Armenia (Aiyastan/Hayastan)

Capital :Yerevan

Size: 11 500 sq m Popn: 3 677 000

History

The modern country of Armenia is only the eastern part of the ancient Armenian kingdom which reached from the Euphrates to eastern Anatolia. The inhabitants are descended from several peoples (including the Urarteans, Hayasa-Azzi, Nairi, Hurrians) and may also have Thracian blood. They were established as one people with a common Indo-European language about 600 BC. The word 'Armenia' is of Persian or Greek origin. Armenia became a satrapy of Achaemenid Persia during the C6th BC, under the Orontid dynasty who were related to the Persian rulers. The Persian/Iranian pantheon of gods began to be worshipped in Armenia. This was supplanted by the Greek pantheon when Armenia came under the control of Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Seleucid dynasty of Syria, descended from one of Alexander's generals.

As the Seleucid rule weakened in the C2nd BC, the Armenian Artaxid dynasty gained strength. Tigranes II made an alliance with Mithradates VI of Pontus and briefly established a large Hellenistic empire. The eastern part came under Roman control in the C1st BC, and the western area became part of Parthia. Vologases I of Parthia made his brother Trdat king of Armenia in AD 52. He was recognised by Rome and established the Arsacid dynasty. Armenia was subjected to a long struggle for control between Rome and Persia. The first Persian Sassanid ruler, Ardashir I, invaded in the 220s and it was not until AD 337 that a peace treaty was made, giving the Byzantine Empire control of the west and Persia the east. The Arsacids died out in 428 and a Persian governor was appointed.

Orthodox Christianity became the main religion after the conversion of Trdat (II) in the late C3rd AD and a cathedral was built in the then capital, Vagharshapat, near modern Yerevan. The monk Mesrob or Mashtots developed a 36 letter Armenian alphabet around 400 AD and the country became literate, with many religious and historical works surviving from this era. The Persians tried to impose the Zoroastrian religion on Armenia, defeating a resistance movement led by Vardan Mamigonian in 451 but the Armenians eventually gained religious freedom in 484, helped by Vardan's nephew, Vahan Mamigonian. Arab forces took over the country in the mid C7th and it experienced varying regimes under the Caliphs of Baghdad. In 885, Ashot Bagratuni became king with the support of both the Caliph and the Emperor of Constantinople.

The defeat of Byzantium by the Seljuks at Manzikert in Armenia brought the country under Seljuk rule in 1071. In 1236, Armenia was occupied by the Mongols and as their empire declined, it was subject to raids by nomadic tribes, being overrun by Timurlane's hordes in about 1400. Many Armenians emigrated and the Rubenids, a branch of the Bagratids, established the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia in the Taurus and Amanus Mountains and on the Mediterranean coast. The Cilicians were well-disposed towards the Crusades of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and of Louis IX of France in 1228 and 1248 and there was intermarriage between the noble classes. This last Armenian kingdom fell in 1375 with the first king, Leo V (Levon VI) dying in exile France in 1393. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Armenia came under Turkish control and was one of the better treated of the subject peoples with prosperous Armenian communities in many Ottoman cities although the Armenian peasants of Anatolia and the Caucasus were less well off. This domination by foreign powers encouraged the Armenians to migrate northwards.

As Russia expanded into Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia there was a struggle for independence and in 1836, Tsar Nicholas I gave Russian Armenians some autonomy but Russification increased under Alexander III and Nicholas II. As the Ottoman Empire declined during the C19th, the Christian Armenians were increasingly persecuted. In 1863, the Armenian National Constitution, documenting how the Church and the state were to be governed, was established. The Ottoman backlash led to international concern at the poor treatment of the Armenians, of whom around 1750 000 had been killed or deported by 1915. The Young Turks also wanted rid of the Armenians, and many of those living in Turkey were killed in 1915-16.

Russia conquered Armenia in 1916, but the 1917 revolution led to the collapse of the Russian front in Turkey. Armenia declared itself independent in May 1918 but was occupied by the Red Army and became a Soviet Socialist Republic in November 1920 in order to gain Russian protection against Turkey. With Azerbaijan and Georgia, it became part of the new Transcaucasian Republic in 1922 but this was dissolved in 1936 and Armenia became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

The Christian Armenians had lived fairly peacefully with the Muslims who came from Central Asia, Asia Minor and Kurdistan in the early C18th but the problem of Nagorny Karabakh (the territory disputed with Azerbaijan) arose as a result of the Muslim influx. When Azerbaijan came under Soviet rule in 1920 it was proposed to make Nagorny Karabakh, the Azeri enclave of Nakhichevan and Zangezur part of it to help protect the border with Turkey but protests led to the Central Committee deciding not to give the territory to either side. Armenia was not under Soviet rule at this point but it was by the end of the year and the disputed regions were recognised as part of the Armenian Socialist Republic.

It was thought that this would prevent further massacres like that of the Armenians by Turks in 1915. By July 1921, however, Karabakh was given to Azerbaijan in an attempt to bring about peace between the Muslims and Christians. The common border with Armenia was lost in a later reorganisation and although Karabakh was 94.4% Armenian in 1923 it was separated by Armenia by a 10km strip of land. The internal borders of the Soviet Republics were fixed by Stalin's will. Many Armenians left Karabakh to escape the low living standards and lack of prospects for them compared to Azerbaijanis.

Strong feelings about the region were kept hidden until it became clear that the 'glasnost' and 'perestroika' policies were genuine although there was a petition of 50 000 signatures in 1965. In 1987, an 82 000 signature petition and local meetings in Karabakh called for its transfer to Armenia. In 1988 Karabakh sent a delegation to Moscow with the petition but the Politburo did not seem to realise how serious the situation was at first. When it became aware of the demonstrations in Karabakh's capital, Stepanakert, Konavalov, the Party secretary for Azerbaijan, was sent but he did not believe the threat was serious and left. Local Party bosses tried to calm people down. The Karabakh Regional Soviet voted for union with Armenia and a crowd gathered in the main square of Stepanakert and stayed for days being addressed non-stop by speakers. TASS (the USSR news agency) reported unrest and there was a wave of meetings and strikes in Stepanakert and the Armenian capital, Erevan.

In February 20 000 Azerbaijanis marched on the Armenian settlement of Askeran threatening to 'teach them a lesson' but local leaders managed to stop them. The Azerbaijani capital, Baku, refused to consider the possibility of handing over Karabakh. Unrest became worse and it was now dangerous to cross from Karabakh to the main part of Azerbaijan but the Soviet media hardly reported it as they preferred not to be involved in an interracial conflict without guidelines on how to cover it. Leading Armenians wrote to, and met with Mr Gorbachev, but he may not have realised how bad the situation was.

Late in February the situation worsened suddenly. The Azerbaijanis killed 31 people in Sumgait. In March the Regional Committee of the Party agreed that Nagorny Karabakh should be part of Armenia. Azerbaijanis did not like this and many Armenians left Azerbaijan for Erevan in fear of a repeat of Sumgait. Meetings and protests continued but neither side would give in. Troops were sent in to Erevan to control the crowds. By July the Supreme Soviet had still not made a decision. Azerbaijanis and Armenians continued to persecute each other and the numbers of refugees from both sides continued to grow. The outer world now knew of the unrest and it was suggested at first that this might have been the real reason why Gorbachev cut short a visit to the USA to return to Moscow. Soon it became clear that the reported earthquake was extremely serious. The death toll was almost 25,000 and many survivors were homeless.

Despite the problems of the clearing up, there was a continuation of strikes and interracial fighting leading to the 1989-91 civil war which was put down by Soviet troops. Levon Ter-Petrossian and Vazguen Manukyen formed the Armenian National Movement in November 1989 and it and the militant Karabakh Committee headed the nationalist campaign during which almost 200 000 Azeris left Nakhichevan as the Armenians tried to gain full control of it. In the 1990 elections to Armenia's Supreme Soviet, Ter-Petrossian and Manukyan became president and prime minister. It boycotted the USSR constitutional referendum of March 1991 and the property of the Communist Party of Armenia was nationalized.

Soon after the coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Armenia declared its independence after a referendum was held in which 94% voted in favour but did not gain Western recognition. A ceasefire with Azerbaijan was agreed in September and free elections were held in Nagorny Karabakh but the agreement collapsed when the Azerbaijan parliament voted to annul the enclave's autonomous status. Soviet troops were withdrawn and after a referendum and elections in 1991, Nagorny Karabakh declared itself independent, intensifying the conflict. Ter-Petrossian easily won Armenia's first direct election in November and in December 1991, it joined the Commonwealth of Independent States which replaced the USSR and was given diplomatic recognition by the USA. It joined the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in January 1992, and the UN in March.

Armenian Names

Names in the Armenian alphabet can be spelt in various ways in translation. Russian first names are also quite common.

Male

Female

Surnames

Most Armenian surnames end in -ian or -yan, 'son of' so were originally patronymics although they are now inherited. The Russian endings '-ov' and '-ev' are used by some families.

Rulers

Antipater, ruler of Lesser Armenia/Armenia Parva on the Pontic side of mountains became subjected to Mithridates VI of Pontus in the C1st A.D.

Orontids

Artaxids

Arsacids

Bagratids

Religion

Gods

Goddesses

This collection of names was compiled by Kate Monk and is ©1997, Kate Monk.

Copies may be made for personal use only.