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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 :Ÿvres, 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.

THE SYMBOL OF HOPE – 2010-3

The Portrait of an Armenian Girl at the Wilson House

Summary

Armen E. Khachikyan
The “Wilson House” in Washington DC is the memorial museum of USA 28th President Woodrow Wilson (1913 –1921). The museum is situated on the “S” street, in a diplomatic neighborhood, not far from the National Cathedral, where Woodrow Wilson was later buried. In this house Woodrow Wilson spent his last three years, 1921-1924. He had bought this house before living his office and retired here with his second wife, Edith (Bolling) Wilson.

It is a 4-storey building of eclectic style, with a beautiful large garden. Mrs. Wilson tried to furnish the house with every comfort for her husband. Here was Wilson°s personal library with a movie projector, an aristocratically styled dining room and a luminescent solarium where the ex-president liked to rest. Even 50 years after Woodrow Wilson°s death, Mrs. Wilson tried to keep everything as it was while he was alive. In 1968 she transmitted the house to the National Trust as a museum.

Amongst many historical artifacts and portraits at the Wilson House there is a beautiful portrait of an Armenian girl, which is hanged on the stair-well wall to the second floor. The painting is named §L° Esperance¦ – §Hope¦. its author is a famous Armenian – American painter Hovsep T. Pushman (1877-1966), whose other colourful paintings can now be found in Metropolitan, Milwaukee, Rockford museums in USA, in different galleries and private collections in France.

The portrait is a graphic evidence of American-Armenian correlations which already have a history of over a century. Besides, the painting has an intriguing history of itself. It is very interesting in what circumstances and why this portrait of an Armenian girl was presented to President Wilson. Here is a brief glance at the course of these events.

THE EAST AND THE WEST IN MARTIROS SARYAN’S ART – 2010-3

On Saryan’s 130-th Anniversary

Summary

Ruben S. Angaladyan
The art of Martiros Saryan (1880-1972), one of the most eminent representatives of the Armenian painting, was formed on the basis of both the best achievements of the French and Russian painting and the apprehension of the aesthetic traditions of Persia and Old Egypt. Still, first and foremost it is the medieval Armenian miniature that was close to Saryan’s heart, especially the psychological portraits of the biblical faces and characters by the author of the 13-th century prominent manuscript “Targmachats”, Grigor.

The comprehension of the art’s object was much wider for Saryan than Armenia’s geographical or cultural perception: by saying Armenia Saryan understood the whole globe, the whole universe. At the same time, Saryan is the only painter in the world painting whose paintings represent his own country’s image and symbol.

As for the choice of values too, Saryan’s painting differs from the French Fauves and the Russian Academic School which have had an impact on him, since in contrast to those trends, Saryan has not used his artist’s rational analysis of the East, but has taken the whole wealth of the Orient as a poetic metaphor, as a riddle, which is to be known, but does not need to be explained.

The Saryan phenomenon lies in the absolute Armenian type in which surprisingly in a natural and organic way the main traits of the exceptionally emotional eastern world-sentiments are intertwined with the worldview of the western man. Due to the emergence of a painter of such a scale as Saryan, the Armenian painting of the New Ages has gained a number of systematizing guidelines, forming artistic and aesthetic bonds both in the national culture and in the relations with other cultures. The wondrous blend and synthesis of several cultures present in Saryan’s works allowed to build the wholeness of art world of the Armenian school. In this way, the path of the Armenian art imagination once again led to the road of the synthesis of the East and the West: the vivid manifestation of the Armenian national character, its unique place and role in the world. That great synthesis of those two cultures and civilizations turned to a solid bridge connecting the East and the West in the 20-th century, one of the holding columns of which is unerringly Martiros Saryan.

THE LIBERATION LEGEND OF THE ARMENIAN MIDDLE AGES – 2010-3

Part 1: Armenian-Roman Treaty in the literary sources 

Vardan G. Devrikyan
The article is devoted to Trdat I Arshakuni’s visit to Rome in 65 and the written echoes of the signed treaty with Neron the Emperor, to which later the history of Trdat the Great’s visit to Rome together with Grigor Lusavorish in 315 and meeting Constantine (Kostandianos) the Emperor and Pope Seghbestros of Rome was added.

In the article, it is being shown how the history of Trdat I’s visit to Rome was intertwined with Trdat III’s visit to Rome in the Armenian environment.

Starting from Agathangeghos’s “History of the Armenians” from historiograph to historigraph, from century to century the history of this Armenian-Roman Treaty has been endowed with new features, gaining marked political shades.

The Armenian historiographs, referring to this treaty, first from the Byzantium emperors, and then from the “Franks”, the European rulers were expecting military-political support for Armenia’s liberation.

At the same time, mainly connected with these expectations, the history of this very Treaty and Trdat’s visit to Rome, receiving reinforced novelistic tones, has turned to a medieval legend, according to which the Treaty which was formerly signed by the Armenian and Roman kings has to be realized by the successors of the Roman Emperor.

In the article, in the notifications about the Armenian-Roman Treaty, according to their chronicle course, the future changing flow of the medieval legend of the confirmed Treaty is being shown, as well as the political of the Armenian freedom mind quests reflected in it are being revealed. Concurrently, the idea is being stressed that the history about the Armenian-Roman Treaty, besides the reflection of military-political expectations, also had a general cultural-political importance and symbolized the perception of Armenia and the Armenian nation of forming a part of the European system of values by succeeding authors.

PROBLEM OF CIVILIZATION HOMEOSTASIS IN GREAT ARMENIA – 2010-3

Part III. Efforts for Homogenic Equilibrum under Artavazd II

Summary

Albert A. Stepanyan
A stereotype on this crucial period of history of Great Armenia is obvious im modern articles and monographs. It considers the country as a minor partner of her powerful neighbours, Rome and Parthia. Consequently, all events of her history are viewed as results of their direct or indirect influence.

An attempt to break this superstition has been undertaken in this paper. Profound economic, social and religious metamorphoses of the Armenian society have been illuminated. This gave opportunity to appreciate the rule of Artavazd II from “inner dimensions” of Great Armenia. In dangers and instabilities of Parthian campaigns of M.Crassus and M.Antonius, the king tended to keep identical (amical) relations both with East (Parthia) and West (Rome). However, he followed this complementary policy with rigour and neglected the necessity of compromises. It brought his reign to failure.

King Artavazd was captured and executed by M.Antonius. Despite this negative experience, complementary policy and civilization choice must be appreciated as one of more important elements of social homeostasis of the Armenians during centuries.

bertstepanyan@yahoo.com

ON THE PROBLEMS OF FOREIGN LITERATURE – 2010-3

Continuous Clashes of Language and Soul

Suren D. Danielyan
The switch of a part of the Armenian writers to foreign languages became a usual phenomenon. In our days it is more actual: it happens so because the writers in the boundless Diaspora take higher education in foreign languages. Living in a strange area, they express themselves in a spurious language structure. For us “foreign” is already “vernacular” for them.

Nevertheless, the consciousness of our national history, our past, general fate not only hints about the inner pride, but also about the complex of obligation which maybe heavily loaded, alongside with the generous world in their sub-conscience.

Here, the homeland scientist opens questions of artistic texts of foreign language Armenian writers such as Piter Najarian, Piter Souryan, Sevda Sevan, Vahe Godel, Diana Der-Hovhannesian, Carol Edgarian, Ruben Meliq and others. The author of this article draws theoretical conclusions in the light of the well-known formulae of William Saroyan, Hakob Oshagan, Minas Teoleolian, Osheen Keshishian, Vartan Partamian and others.

For foreign language literature it is our national advantage that is important which is always in a contradiction to the artistic benefit. As a result, our tenderness often expresses the middle level work, because our national pain, cry often merit high admission, than the writer, who goes to pursue the way of artistic search. In this case, we have to work with the case where the event dominates on the writer. It’s the way which hasn’t subdued in our perceptions yet.

CORRUPTION IN ARMENIA – 2010-2

The Syndrome Recognition of the Systematic Disease

Atom Sh. Margaryan
This paper is about the investigation of one of the global disease syndromes, namely corruption, which has captured the spheres of political, economic, social relations of newly-independent Armenia. Here, the general, theoretical-methodological approaches to corruption as a systematic vice are examined, along with the phenomenon’s roots, heritage, its connection with the main events of the past Soviet era and the models of the reforms realized in newly-independent Armenia. The connections and interrelations between corruption and the political system, economy, social system of values and traditional customary factors are being studied; the quantitative evaluation marks of the corruption market are being presented, the scales of this phenomenon’s involvement are being explored. In this paper, the thesis is confirmed that corruption has turned into a systematic disease in Armenia: a factor which constrains the development and progress of the country, to overcome the latter large-scale political, institutional reforms, unification of all healthy powers and recourses of the society are needed. Summing up, some working means and mechanisms of fighting against corruption are suggested.