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THE INTERNATIONAL-LEGAL EVALUATION OF THE MOSCOW AND KARS AGREEMENTS – 2011-2

On the 90th Anniversary of their Signing

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan

The agreements signed in Moscow on March 16, 1921 and in Kars on October 13 of the same year, were sealed by gross infringements of norms and principles of International Law. With the help of the document signed in Kars, an attempt was only being made to “legalize” the Bolshevik-Kemal deal; which proudes ground to consider the Kars document not as a separate agreement, but as an attachment to the illegal document signed in Moscow.

The Republic of Armenia, as a subject of International Law, today can use the opportunities of International Law to neutralize or at least soften the threats of the aforementioned documents, which are not favourable for the Armenians.

THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SCHOOL OF THE ANNALES – 2011-2

The Theory of History L. Febvre and M. Bloch

Summary

Smbat Kh. Hovhannisyan

The achievements of the French Historical Movement (School) the “Annales” are obvious. The role of the founders, L. Febvre and M. Bloch, is significant in promoting the research area of the field. The borders of history and other social sciences have been extended, their interactions have been intensified. As a result, traditional (descriptive) history undertook a new mission of structuralizing the basic dimensions of historical time – the features of the past, present and future. Some scholars formulate this achievement as a “revolution in history.”

The crisis of traditional historiography had basic cases at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. It faces the problem of devising new methods of research. In its turn the latter a necessity has a risen to change the borders of history and various fields of the humanities (sociology, social anthropology, politology, geography etc.). Due to this, history, on the one hand, has expended its area of scope, and innovated on the other its research facilities.

NEWLY FOUND VERSIONS OF “A PROMENADE IN THE QUARTERS OF CONSTANTINOPLE” BY HAKOP PARONIAN – 2011-2

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan

The sketches of “The Portraits and Personalities of the Nations Living in Different Quarters of the Capital” were edited by the brilliant Armenian satirist Hakop Paronian (1843-1891) and published in Constantinople in different issues (1874-1875) of the satiric paper Tatron (Theatre) under the dubious pen name Yes (I). This pa per is an attempt to finally verify that the mentioned work is only a variant of Paronian’s famous, “A Pro menade in the Quarters of Constantinople”. Accordingly, we conduct a thorough history of the Promenade… including a comparative study of the main text and its variants believed to be of disputed authorship. Moreover, we think that numerous literary miniatures, stories and short stories ascribed to an author known by the pen names Yes, Dun, Anika, Menq (I, You, He, We), which was actually created by Paronian, still remain scattered in old press issues. The satirical novel “Khachik of the Old World and Gabik of the New World” written in the dialect of Akn is among them. The mentioned literary work needs to be systematized and pub lished in a separate volume and thoroughly investigated. This will undoubtedly be a serious contribution to the enrichment of the satirist’s unique literary heritage.

ON SEVERAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE ETHNIC AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF SO-CALLED ALBANIA (AŁUANK‘) – 2011-2

Part One: Issues on Ethnic History

Summary

Babken H. Harutyunyan
In the present article an attempt is being made to investigate a number of issues concerning the ethnic and political history of Ałuank‘ or the Caucasian country called Albania.

According to the results of the investigation, the place name Albania from GrecoRoman sources and the place name Ałuank‘ from Armenian sources have merely Armełuank‘ from Armenian sources have merely Armeuank‘ from Armenian sources have merely Armenian origin and mean “a country of a fruitful field”, i.e. they do not have an ethnic origin. The names originate from the proto-initial form “Alobank‘” which emerges from the instumental case of the word “ał” (salt), which in ancient times was pronounced as “alob,” then it was changed into “alov”, and later into “alu” and “ału”.

The Armenians called “Alobank,” “Alovank,” and “Ałuank” the fruitful field on the right shore of the Kura River, and later the state, finding on the left shore of the Kura River, was called by the same name, as “a country of a fruitful field,”and the people were called the “Albanians” or “Ałuans,” as “people of a fruitful field”, as it was the continuation of the Armenian fruitful field. The people living on the left shore of the Kura River never called themselves that way, the testification of which is the fact that after the decline of the Albanian Kingdom, no tribe preserved this name.

Most likely, this state was initially called after the name of the Mazkuts or Massagets, and afterwards after the names of the Gargarians and again Mazkuts who successively invaded from the Nothern Caucasus in the Transcaucasus. It is not by chance that Faustus Byzand identifies the Kingdom of Mazkuts with the Kingdom of Ałuank‘ or Albania.

It is being shown that in the recordings of the Greek geographer Strabo, among the union of the 26 Albanian tribes there were neither the Gargarians, nor the Udins nor a number of other tribes which, notwithstanding the viewpoints of investigators, during the times of Strabo were in the Northern Caucasus.

It is also shown that the Caspians entered into the union of the Albanian tribes, but are not identified with the Albanians.

In connection with the Caspians it is revealed that the XI and XV satrapies of Achaemenid Persia were not in the region of the Transcaucasus, and the XVIII was in the region of Eastern Georgia and in the so-called Albania region, consequently the Matieni, Saspiri and Alarodii do not belong to the tribes of the Armenian Highland.

OCCURANCE, HISTORY AND NATIONAL SELF-CONSCIENCE – 2011-2

Summary

Sergey A. Aghajanyan

In the article the author discusses the relation between event, speech, history. History is presented as an expression of a history of human interpretation that can be completely different from objective reality. The interrelation between times is very important in history (time of the event and time of the teller). Not only is the past is interpreted in the small period of the present (history is born), but the future is also planned. With the past told and retold, a national system of values and archetypes are formed. Based upon this, the nation forms its future. In the end, examples on value expressions of thinking and behaviour are brought forth, which now are alienated among the Armenians

FROM EXEGETICS TO PHENOMENOLOGY – 2011-2

Literary Criticism within a Methodological Framework

Summary

Sergey N. Sarinyan

Literary Criticism occupies a special place in the system of the humanitarian sciences. Its development as a science has a history of centuries which, originating from ancient Exegetics via a complex flow of methodological pursuances, reached our days. Literary Criticism is one of the branches of philological sciences and has its own method and methodology. The nature of the method is conditioned by the studied object’s overall content of literature where it deals with the natural and social sciences. The selfdetermination of literary criticism as a separate area of study starts from the second half of the 19th century and, already, in the 20th century it is subdivided into unique investigatory directions: sociological, psychological, marxistic, formalistic, linguistic, etc. Methods of global eminence are considered to be Impressionism, Marxism, and Structuralism with its two philosophical directions: Existentialism and Phenomenology. Neopositivism and Postmodernism give direction to modern Literary Criticism.

KEMAL ATATURK AND THE PROCESS OF THE ARMENIANS’ WEALTH SEIZING, – 2011-1

In light of the elucidations of Turkish documents and publications

Anush R. Hovhannisyan

The Armenian wealth was seized by the Young Turk government in 1915. The money, comprised of the sequestered property of the murdered or focibly deported Armenians, was moved out of Turkey and placed in Austrian and German banks. After the war, in an official memorandum presented to the British Prime Minister, there was information that the sum of 5,000,000 Turkish gold pounds (equaling to about 30,000 kilograms of gold), deposited in the Reichsbank of Berlin by the Turkish government in 1916 and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was largely Armenian money. After the forced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their current and deposit accounts were transferred to the State Treasury in Constantinople by government order. Most of the movable property was looted by mobs and houses, farms, lands, and shops were sold at a fraction of their value by the members of the special committees on the Armenians’ “abandoned property” to friends, and the money was either kept by committee members or sent to the Central Treasury. In addition to the slaughter and expulsion of more than 1.5 million souls, the Turkish government stole Armenian assets, seized Armenian property, and destroyed Armenian historical monuments. According to Dickran Kouymjian: “These actions collectively represent an enormous illegal transfer of individual and community wealth from the Armenian to the Turkish and Kurdish population through a carefully planned crime”.

The question of “abandoned property” was again underlined in article 144 of the Treaty of Sevres of August 1920. Provision was made for: 1) the cancellation of the law of 1915 relating to “Abandoned Property”; 2) the return of the Armenians to their homes; and 3) the restoration businesses and all movable and immovable property. Commissions of arbitration were to be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations to consider the Armenian claims. Even if former Ottoman subjects (i.e. the Armenians( had acquired citizenship in new countries, their property and interests in Turkey were to be restored in their original condition.

Of course, these have never been implemented; even worse, the Turkish government began to issue new laws of confiscation. The 1922 Ankara Agreement with France, protecting the Armenian property in Cilicia after the French withdrawal, was made a mockery by a new Turkish law confiscating all “abandoned” property in the areas “liberated” from the enemy.

ON THE LINGUISTIC GENERALIZATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND PERSIAN – 2011-1

Summary

Vahe G. Arakelyan

In the article the inter-influences of Armenian and Persian are studied, which are first and foremost conditioned by their etymological linkages. Special attention has been paid to the linguistic generalizations between Armenian and Persian broadly dating back centuries, which are expressed in different grammatical structures.

The author also explores the deep traces of the one-facet influence of Persian on Iranian-Armenian dialects. The Armenians dealing with the Iranians not only enriched their word stock with new words, but also made everyday usage copies of Persian word combinations and expressions and, on the other hand, they matched some of the Armenian phonological and grammatical elements with the Persian ones.

THE FEBRUARY REVOLT IN ARMENIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY – 2011-1

Investigatory Comparative Assessments from the Perspective of a 90-year interval

Summary

Ararat M. Hakobyan
In the article, the viewpoints and evaluations expressed in Soviet, Diasporian and Post-Soviet Armenian historiography on the 1921 February Revolt have undergone thorough investigation.

In the previous decades Armenian historiography gave diverse, sometimes contradictory standpoints, viewpoints, interpretations and evaluations of this important event.

On the one hand, in the Soviet-Armenian historiography the February Revolt was qualified as a reckless attempt of the revolutionists and mauserists, and on the other hand, Armenian Revolutionary Federation historiographers and authors presented it as a voluntary pan-national revolution. The position of Soviet-Armenian historiography was also protected in a certain consistent way by the Democratic Hunchakians, Democratic Liberals and Communist authors of the Diaspora.

By making comparative assessments between the two contradictory standpoints of post-soviet elucidations and revolutionists’ interpretations that exist in Armenian historiography, and on the basis of diverse documents, old and new testimonies, memoranda, press, etc. in the article, an attempt is being made to explain the real, factual, impartial image of the February Revolt, to clarify the processes of its preparation, reasons, essence, the moving forces, stages, the influence of external factors, as well as other issues which up to now remain vague.

After the independence of Armenia the Armenian historiographical mind attempts to overcome the previous mistakes and stereotypes existing in Soviet and Diasporian Armenian historiography and to elaborate a scientifically grounded standpoint concerning the 1921 February Revolt.

FERNAND BRAUDEL’S THEORY OF HISTORY – 2011-1

Summary

Smbat Kh. Hovhannisyan

In the context of the French Historical Annals School the achievements of the second Generation are significant. This mainly concerns Fernand Braudel in particular (1902-1985). He is famous not only in the framework of the School, but also in the historiography of the XX century.

F. Braudel’s main contribution to the theory of history was the concept of “Universal History.” It was outlined by L. Febvre and M. Bloch as a synthesis of different methods. The concept of “Universal History” is the result of that very approach.

The abovementioned makes it clear that Fernand Braudel’s concept of “Universal History” has a holistic and complex content. At the same time it doesn’t turn into one “true” and “common” interpretation. Braudel’s concept of Universal History combines its different parts into one system. Moreover, their synthesis is various. Some of them have a primary, others a secondary role. Sometimes they tend to change. The concept of “Universal History” is possible as a consequence of the harmonization of the terms “civilization,” “identity,” “mentality,” and “world-economy,” in three-dimensional time. In other words, the concept of “Universal History” is a constant element of Braudel’s understanding of history. They differ in different historical ages and events.