Author Archives: Admin

DOI: 10.57192/18291864-2026.1-274

MODERN TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEOLOGY OF PAN-TURKISM in Light of The Noteworthy Judgments of the Tatar Dissident Sabirzyan Badretdin

This article aims to reveal the current trends in the development of the ideology and political movement of Pan-Turkism in post-Soviet countries through the study of the publications of one of its original representatives, Sabirzyan Badretdin (Sabirjan Badretdinov).

His publications reveal the theoretical foundations of the pan-Turkic ideas spreading in the post-Soviet countries in the 21st century and the hidden tactics of achieving old goals with new approaches. The position held by Sabirzian Badretdin at Radio Liberty for many years provided him with ample opportunities for the dissemination of pan-Turkic ideas.

The present publication is an attempt to comprehensively study Sabirzian Badretdin’s ideas, for which several of his other articles published in the press served as a basis.

DOI: 10.57192/18291864-2026.1-289

THE ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ANCIENT GREEK CITY-STATE:
Reflections on A. Stepanyan’s monograph Ancient Greece: research esquisses

The article offers reflections on the first volume of A. Stepanyan’s monograph Ancient Greece: Research Esquisses-Volume First: From the Archaic Social Transitivity to the Spartan Ritual and Military Stability, which focuses on the emergence of the ancient Greek polis within the broader framework of the civilizational transformations that followed the collapse of the Late Bronze Age palace systems. Attention is given to the interpretative framework proposed by the author, which conceptualizes the formation of the polis through the paradigms of crisis, transitional society, and social reconstruction.

The discussion addresses the Dark Age and the Archaic period as historical environments in which the institutional and value foundations of the Greek civic community gradually took shape. Special emphasis is placed on the reinterpretation of labor and creativity expressed through the concepts of ergos (ἔργος-activity/work), techne (τέχνη-skill, craft, mastery), and agon (ἀγών-contest, competitive ethos), on the formation of the hoplite middle stratum as a decisive social force in the development of the polis, on the political role of early Greek tyranny in overcoming aristocratic dominance and transforming the civic order, and on the processes of Greek colonization as an important factor in restructuring the economic and social space of emerging polis civilization.

A central analytical component of the discussion is devoted to the Spartan model of the polis, interpreted as a distinctive socio-political alternative within the typology of ancient Greek city-states. The Spartan system is examined through its tripartite social organization, ritualized military structure, and conservative institutional stability, which ensured long-term cohesion but simultaneously limited structural adaptability in the changing political landscape of the Greek world.

In addition, the paper proposes several observations concerning the broader comparative perspective of the monograph. It suggests that a more explicit consideration of the Near Eastern background of the Late Bronze Age collapse, including the Phoenician experience of post-collapse reconstruction, could provide a wider civilizational context for interpreting early Greek developments. It also proposes a typological comparison between Phoenician and Greek colonization processes and their respective historical consequences, as well as a closer examination of intermediate forms within the spectrum of polis models alongside the Spartan and Athenian democratic ones. Within this perspective, the paper further draws attention to the broader civilizational implications of the Greek departure from Near Eastern developmental patterns and suggests that a more explicit comparative historical treatment of this trajectory could help clarify the distinctive character of the polis in the wider context of early political communities.

Taken together, these observations highlight the broader interpretative potential of the monograph and underscore its significance for further civilizational and comparative approaches to the study of early Greek political organization.

DOI: 10.57192/18291864-2026.1-289

LEGAL AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DOCUMENTS SIGNED ON AUGUST 8, 2025, IN WASHINGTON BETWEEN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN

After the 44-day Artsakh War in 2020 and especially the complete de-Armenization of Artsakh as a result of the further aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan in September 2023, the balance of power in the South Caucasus region radically changed. In the new realities, negotiations began on a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, within the framework of which the agreements reached were summarized in a document signed by the leaders of the two countries in Washington on August 8, 2025, under the witness of the US President.

This article provides a detailed analysis of the joint statement signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan, the initialed peace treaty, and the memorandum of understanding on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. The negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the provisions of the document initialed in Washington, as well as the packages of proposals submitted to each other, are also discussed.

The aim of the article is to demonstrate, through a substantive analysis of the mentioned documents, the significance of both them and the TRIPP project in establishing real peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and ensuring stability and development in the South Caucasus region.

DOI: 10.57192/18291864-2026.1-3

THE ALPHABET OF MONTLOGY

This publication represents the first attempt to examine the new challenges threatening Armenia’s security through the lens of montological research. It is shown that after the loss of statehood, the use of the physical and geographical features of the Armenian Highland ensured the preservation of centers of collective Armenian existence on their հայրենի land.

Through a critical analysis of historical experience, it is demonstrated that the most combat-ready and resilient segments of Armenians who settled in the mountains became the key actors of the Armenian liberation struggle in the modern and contemporary periods, and later also ensured military solutions for the restoration of Armenian statehood.

On this basis, the importance is emphasized of applying the new cognitive horizons and tools of montology (mountain science), which in recent decades has been developed in a number of advanced countries based on a broader understanding of the physical-geographical, socio-economic, and spiritual-cultural characteristics of mountainous regions.

These scientific achievements open a wide field of work for scholars in Armenia — the country of mountains — as the application of montological research results will allow transforming Armenia’s border mountainous regions into an impregnable barrier for ensuring national security, as well as preventing economic and ecological challenges.

For this purpose, it is necessary to consider the physical-geographical characteristics of the country’s natural environment, the possibilities for economic activity within it, and the unique spiritual-cultural environment of mountain dwellers as a unified whole. This is a prerequisite for ensuring Armenia’s security and for the development of its mountainous regions.

ANOTHER SOURCE OF ARMENIAN MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY FROM THE EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD

A marble slab that hasn’t survived is known as an example of Armenian early Hellenistic art , but fortunately, we have a photograph of it. It is not a counterfeit. The cult and ideological basis of its images stems from the understanding of Zeus-Aramazd as the supreme god of ancient Armenia and patron of the ruling family. The central image on the marble slab, bull’s head, symbolizes Zeus-Aramazd as both the god of thunder and the sun. The images on the slab have their own axis of symmetry, to the left of it is a mother queen with her daughters, and to the right is the long-bearded father (probably the high priest) with his sons. Those on the left have raised their left hands, and those on the right, their right hands. The queen depicted on the left offers a five-part bundle to the god (5 is the mystical number of the god of Thunder), and the man depicted on the right offers a three-part bundle (3 is the mystical number of the god of the Sun). There are three daughters depicted on the left with the mother, and likewise three sons depicted on the right with the father. They correspond to the number of children of the god Hayk who became stars of the constellation Hayk (Orion). The daughters are stars of the first magnitude in the Hayk constellation, and sons are stars of the second magnitude.

In our opinion, the marble slab is also a historical document and reflects events that took place in Greater Armenia in the middle of the 3rd century BC. A princess from the Yervandid dynasty married the High Priest of Armenia and gave birth (according to Movses Khorenatsi, in an “illegitimate relationship”) to twin brothers – Yervand and Yervaz. The eldest of the brothers depicted together with their father was to become the future king (the eldest son became the heir to the throne), i.e. Yervand the Last (c. 222-201 BC), and the youngest of the brothers (the one with long hair) will be a future priest, i.e. the High Priest of Armenia, Yervaz. The marble slab confirms Movses Khorenatsi’s assertion that Yervand the Last did not belong to the original royal dynasty of Yervandids (according to Khorenatsi-the Arshakids). He is a Yervandid on his mother’s side.

An Anonymous historian (Sebeos) in his list of Armenian kings, names Yervand the Last’s father as Arshak. But in reality, this Arshak was not his father, but his maternal grandfather-from the Yervandid dynasty. The fact is that in ancient times, it was not accepted to include the mother in the genealogy; she had to be replaced by a man from the mother’s lineage. So Artashes I (189-160 BC) belongs to the original royal dynasty of Yervandids and not Ervand the Last. It is also confirmed by the Aramaic lineage name of Artashes I (189-160 BC) Yervandakan. Moreover, his grandson, Tigran II the Great (95-55 BC), was also known by the Armenian variant of the same lineage name -Yeruandean. These lineage names and the royal name Yervand/Yeruand lies in the proto-form of Indo European origin *peruṇt- (< I.-E. *per- “to beat,” “to strike”).

WHOSE HISTORY ARE WE WRITING?
Between Nationalism and Empire

The article examines the relationship between history, nationalism, and empire by addressing the conditions and limits under which it is possible to write one’s “own” history. Proceeding from the premise that history is never a neutral or self-evident reality, the article argues that national historiography is shaped not only by internal demands of identity formation but also by imperial and modern regimes of power. Nationalism is thus conceptualized not as a natural convergence of the national and the political, but as an expression of the structural impossibility of such convergence within imperial arrangements. Within these arrangements, national identity both resists imperial domination and internalizes its epistemic frameworks and governing techniques. Drawing on the Armenian historical experience, the article analyzes the formation of national self-perception within a multilayered imperial context, structured by intersecting religious, communal, and legal affiliations, and examines the emergence of the imperative to define the national in the nineteenth-century context of modernization. Engaging postcolonial theory, the article demonstrates that national self-narratives are never fully emancipated from imperial legacies; postcolonial inquiry, therefore, does not offer a definitive identity but instead exposes the fractures, silences, and internal contradictions through which national narratives are continuously reconstituted. By critically assessing the principles of “people’s history” and the “national liberation struggle,” the article highlights their methodological limitations, particularly the dependence of political subjectivity and emancipatory claims on external recognition. It concludes that the aspiration to write a fully autonomous history functions less as an attainable project than as a regulative horizon. Accordingly, the primary task of historiography is not the construction of a unified national narrative, but the recovery of marginalized experiences and the preservation of the freedom of historical thought as a fundamental condition of political existence.

“THE IDEOLOGY OF REAL ARMENIA”. A SCHOLARLY EVALUATION

The publication is devoted to a substantive analysis of the project entitled “The Ideology of Real Armenia.”

The study examines the semiotic systems and semantic content of the concepts “real Armenia” and “historical Armenia” as they appear in the document. It is demonstrated that, following the restoration of Armenian independent statehood, the concept of “real Armenia” has become a mere tautology in Armenian discourse. Moreover, due to the physical non-existence of historical Armenia, these two notions cannot be compared on a synchronic level, while from a diachronic perspective, scholarly understandings of the past and the present do not oppose one another but rather complement each other.

Therefore, attempts to construct an opposition between these concepts lack any scientific foundation and, politically, recall only the faint “rustling” of the ANM-era (Armenian National Movement) “innovations” of the 1990s. Whereas in the 1990s such devices could, to some extent, be understood as attempts to draw comparisons with the Soviet period, today they are transformed into epistemological nihilism. This is because, without even grasping the meaning of the concepts they themselves employ, the authors of the tautological notion of “real Armenia” have resorted to a commonplace populist maneuver—namely, the artificial separation of the Armenian nation’s past from its present.

Accordingly, with the aim of providing Armenian society and political forces with elementary knowledge concerning the history of Armenian statehood, the editorial board of Vem has undertaken a brief examination of the historical experience of the first Armenian statesmen of the modern era—not in order to analyze Armenia itself, but to overcome the cognitive dead ends inherent in the project “The Ideology of Real Armenia.”

Furthermore, taking into account the acceleration of regional developments, the Vem editorial expresses the conviction that the superficial experiments carried out through the concept of “real Armenia,” which emerged under conditions of the absence of statehood in Armenia, will soon lose their strategic prospects. In the context of the current disintegrating world order, the formation of yet another Armenian reservation reminiscent of Soviet Armenia—this time in service of the Greater Turan—is excluded. This is because the political objective of servicing a rotation of reservations through the “Ideology of Real Armenia” contradicts the medium-term plans of global actors.

The strengthening of U.S. positions that preclude a new “Lenin–Atatürk” deal, together with signs of Russia’s retreat, has outwardly created the impression of a Turkish–American consensus. However, at the core of the global game unfolding
around us lies not an American–Russian confrontation, but the objective of containing China’s growing power. Consequently, the threat of activating the Greater Turan project deprives Russia of the ability to maneuver between the United States and China. The clearly emerging existential threat of losing the entire post-Soviet South and subsequently being drawn into a war with the “internal Turks” can now be prevented only through the restoration of political dialogue with the entire West.

Thus, the overt objective of turning Armenia into a testing ground for a rotation of reservations through the ill-conceived project “The Ideology of Real Armenia” will operate only within a short temporal horizon.

HISTORY AS A SCIENCE
Questions of the Theory and Methodology of History

It seems that the need to recognize history as a science does not require additional arguments, but the rapid events happening around us now force us to return to this issue again.

Scholars who once questioned the science of history relied on the fact that, unlike the natural sciences, the laws and even the basic regularities characteristic of the natural sciences are not applicable to the realm of history, which is created by human will and reason. Here, beyond very general laws, only the force of custom is at work. However, if this particularity of history makes it difficult to deduce laws from it, this does not mean that history is not a science. Moreover, when in the 19th century positivist philosophy (O. Conte, H. Spencer and others) attempted to interpret history from the point of view of the laws of natural science, such obvious vulgarization was soon subjected to harsh criticism by the Baden Neo Kantian schools, and in the 20th century – by the Annales school.

From all this, it became clear that, like nature, history is also a reality, but in our thinking. Consequently, while nature and the natural sciences are governed by immutable laws, history is primarily governed by human reason and will, something that nature lacks.

The whole problem is that the subjective factor has moved from the realm of history to historiography.

Currently, against the backdrop of chaotic events unfolding around the world, there is a growing desire among representatives of countries and peoples pursuing aggressive goals to transform historical science from an instrument of falsification into a weapon of political propaganda. Lacking a scientifically proven historical past, our neighbors are already resorting to the tactic of hiring scientists and entire research institutes and turning their grandiose fabrications into the subject of large scale electronic propaganda. Therefore, in this publication, while comprehensively criticizing the propaganda practices of Azerbaijani “historians,” we consider this as a new challenge to historical science.

THE USE OF METRICAL FORMS AND FOLK POETRY DEVICES IN AVETIK ISAHAKYAN’S COLLECTION “SONGS AND WOUNDS”

The first collection of poems by the Armenian poet Avetik Isahakyan, “Songs and Wounds” (1898), was warmly received by both the reading public and literary circles. Critics particularly praised the folkloric element of Isahakyan’s poetry, the unique interweaving of national and universal emotions. This first collection became the cornerstone upon which Isahakyan’s unique style and poetic thinking, as well as the key features of his lyrical hero, were formed.

In an effort to overcome the pathetic and sober patriotism of Romantic literature, Armenian poetry of the late 19th century made an open transition to folkloric elements, national spirit and thoughts, guiding the development of our poetry in a new direction. Isahakyan’s “Songs and Wounds” became one of the clearest manifestations of this tendency. Elements of Armenian folk poetry found their expression not only through the borrowing and imitation of motifs, moods, and poetic imagery, but also through the imitation of metrical forms.

The greatest influence on Isahakyan’s early poetry was the folklore of Shirak, with which he was familiar since childhood. Isahakyan was undoubtedly familiar with and influenced by the first attempts to collect and publish examples of Shirak folklore in the second half of the 19th century. This article is the first attempt to explore the connection between the metrical forms of Isahakyan’s first collection and folk poetry, conducting a comparative analysis of several works. It is known that brevity, short lines, and metrical units are characteristic of folk songs and rhymes. Isahakyan’s first collection also features a predominance of short meters, with a combination of 8- and 7-syllable lines (approximately 70 percent of the poems). It should be noted that this meter was Isahakyan’s preferred form of poetry during the first two decades and became a hallmark of his poetic style.

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF MOMIK
(according to the colophons and inscriptions)

The article focuses on the study of the life and work of the Armenian medieval master – scribe, miniaturist, architect and sculptor Momik. The master’s biography has been reconstructed thanks to memorial records in manuscripts and epigraphic inscriptions. This study reconsiders certain episodes from his life in a new light and offer hypotheses. In the colophon of scribe David of 1287 (Teghenik Monastery), a mention of Momik allows one to hypothesize both the plundering of his manuscript and the capture of the master himself. This can be explained by the fact that Armenian stonecutters and artisans were well-known and even worked for Muslim rulers, such as the contemporary architect to Momik – Shahik, who built Muslim mausoleums in Khachen-Dorbatli and Yerevan. Notably, the Church of Holy Mother of God in Yeghvard built by Shahik in its architectural structure, closely resembles the Church of Burtelashen in Noravank.

Based on tհe colophon from 1331 (Yale University, Arm. 3), where the master writes that he was unable to complete the manuscript due to an eye disease, specialists suggest that his vision had been partially lost, and as a result, he could no longer work as a miniaturist instead focusing on sculpture and architecture. We find this opinion unconvincing, as the intricate work of creating the fine details of Momik’s khachkars required just as much eye strain as miniature art. We believe that Momik developed an eye disease trachoma, which was widespread at the time, especially considering that Momik was a stone worker, and dust and dirt could have severely damaged his eyes. The phrase “սակաւ ամաց” in the text should be understood not as “several years later,” but as “after some time or months,” and the year 1331 refers not to the restoration of his eyesight but to the year the memorial inscription was written.