Prince Ashushan: Strokes to the Portrait

Abstract

At the end of the 6^th century, in the ethnically mixed province of the Georgian state – Vitaxate of Kartli – tension arose between Georgians and Armenians, which turned into the dispute over theological issues and at the first decade of the 7^th century ended with a public declaration of the dogmatic differences between Georgian and Armenian churches.

The contemporaneous Georgian texts reflecting this polemic are not available now. We have only Armenian ones at our disposal which are preserved in the collection of correspondences referred as the “Book of Letters”.

The focus of the present research is one correspondence from the said collection: the letter of the Catholicos of Kartli K’yrion to Marzpan of Hyrcania Smbat Bagratuni. This is K’yrion’s reply to Smbat’s letter.

The Georgian Catholicos addresses Smbat – the representative of Armenians and at the same time high rank official of Shah of Iran from him personally and also from the noblemen of the country of Georgians. Among them, he names two princes. One is At’rnerseh and another – Ashushan.

There are many opinions expressed about identification of At’rnerseh. However, Ashushan attracted little attention of the researchers. Only Z. Aleksidze, the translator of the “Book of Letters” into Georgian, briefly noted about him that he should be Vitaxa of Kartli, because this name Ashushan/Arshusha was the family name of Georgian Vitaxae. Many years ago, the author of this article too in connection with the research of other problems, had touched on the question of the identity of Ashushan and gave a certain answer to it. But that answer (which as it has been turned out now is essentially correct) by that time was not supported with full historical context.

In the present paper the research focus is solely on Ashushan and all available evidences are merged into one narrative about him. First of all, it is proved that the nobleman Ashushan recorded in the “Book of Letters” in connection to facts of the beginning of the 7^th century, was the Vitaxa of Kartli. This person also is mentioned in the “Martyrdom of St. Eustathius of Mtskheta” in the context of the facts of the same period. After these identification in the article some strokes of Ashushan’s portrait are represented. After the abolishment of the Georgian monarchy in the second half of the 6^th century during the subsequent decades of absence of the supreme secular authority in Kartli, the triumvirate of officials, consisting of Catholicos of Kartli, Mamasakhlisi of Kartli and Vitaxa of Kartli, represented the Georgian side in international relations. For at least two decades the position of Vitaxa was held by Arshusha/Ashushan.

Arshusha/Ashushan was a political figure with great influence and power. That’s why it was important that he supported the national project of Georgian Catholicos K’yrion, which was aimed at deepening the process of ethno-cultural integration of Vitaxate into the Georgian state. With this step, Arshusha/Ashushan diametrically changed the particularistic politics of his predecessors.

Due to the change in the traditional course of the Vitaxate (which apart from centrifugal aspirations meant collaboration of Vitaxae with Armenian partners as well), Arshusha/Ashushan proved to be categorically unacceptable for the Armenian statesmen and the ethnic Armenian church hierarchs living in Kartli. Arshusha/ Ashushan was ignored by them despite the fact that the Armeno-Georgian conflict concerned just the province he ruled. On the other hand, the pro-centrist orientation of this Vitaxa of Kartli was the “trump card” in the hands of the Georgians.

Arshusha/Ashushan was a flexible politician. Despite his openly pro-Georgian and pro-Christian sentiments, he used to manage to maintain good relations and ensure proper communication with the Shah’s officials in Kartli.