Jacob of Karin`s “Beautifully Built City of Karin” in Armenian Manuscripts

The present paper deals with the personality of Armenian Author Jacob from Karin and his heritage preserved in Armenian manuscripts. He lived in one of the monasteries located in Karin (nowadays Erzurum, Turkey) in the 17 th century. Among his works “Beautifully Built City of Karin” is especially interesting for us. Four copies of the manuscript containing the work are preserved at the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, in Yerevan: NN 8184, 2995, 6583, 4542. The work
was published twice in Armenian, first by K. Kostanyan in Vagharshapat in 1903, and then by V. Hakobyan in the collection of “Small Chronicles” in 1951. The text was translated into French by M. Frederic Macler and published in Paris in 1919 with the commentaries by K. Kostanyan. In “Beautifully Built City of Karin”, the author tells the story of the 7 th century, when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610641) defeated Khosrow II, the king of Sasanian Empire, released the True Cross from the Persians and took the relics to Jerusalem through Karin and other regions. The version of this story brought by Jacob was composed and written later. That was the reason why both publishers omitted this text and did not include in their publications. The composition “Beautifully Built City of Karin” contains information not only about Karin, but also about its surrounding regions including the historical regions of Georgia such as Tao-Klarjeti (nowadays Turkey) and Imereti (west part of Georgia). © 2017 Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci.