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Descendants of Zohrab
of the Manuchariants
Biographical details |
Zohrab
This website is about a man called "Zohrab",
his descendants, and -- to some extent --
his ancestors. He probably did not have
a surname, as far as we know, but his clan
name was "Manuchariants".
His male-line descendants, as far as we know,
have mainly been using his Christian name
(or "Zo(h)rabian") as their surname.
Zohrab was born in Yerevan,
Armenia, in about 1580, and died in New
Julfa, Isfahan, Iran. His tombstone is to
be found in the common cemetery of New Julfa.
No date of his death is mentioned, but from
the dates on the tombstones of his sons
it has been inferred that the year of his
death was about AD 1620. Avetik
Zorabian's Annotations as to the Genealogy
of the Zorabian Lineage mentions
some names on nearby tombstones, which Avetik
considers must be of members of Zohrab's
family. He does not mention Basil
or Simon (see below),
but he mentions Khoja (= merchant) Petros,
Khoja Avetik (who does not seem to be on
the family tree), Astvatsatoor, and two
female names, Khanoom and Khatoon.
Females were generally left off the early
part of the family tree.
ZOHRAB: From Persian name Suhrab
which came from "Shahname"
by Firdusi. It was also used as Zurab,
Surab for short (surkh "red"
and ab "water", "bright").
The corresponding surname is Zohrabyan.
The Zohrab family
is said to have refused the Persian throne
on two occasions -- the first being in
"ancient history" and the second
being in the 18th Century. Their
refusal of the throne on the second occasion
has been put down to their being a Christian
family in a Moslem country. The
claimed refusal in ancient history appears
to relate to Sam
(or Sahm), the Prime Minister of the
King (Shah) Manucheher (Minoutcher).
Sam is claimed to have been a member of
the Zohrab family and to have refused
the throne when the son of the late Manucheher,
Nouzer, offered it to him. His reason
for refusing could have had nothing to
do with Christianity or Islam, presumably,
because these two religions would not
have existed at this time. Here
is a relevant document:
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(In the above scan of the
document "From the first Persian Monarch
to the first Zohrab", you may notice
that Peter Douglas Zohrab was holding the
document onto the scanner with his hand!)
The idea that the modern Zohrab family
is descended from the House of Sahm and
thereby got both its name "Zohrab"
and also its clan name "Manucharian"
is not particularly credible, because:
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The name "Zohrab", in both
this document and in the case of the "original"
Zohrab whose name is now used as a surname,
is just a given name, not a surname, and
therefore its use creates no implication
of a family relationship between the two
people;
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There is no apparent family relationship
between the House of Sahm and the Shah Minoutcher,
so this document does not provide a historical
origin for the clan name "Manucharian".
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This early era in Persian history contains
much that is apparently mere legend, as
is clear from the above story of the simurgh
feeding Sahm's son on a mountain top.
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If there was a very old document in bad
condition that proved the origin of the
Zohrab family, it would not be in English,
but in Armenian or Farsi (Persian), for
example.
However, if this document has some truth
in it, then the Zohrabs lived "originally"
in Persia, then became meliks in Armenia,
and then were taken back to Iran by the Shah
Abbas I. Maybe there were branches of
the family in both Armenia and Iran throughout
these many centuries.
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Mangkasar and Manucharian
According to the
book by Armèn Joseph, Zohrab
was a descendant of
the Mangkasar meliks (dukes, or minor kings).
However, that appears to be based on Avetik
Zorabian's Annotations as to the Genealogy
of the Zorabian Lineage, which
contradicts itself. Avetik says that
"the famous Melik Mankasar" was
contemporaneous with Shah Abbas I, who was
contemporaneous with Zohrab. So, although
Avetik also says that Zohrab was descended
from Melik Mankasar, that is impossible,
unless he was his son. Of course,
he could have had some other relationship
to the Melik, such as brother.
According to the
same book, the name "Manuchar" is a
Persian/Iranian version of the Armenian
name "Mangkasar". This was an Armenian noble
family, from which were drawn some of the
"Meliks" (minor kings, or dukes) in Armenia.
Volume 2 of RG Hovannisian's The Armenian
People from Ancient to Modern Times, on
page 29, identifies the Meliks with the
"Nakharars," the feudal lords
whom the author treats throughout Volume
1 (i.e. until they disappear in most of
historical Armenia) as the most important
secular institution in the country.
According to Judge
Edgar Zorab, his cousin Albert Zorab
was told by the Armenian Archbishop of Jerusalem,
during World War I, that the Manuchariants
clan was related to the Orbelians.
According to Hewsen
(1975, page 237):
The Manucharid Meliks of
Dalughardash
Represented at Tatew by Ehie, son
of Pudal, and grandson of Telulartash,
this house had its seat at Dalulardash
village, now the village of Saruxan, located
some ten kms. south of Kamo. Nothing is
known of the family but inscriptions found
in the village reveal the existence of
Manucharid meliks there in the XVIIth
and XVIIIth centuries (I have altered
the transcription of names, in order to
avoid having to use special phonetic characters
-- PZ).
That there was a Melik Jan at this
time (i.e. circa 1750 -- PZ) is certain...,
but being a son of Melik Manuchar, he
appears to have been of the Manucharid
house which held the Melikdom of Dalughardash
in Gegharkunik (I have altered the transcription
of names, in order to avoid having to
use special phonetic characters -- PZ).
Prima facie, therefore, we can
assume that this "Manucharid"
house is probably the ancestral house of
the Zohrab family. As against that, it appears
that Manuchar was a common name, and Professor
Hewsen mentioned someone called Zohrab,
who was the son of one of the Mirzayid meliks
of Ghulali ( see Hewsen
1975, page 235). Professor Hewsen has
told Peter Douglas Zohrab that male children
are/were often named after their grandfather,
so that this Zohrab -- given his probable
dates -- could have been the grandfather
of the eponymous ancestor of the Zohrab
family. However, it is clear that there
are many exceptions to this naming practice.
MANGASAR(Mankasar): From Armenian
manuk "child" and Persian sar
"head", "mount" i.e.
"head of children", "teacher".
It is out of use now, only the surname
Mangasaryan is met.
and
MANUCHAR: From Azerbaijan name Manucher
(Old Persian Manuchikhr), which means
"from the kin of Manu God".
This name is very common in Georgia. We
also have the surname Manucharyan.
I do not know which explanation(s) is/are
correct, but it is possible that they are
both correct. Armenians commonly change
their surnames for various (including socio-political)
reasons, and it is possible that the Mangkasar
clan changed their name to Manucharian in
order to appear more Persian during a period
when Persia ruled relevant parts of Armenia.
Traditionally, Armenian children
receive one Christian name when baptized.
The second name is the Christian of her/his
father.... The suffix -ian denotes
'son or daughter of'. The suffix
-iants denotes 'of the family of'.
However, Emeritus Professor Robert H.
Hewsen informed Peter Douglas Zohrab (by
email) that "-ian" just means
"of", and "-iants" is
just a plural form of it.
Deportation
According to Hewsen
(2001) and other works, between 1603 and
1618 the Armenian population of Eastern Armenia
was deported by Shah
Abbas I of Persia to Persia -- apparently
to West Persia and the general area of his
new capital, Isfahan. New
Julfa (founded in 1605) is now the Armenian
quarter of Isfahan, named after the town of
Julfa, on the Silk Road, which was famous
for its Armenian silk crafts. The Armenians
were also known as merchants and artists,
as well as farmers, weavers, and tradesmen.
The Shah wanted his country to be able to
process the raw silk that it produced -- rather
than exporting it to Turkey and then re-importing
the finished product from Turkey. He also
wanted to have some Christian citizens who
could trade with the Christian West, and to
depopulate the border region near Turkey,
for security reasons.
The former Zohrab house in
New Julfa is located in Little Shahents Street,
which, according to Avetik
Zorabian's Annotations as to the Genealogy
of the Zorabian Lineage, is in the
Erevan quarter of New Julfa. So, although
most of the inhabitants of New Julfa may have
come from Julfa (in Nakhichevan), the inhabitants
of Erevan may have been settled in this Erevan
quarter of New Julfa. Avetik Zorabian
says that the Manucharian noble family was
in Erevan at the time of Shah Abbas I's deportation
of Armenians to Persia. Meliks usually
lived in their home villages, apparently,
and only went to their regional capital (Erevan,
in this case) on special occasions.
Some Zohrabs/Zorabs/Manuks may have left
Persia for India around 1795, in order to
escape a politically-motivated
massacre of the Zohrab family (or of
Armenians generally) then being carried
out by the Shah of Persia (Iran), or because
of the economic situation in Iran following
an invasion by Afghanistan in 1722. This
is indicated by the fact that all five children
of Manook
and Hannai (Anne) were born in New Julfa
(Persia) and died either in India, the Dutch
East Indies, or on the way there -- at around
that time. According to Maddocks
(1989) , some members of the Zohrab
family went to India at the time of the
Armenian deportations to Iran, between 1603
and 1618, and there had been Armenians in
India since the 16th century (especially
at Agra).
The Dog That Didn't Bark In The Night
There is a Sherlock Holmes story, where
the crucial issue was the fact that a dog
did not bark in the night. It seems
significant that we have records of the
descendants of only two of Zohrab's children:
See Descendants
of Zohrab's Son, Basil and Descendants
of Zohrab's Son, Simon, and that these
two are apparently absent from the graveyard
in New Julfa where their parents and siblings
are buried.
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This website is about English-speaking
and Dutch-speaking members of the Zohrab
family, since few of us speak Armenian,
Persian or Russian, and know little about
any Zohrab family members who may still
be in Armenia, Iran or Russia, for example.
Sources such as Baladouni,
Vahé & Margaret Makepeace (1998)
state that Armenian merchants formed world-wide
networks and operated on the basis of mutual
trust. One's own family members are
the people who one can trust most.
So it is possible that Basil and Simon moved
elsewhere, in order to facilitate trade
with their family members and other Armenians
in New Julfa and elsewhere.
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We know (probably, according to the tombstones)
that two of Zohrab's sons were merchants
in New Julfa: Khoja Petros and Khoja Aviet.
We also know that some Zohrab family members
were in the North-East of Iran, and some
(i.e. the ones who fled the country around
1795) were in the South-East of Iran.
Did Basil move to the North-East, in order
to facilitate trade through Central Asia
along the Silk Road? And did Simon
move to the South East, in order to facilitate
the maritime trade to India and the Dutch
East Indies (Indonesia)? So were all four
of them merchants, trading with each other
(and with others)? The role of some of the
descendants of Basil and Simon was to move
out of Iran, to further the trade network,
perhaps.
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Did all branches of the Zohrab family
in Iran get
massacred, or only those closely involved
in politics? Are there Zohrab descendants
in Iran now, apart from any who may have
gone back to Iran from the safety of an
overseas country after the massacre?
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In other words, is this website only
about the descendants of Basil and Simon
because the descendants of the other children
of Zohrab were massacred? Or is the
reason that it was principally the descendants
of Basil and Simon who ended up in English-speaking
and Dutch-speaking countries?
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Latest Update |
11 October 2015
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