In the first 2.5 years since the project's onset, the team has conducted research aimed at enlarging the Arabic book corpus under survey, improving the catalog information available, and describing the circumstances that allowed the transfer of the printing technology from Europe to the Middle East, by way of Eastern Europe, after 1700. From 2021, with the COVID pandemic easing, team members have travelled extensively to conduct research in libraries and collections across Europe and the Middle East: Austria, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Italy, Austria and Turkey. A descriptive record of the corpus was drawn, the first one for 18th-century printed books, with each book surveyed in detail and outcomes prepared for publication in a comprehensive catalog (forthcoming in 2025).
During the research expeditions, information was collected allowing for the book corpus to be enlarged with four items discovered in libraries in Vienna, Lebanon, and the United States. A new press that operated at the Monastery of St Spyridon in Bucharest, where three books were printed in 1747, has been added to the map of European Arabic-type presses. New data was found on the Beirut press opened in 1750 with help from Wallachia. Additional evidence was collected on the decisive role of European presses in the transfer of printing technologies to the Ottoman lands. The team established that models and visual art traditions from the Lavra Pechersk in Kyiv were transferred to Moldavia and Wallachia and were adopted by the first Arab printers of Aleppo, Shuwayr (Ḫinšāra) and Beirut. They have determined that Western European elements combined with Eastern European ones in the Arabic books printed after 1735 at the St John the Baptist Monastery in Shuwayr for the Greek Catholics. Another discovery is that Sylvester of Antioch’s emblem on the first Arabic printed Akathist to the Theotokos, a mark of his exertion to print for his flock, was created in Iași (Moldavia). An important miscellany was discovered in Vienna, in which Patriarch Sylvester of Antioch collected texts on the primacy of the Orthodox Church of Antioch and presented the conflicting points of the Latin dogmas with those supported by Byzantine-rite Christians. This is new historical evidence on the theological dialogue in the 18th century Christian communities of the Ottoman-ruled provinces. The project work has gained more importance because of the commemoration, in 2024, of the 300th anniversary of the split of the Antiochian Christians into the Greek Orthodox Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch, an event that turned Arabic books into a weapon for polemical fights.
Among the major discoveries are three more titles of 18th century Arabic printed books that we have added to the corpus and an Arabic-type printing press at Bucharest that produced two, possibly three Arabic books in 1747.
The Principal Investigator Ioana Feodorov has signed a contract for a five-book series with De Gruyter (Berlin/Boston), Early Arabic Printing in the East (acronym EAPE), with all volumes placed in OAPEN as soon as they are released. She published the first monograph of this series, EAPE-1, as Arabic Printing for the Christians in Ottoman Lands. The East-European Connection, in 2023 (in OAPEN). Four titles were added to the EAPE series, so that finally it will comprise nine volumes (2023-2026).
The project initiated its conference series in September 2022 with the first one convened in Bucharest (16 speakers). The proceedings have just been released in volume EAPE-2: Arabic-Type Books Printed in Wallachia, Istanbul, and Beyond. First Volume of Collected Works of the TYPARABIC Project, edited by Radu Dipratu and Samuel Noble. Eleven team members have contributed a chapter each.
In May 2023, the team organized a workshop hosted by the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha in Germany (12 speakers). The proceedings are prepared for publication in 2024 in the volume EAPE-4, alongside the third project reunion scheduled for March 2024 in Bucharest (15 speakers).
Team members have published 11 articles in academic journals posted on OAPEN and CORE Humanities, including four articles published in December 2023 in Scrinium 19, a Brill journal. They also published 11 chapters in collective volumes. At least 12 articles and 10 book chapters authored by the project are forthcoming in 2024.
Team members have presented their research in 56 papers at international conferences and workshops, including the project's. Among the conveners were the St John of Damascus Institute at the University of Balamand (Oct. 2023), the ARAM conference at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Oxford (July 2023), the Georgian National Center of Manuscripts in Tbilisi (June 2023), and the Turkologentag, Vienna (September 2023).
All the major project events, field trips, invited scholars’ visits, team publications, and events hosted by the ERC Center of the TYPARABIC Project are posted on the Facebook page and the project website, www.typarabic.ro.
