In October 1913, the Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire held celebrations commemorating the 1,500th anniversary of the creation of the Armenian alphabet and the fourth centenary of the first printed Armenian book. From the imperial capital to the rural hamlet in the Anatolian periphery, from Edirne to Nev?ehir to Trabzon, Armenians packed churches, put on theatrical plays, organized lectures, took part in public processions and adorned their spatial surroundings with the imagery and symbols of Armenian history and the alphabet itself. These were no isolated endeavors, for the 1913 Jubilee not only drew in the participation of the other Christian and Muslim communities of the empire but received the backing of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress. That the Jubilee was universally upheld as an exemplar case of harmonious intercommunal relations between Armenians and Turks invites inquiry into this hitherto little-studied event. This paper proposes to analyze the 1913 Jubilee by setting it against the storied background of the Second Constitutional Era, which briefly witnessed an efflorescence in political liberalization, and the cultural developments of the age, including the phenomenon of centenaries and commemorations of past events and figures. In placing it in dialogue with the recent literature that has appeared on the subject of Ottoman civic patriotism, the paper examines how Ottoman Armenians gradually came to adopt historical modes of understanding in the nineteenth century and how they contributed to the reimagining and reinterpretation of Armenian identity formation. Furthermore, by focusing chiefly on the festivities held in Istanbul, it demonstrates how Ottoman Armenians sought to negotiate and reconcile their conception of the nation with their identity as imperial citizens. Drawing from contemporary newspapers, archival records, and ego-documents, it shows how, amid the euphoria and triumph on the streets and the press, there flowed an undercurrent of ideas that revealed Armenian attitudes toward history’s use for political purposes as well as a uniquely Ottoman Armenian Orientalist conception of the past and present. Within the tense atmosphere of the post-Balkan War period, it also traces the nexus of public performance of heritage and politicized violence and the deep intercommunal rifts that still existed in Ottoman society. Weaving these varying strands together, will, I argue, shed light on how an important segment of Ottoman society came to define itself as both members of a nation with their own unique culture and heritage and citizens of a much larger imperial collective.