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THE PROBLEM OF THE LEGITIMACY OF THE BORDERS OF THE AZERBAIJANI REPUBLIC – 2010-4

Summary

From the Viewpoint of Self-determination and the Principles of Territorial Integrity

Alexander S. Manasyan
All the three state formations which have emerged in Transcaucasus with the name “Azerbaijan” since 1918 have developed through an evasion or violation of principles of self-determination and territorial integrity of the two fundamental principles of the international law. In 1918 the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR) was established by the Turkish regular army without the implementation of the principle of self-determination. ADR did not have recognized and/or internationally confirmed the borders. In 1920 the 11th Red Army of the Soviet Russia subverted the ADR established by the Turkish army and founded the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (AzSSR). The principle of self-determination was not implemented in this case either. This time the principle of self-determination was violated with the justification that AzSSR was established as a non-national, an international republic. On this very grounds, Nagorno Karabakh and Nakhijevan were alienated from the Soviet Armenia and annexed to nonnational AzSSR. Nakhijevan was annexed to AzSSR with the status of a territory under AzSSR protectorate and has maintained this status by the Kars agreement which is active up till now. In 1991 Baku refused to be the successor of AzSSR and became the successor of ADR which was established by the Turkish army and disappeared without having legitimate borders. The newly independent Azerbaijani Republic also emerged through a violation of principles of territorial integrity and self-determination both because it restored a statehood which was deprived of borders and was not recognized de jure, and because it could not be established in the territory of AzSSR in 1991 when the Kars agreement was active and NKR had declared its independence. This was obvious in 1991, and Baku did not declare any borders, while they ought to declare their borders. The Azerbaijani Republic, if examined from the viewpoint of principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, is an illegal formation.

ABOUT THE PROBLEM OF THE CITY FORMATION IN ARMENIA – 2010-4

Summary

An Attempt of a socio-culturological analysis of the Early Bronze Urbanism

Artak V. Gnuni
In the IV-III Millenniums B.C. the Armenian Highland was included in the area of the Shengavit (Kuro-Arax) archaeological culture which occupied about 1.5 ml. sq. km. It spread from the Northern Caucasus to Syria and Palestine, from the North-West Iran to the Tauros Mountains. It was characterized by some similarities in handcraft, architecture, beliefs. These factors led to the activation of the relations between the communities, and, as a result, to the formation of a common historical-cultural area. This created favourable conditions for the social development of the society, and, eventually, for the decay of the Primitive Society.

Urbanism was one of the most important socio-cultural phenomena on the stage of the decay of the Primitive Society.

In the Early Bronze Age the process of urbanism was proceeding very actively in the Armenian Highland, including the whole region of the Shengavit cultural area.

Some settlements of the Shengavit culture had almost all signs of the early cities; therefore, they had the principal functions of the early cities, being the agricultural, trade-handcraft, cultural-ideological, military-political centers.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT OF THE AZGAJIN CHOCHER (NATIONAL BIGSHOTS) BY HAKOB PARONYAN – 2010-4

Summary

Aram G. Alexanyan
Although the examiners of the works by Paronyan have highly evaluated his work “Azgayin Chocher” (“National Bigshots”), in reality its philosophical deep background has not been revealed, giving ground for numerous misinterpretations. These can be edited only by defining the circles of Paronyan studies. In the article it is being revealed that the work “Azgayin Chocher” (“National Bigshots”) is mainly created on the basis of the Ancient Greek philosophy of morality and the urgency of examining Paronyan’s work is being stressed. Particularly, essential similarities are being revealed, when Paronyan’s viewpoints are being examined in the context of Socrates’, Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Plutocrat’s science of morality. Thus, in the work “Azgayin Chocher” (“National Bigshots”) Paronyan, in assonance with Plutocrat, defined his moral ideal via the concrete historical material and via the examination of the characters’ behavour. Here, the perception specialty of the human essence is also being manifested, which was set in the tractates of the ancient Greek philosophers.

A STATE LEVEL RAISED FALSIFICATION – 2010-4

“Goris-2010: the Annual Year of the Absurd Theatre”: the Political Drivel of Razik Mehtiyev, the President Recruitment Manager of Azerbaijan

Summary

Babken H. Harutyunyan
The RA president Serj Sargsyan gave a speech in front of the Diaspora correspondents on October 16 of this year, making an appeal to bring the true Press to the attention of the world society. His speech evoked a state of rage in the authority circles of Azerbaijan, and on October 29, R. Mehtiyev, the president recruitment manager of Azerbaijan, came up with an article, not only trying to take under suspicion and to deny the theses of the RA president’s speech, but also the achievements of the Armenian historiographical mind.

In the present article, on the factual material it is being shown that in the person of R. Mehtiyev the Azerbaijanian historiography, while examining the Armenian issues, makes falsification and leads a policy of artificially falsifying the simplest issues.

In the article such questions are being examined as the problems of the Azerbaijani being new-comers and formation time questions, the impossibility and drivel of the Caucasian Albans being the ancestors of the Azerbaijani, Strabon’s and other authors’ deliberate information falsification by R. Mehtiyev, the emergence of the geographical and governmental region name “Azerbaijan” from the Iranian Atur-Patakan, the problem of the Turkish falsifications of the Armenian place-names of the Eastern Armenia caused because of the Muslim bends, Vararakn village’s preceding the Khanqyand barracks and residence, the genocide committed by the ancestors of the Azerbaijani, the Ghzlbash tribes, in the Eastern Armenian at the beginning of the XVII century, the emigration of the Armenians forced by the Christian states in the second half of the XVIII century and in the first 30 years of the XIX century, the fact of Nagorno Karabakh being a part of the historical Armenia, the place-name Ejmiatsin having no connection with the “Uch-Muazin” invention, the circumstance of giving Ejmiatsin the name “Uch-qilisa”, the real picture of the Persian Armenians after the 1826-1828 Russian-Persian War, the real picture of the Nagorno Karabakh population in the XVIII century and at the beginning of the XIX century, the NKAO demographical problems, the so-called “Genocide of Khojalu”, the legitimacy of the Armenians’ self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh.

HOW COULD THE ARMENIAN LITERATURE ACCEDE TO THE WORLD LITERATURE ENVIRONMENT? 2010-4

Summary

Haroutiun L. Kurkjian
This essay examines the conditions of possibility for the Armenian literature to accede to the world literary environment. It treats preferentially the qualitative factors, ignoring the objective ones: politic, economic or administrative (public relations, organization of translations and publication markets).

A series of attempts follow to define the intrinsic, qualitative criteria permitting such an opening of national (this term including here “ethnic” acceptation as well) literatures:

1. National cultures, in spite of periodic waves of “internationalization”, continue their way vigorously, preserving their originality, while opening to leading world cultures and integrating some of their most universal elements.

2. Works in national literatures that are potential candidates for an opening indeed draw part of their nurture in the national cultural soil, but very promptly overstep it, acceding to a kind of a global, universal “legibility”.

3. In these literatures, such an access to the world level usually is not realized by works of popular, “folkloristic” type; but, mostly, by works that express a strong and culturally “extraverted” personality.

4. Then, in a given national literature, valuable works are not, or not obligatorily at all, characterized by any “national” contents. The mere fact that they are written in the given language is enough to indicate their belonging to the corresponding literature and culture – a language being itself, ipso facto, a bearer of national style and spirit.

The present essay, moreover, distinguishes between two specific situations framing the Armenian literature: the national statehood and the diasporian dispersion; having, for each of them, corresponding conditions of possibility for an access to the world literature.

Another major thesis, such an opening should be realized not only by works of foreign-language authors of an Armenian origin, but exclusively by works initially written in Armenian (i.e. translated from an Armenian original text); and more specifically by works that, in a bound of creativity, promote the mother tongue towards a new, original quality…

THE EXPROPRIATION PROCESS OF THE ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE YEARS 1915-1923 – 2010-3

Testifications, Facts and Documents

Summary

Anahit Kh. Astoyan
The acquisition of the Armenian people’s individual and collective property was one of the objectives of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turkey. To plunder the property of a whole nation, first of all there was a need to make the Armenians’ property dispossessed. For this purpose, without the admission of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turk Government published in press “The Law of Eviction” on June 1, 1915, after which, on June 10, 1915, the project of “The Law of Abandoned Property” was given to the discussion of the Ottoman Parliament which related to the abandoned property management of the deported Armenians from the places populated with Armenians in the Western Armenia and the Ottoman Empire. It was accepted on September 26, 1915. Thus, the apparent plunderage and robbery of the Armenian mobile estate, mansions, and their whole wealth became legal which was already being applied in the entire Ottoman Empire region. Simultaneously, on September 13, 1915, the Young Turk Government also announced the second law, composed of 11 articles, and on October 28, the third one, composed of 25 articles, according to which, as if, it intended to normalize the problem of the abandoned Armenian estate, to clarify the rights of the proprietors, and the organization of the form and manner of the commissions. In reality, the most important purpose of these was to suspend the massive robbery and to fill the state fund.

The problem of the Armenian abandoned property plunderage was not confined only to these three laws. A number of telegrams, indications, orders, circulars and instructions from the government followed.

The Armenian massacres were accompanied by the plunderage of the Armenians’ mobile and real estates, about the Governments’ planning of which there are testifications of the survivors, reports of the foreign diplomats who functioned in the region of the Ottoman Empire, and they can also be found in the Turkish sources. All these certify that the expropriation of the Armenians was an important factor in the program of the Armenian people’s extirpation.

Becoming the owner of the mobile and real estates of the Armenians, the Young Turk authorities also confiscated the deposits of the Armenians stored in the Ottoman Banks and Insurance Companies.

Not only material goods, but also human lives became subjects of auction. The Turkish Government became the proprietor of huge sums also by selling the Armenian women and children.

Under the suppression of the Entente countries on January 8, 1920, the Turkish Government cancelled “The Law of Abandoned Property” and rendered a decision to give the properties of the Armenians back to the owners and pay their losses, but notwithstanding the promises of the authorities, the process of expropriation of the Armenians also continued in the years 1921-1923.

Foreign countries also gained from the general plunderage of the Armenians. The money paid by the Armenians to the foreign insurance companies in gold made a part of the abandoned properties. These insurance companies, by means of not realizing their financial responsibilities to the Armenians, appropriated their money.

By exterminating the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turk authorities filled in their empty state fund, paid the enormous military expenses and paid back the significant part of the country’s external debts. The wealth plundered from the Armenians continued to save Turkey within the republic circle as well, by saving the Turkish State from numerous financial alarms. By this crime, incomparable in its scale, the Turkish authorities removed their rivals from the economic sphere, and made up their national capital by means of acquiring their wealth, individual mobile and real estates.

The author of the publication, based on material facts and reliable information, proves that the calculation of the Armenian material losses made in the Armenian demands presented at the Paris Peace Summit (equivalent to as of 1919 made up in total 14.589.460.000 milliard Francs) does not reflect the overall image of the Armenians’ losses at all. According to the approximate calculations based on documentations, the total sum of the material losses of the Armenians of only the State of Sebastia made 70.250.000 Ottoman gold. The bands belonging to the “Special Organization” alone acquired 4.500.000.000 gold due to the plunderage of the property of the Armenians. According to the German sources, during the year 1916 Turkey transferred to Berlin and put into the German Banks as foreign currency 100 million gold Marks out of the plundered and exterminated means from the Armenians.

The aforementioned and a lot of other undeniable facts come to prove that the basis of the Turkish economy generated in the future decades is the confiscated property from the Armenians.

AFTER THE RUSSO-PERSIAN WAR OF 1826-1828 ON THE NUMBER OF ARMENIANS WHO HAD MOVED TO KARABAKH – 2010-3

Summary

Hrant B. Abrahamyan
According to the public and direct indications of the former and present presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Heydar and Ilham Alievs, during the last two decades the Azerbaijani historians have obstinately tried to “prove” through spreading false documents in foreign languages in the whole world as if Armenians came to Karabakh only in the years 1826-1828, after the Russo-Persian War. Proclaiming Karabakh an unknown area to history till 1918 and “the oldest area” of Azerbaijan, they artificially try to tie the well-known fact of the migration of the Armenians from Persia and Turkey at the end of the 1820s and in the beginning of 1830s with the historical source of the emergence of the problem of Karabakh. Whereas, in the mentioned historical period the emigration of the Armenians from the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia) and the immigration from Persia was mainly directed to the State of Yerevan, partially also to the State of Tbilisi and other provinces of Transcaucasia and Southern Russia. As for Karabakh, notwithstanding the numerous persecutions against the Armenians in the 17-18-th centuries, the majority of the local Armenians had preserved its collective residences until the establishment of the Russian domination. In the mentioned historical period among the Christian population, which had moved to the territory of the Russian Empire, 750 Armenian and Greek families, about 3500 people, who made 2.8 percent of the total number of the immigrants, tried to settle in Karabakh. The Armenians who had migrated from Persia at first settled in the ruined city of Barda (Partav) upon the command of the imperial functionary Abazov. And as is shown in the reports of the imperial functionaries broadly used in the present publications, not sustaining the damp and hot climate, 300 families out of the aforementioned 750 departed from Karabakh. The remaining 450 family re-habitants, who made about 2000 people, in the months AugustSeptember of the year 1828, were infected with an unknown to them disease and, massively dying, were buried in the general graveyards. The reports and other documents of the imperial functionaries testify that only about 100 families survived that epidemic who continued to be pursued by the oppressions of the Tatar nomadic tribes. Whereas, already in 1832-1833, according to the data of the parishioner calculation carried out all over Karabakh, 5600 families, or 28 thousand Armenians resided here. The successors of the 100 Armenian families, who had migrated from Persia and had settled in Karabakh after undergoing a number of difficulties, mainly lived in Maragha village in the Martakert region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1988, without even trying to hide that wellknown fact at all, they placed a signboard on the edge of the road leading to the village which announced that Maraghan was founded 160 years ago. Yet, even after the event of April 10, 1992, when the Azerbaijani armed forces burst into Maragha and committed a massacre of the inhabitants of that village; the Azerbaijani preaching continues to use the ill-starred signboard about Maragha’s foundation, which was de-armenialized by them, to “prove” that as if the Armenians are newcomers in Karabakh.

THE ARMENIAN QUESTION IN 1945 – 2010-3

To the 65th anniversary from the date of a victory of freedom-loving people over the Second World War

Summary

Christine F. Melkonyan
The Second World War yet has not ended, but the Soviet Union has already undertaken serious diplomatic steps in relation to Turkey. For Turks the territorial claims, concerning Kars and Ardahan who have been annexed by Turkey 1921 became most terrible, under the Kars contract. Moscow behaved cautiously, without expressing openly its interests, — the initiative of returning of these territories proceeded from the Armenian and the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republics. In Stalin plans the Armenian diaspora too was given an important role. In November, 1945, as a pressing measure, Central Committee Political bureau has allowed repatriation of foreign Armenians to Armenia.

But during the «cold war», mainly, in spring 1946, in the atmosphere of implementing the «Truman’s doctrine» and «The plan of Marshall» in 1947 forced the Soviet Union to freeze temporarily programs of the Black Sea passages and revision of borders. Later, after the death Stalin in 1953, Moscow has officially renounced the claims to Turkey.

ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE TREATY OF SEVRES AND WOODROW WILSON’S ARBITER VERDICT – 2010-3

On the 90-th Anniversary of the Sevres Treaty Signing

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan
Even after 90 years, the Treaty of :vres, despite its ratification, is a partially applied treaty: that is to say, it has already been put into power. The division of the Ottoman Empire and the generation of new states in its former territory were carried out on the basis of the articles of the Treaty of Sèvres, which proves the authenticity of this treaty.

As for the part concerning Armenia and the Armenian nation, the Treaty of Sèvres still remains unapplied. Nowadays, the International Law gives right to the Republic of Armenia as the legal successor of Soviet Armenia and Armenia’s first Republic, on the basis of both the Treaty of Sèvres and the arbiter verdict of the US president Woodrow Wilson on the clarification of the Armenian-Turkish border, to present substantial demands to Modern Turkey, being the legal successor of the Ottoman Empire, and to call the latter for responsibility, achieving a complete overcoming of the consequence of the Armenian Genocide.