Armenians

Armenians are an ethnic group and a nation native to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century. Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, pp. 1–17 Armenians are the main population of the Republic of Armenia. They were the main population of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh until the Armenians of Nagorno-Narabakh were ethnically cleansed. 

Overview

There is a diaspora of around five million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today are in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil, Syria, and Turkey. The present-day Armenian diaspora was mainly a result of the Armenian genocide with the exceptions of Iran, former Soviet states, and parts of the Levant.Richard G. Hovannisian, The Armenian people from ancient to modern times: the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, Volume 2, p. 421, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

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1st row: Hayk • Artashes I • Tigran the Great • Trdat III • Gregory the illuminator 
2nd row: Mesrop Mashtots • Vardan Mamikonian • Movses Khorenatsi • Anania Shirakatsi • Grigor Narekatsi 
3rd row: Levon II • Toros Roslin • Momik • Sayat Nova • Khachatur Abovyan 
4th row: Ivan Aivazovsky • Andranik Ozanian • Hovhannes Tumanyan • Komitas • Mkrtich Khrimian 
5th row: Tovmas Nazarbekian • Aram Manukian • Yeghishe Charents • Arshile Gorky • Gaia Gai
6th row: Artem Mikoyan • Ivan Bagramyan • Aram Khachaturian • Viktor Ambartsumyan • Tigran Petrosian
7th row: Martiros Saryan • Kirk Kerkorian • Sergei Parajanov • William Saroyan • Charles Aznavour 
8th row: Vazgen I • Karen Demirchyan and Vazgen Sargsyan • Cher • Monte Melkonyan • Serj Tankian

Languages

They speak Armenian which is an Indo-European language unique  in that language family. It has two mutually intelligible spoken and written forms. Eastern Armenian, today is spoken mainly in Armenia, Artsakh, Iran, and the former Soviet republics. Western Armenian, is used in  Western Armenia and, after the Armenian genocide, primarily in the Armenian diasporan communities. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.

Most Armenians are in the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian Christian church. It is the world's oldest state church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after the death of Jesus, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew.see  In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion, followed by the first pilgrimages to the Holy Land where a community established the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem.

 History 

Antiquity

Kingdom of Urartu

The territory of the ancient Kingdom of Urartu extended over the modern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the Republic of Armenia. Its center was the Armenian highland between Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Lake Sevan. The Urartians collaborated with a combination of Scythians and Cimmerians in their jockeying for power, but by 590, having been weakened in the constant rivalry between Assyrians, Babylonians, Scythians, and Medes, Urartu was swallowed by the Medes.  


Orontid dynasty

The Iron Age kingdom of Urartu was replaced by the Orontid dynasty, which ruled Armenia first as satraps under Achaemenid Persian rule and later as independent kings. The Kingdom of Armenia was ruled by the Orontid dynasty from 321 BC to 200 BC. The Orontids  were an Armenian dynasty of probably Iranian origin. Around 200 BC a coup by the Armenian noble family of Artaxias toppled the Orontid dynasty.  The Artaxiad dynasty was been identified as a branch of the Orontid  dynasty. The Seleucid Empire's influence over Armenia weakened after it was defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC. 

Kingdom of Armenia

A Hellenistic Armenian state was founded in the same year by Artaxias I alongside the Armenian kingdom of Sophene led by Zariadres. Artaxias seized Yervandashat, united the Armenian Highlands at the expense of neighboring tribes and founded the new royal capital of Artaxata near the Araxes River. The new city was laid on a strategic position on trade routes that connected the Ancient Greek world with Bactria, India and the Black Sea. This permitted the Armenians to prosper.


Under Tigranes the Great, the Kingdom of Armenia stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The Kingdom of Armenia was called the "Armenian empire" during his reign. At one time, the domains of Tigranes the Great stretched from Mesopotamia up to the Pontic Alps. Inner disunity helped the Romans, who launched a series of onslaughts. 

This began with the invasion by Lucullus in 69-68 B.C, and culminated in the campaigns of Pompey in Armenia, Iberia and Colchis in 66-65 B.C. The downfall of Tigranes the Great came when his son, Tigranes the Younger, fled to the court of the Parthian king Phraates III. He supplied him with an army with which to invade Armenia, and join forces with the victorious Romans.


Approximately half a century after the collapse of the Artaxiad dynasty Armenia was under the rule of the Arshakunis, the Armenian branch of the Parthian Arsacids. In 314, under King Tiridates (Trdat) the Great and through the apostolate of St. Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia, nearly simultaneously with the Roman empire, officially accepted Christianity. This was a turning point in its history. 

An event of importance in the Arshakuni period was the invention of the Armenian alphabet by St. Mesrop. Armenian became the language of the educated; it was introduced into the liturgy; and national literature was born (under Hellenistic and Syrian influences). Armenia’s identity and individuality were saved and absorption by either Byzantine or Iranian civilization did not happen.

Middle Ages

Partition

Later, the Armenian highland was divided between the Sassanids and their successors, the Arabs. Prestige of Ashot I, governor of Armenia, rose as both Byzantine and Arab leaders courted him. The Abbasid Caliphate recognized Ashot as "prince of princes" in 862 and, later as king. Several contemporary prominent Armenians, including Grigor-Derenik Vaspurakan, insisted on Ashot's coronation. Ashot was crowned King of Armenia through the consent of Caliph al-Mu'tamid in 885 to prevent intrusion into Armenian territory by Basil I, a Byzantine emperor of Armenian origin.

Bagratuni kingdom

The establishment of the Bagratuni kingdom led to the founding of several other Armenian principalities and kingdoms: Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars, Khachen and Syunik.Ter-Ghevondyan; Aram, N (1976). «Բագրատունիների Թագավորություն» (Bagratuni Kingdom). Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. (in Armenian). Vol. 2. Yerevan: Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences. p. 202. During the reign of Ashot III (952/53–77), Ani became the kingdom's capital and grew into a thriving economic and cultural center. The first half of the 11th century saw the decline and eventual collapse of the kingdom.

The Byzantine emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025) won a string of victories and annexed parts of southwestern Armenia. King Hovhannes-Smbat felt forced to cede his lands. In 1022 he promised to "will" his kingdom to the Byzantines following his death. After his death in 1041, his successor, Gagik II, refused to hand over Ani and continued resistance until 1045, when his kingdom, plagued with internal and external threats, was finally taken by Byzantine forces. Armenia had a population of 5–6 million in the IX-XI centuries. 

link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bagratuni_Armenia_1000-en.svg|thumb|Kingdom of Armenia, under the Bagratuni dynasty, c. 1000 ADThe kingdom had its origins in the principality founded 1080 by the Rubenid dynasty, an alleged offshoot of the larger Bagratuni dynasty, which at various times had held the throne of Armenia. Their capital was originally at Tarsus, and later became Sis.

Kingdom of Cilicia

In 1198, with the crowning of Leo I, King of Armenia of the Rubenid dynasty, Cilician Armenia became a kingdom. In 1226, the crown was passed to rival Hethumids through Leo's daughter Isabella's second husband, Hethum I. As the Mongols conquered vast regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, Hethum and succeeding Hethumid rulers sought to create an Armeno-Mongol alliance against common Muslim foes, most notably the Mamluks. 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Crusader states and the Mongol Ilkhanate disintegrated, leaving the Armenian Kingdom without any regional allies. After relentless attacks by the Mamluks in Egypt in the fourteenth century, the Cilician Armenia of the Lusignan dynasty, mired in an internal religious conflict, finally fell in 1375.

Commercial and military interactions with Europeans brought new Western influences to the Cilician Armenian society. Many aspects of Western European life were adopted by the nobility including chivalry, fashions in clothing, and the use of French titles, names, and language. The organization of the Cilician society shifted to become closer to Western feudalism. The European Crusaders themselves borrowed know-how, such as elements of Armenian castle-building and church architecture. Cilician Armenia thrived economically. The port of Ayas served as a center for East–West trade. 


Early modern period

Following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, two Islamic empires—the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire—contested Western Armenia, which was permanently separated from Eastern Armenia (held by the Safavids) by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.

Iranian and Russian Empires


Until the late fifteenth century, Armenians were a majority in Eastern Armenia. With the rise of the Safavids, Islam had become the dominant faith, and Armenians became a minority in Eastern Armenia.

80% of the population of Iranian Armenia were Muslims (Persians, Turkics, and Kurds).  Christian Armenians were a minority of about 20%, mainly because of the sixteenth-century wars with the Ottomans and the early seventeenth-century forced deportations of Armenians from the region by Shah Abbas I. As a result of the Treaty of Gulistan (1813) and the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828), Iran was forced to cede Iranian Armenia (the present-day Armenia), to the Russians.

After the Russian administration took hold of Iranian Armenia, the ethnic make-up shifted. For the first time in three centuries, ethnic Armenians started to form a majority once again in part of historic Armenia. The Russian offensive during the Caucasus Campaign of World War I, the subsequent occupation, and the creation of a provisional administrative government gave hope for ending Ottoman Turkish rule in Western Armenia. 

With the help of several battalions of Armenians recruited from the Russian Empire, the Russian army had made progress on the Caucasus Front, advancing as far as the city of Erzurum in 1916. The Russians continued to make considerable advances even after the toppling of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.

Ottoman Empire


From the mid-nineteenth century, Armenians faced large-scale land usurpation as a consequence of the sedentarization of Kurdish tribes and the arrival of Muslim refugees and immigrants (mainly Circassians) following the Russo-Circassian War. In 1876, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II came to power, the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. This policy lasted until World War I. 

It led to a substantial decline in the population of the Armenian highlands; 300,000 Armenians left the empire, and others moved to towns. Some Armenians joined revolutionary political parties. The most influential was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, founded in 1890. These parties primarily sought reform within the empire and found only limited support from Ottoman Armenians.

Armenian revolutionary political parties in Ottoman parliamentArmenian Revolutionary FederationSocial Democrat Hunchakian PartyArmenakan PartyYearTotal seats+/–Total seats+/–Total seats+/–1908 4111912 6001914 61919 4

Abdul Hamid's despotism prompted the formation of an opposition movement, the Young Turks, which sought to overthrow him and restore the 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire, which he had suspended in 1877. Although skeptical of a growing, exclusionary Turkish nationalism in the Young Turk movement, the ARF decided to ally with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in December 1907. 

In 1908, the CUP came to power in the Young Turk Revolution, which began with a string of CUP assassinations of leading officials in Macedonia. In early 1909, an unsuccessful countercoup was launched by conservatives and some liberals who opposed the CUP's increasingly repressive governance. 

When news of the countercoup reached Adana, armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people, mostly Armenians, were killed in Adana and nearby towns. Unlike the 1890s massacres, the events were not organized by the central government but by local officials, intellectuals, and Islamic clerics, including CUP supporters in Adana.

Modern period

World War I

On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Anatolia out of a total population of 15–17.5 million. According to the Armenian Patriarchate's estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in the Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the Armenian highlands in the vilayets of Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Erzerum, Harput, and Van. Armenians were a minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and Kurdish Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian neighbors. According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially Constantinople, Smyrna, and Eastern Thrace. 

Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As middleman minorities, despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable. During World War I, the CUP—whose central goal was to preserve the Ottoman Empire—came to identify Armenian civilians as an existential threat. CUP leaders held Armenians—including women and children—collectively guilty for "betraying" the empire, a belief that was crucial to deciding on genocide in early 1915. Minister of War Enver Pasha  publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians who he claimed had actively sided with the Russians, a theory that became a consensus among CUP leaders. 

Reports of local incidents such as weapons caches, severed telegraph lines, and occasional killings confirmed preexisting beliefs about Armenian treachery and fuelled paranoia among CUP leaders that a coordinated Armenian conspiracy was plotting against the empire. In February 1915, the CUP leaders decided to disarm Armenians serving in the army and transfer them to labor battalions. Discounting contrary reports that most Armenians were loyal, the CUP leaders decided that the Armenians had to be eliminated to save the empire. 

Armenian genocide

The ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is considered a genocide. 



  Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002), p. 169.



  There are different estimates for the number of Armenians who died from the genocide ranging from 800,000 to 1,500,000.

Interwar period


The First Republic of Armenia was established in 1918, but collapsed in 1920. In 1921, the Republic of Mountainous Armenia was established but collapsed in the same year. Afterwards Armenia came under the Soviet administration and became one of the Soviet Republics. In 1991, like other Soviet Republics, Armenia gained its independence.

Sources




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Footnotes

References


Category:Ethnic groups in Asia
Category:Ethnic groups in Europe
Category:Indigenous peoples