The travel accounts of Simeon of Poland, an Armenian deacon from Lviv, represent one of the most important works of modern Armenian literature. The work does not just record his journey to the Ottoman Empire in the years 1608–1618, but also frequently very detailed and lively description of the life there, during which the author primarily focuses on the everyday life of the Christian minorities. This travel journal is even supplemented at the end with several period colophons that illustrate the situation in Lviv and its close surroundings in the period between the 1620s and 1630s. The article is derived from textual analysis of the primary source, which was written in one of the forms of medieval Armenian. The events included in it are compared with other primary sources from the same period that originated in the region of Central and Eastern Anatolia (particularly from Armenian chroniclers of the so-called Bitlis School). There is particular emphasis placed on analysis of the conditions affecting the members of the Armenian apostolic community in that period as well as descriptions of their everyday lives and relations with their neighbors.
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The article deals with the notion of autostereotype or self-image and its significance in the Armenian historical and literary discourse. Armenian nation is usually depicted as a priori suffering, tortured and persecuted. The very idea of persecution is inseparably linked with the existence of God‘s punishment, because his Chosen People (Armenians) betrayed sacred Covenant (ukht), abandoned the faith of their ancestors, and for this reason lost forever their promised land and were sentenced to life in eternal exile. The exile represents in the Armenian context one of dominant „key“ themes. The notion of exile is closely linked with Armenian historical experience of aghet or catastroph (persecutions, deportations, massacres). Armenian self-image reflects the experience of long-term existence as a religious minority without own country or kings, surrounded by Others. It incorporates into itself a number of aspects borrowed from the heterostereotype, which is mostly negative and full of hostile feelings against the „middleman minority“ supposed to play a role of „fifth column“. Armenian selfimage thus oscillates between pride and humility, mirroring the role of martyrs.
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