The History of Armenia
The history of Armenia is an endless narrative of rise and fall, of triumph and tragedy. Geography has undoubtedly had a decisive influence upon its course. Forming an important coign of vantage and a highway of great value for trade and commerce between two continents, Armenia was, it seems destined to be constantly at grips with adversity. The land, with its untold riches and its strategic position of primary import, stirred the ambitions of many an invader before and subsequent to the advent of its Christian civilization.
Thus, for a succession of centuries the Armenians were in constant warfare with invaders and conquerors of many races--Romans, Assyrians, Byzantines, Parthians, Arabs and Turks--who rolled over their homeland, although certainly not without meeting the most stubborn resistance. Throughout these turbulent centuries the Armenians successfully asserted their identity and upheld their national heritage against great odds. Although on occasions, overpowered by superior forces, they were reduced to the status of a vassal people, they nevertheless enjoyed a semblance of national autonomy.
Armenia--Haiastan, as the Armenians call their country--emerges into the broad daylight of history from the haze of her legendary past through a long line of kings of the Haikazian Dynasty. In 515 B.C., when the name of Armenia was for the first time mentioned in a cuneiform inscription, Armenia was one of the component parts of the empire of Darius. Some two hundred years later, in 329 B.C., she was under the domination of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, and under the spell of Hellenic culture, which made a profound influence on her own culture and thought. She was flee to lead her own national life and worship her own deities. It was long after the death of Alexander the Great and after protracted struggles with his successors that the Armenians were able, in 150 B.C., to found the Arthashesian (Arsacid) Dynasty, which was to last until the middle of the fifth century.
The renaissance of Armenia was accomplished during the reign of Tigranes the Great (94-55 B.C.), the greatest and most powerful of all Armenian kings, who consolidated the two principalities into which Darius had divided Armenia, and laid the foundations of a homogeneous kingdom--the first native sovereign state the Armenians had known since the fall of Urartu some five centuries earlier. According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, Lucullus, the Roman general who was to defeat Tigranes, said of that king, "In Armenia Tigranes is seated surrounded with that power which has wrested Asia from the Parthians, which carries Grecian colonies into Media, subdues Syria and Palestine and cuts off the Selucidae." And Cicero, the Roman orator and politician, adds, "He made the Republic of Rome tremble before the prowess of his arms. ' '
Indeed, under Tigranes II, Armenia grew to such a great degree of military strength and political influence that she became a serious challenge to her neighbors. There was a time when Tigranes' realm comprised, in addition to Major Armenia, territories east of the Euphrates, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia. His uncommon victories were, however, destined to hasten his downfall, which occurred in 66 B.C
As the centuries rolled on, marked by catastrophic events, Armenia found herself constantly in armed conflict with Media, Parthia, Rome, Macedonia, the Byzantine empire, and, after the advent of Islam in the seventh century, with the Arabs, the Seljuks, the Osmanli Turks and the Mamelukes of Egypt.
These frequent conflicts greatly diminished the military strength and the political power of the Armenians without, however, weakening their moral stature and stamina. Toward the close of the eleventh century, Armenia, now ruled by the Bagratid Dynasty, fell tinder the Byzantine empire and the Seljuks.
The invasion from beyond the Gaspian Sea of the marauding nomads of central Asia, with its attending savagery, compelled a large number of Armenians to move south, toward the Taurus ranges close to the Mediterranean Sea, where in 1080 they founded, under the leadership of a young prince, Ruben of the Bagratid Dynasty, the Kingdom of Cilicia or Lesser Armenia.
The Cilician Armenians came into still closer contact with the Western nations, fully realizing the spiritual and cultural affinities that bound them to their fellow Christians of Europe. Hence, their readiness to render signal assistance "in men, in horse, in arms, in food and in counsel" to the Crusaders, who from the eleventh to the thirteenth century were waging war against the Saracens for the conquest of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. Fate had yet another--almost fatal--setback in store for the Armenian people. During the third quarter of the fourteenth century, the Cilician kingdom found itself exposed to the fury of Egypt, a country which had converted to the faith of the Prophet Mohammed. With no help forthcoming from the Christians of the West, Armenia surrendered to the Mamelukes after a dogged, yet hopeless, resistance, and the year of grace 1375 saw the last of the kings of Armenia, Leon VI. The chivalrous monarch died at Calais, France, in 1393, and his remains were laid to rest at St. Denis, near Paris, among the kings of France. He had taken the road to the royal Courts of Europe to seek assistance for Armenia. His arrival in London coincided with the time when Richard II of England and Charles V of France were still engaged in what is known as the Hundred Years' War. The ardent desire of the Armenian king had been to see the differences between the two neighbors composed amicably because, in his words, "it is unbecoming of Christian kings to fight against one another."
With the conquest by the Turks of Constantinople seventy-eight years after the fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia, and the subsequent annexation of the Armenian plateau, the Armenians lost all vestiges of an independent political life. Their fate was now of little interest to the outside world, and there seemed to be no willingness in Europe to contest the supremacy of Islam.
During the seventeenth century, however, the Sultan's authority was challenged by immigrant tribes from Central Asia, and for certain transitory periods, by the Persians.
In 1639 Turkey, whose power was on the wane, was compelled to cede the region of Yerevan to Shah Abbas of Persia, who forcibly carried away to the Persian capital of Isfahan some twenty-five thousand Armenian families, while granting the Armenians in the mountainous province of Karabagh the right to govern themselves through their Meliks (hereditary princes). This liberal policy of the Persian monarch was not followed up by his successors. The Armenians were again in bondage, but the spirit of freedom had not faded.
Their repeated efforts at emancipation having failed, the Armenian nobles and ecclesiastics sent Israel Ori, a young prince, to the Royal Courts of Europe with the object of soliciting the aid and protection of the Powers. Ori's untiring efforts resulted in formal promises of help from the Emperor Leopard and Peter the Great, but political events prevented the implementation of these promises. In 1768, during the Russo-Turkish war, Catherine II presented a scheme to establish Armenia as a separate state under the protection of Russia, but this project too was not destined to be consummated. For, sixty years later, Russia extended her empire southward and took from Persia the provinces known until 1914 as Russian Armenia.
The first Christian state
Because of its geographical position at the crossroads between east and west, Armenia was introduced to Christianity early by the apostles Bartholemew and Thaddeus. In 301 CE, it became the first nation to adopt Christianity as the state religion
There is ample evidence in the annals of the history of the Church that Christianity was first introduced into Armenia during the early part of the first century through the preaching of the Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew, who evangelized throughout the country, and who are known to this day as the First Illurninators of Armenia. Christianity progressed at a slow pace for over two hundred years, but in 301 Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion.
The Invention of the Alphabet and The Translation of the Bible
In the fourth century the Church was a firmly established institution, but it lacked an element of utmost importance. The Bible, on which the edifice of the faith is rounded, had not yet been translated into Armenian, because the nation did not possess an alphabet of its own. The fundamentals of the religion had been accepted, but the wider scope of the dogma had not been interpreted into he native tongue. The Bible--"Breath of God" (Astvadzashoonch), as the Armenians call it--was read and the liturgy was sung in either the Greek or the Syriac language. Special translators had to take part in the religious services to interpret the Book orally. The absence of an alphabet constituted a formidable hindrance to the edification of the masses. Furthermore, severance from ancestral beliefs was not yet complete, and vestiges of paganism still lingered. As a crowning misfortune, attempts were being made in the west to lure the Church of Armenia into becoming absorbed by the Greek Orthodox Church.
One of the most glorious pages of the history of Armenia was written when St. Mesrob of Mashtotz, a scholar of eminence, invented in 404, after arduous research, the thirty-six letters of the Armenian alphabet (to which two more letters were added in the twelfth century), excellently suited to the sounds not only of the mother tongue but also to a variety of sounds in other languages. This is the alphabet now in use.
It is interesting to note that Christianity in England dates properly from St. Augustine in 597 A.D., while the complete Bible was not translated into English until 1525.
It is important to know that these three events--the conversion of Armenia, followed by the invention of the national alphabet and the translation of the Bible--were to inaugurate for the Armenian people a new era of cultural and spiritual awakening. Indeed, the literature of the period, eminently religious in theme, was enriched by the works of a galaxy of Armenian writers. The fifth century is rightly considered the Golden Age of Armenian literature.
The conversion to Christianity while it enhanced the national prestige of the people, was inevitably to bring in its wake complications of a political nature and to arouse grave anxieties in neighboring Persia. Christianity in Armenia must be crushed, had decreed the Sassanian King in 451.
No amount of threat or intrigue could however force the Armenians to digress from the true path and lapse from Christianity. The reply they sent the heathen king after they received his threatening message was such as to make every Armenian-indeed, every Christian--feel proud: "From our faith no one can deflect us; neither angels nor men, neither sword nor fire or water."
The battle took place in May 451 on the plain of Avarayr, where some 60,000 Armenian warriors under the leadership of Vartan Mamigonian faced over 200,000 Persians in heroic defense not 0nly of their religion but also of their national heritage. It is most significant that while the Armenians were, without assistance, defending the faith of the Lord with manly courage, the dignitaries of the Western Churches were holding the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon, where they were earnestly engaged in academic disputations. The Armenians did not attend the Council arguing that the basic truths of the faith having been clearly formulated at the previous three Councils, which they had attended, no useful purpose would be served by further polemics.
Armenia lost the battle and Vartan, who was later canonized, fell on the battlefield. Some 35 years later, Armenia was once more compelled to resort to arms, and against the same foe. This time the Persians, realizing the futility of their anti-Christian policy, granted Armenia religious freedom with the Treaty of Nvarsag.
The Turkish Flail
It falls outside the scope of this brief sketch to delve into the phases of the tragic events that took place in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, to the detriment of the minorities. Suffice it to say that those events had created such a precarious situation that the Western Powers, who up to the eighteenth century had treated the plight of the minorities with little more than shrugging indifference, turned their gaze upon Turkey, horrified by the ghastly massacres that threatened, with varying degrees of cruelty, the very existence of the non Turkish multitude. This happened in spite of the fact that Mohammed 11, the conqueror of ancient Byzantium, after having threatened "to feed oats to his horse from the High Altar of St. Peter's" had in a lucid moment granted the infidel Greeks and Armenians a measure of autonomy in matters religious, cultural and national.During the second half of the nineteenth century, Russia, England and France assumed the role or protectors of the Christians in Turkey in general, and, it seemed, of the Armenians in particular, against whom the fury of the Turk was mainly directed. The possibility of this charitable attitude having been prompted by selfish considerations may not be altogether overlooked. That the interest displayed in the welfare of the Armenian people was, in some instances, not more than academic is evidenced by the fact that never did the Powers seriously envisage repressive measures against this unrestrained genocide.Meanwhile, during the last quarter of the century, the Armenians, having reached the limit of endurance, had resorted to revolutionary acts to arrest the onslaught of the Turk on their life, honor and property, with no intention whatever of undermining the integrity of the Empire. The nineteenth century had witnessed the awakening of the Armenians, whose intellectual classes were deeply influenced by the precepts of the American and French revolutions. The policy of oppression continued unabated, and in 1894-96 some 300,000 Armenians perished at the hands of the Turks in Constantinople--before the eyes of foreign ambassadors--and in the Armenian highlands.Any illusion the Armenians and their Western friends had cherished to the effect that the acquisition of power in 1908 by the Young Turks, and the subsequent dethronement of the Red Sultan, might bring better days was soon dispelled. For, in the spring of 1909 yet another orgy of bloodshed took place in Cilicia, where twenty thousand Armenians lost their lives after a desperate resistance.
The Genocide of 1915
When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914 there seemed to be no doubt that Turkey, virtually a German protectorate since the early eighties, would inevitably throw in her lot with Germany. In the event of an Allied victory, Russia would occupy the Armenian provinces, while England and France could not be suspected of great love for Turkey, argued the Turkish leaders. On the other hand, when the "invincible Kaiser" won the war, they could not only offset the Russian menace, but could also settle the Armenian Question with their scimitar and German blessing.The final decision over the participation in the war pending, the Young Turks approached the leaders of the Armenian minority, and told them, without beating about the bush, that they expected them to incite their kinsmen in the Caucasus to organize an insurrection against the Tzar. It was explained to the Turks very plainly that the Armenians in Russia would fight for their Emperor as loyal citizens just as much as the Armenians in Turkey would fight for theirs. The Armenians did not visualize the horrifying consequences their manly repudiation of the Turkish offer would have for their future. Turkey entered the war on the side of Germany in October 1914. From then on the sinister shadow of an unprecedented cataclysm was hovering over the heads of the Armenians.In 1915, while the civilized nations were engaged, on two fronts, in a bitter struggle against the enemies of freedom and justice, the Turks were attacking the Armenians ferociously.The Turks uprooted the Armenians overnight from their homes, robbed them of their early possessions, drove them in endless caravans to the scorching deserts of Arabia, and subjected the Armenians to atrocities the magnitude of which even the barbarity of the Middle Ages pales.The Turks obliterated all traces of Armenian culture; they razed to the ground 2,000 churches and more than 2,000 schools; they converted convents and monasteries into stables or military depots, and reduced to dust all architectural monuments.The prelude to this savagery was set at Constantinople, where on April 24, 1915, the Turkish police rounded up the elite of the nation, who were, within a matter of days and weeks, put to death.
The Independence of Armenia
"1 will give them such a staggering blow that they will not be able to get on their feet for fifty years." In these words Talaat, the Interior Minister of Turkey, one of the chief organizers of the genocide, bragged, who in March 1921 found the just retribution for his crimes in the streets of Berlin by the bullet of an Armenian patriot, Soghomon Tehlirian.On May 28, 1918, following a series of events in the Transcaucasus, the independent Republic of Armenia in the easternmost regions of the historic homeland was established, after the Armenians forced the Turkish battalions to withdraw in the battles of Sardarabad, Karakilisse, and Bashabaran.Overwhelming difficulties confronted the infant republic who inherited very little from the retreating Russian armies. Its territory was confined to one of the most underdeveloped regions of Russia. There was no adequate administrative machinery, no national revenue and certainly no military strength worth mentioning. The influx of some 300,000 refugees who had escaped the Turkish atrocities, added much to the gravity of the situation.It was amid these almost insurmountable difficulties that the Armenians devoted all their energies to the pressing task of reconstructing their country, and by the middle of 1919 the situation was slowly improving.In August 1920, the Allies concluded with Turkey the Treaty of Sevres, whereby Turkey "in accordance with he action already taken by the Allied Powers," recognized Armenia as a free and independent state. The task of delimiting the frontiers of the republic having been submitted to the arbitration of the President of the United States, President Wilson "with eagerness to serve the Armenian people," in November 1920 rendered his award, assigning to Armenia an area of 40,000 square miles in historic Armenia. Then, he urged the Congress to accept for the United States a mandate over Armenia, but the Senate did not see its way to meet the hope and expectation of the Armenian people.
Armenian Soviet Republic
Armenia's gratification was short-lived. The tempest that had broken out in Anatolia in May 1919 with the escape from Constantinople of Mustafa Kemal had darkened the political horizon in Europe and had greatly changed the aspect of the Near Eastern settlement. Indeed, the Turkish Revolution gathered impetus throughout the length and width of Turkey, and the military situation seemed perilous for the Allies, who were quarreling among themselves over the German reparations question.The Turkish rebel rejected the terms of the Treaty of Sevres, and in November 1920 with the military and financial help of the Government of the Peasants' and Workers' Union attacked the Republic of Armenia, who now also hard pressed by the Bolsheviks from the north, was unable, with its meager forces, to continue the fight. The Reds entered Armenia, compelled the democratic government to "renounce" the Treaty of Sevres and cede to the Turks a large tract of Armenian territory, and established their regime of terror and tyranny.In February 1921, the Armenians revolted against their new masters. It did not take long for Lenin's troops to complete the subjugation of a defenseless people.In July 1923, at Lausanne, the once-victorious Allies ignominiously bowed to the demands of Kemal, who a year earlier had well-nigh annihilated the army of the Greeks in Smyrna.
New Armenia
The Armenian people in Soviet Armenia endured the hardships of survival under communism and especially under the despotic Stalin. Through it all they managed to build up the nation, providing for its population and emphasizing its cultural progress.February 1988 the popular demonstrations in Armenia for the liberation of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) began, heralding populist movements that would soon be sweeping throughout the communist world.On December 8, 1988, a massive earthquake struck the northern portion of Armenia bringing the Armenians in the forefront of international news once again. For the first time, foreign aid was permitted to penetrate into the Soviet Union.Two years later parliamentary elections took place with the formation of a national parliament and Levon Ter-Petrosyan, an activist for the Karabagh movement, was elected President of the Parliament. Armenia approved a process toward independence on August 23, 1990, and shortly thereafter the Tricolor and Mer Hayrenik were adopted as the official flag and anthem, respectively.A national referendum on September 21, 1991, overwhelmingly approved independence and on October 16, 1991, the first free election took place with Levon Ter-Petrosyan elected president, ushering in a new era with new responsibilities and new challenges.After his reelection in 1998, President Levon Ter-Petrosyan resigned and Robert Kocharian was elected as president of the Armenian Republic.
http://www.aua.am/2004/group6/ancreview.html
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