Abstract

This chapter looks to the churches built in cities of the Ottoman Empire by Armenian communities over the nineteenth century. It compares the Armenian communities and their material culture in the capital of Constantinople with the social and cultural dynamics that led to the production of a markedly different style of churches in the S/E Anatolian cities of Diyarbakir and Antep. It questions what factors determined the appearance of these buildings at this crucial time of change for the communities and how the structures were perceived by their patrons, architects and the local inhabitants. Contrary to the image of the radicalisation and rise of nationalism amongst provincial Armenian communities at this time, the chapter argues that cohesive local identities were expressed in these works through the filter of a European academic approach to the connection of style and meaning.