History of Armenia
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Prehistory
Archaeologists refer to the Shulaveri-Shomu culture of the central Transcaucasus region, including modern Armenia, as the earliest known prehistoric culture in the area, carbon-dated to roughly 6000 - 4000 BC. However, a recently discovered tomb has been dated to 9000 BC. Another early culture in the Armenian Highland and surrounding areas—the Kura-Araxes culture—is assigned the period of ca. 4000 - 2200 BC, and is believed to have subsequently developed into the Trialeti culture (ca. 2200 - 1500 BC). Armenians are one of the oldest Indo-European subgroups.The original Armenian name for the country was Hayq, later Hayastan, translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name Haik and the Sanskrit suffix '-stan' (land). According to legend, Haik was a great-great-grandson of Noah (son of Togarmah, who was a son of Gomer, a son of Noah's son, Yafet), and according to tradition, a forefather of all Armenians. Mount Ararat, a sacred mountain for the Armenian people, rising in the center of the Armenian Highland as its highest peak, is traditionally considered the landing place of Noah's Ark.
The name Armenia was given to the country by the surrounding states, as it was the name of the strongest tribe living in the historic Armenian lands, who called themselves Armens. It is traditionally derived from Armenak or Aram (the great-grandson of Haik's great-grandson, and another leader who is, according to Armenian tradition, the ancestor of all Armenians).
Early history
Between 1500 - 1200 BC, a tribal confederation called Hayasa-Azzi existed in the western half of the Armenian Highland, often clashing with the Hittite Empire. Between 1200 - 800 BC, much of Armenia was united under a conferedation of kingdoms, which Assyrian sources called Nairi ("Land of Rivers" in Assyrian"). Nairi was later absorbed into the Kingdom of Urartu.
The Armenian Kingdom of Urartu (Ararat) or Van flourished in the Caucasus and eastern Asia Minor between ca. 800 BC and 600 BC. It streched from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, including much of modern Eastern Turkey. Traditional Western historiography suggests that Armenians moved from Phrygia to the territory of the kingdom of Urartu between 1200 - 700 BC. The theory is mainly based on Herodotus, who calls Armenians Phrygian colonists, and states that in the 5th century BC, when both Armenians and Phrygians served under Xerxes (during the reign of the Achaemenid Persian Empire), their costume and equipment were identical. A competing theory, suggested by Thomas Gamkrelidze, Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, and a number of other scholars, suggests that Armenians are native to the Armenian Highland, and comprised the population and the royal dynasty of Urartu.
Kingdom of Armenia
After the fall of Urartu around 600 BC, the Kingdom of Armenia was ruled by the Armenian Orontid Dynasty, which governed the state in 600 - 200 BC. Under Orontids, Armenia at times was an independent kingdom, and at other times an autonomous kingdom subject to the Persian and Seleucid Empires. After the destruction of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great in 330's BC, the Armenian kingdom regained its full independence. At the same time, a western portion of the kingdom split as a separate state under king Mithrdates, which became known as Lesser Armenia. In contrast, the main kingdom acquired the name of Greater Armenia. Around 200 BC, the Seleucid Empire subjugated Armenia, ending the rule of the Orontid dynasty and appointing Artashes (Artaxias) and Zareh (Zariadis), both related to Orontids, as rulers of Armenia.
After the destruction of the Seleucid Empire, a Hellenistic Greek successor state of Alexander the Great's short-lived empire, a Hellenistic Armenian state was founded in 190 BC, with Artashes becoming its first kings and the founder of the Artashesid dynasty (190 BC - 1 AD). At its zenith, from 95 to 66 BC, Armenia extended its rule over parts of the Caucasus and the area that is now eastern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. For a time, Armenia was one of the most powerful states in the Roman East. It came under Roman control in 66 BC, and the Armenian people adopted a Western political, philosophical, and religious orientation. According to Strabo, around this time everyone in Armenia spoke "the same language." (Strabo 11.14.4).
Armenia was often a focus of contention between Rome and Persia.
The Parthians forced Armenia into submission from 37 to 47, when the Romans retook control of the kingdom.
Under Nero, the Romans fought a campaign (55–63) against the Parthian Empire, which had invaded the kingdom of Armenia, allied to the Romans. After gaining (60) and losing (62) Armenia, the Romans sent XV Apollinaris from Pannonia to Cn. Domitius Corbulo, legatus of Syria. Corbulo, with the legions XV Apollinaris, III Gallica, V Macedonica, X Fretensis and XXII, entered (63) into the territories of Vologases I of Parthia, who returned the Armenian kingdom to Tiridates.
Another campaign was led by Emperor Lucius Verus in 162-165, after Vologases IV of Parthia had invaded Armenia and installed his chief general on its throne. To counter the Parthian threat, Verus set out for the east. His army won significant victories and retook the capital. Sohaemus, a Roman citizen of Armenian heritage, was installed as the new client king.
The Sassanid Persians occupied Armenia in 252 and held it until the Romans returned in 287. In 384 the kingdom was split between the Byzantine or East Roman Empire and the Persians. Western Armenia quickly became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Armenia Minor; Eastern Armenia remained a kingdom within Persia until 428, when the local nobility overthrew the king, and the Sassanids installed a governor in his place.
Christianization
In AD 301, Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion. It established a church that still exists independently of both the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches, having become so in 451 as a result of its excommunication by the Council of Chalcedon. The Armenian Apostolic Church is a part of the Oriental Orthodox communion, not to be confused with the Eastern Orthodox communion.
According to tradition, the Armenian Apostolic Church was established by two of Jesus' twelve apostles--Thaddaeus and Bartholomew--who preached Christianity in Armenia in the 40's-60's AD. Between 1st and 4th centuries AD, the Armenian Church was headed by patriarchs. The first Catholicos of the Armenian church was Saint Gregory the Illuminator. Because of his beliefs, he was persecuted by the pagan king of Armenia, and was "punished" by being thrown in Khor Virap, in modern-day Armenia. He acquired the title of Illuminator, because he illuminated the spirits of Armenians by introducing Christianity to them.
During its later political eclipses, Armenia depended on the church to preserve and protect its unique identity. From around 1080 to 1375, the focus of Armenian nationalism moved south, as the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, with close ties to European Crusader States, flourished in southeastern Asia Minor until it was conquered by Muslim states.
Byzantium and Bagratid Armenia
In 591, the great Byzantine warrior and Emperor Maurice defeated the Persians and 'recovered' much of the remaining territory of Armenia into the empire. The conquest was completed by the Emperor Heraclius in 629.In 645, the Muslim Arab armies of the Caliphate had attacked the country, which fell before them. So Armenia, which once had its own rulers and was at other times under Persian and Byzantine control, passed largely into the power of the Caliphs.
Nonetheless, there were still parts of Armenia held within the Empire, and many Armenians. This exiled population held tremendous power within the empire. The Emperor Heraclius (610-641) was of Armenian descent, as was the Emperor Philippicus (711-713). The Emperor Basil I, who took the Byzantine throne in 867, was the first of what is sometimes called the Armenian dynasty, reflecting the strong effect the Armenians had on the eastern Roman state. Indeed, while there were many different racial and linguistic groups within the Byzantine Empire, only the Armenians were able and allowed to maintain a distinct culture.
When Armenia was a sovereign kingdom during Medieval times, it enjoyed a great cultural, political, and economic renewal. A new capital, Ani was constructed at the Kingdom's apogee. It is said that Ani held approximately 200,000 inhabitants - some estimates elevate that number to 1,000,000 - and 1001 churches, at a time when European capitals were populated only by around 20,000 individuals. With the construction of Ani, Armenia became a populous and prosperous nation, exerting political and economic influence over surrounding states or nations.
In 1071, after the defeat of the Byzantine forces by the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert, the Turks captured the Byzantine province of Greater Armenia. So ended Christian leadership of Armenia for the next millennium with the exception of a period of the late 12th-early 13th centuries, when the Muslim power in Greater Armenia was seriously troubled by the resurgent Georgian monarchy. Many local nobles (nakharars) joined their efforts with the Georgians, leading to liberation of several areas in northern Armenia, which was ruled, under the authority of the Georgian crown, by the Zacharids/Mkhargrdzeli, a prominent Armeno-Georgian noble family of alleged Kurdish origin.
Thousands of Armenian families left historic Armenia and settled in more promising lands, such as Cilicia, Poland, etc. The situation gave the Kurdish and Turkish tribes the opportunity to expand into historic Armenia in Anatolia.
The "City of a 1001 Churches" was devastated after subsequent invasions by Turkic tribes. More destruction followed with an earthquake that ruined most of Ani's infrastructure. It was only a shadow of its former self in the 14th century.
Arabs, Seljuks and Crusaders
Although the native dynasty of the Bagratids to which the Arabs gave the royal crown of Armenia, was founded under favourable circumstances, the feudal system gradually weakened the country by eroding loyalty to the central government. Thus internally enfeebled, Armenia proved an easy victim for the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan in the latter half of the eleventh century. To escape death or servitude at the hands of those who had assassinated his relative, Gagik II, King of Ani, an Armenian named Roupen with some of his countrymen went into the gorges of the Taurus Mountains and then into Tarsus of Cilicia. Here the Byzantine governor of the place gave them shelter. Soon after the members of the first Crusade appeared in Asia Minor.
Count Baldwin, who with the rest of the Crusaders was passing through Asia Minor bound for Jerusalem, left the Crusader army and was adopted by Thoros of Edessa. Hostile as they were to the Seljuks, and unfriendly to the Byzantines, the Armenians took kindly to the crusader count, and when Thoros was assassinated he was made ruler of the new crusader County of Edessa. It seems that the Armenians enjoyed the rule of Baldwin and the crusaders in general, and some number of them fought alongside the Christians of Europe. When Antioch had been taken (1097), Constantine, the son of Roupen, received from the crusaders the title of baron. Within a century, the heirs of Roupen were further rewarded by the grant of a kingdom known as Cilicia or Lesser Armenia, to be held as a vassal government of the Holy See and of Germany. This kept them in touch with the crusaders. No doubt the Armenians aided in some of the other crusades. Cilicia flourished greatly under Armenian rule, as it became the last remnant of Medieval Armenian statehood. Cilcia acquired an Armenian identity, as the kings of Cilicia were called kings of Armenians, not of Cilicians. In Lesser Armenia, Armenian culture was intertwined with both the European culture of the Crusaders, and with the Hellenic culture of Cilicia. As the Catholic families extended their influence over Cilicia, the Pope wanted the Armenians to follow Catholicism. This situation divided the kingdom's inhabitants between pro-Catholic and pro-Apostolic camps. Armenian sovereignty lasted till 1375, when the Mamelukes of Egypt profited from the unstable situation of Lesser Armenia and destroyed it.
Ottoman Rule (1514-1828) and later Western (1828-WWI)
Between the 4th and 19th centuries, Armenia was conquered and ruled by Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, and Turks, among others. Historic Armenia remained under the Ottoman yoke for hundreds of years, until it gained independence in 1918.
Mehmed II conquered Constantinople from the Byantines in 1453, and made it the Ottoman Empire's capital. Then, the Sultan invited an Armenian archbishop to establish an Armenian patriarchate in Constantinople. The Armenians of Constantinople grew in numbers, and became respected members of Ottoman society.
The Ottoman Empire ruled in accordance to Islamic law. This means that "non-believers", such as the Christians and the Jews had to pay extra taxes. While the Armenians of Constantinople benefitted from the Sultan's support, the ones inhabiting Historic Armenia never did. They were mistreated by local pashas or beys and had to pay more taxes imposed by Kurdish tribes.
Armenians, along with other Ottoman Christians, had to hand in some of their children to the Sultan's government, which converted them into Muslim Janissaries, fierce warriors used during the Ottoman Empire's campaigns in Europe.
The Ottoman Empire ceded a small part of the traditional Armenian homeland to the Russian Empire, known as Eastern Armenia following the Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829, while Western Armenia or Ottoman Armenia remained under Ottoman sovereignty. In 1839, the situation of the Ottoman Armenians slightly improved after Abdul Mejid I carried out reforms in its territories. However, later Sultans, such as Abdul Hamid II stopped the reforms and carried out massacres, now known as the Hamidian massacres of 1895-96.
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire systematically carried out the Armenian Genocide, during which 1.5 million Armenians perished.
Western Armenia was recognized as being part of the Republic of Armenia in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920.
Russian Rule (1820-1917) of East Armenia
In the aftermath of the Russo-Persian War, 1826-1828, the parts of historic Armenia under Persian control, centering on Yerevan and Lake Sevan, were incorporated into Russia. Under Russian rule, the area corresponding approximately to modern-day Armenian territory was called "Province of Yerevan". The Armenian subjects of the Russian Empire lived in relative safety, compared to their Anatolian kin, albeit clashes with Tatars and Kurds were frequent in the early 20th century.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the ambitious Russians sought out to continue their expansion into Armenian land in order to reach the warm waters of the Mediterranean. This caused conflict between the Russian and Ottoman Empires.
World War I saw the depopulation of large parts of historic Armenia ruled by the Ottoman Turks, during the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923)
The ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is widely considered a genocide, with one wave of massacres in the years 1894 to 1896 culminating in the events of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 -1923. With World War I in progress, the Turks accused the (Christian) Armenians as liable to ally with Imperial Russia, and used it as a pretext to deal with the entire Armenian population as an enemy within their empire. The events of 1915 to 1923 are regarded by Armenians and the vast majority of Western historians to have been state-sponsored mass killings. Turkish authorities, however, maintain that the deaths were the result of a civil war coupled with disease and famine, with casualties incurred by both sides. The exact numbers of deaths is hard to establish. It is estimated by many sources that close to a million Armenians perished in camps, which excludes Armenians who may have died in other ways. Most estimates place the total number of deaths between 800,000 and 1.5 million. These events are traditionally commemorated yearly on April 24, the Armenian Christian martyr day.
Democratic Republic of Armenia (1917-1922)
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the takeover of the Bolsheviks, Stepan Shaumyan was placed in charge of Armenia.
The convention in Tiflis happened in September of 1917. The convention elected an Armenian National Council. Meanwhile, both the Ittihad (Unionist) and the Nationalists moved to win the friendship of the Bolsheviks. Mustafa Kemal sent several delegations to Moscow. This alliance proved disastrous for the Armenians. The signing of the Ottoman-Russian friendship treaty (January 1, 1918), helped the Vehib Pasha to attack the new Republic. Under heavy pressure from the combined forces of the Ottoman army and the Kurdish irregulars, the Republic was forced to withdraw from Erzincan to Erzurum. In the end, the Republic had to evacuate Erzurum as well.
Further southeast, in Van, the Armenians resisted the Turkish army until April, 1918, but eventually were forced to evacuate it and withdraw to Persia. When the Azerbaijani Tatars sided with the Turks and seized the communication lines, thus cutting off the Armenian National Councils in Baku and Erevan from the National Council in Tiflis.
Turkish Nationals fought against the Armenians with the justification that the Armenians under the border were performing "crimes" against the Turkish population in the Ottoman provinces. Thus a Turkish-Armenian War was started.
- For more details on this topic, see Turkish-Armenian War.
Armenia in the Soviet Union (1922-1991)
After the invasion of the Red Army, Armenia became part of the short-lived Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In 1936, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed. The transition to communism was difficult for Armenia, and for most of the other republics in the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities placed Armenians under strict surveillance. There was almost no freedom of speech, even less so under Joseph Stalin. Any individual who was suspected of using or introducing nationalist rhetoric or elements in their works were labeled traitors or propangandists, and were sent to Siberia during Stalinian rule. Even Zabel Yessayan, a writer who was fortunate enough to escape from ethnic cleansing during the Armenian Genocide, was quickly exiled to Siberia after repatriating to Armenia from France.
Soviet Armenia participated in WWII by sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the frontline in order to defend the "Soviet motherland".
Soviet rule also had some positive aspects. Armenia, a nation that was under foreign domination for hundreds of years, and was not ready for statehood in between hostile Turkish neighbors, was kept under control and put under Soviet protection from Kemalist Turkey, thanks to the Iron Curtain. Armenia also greatly benefitted from the Soviet economy, especially when it was at its apex. Provincial villages gradually became towns and towns gradually became cities. Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan was reached, albeit temporarily. During this time, Armenia had a sizeable Azeri minority, mostly centred in Yerevan. Likewise, Azerbaijan had an Armenian minority, concentrated in Baku, Kirovabad, and Nagorno-Karabakh. This demographic would change dramatically during and after the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Many Armenians still had nationalist sentiments, although they would very seldomly express them publicly. On April 24, 1965, tens of thousands of Armenians flooded the streets of Yerevan to remind the world of the horrors that their parents and grandparents endured during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. This was the first public demonstration of such high numbers in the USSR, which defended national interests rather than collective ones. In the late 1980s, Armenia was suffering from pollution. With Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of glasnost and perestroika, public demonstrations became more common. Thousands of Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan because of the USSR's inability to address simple ecological concerns. Later on, with the conflict in Karabakh, the demonstrations obtained a more nationalistic flavour. Many Armenians began to demand statehood.
The Armenian diaspora after the genocide (1915-today)
Although an Armenian diaspora existed since the Armenian loss of statehood in 1375, it grew in size only after the Armenian genocide.
Armenians from various parts of the Ottoman Empire were relocated to the Syrian desert, where most of them were exterminated by Ottoman troops and irregulars. However, some Armenians managed to escape, and established themselves in various Balkan and Middle Eastern cities, such as Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Athens, Greece; Beirut, Lebanon; and Aleppo, Syria. However, not all Armenians stayed there. Some settled in France and in the US as early as in the 1920s.
At first the Armenians of the diaspora lived in camps. However, as their financial situation improved, the camps grew into towns, and these towns became cities. This was the case of many of the Armenian-populated regions in Lebanon. In time, the Armenians organized themselves by building churches, schools, community centers, etc. Various political parties and benevolent unions, such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Social-Democrat Henchagian party, and the Armenian General Benevolent Union, were established wherever there was a considerable number of Armenians.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the Soviet Union was trying to extend its influence throughout the world, and especially in the Middle-East. The Social-Democrat Henchagian party, being ideologically close to communism, supported the Soviet Union in its struggle to expand in the Middle-East. Partisans of the AGBU, supposedly being politically neutral, also supported the Soviet Union, because Armenia was a part of it. The ARF, despite its socialist background was a nationalistic party, objected, as it believed in a free, independent, and united Armenia. As the ARF struggled to preserve the flag, coat of arms, and national anthem of the Independent Armenian Republic of 1918-1922, the others chose to support Soviet Armenia.
There was also a conflict between the leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Armenians had 2 Catholicoi. One of them was located in Echmiadzin, Armenia and was supported by the Soviet KGB, the Henchags, and the Ramgavars, while the other was located in Antelias, Lebanon and was supported by the Tashnags, as they thought that the Catholicosate of Echmiadzin was a tool for propagation of communism.
In the 1950s, during the climax of this conflict, there were armed clashes between partisans of the 2 "sides", and also assassination attempts, acts of desecration, etc.
The conflict eased out in 1975 during the Lebanese Civil War, when the Armenians had to stick together in order to overcome opposing forces.
Following the expansion of Pan-Arabism in Egypt and Syria, Islamism in Iran, and the Lebanese Civil War, tens of thousands of Armenians emigrated from the Middle East and established themselves in the United States, Canada, France, and elsewhere, where they have founded lobbies to support the Republic of Armenia and extend the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide...
Republic of Armenia (1991-today)
Armenia declared its independence from the Soviet Union on September 21, 1991.On August 23, 1990, Armenia declared its independence. However, it was officially recognized on September 11, 1991.
Armenia faced many challenges during its first years as a sovereign state. In 1988 the Spitak Earthquake destroyed multiple towns in northern Armenia, such as Leninakan (modern Gyumri) and Spitak and took tens of thousands of lives. Many families were left without electricity and running water. The harsh situation caused by the earthquake and subsequent events made many residents of Armenia leave and settle in North America, Western Europe or Australia.
The Armenians also endured the Nagorno-Karabakh war, an ethnic territorial dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan. Following Armenia's victory, both Azerbaijan and Turkey closed their borders and imposed a blockade which they retain to this day. These events severely affected the economy of the fledgeling republic, and closed off its main routes to Europe.
Levon Ter-Petrossian, the previous President of Armenia, was faced with many difficulties, yet did what he could to improve the situation. His controversial banning of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, one of the main organised political entities in the Armenian diaspora, and his apathy (mainly due to inexperience) toward the pursuit of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic made him somewhat unpopular with both diasporans and Armenian citizens.
After Robert Kocharian came to power in 1998, the difficult life conditions of Armenia gradually started to change. The Armenian diaspora, and especially the ARF obtained more freedom to carry out economic projects in the fatherland.
In 2006, the Republic of Armenia will celebrate its 15th anniversary of independence.
References
Books
- Chahin, M. 1987. The Kingdom of Armenia. Reprint: Dorset Press, New York. 1991.
- Lang, David Marshall. 1980. Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. 3rd Edition, corrected. George Allen & Unwin. London.
- Luttwak, Edward N. 1976. The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third. Johns Hopkins University Press. Paperback Edition, 1979.
- George A. Bournoutian, A History of the Armenian People, 2 vol. (1994)
- I. M. Diakonoff, The Pre-History of the Armenian People (revised, trans. Lori Jennings), Caravan Books, New York (1984), ISBN 0-882067-039-2.
- M. Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia (1987, reissued 1991)
- Nicholas Adontz, Armenia in the Period of Justinian: The Political Conditions Based on the Naxarar System, trans. Nina G. Garsoïan (1970)
- George A. Bournoutian, Eastern Armenia in the Last Decades of Persian Rule, 1807–1828: A Political and Socioeconomic Study of the Khanate of Erevan on the Eve of the Russian Conquest (1982)
Publications
- The Free Republic of Armenia 1918. Armenian National Committee, San Francisco. [1980].
- This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a US government publication, is in the public domain.
- This article contains material from the US Department of State's Background Notes which, as a US government publication, is in the public domain.
- "Armenia" in the Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01736b.htm
- "The Crusaders through Armenian Eyes" by Robert W. Thomson, from The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (Dumbarton Oaks, 2001). Also accessible online at www.doaks.org/etexts.html
See also
External links
- [Armenica.org: Complete history of Armenia, covering 800 B.C. to 2004.] (English, Swedish)
- [History of Armenia] (book by Vahan Kurkjian)
- [Armenian History at Armeniapedia]
- [Armenia at Livius.Org] (ancient history)
- [All about Armenia by www.haias.net]
- [Historical Maps of Armenia on Atlas of Conflicts] (by Andrew Andersen)
- [Armenian Historical Sources] (by Robert Bedrosian)
- [Rulers.org — Armenia] list of rulers for Armenia
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