Variance in the Ethiopian "Short Chronicles" corpus

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Friedrich
• Co-Applicant: Dr. Anais Wion
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: from 2008 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 49107419

During the seven centuries of uninterrupted production and use of manuscripts in Christian Ethiopia, only two written endogenous corpora can be called historiographical: the official annals of the kings, called the «Long Chronicles», and some compilations called the «Short Chronicles» (SC). They are abridged histories of each reign since the 13th century, copied together with various Chronographie and historical texts. They appeared during the 18th century and were produced in monastic circles as well as by intellectuals, during a period in which the monarchy gradually lost its control on the writing of history. For two centuries (18th-20th c.), the SC was transmitted and numerous compilations were copied and emandated.Variations between the different versions of the SC deserves far more attention than it has so far received; this applies both to texts as well as to the structure of the compilations. One aim of the present project is to specify the different families of manuscripts, defining the milieus in which they were produced and tracing back the history of their transmission. This leads to questions in Ethiopian studies that remain unanswered: how did compilers work? Relationships between different written corpora have to be studied, without neglecting the slow integration of oral traditions into the written corpus, as the SC offers evidences of such process.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 963: Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa
• International Connection: France