Armenia

Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Hayastani Hanrapetowt’yown
Flag	Coat of Arms
Capital	Yerevan
Government	Unitary republic
Language	Armenian (official)
President	Robert Kocharyan
Prime minister	Serzh Sargsyan
Area	11,506 sq mi
Population	3,215,800 (2005)
GDP per capita	$4,270 (2005)
Currency	Dram

Armenia is a landlocked nation in Asia which gained its independence as part of the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

People

Religion

Approximately 98% of the population is ethnic Armenian. The link between Armenian ethnicity and the Armenian Church is strong. An estimated 90% of citizens nominally belong to the Armenian Church, one of six ancient autocephalous Eastern churches with its spiritual center (Mother See) located at the Etchmiadzin cathedral and monastery near the capital of Yerevan.

There are small communities of other religious groups, which constitute less than 5% of the population and include Roman Catholics, Armenian Uniate (Mekhitarist) Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Evangelical Christians, Molokans, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, various groups of charismatic Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Yezidis (non-Muslim Kurds who practice Yezidism), Jews, Sunni Muslim Kurds, Shi'ite Muslims, Baha'is, and others.

Yezidis are concentrated primarily in agricultural areas around Mount Aragats, northwest of Yerevan. Armenian Catholics live mainly in the north, while most Jews, Mormons, Baha'is, and Orthodox Christians reside in Yerevan, along with a small community of mostly Shi'ite Muslims, including Iranians, and temporary residents from the Middle East.

Although the law prohibits foreign funding of foreign-based denominations, the Government did not enforce the ban. Indeed, the Government generally does not enforce existing legal restrictions on religious freedom.

History

Armenia was traditionally a "hotspot" that was kept independent by the Roman Empire against frequent Parthian and later Persian invasions. It served as a buffer state between the empires. Armenia was the first nation to convert to Christianity, in 301 before Christianity was even legal in Rome. Armenia then flourished and its capital Ani was called the "city of a thousand and one churches."

Ottoman areas

Following victory over Persia at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, the Ottoman Empire extended its rule over western Armenia. In 1555 Armenia was divided between the Shahs of Persia and the Sultans of Turkey.

In traditional Ottoman society the Armenians were defined, as were other Christians and the Jews, as a "dhimmi millet", a non-Muslim religious community of the empire. Their actual treatment by the state varied to some extent with the military fortunes of the empire, the religious passions of its elites, and the encroachment upon their land by Muslim refugees from the Balkans and the Caucasus as well as by Kurdish pastoralists. Normally dhimmis were free to practice their religion, but they were distinctively inferior to Muslims in status. In the nineteenth century the Armenians challenged the traditional hierarchy of Ottoman society as they became better educated, wealthier, and more urban. In response—despite attempts at reforms—the empire became more repressive toward Armenians, who more than any other Christian minority bore the brunt of persecution

Cultural trends

Of the many 17th-century Armenian poets, the best known was Nerses Mokats'i (d. 1625), who studied at the Amrdolu monastery in Bitlis and the Mets Anapat in Siunik'; later he founded a monastic order on the island of Lim in Lake Van. Many works focused on the exile forced on many Armenians and the destruction wrought in Armenia by foreign forces, comparing this with the fate of Jerusalem. The destruction of the Armenian city of T'okhat' in 1602 by the Jalalis was lamented by Step'anos and Hakob T'okhat'ts'i. Simeon Lehats'i (1584-1637) criticized the educational level of the clergy in his historical poem Vipasanut'iun Nikolakan [Nikolian epic]. Many works eulogized cities and monasteries. Others were historical, such as the History of the Ottoman Kings and odes to John III Sobieski and Louis XIV by Eremia Ch'elepi K'eomiurchyan (1637-95).

The religious meditational poem Matyan Oghbergut'yan [Book of lamentations] by the medieval Armenian cleric Grigor Narekats'i (951-1003) was published widely in the 18th century and inspired contemporary poets such as Petros Nakhijevants'i (d. 1784) and Movses Jughayets'i.

The writer, poet, and critic from western Armenia Artashes Harut'iunyan (1874-1915) belonged to the "provincial" school, which took its inspiration directly from the people. In his view the Armenian writing of Constantinople was derivative, being inspired by French romanticism. He corresponded with French and Belgian writers, translated works by Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy, and wrote articles for the French press. His novels portray Armenian village life, one of the best being Zghjume [The regret]. Together with other Armenian intellectuals, he was arrested in April 1915 and murdered.

Conflict with Ottoman Empire

Conflict between Turks and Armenians resulted from dissimilar cultural elements and social organization. By the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman authorities justified their attacks on Armenians by accusing them of being "revolutionaries, terrorists, and troublemakers acting on behalf of Russia or other foreign powers." Even with the demise of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the conflict between Turks and Armenians remained unresolved, resulting in contemporary Armenian terrorist attacks on Turkish targets.

The Armenians expected outside assistance in their efforts to break away from Ottoman rule and were led to carry out a number of rash terror actions, including bombing and assassinations. The Russians therefore discouraged the Armenian liberation movement from establishing an independent Armenia on the southern borders of Russia. But the Russian government also took active steps to prevent the massacres of Armenians by Sultan Abdul Hamid.

When Sultan Abdul Hamid II came to power in 1876, he steered a course of political and social repression and technological modernization. But the Empire was the "sick man of Europe" and nationalist revolts among Christian minorities led to the loss of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Romania and large parts of Bulgaria, which comprised 40% of the territory. Some 400,000 Muslim refugees were expelled; the Empire became more Muslim and hatred of Christians intensified. The old program of using Christian minorities to speed the modernization process had failed. The Empire was bankrupt and the Christians wanted autonomy, not participation.

In August and September 1894, a series of massacres occurred in the vicinity of Sassun as a result of an uprising that was put down with ferocity by Kurdish irregular cavalry (Hamidieh regiments). The massacres soon spread, and in October and November 1895 there were pogroms at Trabzon, Erzurum, Bitlis, Kurun, Maras, and elsewhere. The essential cause of the massacres lay in the failure of the European powers to secure the reforms envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin for the Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In August 1896 after an attack on the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople a massacre of Armenians occurred in the Ottoman capital; 4,000 to 6,000 Armenians were killed. By the end of 1896 over 80,000 Armenians lad dead in the eastern provinces.

Genocide

see Armenian genocide

With the advent of World War I the situation became much worse. As Christians in an Empire of Muslims that was now at war with Christian nations, especially Russia, the Armenians were viewed by the Ottoman government as a threat and potential subversive allies of the Russians. The Ottomans first disarmed the Armenian population, and then sought to destroy them starting in 1915. A massive genocide occurred, consisting of the deaths of 600,000 or more Armenian men, women and children. Most died by starvation in the desert. Turkey has never admitted the deaths were a premeditated genocide, and the topic is generally not discussed in Turkey.

Russian rule

In the 19th century, Russia, after victories over Persia in 1828 and over the Ottoman Empire in 1829, acquired the right to organize the immigration of Armenians into the Caucasus with the aim of developing the territories. Under Russia, the number of Armenians in the area now represented by present-day Armenia increased from 46,000 in 1827 to 511,000 in 1897. Thus by joining Russia, Eastern Armenia became the home of the national survival of the Armenian people.

Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Russians occupied the six Armenian vilayets, and Armenian nationalism was stimulated. In 1880, a revolutionary organization known as the Defenders of the Fatherland was organized in Erzurum. A few years later, in 1885, the Armenakan society was organized, and in 1887 the Hunchagian Party appeared. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktzutun) was formed in 1890. The Dashnaks were socialists who sought to overthrow the Tsarist system and create an independent state. They also wanted to acquire the Armenian areas in the otooman Empire by force.

Cultural trends

The making of a modern Armenian nation was an intellectual event that took place largely outside the Armenian heartland in the Armenian communities of Western Turkey, Russia, India, and Europe. It was here that the first generation of patriotic intellectuals emerged. By the 18th century the Armenian language had fragmented into numerous mutually incomprehensible dialects, while any knowledge of Armenian history had been effectively wiped out except among a small group of monks, who copied and recopied the ancient texts. The first modern generation of Armenian patriots undertook a revival of Armenian letters and spread the new nationalism to the next generation of patriotic intellectuals from Western Anatolia and the Armenian colonies of the Russian Empire.

Gevorg Bashinjaghian (1857-1925) was a leading Armenian landscape painter. Educated at the Petersburg Academy of Art, Bashinjaghian was acquainted with European, Russian, Oriental, and classical Greek and Roman art. His 1883 exhibition in Tiflis of 16 landscapes of Armenia and the Caucasus established Armenian realistic landscape painting as a distinct genre of art. In Italy in 1884, he admired Renaissance art, and in Paris, 1899-1901, he participated in exhibitions with contemporary European artists. He painted several views of Ararat, Lake Sevan, and other Armenian landscapes combining peacefulness, simplicity, and majesty.

The Armenian journalist Grigor Artsruni (1845-92) published the first European-style Armenian magazine, Mshak. As editor and proprietor from 1872 to 1892, he published views on a wide range of contemporary national and international issues: the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the rise of the Eastern Question, and the Congress of Berlin in 1878, especially as they affected the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Among his contributors the most prominent was the novelist Raffi (pseud. for Hakob Melik` Hakobyan, 1835-88).

The musician Genari Korganov (1858-90) was known as a pianist, composer, and critic. He was the music critic for the Tiflis (Tbilisi) Kavkaz (Caucasus) newspaper, his principal interest being operatic and symphonic works, and gave a number of recitals from 1884 to his sudden death in 1890. The Russian composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935) dedicated his Armenian Rhapsody to him.

Hakob Kochoyan (1883-1959), was a prominent Armenian painter, professor, and lecturer in the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts, famed as an innovator in his style of drawing. Receiving his artistic education and living in Europe before settling in Yerevan in 1922, he expressed the artistic traditions of East and West. His work represents a rich variety of style, theme, genre, and technique in oil, watercolor, gouache, engravings, pencil drawings, and sketches on canvas, stamps, crystal, and china. His paintings and illustrations in books and periodicals deal with Armenian history, natural scenery, folklore, and contemporary life. They express the nation's vitality and durability. His paintings have been exhibited internationally.

Stepan Malkhassiants (1857-1947) was a philologist, lexicographer, prolific author on Armenology, and founding member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. His philological works and translations from ancient to modern Armenian made national classics accessible to the masses. His Armenian Explanatory Dictionary, explaining all words of ancient, middle, and modern Armenian in all dialects as well as loan words, is a model work of its kind.

Independence

Amidst the chaos of Russia in 1918, period the Armenian National Council declared the establishment of the Republic of Armenia (May 1918) on the territory of Russian Armenia.

Armenia regained its independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989. Communism was overthrown but there weere tensions with neighboring [[Georgia}} and a war broke out with the Muslim nation of Azerbaijan over disputed boundaries, a war that Armenia won.

Historiography

The Armenian historian Ashot Hovhannisyan (1887-1972) studied in Germany where he received his doctorate in 1913. In 1920 he was a member of the Soviet Russian delegation sent to negotiate with the government of Armenia. Subsequently he held a number of educational and political posts. Arrested in 1937, he resumed his historical studies in 1954 and was appointed director of the Historical Section of the Armenian Academy of Sciences in 1961. During this period he published several important works, the principal one being his Drvagner Hay Azatagrakan Mtk'i Patmut'yan [Episodes in the history of the concept of Armenian liberation].

Under the totalitarian Soviet regime, historiographical policy was laid down by the Party authorities and imposed through the Academy of Sciences. As a consequence, 19th-20th-century Armenian history could not be analyzed critically. The events of 1917-21 had to be discussed purely from a class point of view, suppressing national aspects. In medieval studies, Armenian history of the 12th and 13th centuries could not be based on primary evidence; the religious T'ondrakian movement had to be presented purely as a social phenomenon. Nevertheless, many good studies were published, especially on the ancient and medieval periods. There were also some positive aspects of Soviet policy, such as the establishment of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia in 1943.

Further reading

Surveys

• Adalian, Rouben P. Historical Dictionary of Armenia (2002).
• Chahin, M. The Kingdom of Armenia: A History‎ (2001) 350pp excerpt and text search
• Herzig, Edmund, and Marina Kurkchiyan. The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity (2005) online edition
• Hovannisian, Richard G. ed. The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 2: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. 1997. 493 pp.
• Oshagan, Vahe, ed. Armenia. (Review of National Literatures) (1984). 264 pp.
• Panossian, Razmik. The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. 2006. 442 pp.
• Payaslian, Simon. The History of Armenia‎ (2007) 304pp
• Somakian, Manoug Joseph. Empires in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers, 1895-1920. 1995. 276 pp.
• Suny, Ronald Grigor. Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. (1993). 289 pp.
• Thierry, Jean Michael and Donabédian, Patrick. Armenian Art (1989). 624 pp.
• Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. (1990). 476 pp.

Specialty studies

• Chorbajian, Levon; Donabedian, Patrick; and Mutafian, Claude. The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geopolitics of Nagorno-Karabagh. (1994). 198 pp.
• Hovannisian, Richard G. Armenia on the road to independance 1918 (1967)
• Hovannisian, Richard G. The republic of Armenia. Vol. 1, The first year, 1918-1919 (1971); Vol. 2, From Versailles to London, 1919-1920 (1982); Vol. 3, From London to Sèvres, February-August 1920 (1997); Vol. 4, Between crescent and sickle: partition and Sovietization (1997)
• Villa, Susie Hoogasian and Matossian, Mary Kilbourne. Armenian Village Life Before 1914. (1982). 197 pp.

Genocide

• Bloxham, Donald. The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (2005), scholarly history of the wartime massacres; 344 pages excerpt and text search
• Bloxham, Donald. "Rethinking the Armenian Genocide." History Today 2005 55(6): 28-30. Issn: 0018-2753 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Dadrian, Vahakn N. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (1997) online edition
• Papazian, Bertha S. The Tragedy of Armenia: A Brief Study and Interpretation (1919) full text online