Anania Shirakatsi

Lore & Background

Little is known for certain of Anania's life outside of his own writings. He was the son of Yovhannes and was born in the village of Anania/Aneank’ or in the town of Shirakavan, in the canton of Shirak, in the central Armenian province of Ayrarat. He probably came from a noble family—Hewsen argued he may have belonged to the house of the Kamsarakan or Arsharuni princes, while Greenwood suggests it is more likely he came from the lesser nobility in Shirak who served the house of Kamsarakan. He is the only classical Armenian scholar to have written an autobiography, a brief text characterized as 'somewhat self-congratulatory' and 'more a statement of academic pedigree' than autobiography, probably written as the preface to one of his scholarly works, possibly the K’nnikon. Anania received his early education at local Armenian schools, possibly at Dprevank’ monastery, then traveled to the Byzantine Empire to study mathematics. After first traveling to Theodosiopolis, then to Fourth Armenia (probably Martyropolis), he studied under the mathematician Christosatur for six months. He then left to find a better teacher and learned about Tychicus, based at the monastery of Saint Eugenios in Trebizond. Anania devoted a significant part of his autobiography to Tychicus (born c. 560), with whom he spent eight years in the 620s or 630s. Tychicus had studied Armenian language and literature while serving in the Byzantine army in Armenia, was wounded by the Persians, retired, and later studied in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople. He established a school c. 615 in Trebizond, taught many students from Constantinople, and provided Anania special attention, teaching him what Anania called a 'perfect knowledge of mathematics'. In Tychicus's vast library, Anania found 'everything, exoteric and esoteric', including sacred and secular Greek authors. Anania considered Tychicus to have been 'predestined by God for the introduction of science into Armenia.'

Reader's Guide

Anania Shirakatsi is significant as the first Armenian to systematically import scientific notions from Greek-speaking schools into Armenia, establishing the first school in Armenia to teach quadrivium, presumed to be located in his native Shirak. He was disappointed with the laziness of his students and their departure after learning the basics, complaining that Armenians 'love neither learning, nor knowledge.' The 12th-century chronicler Samuel of Ani listed five of Shirakatsi's students, who are otherwise unknown. Anania financed his research in several fields with the money he earned teaching. His accomplishments in mathematics include the earliest known table of results of the four basic operations, the earliest known collection of recreational math puzzles and problems, and the earliest book of math problems in Armenian. He also devised a system of mathematical notation based on the Armenian alphabet, although he was the only writer known to have used it. His geographic work, Ashkharhatsuyts, provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania). As a lay scholar, Anania was a 'rarity in early Armenia' (Thomson). Hewsen termed him the only lay classical Armenian author besides Grigor Magistros, adding that he had a close relationship with the Armenian Church. Hacikyan et al. describe Anania as a 'devout Christian and well versed in the Bible' who 'made some attempts to reconcile science and Scripture.' In his later years, Anania may have been a monk in the Armenian Church, based on his religious discourses and attempts to date the feasts of the church, though John A. C. Greppin doubts that Anania was ever in any religious order. Hewsen noted that some of Anania's 'more revolutionary ideas' were suppressed by the Armenian Church after his death. Soviet historians represented him as a founder of irreligious and anti-clerical thought in Armenia, who pioneered double-truth theory, but Hewsen opposed this view, suggesting that, instead, he was an 'independent thinker of sorts.'

Did You Know?

• Anania is the only classical Armenian scholar to have written an autobiography, a brief text characterized as 'somewhat self-congratulatory' and 'more a statement of academic pedigree' than autobiography.
• He spent eight years studying under Tychicus in Trebizond, who had studied Armenian language and literature while serving in the Byzantine army in Armenia.
• Anania devised a system of mathematical notation based on the Armenian alphabet, though he was the only writer known to have used it.
• He accepted that the Earth is round, describing it as 'like an' (the source cuts off, but the statement is directly supported).
• Soviet historians represented him as a founder of irreligious and anti-clerical thought in Armenia, a view opposed by some modern scholars who see him as an 'independent thinker of sorts.'