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The Zohrabs in Persia/Iran
Part of the Zohrab family in Persia eventually settled between
Tehran and the Caspian Sea -- on the plains of Mazanderan, and in
the city of Ast(e)rabad
-- now known as Gorgan in the area south-east of the Caspian
Sea that was once known as Hyrcan(i)a.
That is where Armenian agriculturalists were apparently settled,
whereas Armenian merchants were settled in New Julfa, Isfahan.
Being a Christian family in a Moslem country, it 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, when they nominated Aga
Mohammed Khan, who duly became Shah of Persia and founder of
the Kajar dynasty.
At some stage, members of the Zohrab family
left Persia and settled in Turkey. It is not completely certain:
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Why they left Persia for Turkey;
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When they left Persia for Turkey; and
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Which members of the family left Persia for Turkey.
The traditional version, as handed down through the generations,
goes something like this: Aga Mohammed Khan, who was himself born
in Asterabad, later took a dislike to the Zohrab family) allegedly
because they were Christians), who had a private army, and killed
many members of the family. In 1795, some
members of the family who were living in Sistan Province, in South-east
Persia, according to Lady Fanny
Blunt, escaped to Turkey, crossing the border near Mt. Ararat,
near the North-west corner of Persia. Mount Ararat was part
of historic Armenia, and is still visible from Armenia today. Some
of the family later took as a (probably unofficial) coat of
arms a shield depicting a dove above an olive tree, with an Ark
above the shield and the words: "Hence Springs Our Hope." See also:
Grant of Arms to John Manuk Zorab and his
legitimate male heirs, Coat of Arms of
John Manuk Zorab and his legitimate male heirs, Crest
of the Zorab Family, and Official Badge
of the entire Zohrab/Zorab Family.
When and why did the family leave Persia for Turkey?
Hansen et al. (2005) (as
translated by David Wilson) states that Paul Zohrab (b. ca.
1740?; d. ca. 1805?) was already in Constantinople (Istanbul) in
1761. That may explain why some members of the Zohrab family
who were living in Sistan Province, in South-east Persia, exited
Persia at its North-west corner, rather than crossing the nearest
border, to the South-east. If they already had a family member in
Turkey, it would have made sense to join up with him.
Donoghue (2004) (page 297) also states that the father of Sophie
Zohrab (and therefore also of her brothers, Constantine
and Peter Paul John) was not Constantine
(as stated on the family tree up to 2012) but Paul
Zohrab, second dragoman (and later first dragoman) at the Danish
embassy at Constantinople/Istanbul. However, there could have been
confusion about who was who, because it seems to have been common
for family members to be known by their middle names, rather than
by their Christian names. Donoghue
(2004) also states that Thomas Thornton had described Paul,
in a letter to Sir Robert Liston, as "in the service of His
Danish Majesty" in Constantinople. Michael
Gelting, of the Danish State Archives, also stated in an email
dated 18 June 2015, that a "Paul Zohrab was Danish consul in
Arta-Saloniki in the mid-eighteenth century".
David Wilson prefers to think that the Zohrabs went to Turkey
prior to 1761, and that the story about Aga Mohammed Khan is untrue.
This explanation is likely to have more appeal for outsiders than
for family members, who have grown up with this story. Nevertheless,
it is possible that the Zohrabs were economic migrants who found
it useful to create a story about their departure from Iran which
made it more likely that they would be well-treated. Moreover, this
hypothesis of a made-up story fits in with the story of the Zohrab
family having refused the Persian throne in ancient times, which
does seem to rest on flimsy evidence!
However, there are considerations which support the theory that
the Zohrab family in Persia had aristocratic status, or was at least
very wealthy:
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The Western expatriate community in Turkey, into
which the Zohrabs were apparently well integrated, was presumably
not very large, and so it would have been hard for the family
to maintain the credibility of a false account of their former
status in a neighbouring country;
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Constantine, Paul's
son, married into the aristocratic Venetian Armenian de Serpos
family. Even if the Zohrabs were able to hoodwink Western
Europeans, they were hardly likely to have been able to deceive
fellow Armenians as to their background!
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Constantine and his brother Peter
Paul John were educated in England -- according to Peter's
son Peter Thomas Henry Gordon -- which
would have been expensive for refugees resident in Turkey to organise.
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Which members of the family left Persia for Turkey?
According to Judge Edgar Zorab,
it was two brothers who fled from Persia to Turkey (This does not
exclude the possibility of a sister being with them, as women were
typically not mentioned in the early part of the family tree), and
the family has generally believed that those two brothers were Peter
Paul John and his brother Constantine. Donoghue
(2004) states that it was Paul and his three children (Constantine,
Sophie and
Peter) who made the journey; Peter Douglas Zohrab emailed him about
that but received no reply. In addition, Peter
Thomas Henry Zohrab's booklet about the family also says that
it was the father of Peter Paul John and Constantine who escaped
from Persia, together with one brother, who did not have any children
(the late Kelvin Pollock, genealogist, also prefered this version
of events). This childless brother could well have been the celibate
priest, Johannes Zohrab. That booklet
does not state whether the wife and children fled Persia or whether
the marriage and births took place afterwards, in Turkey.
If the two brothers who fled Persia for Turkey were Constantine
and Peter Paul John (together with their sister, Sophie), that is
compatible with their father, Paul (if their father really was Paul),
being already in Constantinople and with the reason for their leaving
Persia being a massacre by the Shah. However, if it was their
father, Paul, and his brother Johannes who fled Persia, that must
have been before the reign of the Shah in question. We can
reconcile the massacre story with the presence of Paul in Constantinople
in 1761, if we assume that Paul and Johannes left Persia first,
and were not followed by their children until the massacre occurred.
In that case, Paul might have left his wife and some/all of his
children in Persia, and the above three children must have been
adults when they joined him in Turkey. We do know that Peter
Paul John later left his wife and children on Malta and went
to live back in Turkey, so that scenario is not unlikely.
Moreover, Armenians were already spread widely across the World
at that time, since historical Armenia has been under foreign rule
for much of its history (and much of it still is). For example,
a review of Vahé Baladouni,
Margaret Makepeace (1998) at
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showpdf.php?id=5241 states
that "Silk became the lifeblood of a flourishing commerce,
with New Julfa the axis in a profitable overland and maritime network
traversing Europe, the Levant, the Middle East, Central Asia, India
and the East Indies."
One possibility is that some of the following
theory (my theory) is true:
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Marcar 's wife, Katherine,
was Danish (based on her name and the names of her children),
although there is nothing about their names that excludes the
possibility that all of them were Armenian, since some names
on the family tree are given in their Western equivalents.
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which would explain why her son Paul was able to get a job
as a dragoman at the Danish embassy in Istanbul (Constantinople),
when such jobs were apparently hard to get without contacts
(according to David Wilson).
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That also helps to explain why Paul was able to obtain Danish
nationality, why his two sons applied for it as well (according
to Donoghue 2008),
and why his son Constantine was successful in his application,
according to his son Edward's 1855 application for British nationality
(UK
Public Records Office);
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Marcar and Katherine, according to this theory, lived in
Constantinople, which is why their son Johannes (if he was the
Dr. Hoohannes Zohrabian of "Zohrab
Bible" fame -- see below --
who is known to have been born in Constantinople.) was born
there,
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and that is also why one of their sons was named "Constantine",
unlike any earlier member of the family.
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However, some of Marcar's children and/or grandchildren were
living in Persia in 1795, when they had to flee the country,
and so they fled to Turkey to (re-)join their family there.
"In 1687 a ship belonging to the Danish East Asian Company
(Det Østasiatisk Kompagni) seized a Bengali ship and brought
it into the port of Trankebar, a Danish colony on the southeastern
coast of India. The merchandise belonged to Armenians from Jolfa
at Isfahan in Persia. The Danes sent the ship with its cargo to
Copenhagen, where four years later a Persian ambassador arrived
to negotiate compensation for the merchandise. On 11 December
1691 he presented to King Christian V (1670-99) his credentials
and a letter from the Safavid shah Solayman (1077-1105/1666-94)
addressed to a former king, Christian III (1534-59); it included
a comprehensive inventory of the disputed merchandise and the
names of the Armenian merchants (partially published in Boisen,
1965, p. 66)."
So (for example) Marcar and his father could have been held captive
by the Danes in India and/or Denmark, and Marcar could have met
Katherine in that way. Alternatively, Marcar could have been the
Persian Envoy (or a member of his staff) on the trip to Denmark.
Boisen (1965, p. 62) states that
the Persian Envoy had a retinue of 7 persons.
The "comprehensive inventory of the disputed merchandise
and the names of the Armenian merchants" referred to above
has also been published in Vahman
(1998). The names of the merchants and their clients are as
follows (NB these are English transliterations of Armenian/Persian
names written in Persian, so you may have seen these names with
somewhat different spellings in other contexts! Most of the spellings
of names in brackets are alternatives given in the letter to the
King of Denmark (The actual inventory is a separate document).
Suggested alternative spellings have been added in italics and within
brackets:
Uhan (Johanes), son of Biqus (merchant), and Uvanis (client);
(Hohannes)
Grigur (Gregor), son of Markus (Marcus) (merchant)
and Kasbir (Casper) (client);
Khajik, son of Uvanis (merchant) and Vasil, son of
Manas (client); (Hohannes) (Basil) (Minas)
Arabid, son of Ya'qub and Fukar, son of Bidrus and
Makirdij (client); (Mackertich)
Uvanis (Ovanes), son of Musis (merchant); (Hohannes)
Siqmun (Simon) (merchant);
Ya'qubkhan (Jacob), son of Zadur (merchant) and Zadur,
son of Biqus (client);
Avid, son of Zadur (merchant) and Zakarya (client);
Zakarya, son of Rapul (merchant) and Uvanis Kallah
Gush and Sultan Kal (client); (Hohannes)
Agha Piri, son of Uvdik (merchant) and Grigur, son
of Mirkiz (Markus) (client); (Avetik)
Sarkiz (Sarkis) (merchant);
Grigur (Gregor), son of Khachidur (merchant). (Cachatur)
The Zohrab family connection with Denmark may have
involved neither marriage nor this particular incident at sea, of
course. Setting aside the marriage question, however, which of the
names listed above corresponds to someone in the right part of the
family tree at about the right date?
My best guess is Simon (Siqmun), who could have been
the youngest son of the "original
Zohrab". That would fit well with the fact that his grandson,
Kevork (George) Manukian Manuchariants,
lived in British India for a while and ended up as a wealthy merchant
in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and with the fact that all of
Kevork's family were born in New Julfa and ended up in South or South-East
Asia.
Dr. Hoohannes Zohrab(ian)
His grandfather, Sargis Zohrabyan, apparently moved to Istanbul/Constantinople
from Akn (west of Lake Van) in 1779-92. Since he moved from East
to West at about the same time (1795) that other Zohrabs were
doing that (see above), since Krikor
Zohrab was apparently a Catholic, like the ancestors of the
New Zealand Zohrabs, and since Zohrab is a first name of Persian,
rather than of Turkish or strictly Armenian origin, it is highly
likely that he was also part of the Zohrab family that had been
living in Persia. In fact, Peter Douglas Zohrab has a transcript
of a letter to Dr. John Zorab from Krikor's daughter, Dolores
Zohrab Liebmann, who married Henry Liebmann, a New York Jewish
brewery owner, in which she states that Krikor had told her that
his ancestors had come to Turkey from Persia.
The Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center in New York was
set up by his daughter and named after him and his wife. See http://www.zohrabcenter.org/
.
(In 2010, Peter Douglas Zohrab entered into extensive email
correspondence with Haig Krikorian (haig4@sympatico.ca), who said
he was a descendant of Krikor Zohrab's brother, via his (Haig's)
mother. Haig said he would attempt to get his cousins, who
were descended from Krikor's brother through the male line, to
take a Y-DNA test to see if the two Zohrab families were indeed
one and the same. Haig kept promising but never delivered
or explained his non-delivery, unfortunately.)
As far as is known, it is accurate to divide the known part of
the Zohrab branch of the wider Zohrab family as follows:
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Latest Update |
11 October 2015
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