The main goal of this article is to represent an often neglected period of regional Ottoman history (from the 16th to the 18th centuries), as described by Armenian chroniclers from Eastern Anatolia, the historical Western Armenia. This paper deals with the willingness of the Armenian population to stand side by side with other minorities on the periphery of the empire and their relations during the period before the emergence and development of radical nationalism. By analyzing the primary sources (chronicles and colophons, generally from the region of Lake Van) we are able to identify several ways of perceiving “the Other” as an Enemy or as a Neighbor, depending on the author’s personality. The texts of the chronicles reveal a variety of attitudes towards the category of Muslims and Heretics (from the point of view of the Armenian Apostolic Church); they also provide an interesting ethnological excursion into everyday reality and life of the local population at that time. The traditional cohabitation of Muslim and non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman Empire, a period of relative mutual tolerance, which existed on the basis of the relationship between a superior and an inferior community (Muslims and dhimmis), gradually became a thing of the past, and Eastern Anatolia became the theatre of conflict between Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other groups.