Talk:Oshki

Armeno-Georgian marchland of Tao

Hi everbody! It is really nice to see that there are other people who are interested in the historical monuments of north-eastern Turkey. Please keep up the good work!

However, the description of the church at Oshki is far from complete, and more photographs would be very useful to convey the exceptional beauty of this building which, sadly, is in a very bad state of preservation, and which, if nothing is done to secure it, might colapse very soon.

If you have a recent photo of the widening crack in the north-western pendentive, please publish it on this page. It would also be good to have a photo of the deesis-relief (from the octagonal pier in the south-western porch) which was destroyed in 2000. Maybe somebody has a pre-2000 photograph of the carved relief of St Nino, too? It was placed on the north side of the now missing deesis-group.

What I do not understand, is the claim that "The monastery at Osk/Oski belonged to the Armenian Chalcedonians."

The monastery church of Oshki was, as correctly stated, built between 963 and 973 by the two Bagrationi brothers Bagrat and David. They were Georgians, I believe, and all the inscriptions on the facades of the church are in the Georgian language. I can therefore not see why Oshki should have been an Armenian Chalcedonian monastery. Could somebody please correct this?

I know that one Armenian scholar (Tiran Marutian) claims that Armenian Chalcedonians used the Georgian language, and that this should be the reason why the inscriptions of Oshki are written in Georgian, but this is a non-sustainable view: Both the carved reliefs and the remaining wall paintings at Oshki, as well as the inscriptions, are Georgian in their form and content.

Tao used to be Armenian until the eight century, but in the second half of the tenth century, when the monastery of Oshki was built, is was firmly in the hands of the Georgian Bagrationi. Please stick to the facts. Armenia is extremely rich in historical monuments from the middle ages - there should be no need to appropriate more. That's only very sad.

Greetings!

(Sofie (talk) 10:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC))

Is there any non-Armenian source addressing the concerns raised by Sofie? The cited source is clearly problematic. In the period of Bagrat and David the region was already under Georgian influence. So the assertion that the church built by the Georgian princes in the 10th century belonged to the Armenians and later came under Georgian influence needs to be fortified by additional evidence or be removed. --Kober^Talk 04:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the contenious part in that paragraph is the word "belongs". In the source I cited, Marutyan writes that Oshk was "the primary church used by Chalcedonian Armenian community" - there is no mention of it actually belonging to them per se. Some works have been published on Chalcedonian Armenians (most notably Alexander Kazhdan and Viada Arutjunova-Fidanyan) and Marutyan lists some sources for his bibliography, most of them written in Armenian, with the exception of one work written in Russian by E. Takayashvili called The 1917 Archaeological Expedition of Southern Provinces of Georgia and published in Tbilisi in 1952. If we were to remove "belong" and replace it Marutyan's wording of the above, would that resolve the problem? --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 04:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

PoV

In its current state, this article only provides a Georgian PoV, while this version, constantly reverted, represents the current state of knowledge about this place. Throughout its history, the place has been Iberian (Georgian) and/or Armenian, as reliable sources show it. Sardur (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Large section in a foreign language?

Can we provide a translation for the large section written in a foreign language or perhaps summarize its content? --Frozenport (talk) 01:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I suspect it (the inscription reproduced in Georgian script) is there for its effect, not for its content. Unless a translation is provided I do not see a valid reason for it to remain - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an archive for primary source material. In its current form this material does not add any usable content to the article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Robert Bevan

I have removed Robert Bevan, because he is talking about the Armenian church in Osk Vank, and the article is about Oshki, until we have an evidence that these are the same toponims. --Melberg (talk) 12:14, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

• the majority of sources use the both names (like here [1]) or call the church just Oshk-vank (like here [2]), so it is the same. OptimusView (talk) 12:26, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is the same place. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:07, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

_ while the province of Tayk/Hayk has been predominantly Armenian in their homeland one can without doubt agree the influence and the presence of Georgians. But its silly to say Armenians left their homes after the Arab invasions and the Georgians took control of that region. take for example Ishkhanavank (princely monastery in Armenian) has Armenian inscriptions of Georgian language; which proves that indeed Armenians lived there. The construction of Oshki was led by Gregory Oshketsi ( Oshket"si" and Gregor being a very typical Armenian name and ending as well. Also names ending with ouni and ian). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Se.777333 (talk • contribs) 17:09, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

The inscription on the church talks about a "Grigol" without giving any further information. So it's not your supposed person even if it's maybe true, Gregory Oshketsi as a name doesn't exists, we call him Grigol Oshkeli in georgian and Grigol of Oshki in english -> Oshketsi is a translation of "of/from Oshki" and Grigor is the armenian equivalent for Grigol. We call him Grigol Oshkeli (from Oshki) because he worked in Oshki (with others, it was a major georgian center of culture and literature at this time) as a Scribe and translator.

The site supervisor called himself "Grigol (ႢႰႨႢႭႪ)" and not "Grigor (Գրիգոր)" as you can read on the inscription (line 8 : the name GRIGOL is clearly visible in the middle of the line) which is also written in Georgian by himself (and Grigol is an used name in Georgia btw like GRIGOL KHANDZTELI).

Even if he translated some writings from armenian to georgian,we can't assume that he was armenian and his work is in georgian. Furthermore, we can't prove that the georgian Grigol of Oshki and the georgian Grigol the architect of Oshki are the same person even Taqaishvili just said that it was maybe him but was not conclusive and sure about this at all. Georgi1 (talk) 07:15, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

@Vahram Mekhitarian:see my answer above.