| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The object of this research project is to conduct basic survey on the history and the significance of the port-cities where Armenian communities settled down in the modern period.
As well known, the Bay of Bengal had long history of transmigration route of peoples and exchange of various commodities of Asia, Europe and Africa. Therefore the port-cities along the Bay of Bengal occupied the vital position in the context of modern world history. Among the peoples who migrated and settled down on these port-cities along the Bay of Bengal from West Asia the Armenian communities are prominent. Though they are rather small in number, they played the vital roles as intermediary traders, translators, small merchants, political agents of the British or Dutch companies. We shall overview the characteristics of such port-cities through the activities of Armenian communities.
The findings of the research surveys during three years from 2002-2005 are as follows:
1) The Armenians migrated and settled do
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wn over the wider range along the Bay of Bengal and beyond the area. The main settlement areas were Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Chittagong and Dacca in South Asia, Singapore, Malacca and Penang in Malay peninsular, Batavia, Tegal, Semarang, Jepara and Surabaya in the Java island, Hong Kong and probably Shanghai in China, and Kobe and Yokohama in Japan.
2) However they had left little documents of their activities and communities, they had left the name of "Armenian Street" and built Armenian Church and boarding schools in almost every port cities where they settled down. Therefore, we can trace the history of their footprint in the Street name of "Armenian" and read the segmental documents in stone inscriptions of their tombs.
3) In Singapore National Archives and Yokohama there are kept some written documents and tape documents of several Armenian citizens who lived in Singapore and in Japan in 20th century. By these valuable documents we can find that some leading Armenians established several cosmopolitan hotels such as Ruffles and E＆O in the Malay peninsular besides rather small boarding houses both for foreign travelers and fellow countrymen in India, Indonesia and Japan. We can find out that the hotels in the settled areas had a significant meaning in the Armenian communities.
4) By this brief survey on Armenians of South, Southeast and East Asia, we have furthermore hypothetical subjects. The Armenians had the wide range migration and settlement all over Asia; they had played an active part in the field of the Asian trade, hotel industry, insurance management, banking, mining industry, and film company, and railway technician most of them were pioneer industry of early 20th century. We shall continue the research analysis reason why they occupied and they could dominate these industries on the areas of Bay of Bengal. Less
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