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THE TREATY OF SÈVRES AND THE ARBITRAL AWARD OF W. WILSON AS THE BEGINNING OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ACT OF UNITED AND INDEPENDENT ARMENIA – 2019-3

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan
Being guided by provisions of “The Act of Independence of United Armenia” the head of the delegation of the First Republic of Armenia A. Aharonyan together with other winning powers on August 10, 1920 signed the Treaty of Sèvres with the Ottoman Empire that was beaten in World War I. According to the 88th article Turkey alongside with other states that had signed this treaty recognized Armenia as an independent state. By the 89th article of the Treaty, Turkey, Armenia and also other countries that had signed this Treaty agreed to leave the demarcation of the ArmenianTurkish border in the provinces of Erzurum, Trabzon, Van and Bitlis and also the solution of a question of an exit of Armenia to the Black Sea on the decision of the USA. Because of the change of the geopolitical situation and internal political processes in Turkey the Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified and did not come into force.

However, several months before signing the Treaty of Sèvres four conferences in San Remo devoted to the process of specification of border between Armenia and Turkey that ended on November 22, 1920 with adoption of Arbitral Award of the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson on the Armenian-Turkish border began. According to Arbitral Award, the most part of provinces of Western Armenia namely of Van, Bitlis and Erzurum and also one third of the Trabzon province were transferred to Armenia, providing it an exit to the Black Sea. The territory transferred to Armenia composed of 103.599 km², i.e. about 40% of the territory of Western Armenia. Arbitral Award of Wilson was made according to the norms of the international law operating then and was the manifestation of political responsibility concerning the Ottoman Empire that committed genocide of the Armenian population. Deprivation of the Turkish authorities of dominance over the listed former territories of the Ottoman Empire this international legal act registered the fact that only the inclusion of these territories in the structure of the Armenian state can be a sufficient guarantee that the indigenous Armenian people who fell a victim of genocide can return homeland and restore the violated rights.
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THE VISION OF UNITED ARMENIA – 2019-3

From Past to Future

Summary

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan
Each epoch in Armenian history had, relatively speaking, its own perception of “United” beginning from the nevertheless imperfect wish of uniting Armenia Major and Armenia Minor up to the unification of Eastern and Western Armenia, as well as, today’s political task of enclosing the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh in one state-political vessel. Alongside with this our persistent struggle for “Unity” in the diachronic scope of Armenian history has up to now shown only one result, i.e. the successive fall of Armenian kingdoms, the expulsion of Armenians from Western Armenia, the fall of the First Republic of Armenia. Here a question rises whether the reason of such downfalls was our wish of restoring unity or there have been other, rather objective reasons.

The loss of “Unity” as an expression of ontological crisis that has crept up the Armenians has been the result and consequence of permanent change in the civilized environment surrounding Armenia. By acknowledging our own powerlessness against such objective challenge we started to look for new paradigms of our unity instead of physical-geographical standards, that is, trying to compensate the loss of political basis of self-organization by means of spiritual, cultural, economic and other arguments.

Our great thinkers of the medieval period considered the primary basis for defining “nation” not as much the area, language and kinship but rather the faith and church tradition, that is doctrine, rituals and ceremonies. In new times the scientific basis for restoring the political Armenia as an entity was founded by the Mkhitarist fathers in Venice while the value-civilization pillars for that new unity of Armenia and Armenians were created on the basis of ideas of the European Enlightenment. By encountering the resistance, which was contrasting in form but united in its essence, of powers that have conquered Armenia this new perception of unity finally came up to the strategy of exercising asylum land collection through the restoration of independent statehood on the certain part of national land.

Thus it went on up to nowadays when the hopeful realities of the restoration of the West-Russia common civilization area began to emerge. Therefore the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the state act of United and Independent Armenia must bring our political consciousness which is deep in sand of routine closer to the height of new interstate and international priorities that correspond to the circumstantial changes of civilized environment that surrounds us.

Armenia is unable to be compared with its main rivals in terms of its economic, demographic and quantity standards of military capability deriving from them and because of scarcity of natural resources and low rates of demographic growth will continue to lag behind them. Hence a nationwide consensus must be formed in its political leadership and among main political forces for the creation of technological society with its needful political, economic and cultural priorities.

Only due to the usage of quality resources accumulated by the Armenian people through centuries and the formation of technological society in Armenia it is possible to secure the proper scientific-technological dominance in the region which will allow us also to compete in the battlefield with our neighbours that outnumber us and bring to life the idea of United and Independent Armenia.

THE UNPUBLISHED MEMOIRS OF TOVMAS NAZARBEKYAN – 2019-3

The military actions in the Caucasus front since July, 1914 up to 1916 April 26
Copy- book 3: since June 10, 1915 up to July 10

Summary

Ruben O. Sahakyan
In the 3rd copy- book of his memoirs general Nazarbekyan describes the military actions that took place since June 10, 1915 up to July 10. In May 1915 the Russian command decided to attack and occupy the main centres of supply of the Ottoman army – Erzurum and Trabzon. For that purpose, it started to transfer military units from Persia to Western Armenia: those units included the 2nd Caucasus Rifle Division of T. Nazarbekyan. On his way the General witnesses the crimes committed by Djevdet bey and his scoundrels – villages full of numerous corpses of killed Armenians. T. Nazarbekyan together with his brigade settles in the outskirts of Van. The commander makes short visit to Van. He states with regret that he had no success in meeting the governor of Van Aram Manukyan but mentions his meeting with a number of Armenia figures of Van’s Armenian Governance among whom were Paruyr Levonyan and Vicar of the Diocese Archimandrite Yeznik Nerkararyan.

In late June and early July, 1915 T. Nazarbekyan carries out the operation of Kop and entirely crushes the enemy. The commander was complaining of the supply service who being unable to organize the regular supply of the army was in some cases hampering the rapid transmission as the army had to wait for the suppliers to bring food.

The victory gave an opportunity to head for Mush, but on July 8 T. Nazarbekyan got the order to retreat. Alongside with the military units the population also left their homes. The general describes with pain the migration of women and children who were deprived of any means of transport. Many of the soldiers were carrying the children on their shoulders. T. Nazarbekyan once more states that the story of retreat of December, 1914 was repeated, and he again witnessed the torturous and suffering escape of the peaceful population. As it later turned out the cause for the retreat of T. Nazarbekyan’s the 2nd Caucasus Rifle Brigade’s military units was the false report of the commander of Labinsky Kazak regiment.

The retreat of the Russian troops had disastrous effect for the Armenians of VanVaspurakan who had to migrate to Eastern Armenia. And on the same days from the high mountains bordering the field of Mush the fires of burning villages were seen. The intentional retreat of Russian army in July 1915 resulted in the expulsion of Armenians of Van-Vaspurakan and the genocide of Armenians of Taron. Before the eyes of general T. Nazarbekyan the spine of Wes Armenia was broken.

NOTABLE WORK, On the Losses of Armenian People as the Result of the Genocide and the Methodological Grounds of Compensation Structure – 2019-3

Summary

Lilit Hr. Hovhannisyan

Recently an extensive work entitled ʻThe Losses of Armenian People in the Result of the Genocide and the Methodological Grounds of Compensation Structureʼ intended for the wide framework of people interested in the problems of the history of Armenian Genocide and Armenian claims, students and readers has been published. In its seven sections the political, economic and demographic consequences of Armenian Genocide are elucidated, the sizes of losses of the Armenian people in various fields of human activities are clarified, the ways of overcoming the consequences of the Genocide are outlined.

In particular, NAS RA Academician Ashot Melkonyan has thoroughly studied the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the issue of compensation in both historical, international-legal, as well as, political science dimensions.

The other authors of the collective work – NAS RA Academician Gevorg Poghosyan and Candidate of Sciences in History Gegham Badalyan, have carried out the study of the human losses of Armenian people in the result of the Genocide and its demographic consequences.

NAS RA Corresponding member Ararat Aghasyan has presented the irrecoverable losses of Armenian medieval architectural monuments, handwritten illustrated manuscripts kept in Armenian monasteries and churches, frescos, icons, bas-relief, khachkars and gravestones, values of applied art and secular fine arts in Western Armenia and the other territories of the Ottoman Empire in the result of Hamidian massacres and Mets Yeghern, as well as, the continuing policy of the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in the Republic of Turkey.

Doctor of Sciences in Architecture Davit Qertmenjyan has studied the policy of the destruction of Armenian historical-architectural monuments during the Armenian Genocide and its consequences from the perspective of compensation issues for cultural genocide.

In the framework of the collective work Doctor of Sciences in History Armen Maruqyan has presented property and financial losses of Armenian people because of the Genocide and its consequences. He has also classified and systematized the section referring to practical suggestions of mechanisms and tools for overcoming the consequences of the Armenian Genocide.

Geologist Hayk Melik-Adamyan has studied the questions of depriving the indigenous Armenian people of exploitation of the mineral resources through the implementation of the Armenian Genocide in Western Armenia and its consequences, evaluated the degree of economic effectiveness of extraction of those resources.

Orientalist Anush Hovhannisyan has studied the process of deprivation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and its continuation by the Republic of Turkey revealing its negative effect on the Armenians who remained in the territory of Turkey.

Lawyer Vladimir Vardanyan has presented the international-legal possibilities of bringing the Turkish state to political responsibility for the Armenian Genocide and overcoming the consequences of the crime.

Thus, the collective work ʻThe Losses of Armenian People in the Result of the Genocide and the Methodological Grounds of Compensation Structureʼ not only reflects the accumulated knowledge on the Armenian Genocide in the field of Armenology, but also can greatly contribute to designing pan-Armenian agenda for overcoming its consequences.

THE CLASSIC OF GENOCIDE STUDY – 2019-3

To the bright memory of Vahagn Dadryan

Summary

Suren A. Manukyan
Vahagn Norayr Dadryan is one of those scholars who have become classic already during their lifetime. Being impressed by his works many of us got involved in the field of genocide study: he was cited, and his attitudes created a whole branch of science. And even those who were not sharing Vahagn Dadryan’s theoretical principals admitted his greatness. And for Turkish denial Vahagn Dadryan had become number one rival and target.

Carrying out an extensive collectable work in various archives of the world Vahagn Dadryan transferred on systemized basis the function of collecting and putting into scientific circulation the materials referring to the Armenian Genocide: it was based on four demands, that is, the sources must be: a) reliable, b)explicit, c) incontestable, d) verifiable. For that reason he focused his main work on the documents of Turkish courts, Ottoman parliament chamber of deputies and diplomatic and military papers of Austria-Hungary.

Since the mid-1980’s when Vahagn Dadryan became the author of two famous articles in “Holocaust and Genocide Studies” and “International Journal of Middle East Studies” magazines he began to be perceived as the most important international expert on the Armenian Genocide. Articles by Vahagn Dadryan started to appear in most prestigious academic periodicals and collections and together with another Armenian scholar Richard Hovhannisyan he actually became the pioneer of new study of Armenian Genocide in newly emerging field of scientific branch, i.e. Genocide Study.

In 1995 Vahagn Dadryan’s monumental work “The History of Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from Balkans to Anatolia and Caucasus” was published. Alongside with it Vahagn Dadryan became one of the representatives of the first generation of founders of Genocide studies as a separate branch of science as he did not remain in the framework of studying the Great Genocide but also tried to think over the theoretic provisions of genocide as phenomenon. Besides he became the author of many articles where he compared Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust trying thus clearly “legitimize” the Armenian Genocide in academic frameworks.

Vahagn Dadryan has devoted all his life to the struggle against Turkish denial. His all works were the ones crushing Turkish viewpoints so his every article published in prestigious scholarly magazine became a battlefield against the denialist historians. In 1996 he initiated the publication of an open letter written by 150 specialists of genocide and Holocaust which condemned the Turkish denial and affirmed the fact of the Armenian Genocide, and in 1999 Vahagn Dadryan comprised and published a brochure entitled “The Main Components of Turkish Denial: Distortion and Falsification”.

THE BRONZE SCULPTURES OF KHOREN DER-HARUTYAN – 2019-3

Summary

Arthur A. Hovhannisyan
This article is dedicated to the study of the bronze sculptures of well-known Armenian sculptor-artist Khoren Der-Harutyan. Der-Harutyan’s works were formed in the early 30’s of the 20th century, outside of the historical homeland, particularly on the Latin American island of Jamaica. Here he created numerous colorful paintings and graphic works, as well as, great amount of sculptures from different types of local solid wood. In the following years Der-Harutyan’s art was developed in the USA, England, Italy, as well as, in Armenia.

Khoren Der-Harutyan’s works generally present not only tragic events referring his childhood, but also the basic socio and political problems of the 20th century, which have left a deep mark on the fate of humankind. The works of the artist reflected the disasters of the Armenian Genocide, the Second World War, Hiroshima atomic explosion, the Vietnam War, etc. But the images with tragic content are often followed by the works with the spirit of heroism, optimism, love and unity.

The bronze sculptures, which have been around since the 1960’s are important in Khoren Der-Harutyan’s art. In 1962-1963 Der- Harutyan lived in the city of Florence, Italy, where he improved the techniques of working with bronze. The artist was particularly influenced by the monuments of the Italian Renaissance. There is a variety of themes and styles touching eternal universal themes not only in his works of wood and stone, but also in his bronze sculptures. Here the themes of heroic struggle, survival, unyielding human spirit are also considered. The style of the artist is dramatically changed in this period. The slick, round forms of his wooden and stone sculptures are replaced by sharp, rough surfaces. Besides, working with bronze DerHarutyan deals more freely with sculptural forms and as a result, the bronze works of different periods get lively, vibrant forms.
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THE PHENOMENON OF FOOLISHNESS ACCORDING TO HOVH. TUMANYAN – 2019-3

Summary

Sergey A. Aghajanyan
The article analyses one of the most striking realities of a human – the embodiments of foolishness in the works by Hovh. Tumanyan based on cultural approach.

For the accomplishment of the study in the first part of the article (“His Greatness Foolishness”) the philosophical comments on foolishness, its peculiar features both as mentality and as reality of human behaviour are represented in general features. The article differentiates the expressions of individual and mass (crowdy) foolishness and involuntary and conscious (conformity) ones. As a result of all these, the characteristics of foolishness as a type of mind below the average level of coexistence and the peculiarities of fool’s behaviour are specified.

In the second part (“Stupidity as Boomerang”) the stories and tales by Hovh. Tumanyan presenting the individual foolishness are analysed. In the expression of this version of the phenomenon of foolishness Hovh. Tumanyan with amazingly anthropological preciseness presented the following realities: the fool doesn’t know that he is fool, the fool is unable to absorb even the least experimental coexisting knowledge, individual smart ones always win individual fools, the fool is characterised by insurmountable foolishness due to which he is unable of reflection, rationalises his mistake, blames the others and so on.

In the third part of the article (“Foolishness as a Disaster of Coexistence”) the works of the author that reveal the mass expression of foolishness and its effects are analysed. In these works Hovh. Tumanyan emphasises some realities typical for foolishness: psychosis of chain reaction or infectious influence, replacement of imaginative-virtual and vital realities, foolishness that neglects repeated life experience and borderlines with insanity, intuitive or calculated slavery and behaviour. For these and other reasons the masses realises with determination the foolishness of even criminal coexistence.

Through all these Hovh. Tumanyan underlines the most important precondition of expressing the foolishness. It becomes obvious both in its individual and mass versions when an individual or the coexistence tries to solve any mental problem.

All the analysed tales and stories are characterised by the high poetic level of fictional depiction typical for Tumanyan where satire stands apart. And here is seen the orientation and attitude of the author towards his presented heroes and realities: this very thing is analysed in the fourth part of the article (“The Author’s Orientation”). The careful study of foolishness in Tumanyan’s embodiments shows that by humouring, even principally rejecting the fools and foolishness the author never vaunts the ones who have that flaw which is the expression of his humanistic and philosophical essence.

The last part of the study – “Conclusions” summarises the results of the analysis.

DID THERE EXIST A NOMINALISTIC DIRECTION IN THE MEDIEVAL ARMENIAN PHILOSOPHY? – 2019-3

Summary

Seyran A. Zakaryan
Since the 50-60s of the XX century the Armenian philosophy shapes a methodological paradigm according to which nominalism was born and developed in the Medieval Armenian philosophy of the XIII-XIV centuries. The Soviet Armenian researchers separated the nominalism as a philosophical trend based on the assessment of the philosophical directions (nominalism was viewed as progressive, “the first expression of materialism’’, and realism was viewed as a regressive direction), as well as on the misinterpretation or the confusion of the general issues including the differentiation between the importance of the individual and the general, the element and the many, the part and the whole. The issues of the universals do not refer to the importance of an individual and the whole, but rather to the status of the existence of the universals. According to the Armenian researchers, the Medieval Armenian philosophers (Vahram Rabuni, Hovhan Vorotnetsi, Grigor Tatevatsi) were nominalists because they defended the statement according to which particular things are primary to the universals and are the basis for their existence. Accepting the primary importance of particular things over the universals (genus and species) does not mean that the existence of the universals is being denied. On the contrary, the notion stated that the universals exist after the individual things and thanks to them. Based on the fact that Medieval Armenian philosophers not only accepted the real existence of the universals, but also developed the triple formula of their existence (the universals exist before the things, in the things and after the things), and as they follow the Aristotelian hylomorphic ontological and epistemological tradition, we can state that they are not nominalists, but rather moderate realists and in the Medieval Armenian philosophy they developed not a branch of nominalism but that of the moderate realism. In this regard, the ideological and dogmatic conflict of the XIV century between the ideologists of the unitary movement and the Armenian Church is solved alike. The reason lies under the explanation that the representatives of both directions are Aristotelians and they both treat the problem of universals in the same way. The difference between their points of view is in the interpretation of the relationship between the individual and the general and that of the single and the many. If the representatives of the unitary movement emphasized the priority of the general over the particular and by that they tried to explain the priority of the Catholic Church of Rome over the particular national churches, in the case of the Armenian Church they defended the self-sufficiency of the individual things and the notion of the priority of the particulars over the general and, thus, proved the autocephaly and the right of honorable existence of the Armenian Church in the family of the Christian churches.

THE VOCABULARY OF VAHAN TERYAN’S POETRY – 2019-3

Summary

Mary V. Hovhannisyan
It is indisputable that the study of speech art of the writer’s creative work is closely related to the period of regularities typical for both national and fiction languages. It touches upon the main features, ways and prospects of their development. On the one hand, works of the leading speech masters specify not only the development tendencies of literature, but also the national language. On the other hand, it is not enough to study thoroughly the period, literary trend that the writer followed, type and genre of the writer’s creative work.

It is necessary to study the language and the style of the writer. To study the speech art of the writer’s work means to introduce the individuality, which is specific to the author, to identify the peculiarities of the writer’s style by having the literary language as a starting point.

Teryan was very skillful to apply various opportunities of different stylistic layers of Armenian literary language vocabulary, word meaning and usage. The uniqueness of poet’s speech art is the in word-selection art that obviously reflected in the meaningstylistic specific usage of cooperative words. Parallel to stylistic delicate sense of cooperative words, terms of non-active word-layers also get peculiar display. Ethnoverbal and dialectical words, comparisons, phrases which are not specially popularized in Teryan’s speech characterize amazing figurativeness of things and phenomena. Archaism and barbarism are characterized on the basis of stylistic-expressive usage. As neologisms give his poetry a unique colouring, they are quite important for profound understanding of Teryan’s artistic manner. Word-forming models of V. Teryan’s neologisms are particularly important for the formation of new verbs: the unusual use of some suffixes are also rather unique. Special attention is paid to the examples of neologisms in the field of semantics and unusual meanings that Teryan gave to neologisms created by his predecessors. It is difficult to overestimate the stylistic significance of neologisms and their role in his art. One of the factors of Vahan Teryan’s speech art uniqueness is the word-selection art obviously reflected in the meaning-stylistic specific usage of ethno-verbal and dialectical words. Ethno-verbal and dialectical words, comparisons, phrases, which are not specially popularized in Teryan’s speech, are characterized by amazing figurativeness of things and phenomena. Ethno-verbal and dialectical words which have their suitable verbal place create the sonority of the paragraph, the rhyme and the whole poem.

THE MYTH OF THE RING OF GYGES – 2019-3

From Hakob Paronyan to John Tolkien 

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan, Astghik V. Soghoyan
The periodical “Theatre: Friend to Children” (1876-1878, Constantinople) has its unique place in the context of H. Paronyan’s literary heritage. At first glance by contradicting to the latter’s perception of worldview, that is, comic and not being fitted into the widespread definition of pattern of “satiric author” Paronyan’s literary works for children supplement Paronyan’s satire and give them new emphasis and shades: if laughter is the ruthless mean for criticising the despicable features of the society, then the advice written in fatherly language educates the future society by eradicating those condemnable things just at the moment of their emergence.

The primary principal adopted by Paronyan is not to decieve children. Lie is the most criticised and condemned sin in the context of the author’s literary heritage for children, and the writer chosses the road of not decieving which is also expressed in the genre system of literary works published in the periodical: the prefered genre of Paronyan is realistic creation.

In the structure of the periodical the magic gets negative shade and meaning. In his periodical the great satirist gives place only to two fairy tales (“Red Varduk” and “The Ring of Gyges”) by trying to break the children’s faith in magic through them. He not only just presents those works but also tries to show logically the impossibility of the events described in them: the wolf can’t speak like man and the ring of invisibility doesn’t exist.

In the article the work “The Ring of Gyges” is analysed in the realationship of source-reproduction: this small work is a peculiar cultivation of the myth about Gyges based on versions by Plato and Herodotus. If the latters had referred to the myth from the perspective of history and philosophy, then the Armenian author has worked it out as a work for children adapting it to the worldview of the children. It is noteworthy that years after the reproduction by Paronyan the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien has put the same myth at the basis of his masterpieces, i.e., novels “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” by creating his works on the motive of the found ring of invisibility. The article observes the worked out version by Paronyan also in the context of parallels with those works.