The present-day Republic
of Armenia occupies but a fraction of the ancient Armenia, which extended
from the lesser Caucasus Mountains south across the Armenian plateau
to the Taurus Mountains. Frequent earthquakes still remind us that
the land lies near the great geological fault between the Asian and
African subcontinent plates. The Armenian plateau is a highland which
rises directly above its surrounding regions.
Geography undoubtedly played
a key role in the history and culture of Armenia. Forming an important
highway of great value for trade and commerce between Asia and Europe,
Armenia it seems was destined to be at grips with adversity. The land
with its untold riches and its strategic position of primary import
stirred the ambitions of many "superpowers" of the region.
For a succession of centuries,
the Armenians were in constant warfare with invaders and conquerors
- Assyrians, Romans, 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 historical identity and
upheld their national heritage against great odds. Although on occasions
overpowered by superior forces and reduced to the status of vassals,
they nevertheless enjoyed a semblance of national autonomy.
Yet, the very vicissitudes
that troubled its existence contributed to the creation of a varied
and original culture, held together by the constants of social, intellectual
and religious institutions.
Armenian tradition has
preserved several legends concerning the origin of the Armenian nation.
The most important of these tells of Hayk, the eponymous hero of the
Armenians who called themselves Hay and their country Hayk' or Hayastan.
The historian of the 5th century, Movses Khorenatsi, also relates
at some length the valiant deeds of Aram whose fame extended far beyond
the limits of his country. Consequently, the neighboring nations called
the people Armens or Armenians.
Archeology has extended
the prehistory of Armenia to the Acheulian age (500,000 years ago),
when hunting and gathering peoples crossed the lands in pursuit of
migrating herds. The first period of prosperity was enjoyed by inhabitants
of the Armenian upland in the third millennium B.C. These people were
among the first to forge bronze, invent the wheel, and cultivate grapes.
The first written records to mention the inhabitants of Armenia come
from hieroglyphs of the Hittite Kingdom, inscribed from 1388 to 1347
B.C., in Asia Minor. The earliest inscription to be found directly
upon Armenian lands, carved in 1114 B.C. by the Assyrians, describes
a coalition of kings of the central Armenian region referring to them
as "the people of Nairi."
By the 9th century B.C.,
a confederation of local tribes flourished as the unified state of
Urartu. It grew to become one of the strongest kingdoms in the Near
East and constituted a for-midable rival to Assyria for supremacy
in the region. The Urartians produced and exported wares of ceramic,
stone and metal, building fortresses, temples, palaces and other large
public works. One of their irrigation canals is still used today in
Yerevan, Armenia's capital—a city which stands upon the ancient Urartian
fortress of Erebuni.
In the 6th century Urartu
fell to the Medes, but not long after, the Persian conquest of the
Medes, led by Cyrus the Great, displaced them. Persia ruled over Armenia
from the 6th century until the 4th century B.C. Its culture and Zoroastrian
religion greatly influenced the spiritual life of the Armenian people
who absorbed features of Zoroastrianism into their polytheistic and
ani-mistic indigenous beliefs.
As part of the Persian
Empire, Armenia was divided into provinces called satrapies, each
with a local governing satrap (viceroy) supervised by a Persian. The
Armenians paid heavy tribute to the Persians, who continually requisitioned
silver, rugs, horses and military supplies. The governing satraps
of Armenia's royal Orontid family governed the country for some 200
years, while Asia became acquainted with invading Greeks from the
west.
With the fall of the Persian
Empire to Alexander the Great of Macedonia in 331 B.C., the Greeks
appointed a new satrap, an Orontid named Mithranes, to govern Armenia.
The Greek Empire, which stretched across Asia and Europe, was one
in which cities rapidly grew, spreading Hellenistic architecture,
religion and philosophies. Armenian culture absorbed Greek influences
as well. As centers at the crossroads of trade routes connecting China,
India and Central Asia with the Mediterranean, Armenian cities thrived
on economic exchange. The Greeks also infused Armenia's version of
Zoroastrianism with facets of their religious beliefs.
After Alexander's sudden
death in 323 B.C., the partitioning of his empire and warring among
his generals led to the emergence of three Greek kingdoms. Despite
pressure from the Seleucid monarchy, one of the Greek kingdoms, the
Orontids, continued to retain control over the largest of three kingdoms
into which Armenia itself had been divided: Greater Armenia, Lesser
Armenia and Sophene.
Seleucid influence over
Armenia finally dissolved when, in the second century B.C., a local
general named Artaxias (Artashes) declared himself King of Greater
Armenia and founded a new dynasty in 189 B.C. Artaxias expanded his
territory by defining the borders of his land and unifying the Armenian
people.
The "renaissance of Armenia"
was accomplished during the reign of Tigran the Great (95-99 B.C.),
who proclaimed himself "King of Kings." Under Tigran II, Armenia grew
to a great degree of military strength and political influence. According
to the Greek biographer Plutarch, the Roman general Lucullos said
of this king, "In Armenia, Tigran is seated surrounded with that power
which has wrested Asia from the Parthians, which carries Greek colonies
into Media, subdues Syria and Palestine and cuts off the Seleucids."
And Cicero, the Roman orator and politician, adds, "He made the Republic
of Rome tremble before the powers of his arms."
Armenia's borders extended
from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Tigran's victories were,
however, destined to hasten his downfall, which occurred in 66 B.C.
His son, King Artavazd II, governed Greater Armenia for 20 years until
Anthony and Cleopatra had him brought to Egypt in chains. Artavazd
refused to name Cleopatra as his queen and was executed. By 64 A.D.
the new Arsacid dynasty, a branch of the Parthian Arsacids, came to
power, and the country as a whole soon became a buffer zone over which
the Romans and Parthians fought for domination.
In order that we may realize
the real implications of the history of Armenia and grasp the soul
of this people, we must turn our gaze upon the beginning of the 4th
century, which was momentous in its consequences for the growth of
the nation. King Tiridates III (Trdat), having been converted by Gregory
the Illuminator, proclaimed Christianity as the religion of the state
in 301 A.D. Thus, Armenia became the first nation to embrace Christianity
officially. This was 12 years before the Emperor Constantine's Edict
of Milan which declared tolerance of Christians in the Roman Empire.
Gregory the Illuminator, later canonized, was elected Catholicos of
the new Armenian national Church, the first in a long line of such
clergy to he elected supreme head of the Armenian Church.
The conversion to Christianity
was inevitably to bring in its wake complications of a political nature
and to arouse grave anxieties in neighboring Persia. The Sassanian
Persians took advantage of Armenia's inner weakness and launched a
campaign to stamp out Christianity there and replace it with Mazdaism.
Under this common threat, the princes, nobility and the people of
Armenia rallied, and in 451 under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief
Vardan Mamikonian the Armenians heroically faced the Persians at Avarayr
in defense of their faith and national heritage. Heavily outnumbered,
they were defeated; Vardan Mamikonian and many valiant men fell fighting.
But guerrilla warfare continued in the mountainous regions. Vahan
Mamikonian, a nephew of Vardan, continued the struggle. This time
the Persians, realizing the futility of their policy, were obliged
to come to terms with the Armenians.
Freedom of religious worship
was restored with the Treaty of Nvarsag. In the 7th century, the mighty
Arabs stormed into Armenia and conquered the country. Beginning in
the 9th century, Armenia enjoyed a brilliant period of independence
when the pow-erful Bagratid Dynasty asserted political authority.
Resumption of international trade brought prosperity and the revival
of artistic and literary pursuits. The capital of Ani grew to a population
of about 100,000, more than any urban center in Europe. Religious
life flourished and Ani became known as the "city of one thousand
and one churches."
In the middle of the 11th
century, most of Armenia had been annexed by Byzantium. The destruction
of the Bagratid Kingdom was completed by raids of new invaders, the
Seljuk Turks from Central Asia. With little resistance from weakened
Byzantium, the Seljuk Turks spread into Asia Minor as well as the
Armenian highlands. This invasion compelled a large number of Armenians
to move south, toward the Taurus Mountains close to the Mediterranean
Sea, where in 1080 they founded, under the leadership of Ruben (Rubenid
dynasty), the Kingdom of Cilicia or Lesser Armenia. Close contacts
with the Crusaders and with Europe led to absorbing Western European
ideas, including its feudal class structure. Cilician Armenia became
a country of barons, knights and serfs. The court at Sis adopted European
clothes. Latin and French were used alongside Armenian.
The Cilician period is
regarded as the Golden Age of Armenian Illumination, noted for the
lavishness of its decoration and the frequent influence of con-temporary
western manuscript painting. Their location on the Mediterranean coast
soon involved Cilician Armenians in interna-tional trade between the
interior of Western Asia and Europe. For nearly 300 years, the Cilician
Kingdom of Armenia prospered, but in 1375 it fell to the Mamelukes
of Egypt. The last monarch, King Levon VI, died at Calais, France
in 1393, and his remains were laid to rest at St. Denis (near Paris)
among the kings of France.
While in the 13th century
the Armenians prospered in the Cilician Kingdom, those living in Greater
Armenia witnessed the invasion of the Mongols. Later, in the 16th
and 17th centuries, Armenia was divided between the Ottoman Empire
and Safavid Iran. With the annexation of the Armenian plateau, the
Armenians lost all vestiges of an independent political life. The
Persian leader Shah Abbas I inaugurated a policy of moving popu-lations
of entire Armenian regions to his country to create a no-man's land
in the path of the Ottoman advance, and to bring a skilled merchant
and artisan class to his new capital, Isfahan. The Armenian community
of New Julfa, a suburb of Isfahan, was held by Shah Abbas I in great
esteem and became one of the economic bases of the Safavid state.
Persians ruled Eastern
Armenia until 1828, when it was annexed by Russia. However, it was
the Ottoman Turks who governed most of the Armenian land and population
(Western Armenia). During the 19th century, Armenians under Turkish
rule suffered from discrimination, heavy taxation and armed attacks.
As Christians, Armenians
lacked legal recourse for injustices. They were taxed beyond their
means, forbidden to bear arms in a country where murdering a non-Muslim
often went unpunished, and were without the right to testify in court
on their own behalf.
During the late l9th century,
the increasingly reactionary politics of the declining Ottoman Empire
and the awakening of the Armenians culminated in a series of Turkish
massacres throughout the Armenian provinces in 1894-96. Any illusion
the Armenians had cherished to the effect that the acquisition of
power in 1908 by the Young Turks might bring better days was soon
dispelled. For in the spring of 1909, yet another orgy of bloodshed
took place in Adana, where 30,000 Armenians lost their lives after
a desperate resistance.
World War I offered a good
opportunity for Turks to "solve the issue." In 1915, a secret military
directive ordered the arrest and prompt execution of Armenian community
leaders. Armenian males serving in the Ottoman army were separated
from the rest and slaughtered. The Istanbul government decided to
deport the entire Armenian population. Armenians in towns and villages
were marched into deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia.
During the "relocation"
many were flogged to death, bayoneted, buried alive in pits, drowned
in rivers, beheaded, raped or abducted into harems. Many simply expired
from heat exhaustion and starvation. 1.5 million people perished in
this first genocide of the 20th century. Another wave of massacres
occurred in Baku (1918). Shushi (1920) and elsewhere.
The defeat of the Ottoman
Turks in World War I and the disintegration of the Russian Empire
gave the Armenians a chance to declare their independence. On May
28, 1918, the independent Republic of Armenia was established, after
the Armenians forced the Turkish troops to withdraw in the battles
of Sardarapat, Karakilisse and Bashabaran. Overwhelming difficulties
confronted the infant republic, but amid these conditions the Armenians
devoted all their energies to the pressing task of reconstructing
their country.
But due to pressure exerted
simultaneously by the Turks and Communists, the republic collapsed
in 1920. Finally, the Soviet Red Army moved into the territory (Eastern
Armenia) and on November 29, 1920, declared it a Soviet republic.
Armenia was made part of
the Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic in 1922, and
in 1936, it became one of the Soviet Union's constituent republics.
The tumultuous changes occurring throughout the Soviet Union beginning
in the 1980's inevitably had repercussions in Armenia.
In 1988, a movement of
support began in Armenia for the constitutional struggle of Nagorno
Karabagh Armenians to exercise their right to self-determination.
(This predominantly Armenian populated autonomous region had been
placed under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan by an arbitrary decision
of Stalin in 1923.)
That same year, in 1988,
Armenia was rocked by severe earthquakes that killed thousands, and
supplies from both the Soviet Union and the West were blocked by the
Azerbaijani Government fighting the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh.
Both of these issues have dominated Armenia's political arena since
the first democratic election held in Armenia during the Soviet era.
In 1990, the Armenian National
Movement won a majority of seats in the parliament and formed a government.
On September 21, 1991, the Armenian people overwhelmingly voted in
favor of independence in a national referendum, and an independent
Armenia came into being.
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