat: Discourses on the Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Kingdom of Poland

• Authors: Aleksandr Osipian
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

PL

This paper analyses the attitudes toward the Armenian Diaspora in early modern Polish society through a close examination of the issues viewed as burning by the contemporaries. The paper is focused on three such burning topics – a) the ‘price revolution’ and, in connection therewith, mercantilism; b) the growing level of consumption (“redundant luxury” – zbytek nierozmyślny) and the fears of social disorder aroused by it; and c) the Ottoman threat (real and imagined). The paper argues that there were a variety of discourses on the Armenians because the discourses were influenced by the different answers to the challenging issues presented by the representatives of various social estates – noblemen (szlachta), clergymen (duchowieństwo) and burghers (mieszczaństwo). Therefore, the attitudes to the Monophysite Armenians in Polish society were mostly shaped not as part of the Counter-Reformation agenda (as was the case with respect to Protestants and the GreekOrthodox), but rather within the framework of economic (mercantilism), social (consumption), and psychological/political (fears of the Ottoman threat) issues.

Keywords

PL

mercantilism; luxury; the Ottoman threat; trading Diaspora; Armenians

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Acta Poloniae Historica
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 116

Dates

published

2017

online

2018-08-10

Contributors

author

Aleksandr Osipian

Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/APH.2017.116.07