Hierarchy and Subjecthood in the Memoir of Hovhannes Cherishian

Using the unpublished memoir of an Ottoman Armenian shoemaker, Hovhannes Cherishian (1886-1967), I will diagram the hierarchy of personal significance through which he understood his position as an Armenian subject of the Ottoman Empire. That is, I will show how he acted at once as an Ottoman and an Armenian in ways that could seem mutually inconsistent but were in fact mutually constitutive of a single worldview in which being Armenian was the most significant personal association and a source of confidence, power, and ownership. I will write, for example, about how Cherishian’s belief in a religious prophecy that foretold the end of the Ottoman empire coexisted with his voluntary enlistment in the Ottoman army. I will also talk about how his pride and emphasis on influence throughout the memoir shows how Armenians, like other Ottoman non-Muslims, could feel and wield supremacy in and through their personal influence, or the influence exerted by their people. Through this analysis, I will argue that hierarchy is a necessary concept through which to analyze not just the existence of Ottoman subjecthood, which feels obvious, but also the multifaceted experience of subjecthood by Ottoman subjects themselves.