Missak Khostikian
Theologian and philosopher Missak Khostikian’s dissertation David the Philosopher which he defended at the University of Bern in 1907 is published as part of the Nerqin Grots Book Series. In the same year, the dissertation was published in a book series Bern Studies in Philosophy and its History edited by philosopher and theologian Ludwig Stein. The dissertation is the first of the philosophical works by the Armenian author on David the Invincible that Khostikian dedicated to his professor, a theologian Karl Marti. Through a “literary-critical” analysis Khostikian attempts to unravel David’s place and philosophical significance within the school of Alexandria and its tradition. Khostikian, remaining within the trajectory of the scholarly opinions of his time (Adolf Busse, Hakob Manandyan and others), concludes that David’s widespread acceptance amongst the Armenians is a proof of “the allure of the Greek spirit.”
Even though Khostikian’s dissertation became a starting point for the philosophical inquiry of David’s work amongst the Armenians, this starting point was to an extent “negative”: the 1940s Soviet Armenian scholarship on David’s philosophy largely developed as a counter reaction against Khostikian’s work. This unique “critical starting point”, amongst other things, makes Khostikian’s work a peculiar phenomenon in Armenian intellectual history, one that until now is inaccessible in Armenian, and whose author fell victim to the Stalinist purges. The translation of the dissertation will be accompanied with the German original as well as with a scholarly introduction and editorial notes. Archival materials related to Khostikian from the Bern city archives, as well as several of his articles and Garegin Hovsepian’s review of the dissertation will be published in an appendix.
The publication of the book is supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.