On the eve of the pivotal events of 1908-1909, which were crucial for the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, a debate unfolded within the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun regarding the party’s participation in the ongoing internal political struggles in Turkey. The party’s leader, Rostom, suspended his comrades’ revolutionary activities in Turkey while simultaneously encouraging the extension of similar processes in Persia.

For the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, the establishment of solidarity with the Persian constitutionalists was tied not only to the objectives arising from the party’s membership in the Socialist International but also to the recognition of the civilizational affinity between the two peoples. Meanwhile, the objectives of Russian imperialism and Pan-Turkists coincided on the matter of blockading and disrupting the prospects for Iran’s revival. Consequently, during this same period, the activities of Social Democrats and other revolutionary groups representing the Caucasian Tatars in Persia were fueled not only by the Russian Police Department’s intent to counterbalance the ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s actions but also by Turkish authorities, who sought to establish their presence in certain regions of Atrpatakan (Azerbaijan).

This was compounded by the ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s selfless support for the defense of Tabriz, led by Rostom and his associates, which culminated in the June 1909 victory of the Constitutional Revolution. Following this victory, during the formation of a new government, thanks to Yeprem Davtyan—known as the “Garibaldi of Persia”—the multinational revolutionary underground operating in the country began viewing the ARF Dashnaktsutyun and its leaders as military and political guarantors of the revolution’s success. However, unlike the Dashnaktsutyun, figures representing the Caucasian Tatars continued their intrigues behind the back of the Persian Constitutional Revolution.

The Young Turks also became increasingly active, attempting to counterbalance the revolutionary movement unfolding in Iran. Recognizing the exceptional authority and influence of Yeprem Davtyan, Chief of Tehran Police, as a potential hindrance to their efforts, the Young Turks sought to win his favor and utilize his extraordinary military talent, inviting him to Turkey to participate in the Italo-Turkish War or the Libyan Campaign.

By the end of 1911, deepening contradictions between the ARF Dashnaktsutyun and the Young Turks, coupled with the perilous situation developing around Persia between 1910 and 1912, made it unthinkable for Yeprem to accept such an invitation. While constitutionalists heroically repelled the return of reactionary forces, Tsarist Russia and the British Empire hastened to solidify the 1907 agreement dividing Persia into spheres of influence.

As a result, the leadership of the Constitutional Revolution, relying on the determination of Persian patriots and ARF Dashnaktsutyun fighters assembled in the Majlis, made a decisive decision. On February 2, 1911, they invited American William Morgan Shuster to Persia as the government’s financial adviser and chief treasurer. Shuster, a genuine supporter of Persian and Armenian revolutionaries and their heroic commander Yeprem Davtyan, played a pivotal role.

Although the subsequent attempt at revenge by Mohammad Ali Shah was thwarted by Yeprem Davtyan’s detachments, which defeated the Shah’s supporters and Turkmen tribesmen during the battles of September 1911, the Tsarist government, alarmed by Shuster’s reforms, severed diplomatic relations and sent troops to Persia on November 8, 1911. The weak and vulnerable Iranian government was forced to concede to the Russo-British ultimatum of November 29, expelling Shuster from Persia and dissolving the Majlis
on December 20.

It seemed as though the revolution had come to an end. However, as a symbol of the joint struggle of the Armenian and Persian peoples for freedom, Yeprem Davtyan continued his fight against reactionary forces until his martyrdom on May 6, 1912.

Sargis G. Petrosyan (Gyumri)
Doctor of Historical Sciences

Keywords – inscriptions, Haya, Haykak, Rid-Teshub, Naram- Suen, Belokhos, Armanum, Apisal, Khutimu.

Eblaitic cuneiform texts testify that in the 3rd millennium B.C. there was a country Hutimu in the mountains of the Armenian Taurus. In Akkadian sources it is called Apisal. The roots of those toponyms are preserved in the Sasun districts of Hoyt/Hut, Salno-dzor (“Salno Gorge”), and Salna-lerink (“Salna Mountains”).

The Eblaitic texts also preserve the name of the king of this country in the form of Haya (Haia). Before him, the Eblaites called the king of the neighbouring known country Armi (Akkad.: Armanum, in the basin of the Western Tigris), who is identified with Hayk – ethnarch of the Armenians. Supposedly, the second Haya is the grandchild of the first Haya/Hayk, as he bore the name Haykak in Movses Khorenatsi’s “History of Armenia”. In the word Haykak we can see the name Hayk and the diminutive suffix -ak. No doubt Haykak (Haya the second) is the same person as the contemporary of Naram-Suen, the king of Akkad, Rid-Teshub (Rid- D IM), whom Akkadian sources consider the king of the country of Armanum.

At that time, when Rid-Teshub ruled the Apisal/Hutimu country, he led the struggle against Naram-Suen, that is why he was elected king of the Armanum country. In Movses Khorenatsi’s testimonies, Haykak’s adversary is a certain Belokhos, whose prototype (as an epic image) was undoubtedly the historical Naram-Suen. There is a mention that Haykak lived in the time of Belokhos and, having rashly arranged troubles, died in them” (Khorenatsi, I, 19). So Haykak, i.e. Rid-Teshub really died at the hands of Naram-Suen, in spite of the fact that in his inscription the Akkadian king speaks only about the capture of his adversary. As for Naram-Suen, he was eventually killed in battle during the invasion of Mesopotamia by the Kutian – hill tribes of the Armenian Taurus.

Part V. ARF’s key role in ensuring the European Orientation of the Iran Constitutional Revolution in 1905-1912

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan
Doctor of Historical Sciences

Keywords – AR Federation, Iran (Persia), Constitutional Revolution, ties and relations, ARF Fourth General Meeting, Socialist International, Rostom, France, Bulgaria, European Orientation.

Summary

Until now, the deep connections and relations of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation with the forces and figures who participated and played a role in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran have not been revealed, in the context of which it is only possible to understand the real reasons for the active participation of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in that revolution. After the 4th general meeting of the ARF (February-May 1907) and especially after the Stuttgart Congress of the Socialist International, at the end of 1907, the institutionalization of the cooperation of the ARF with the opposition and revolutionary forces of both the Ottoman Empire and Persia took place. As a result, the party, which showed serious fluctuations until then, very quickly reoriented itself towards the Iranian Constitutional Revolution that began in 1905, but accelerated only in 1906, taking upon itself the difficult task of ensuring its European orientation. The Constitutional Revolution of Iran was an attempt to overthrow the Ghajar dynasty of Turkic origin ruling the country and restore the historical mission of Persia as one of the key countries that laid the foundations of world civilization for centuries. The policy of ARF Dashnaktsutyun to support that attempt was the continuation of the centuries-old civilizational mission of Armenia and Armenians to spread Hellenistic culture, Christian value system and then European Enlightenment ideas in Asian environments.

The cooperation of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun with the leaders of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution acquired a coordinated character as a result of the arrival in Tehran in December 1907 of the party representative Rostom (Stepan Zorian) and his negotiations with the leaders of the Iranian Majlis and influential figures of the Constitutional Revolution in the first days of January 1908.

In the person of Rostom, the Iranian constitutionalists were dealing with a political figure who had been acquainted with the political realities of Europe for many years and laid the lasting foundations of ARF connections and relations in their system, and at the same time, a personality with a great experience of revolutionary struggle in Western Armenia and Transcaucasia. Considering the difficult situation of the Balkan countries and the inevitability of a new war with the Ottoman Empire, he attached great importance to the creation of an alliance between independent Bulgaria and Persia.

During Rostom’s negotiations with the Mejlis leadership, the party undertakes to carry out political-relational and propaganda work in Europe in favor of the constitutional movement of Persia. The leaders of the Mejlis were working to establish contacts with the political and even state circles of France through the ARF Dashnaktsutyun and to get a state loan from that country to fill the empty coffers of Persia.

Rostom’s dream of forming a Bulgaria-Iran alliance and ensuring France’s support for Iran’s Constitutional Movement remained unfulfilled. The subsequent behavior of the global and regional powers, which became an obstacle to its implementation, showed that for them the revival of Iran was a natural obstacle to the implementation of the Russian-British plans to divide Persia into spheres of influence and then to ravage Armenia. For this reason, the interests of the Armenian people, and currently, the statehood of Armenia, demand not to forget the visionary plans of our ancestors. Therefore, it is gratifying that currently conditions are gradually being created to deepen the cooperation between France and Iran, which is being strengthened through Armenia, and to involve Greece in it instead of Bulgaria.

Summary

Vahram R. Balayan
Doctor of Sciences in History

Melanya G. Balayan
Candidate of Sciences in History

In the second half of the XVIII century, with the aim to meet the spiritual needs of the population of the Armenian quarter of Ghazanchetsots in Shushi, a wooden and then stone church was built on a stony bottom. From 1868 to 1888, the new majestic Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was built on the site of a dilapidated church at the expense of the Armenian population of Shushi and local benefactors.

It should be noted that before the construction of the mentioned new church, since the end of the 18 century, the Ghazanchetsots Church in Shushi had already played an important role in organizing the spiritual, cultural, and social life of the Armenians of Artsakh. In 1813, after Artsakh came under the rule of the Russian Empire under the famous Gulistan Treaty, radical changes took place in all spheres of public life. The Armenian Catholicos see of Aghvank did not stay away from this either. With the intervention of the Russian court, a special circular was issued by Catholicos of All Armenians Yeprem I Dzorageghtsi in 1815, whereby the Catholicosate in Aghvank was abolished, and the dioceses that had previously been part of the Catholicosate in Aghvank were united into a metropolis subordinate to the Catholicosate of All Armenians. Having awarded the title of metropolitan to Sarkis Hasan–Jalalyants, Yeprem Dzorageghtsi appointed him the primate of the diocese, followed by Baghdasar Hasan Jalalyants on November 13, 1830. Artsakh witnesses an unprecedented rise in spiritual and cultural life.

In accordance with the charter approved by the Russian Empire on March 11, 1836, known as “Polozhenie”, the Armenian Church under the rule of the Empire was divided into 6 dioceses: Novo-Nakhichevan, Astrakhan, Georgian, Shirvan, Yerevan and Karabakh. Thus, according to the mentioned charter, Shushi was recognized as the diocesan center of Karabakh, and the residence of the diocesan leader was Holy All Savior Ghazanchetsots Church.

Holy All Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral has played an important role in the social life of Armenians not only in Shushi but also in the Eastern provinces of Armenia, particularly, in the organization of cultural, educational, and enlightening development, in the activities of providing care to orphans, the poor, as well as in the popularization of national ideas and other similar works. To give a new impetus to all this, with the mediation and sponsorship of the diocesan leaders, Armenian benefactors from Shushi made a great contribution to the development of the above-mentioned areas. With the aim to value the role of such public figures, and even more so national ones, a kind of pantheon was founded in the courtyard of the Ghazanchetsots Church. Before the beginning of the liberation struggle in Artsakh, these tombstones were monuments of respect and incense for Armenians. From 1988 to 1991, the Azerbaijanis destroyed these monuments.

Due to its widespread patriotic activities, Holy All Savior Ghazanchetsots Church has always been the target of anti-Armenian forces. From 1905 to 1906, in 1920, the Turks tried to destroy the church. During the years of the Soviet Union, the church was turned into a warehouse and then into a barn. The dome of the church was ruined, the hewn stones were destroyed and the ornaments were scraped.

In 1992, after the liberation of Shushi, the church was renovated, once again becoming an important center for organizing the spiritual life of the Armenians of Artsakh.

In 2020, during the 44-day war, the church was bombed twice by the Turkish-Azerbaijani invaders in order to destroy the Armenian Christian Cathedral; afterward, under the pretext of renovations, the Armenian spiritual and cultural monument was deformed. Currently, Azerbaijanis, entangled in their own falsifications, present the Armenian cathedral one day as Russian, another day as Albanian.

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Part four: The ARF connections and relations with the Russian revolutionary parties during the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907)

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan

Already in 1904 during the last two months, all the main centers of the Russian Empire were in revolutionary upheaval. Apart from the two capitals, they included Poland, Finland and even the oil region of Baku; where the socialist-revolutionaries and social-democrats of Russia encouraged and with their leaflets called to fighting the multi-national workers who had risen up since December 13. “The Central Committee of the Self-Defense” of the ARF did not stay behind them: the leaflet published by them on December 19 with the abundance of its economic and social demands and consisting of 28 points at once was the most lavish one.

The revolution was ripening in the country, for which the opposition and revolutionary parties of Russia were getting prepared that held their conference held in Paris from September 30 to October 9, in 1904. To invite the latter to a new conference was initiated by the famous priest Gapon (Gevorg Gapon), who brought the people to the streets on January 9, 1905, in the capital Saint Petersburg. In March of 1905, the International Socialist Bureau sent the invitation drawn up by Georgy Gapon to the socialist parties of Russia. On the basis of that, on April 2, 1905, the conference of the revolutionary parties of Russia began their work in Geneva, the participants of which almost entirely had socialist orientation.

Although shortly after the Geneva Conference, double agent E. Azef who submitted a report to the Police Department had distorted the names of the ARF representatives who had participated in the Conference by making Rostom to “Rusten”, Honan Davtyan to “Oman”, and he only kept the code name of Martiros Margaryan – “Safo”, a member of the List body preparing the terror of Sultan
Hamid, but we were able not only to restore them, but also the names of the representatives of the other revolutionary parties.

The Geneva conference proposed the political goal of organizing a “general armed uprising” that would put the fate of the country in the hands of the people, in order to reorganize the empire on democratic-republican principles through the
convening of a Constituent Assembly. The first and the most important task was the convening of the Petersburg or the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, but in parallel to that, the convening of the Finnish Constituent Assembly and the “Polish Constituent Sejm” was being planned. As for the demand to convene the
Constituent Assembly of the Caucasus, it was clearly emphasized that it was about an autonomous region with federal ties to Russia.

In Geneva they also began to form appropriate structures coordinating the efforts of the parties participating in the conference. Moreover, one of them was supposed to work abroad and engage in campaigning and fundraising, and the other one was to operate in the country. The latter is known from the documents of the Tsarist Police Department as the United Combat Committee led by Georgy Gapon. ARF representatives actively participated in the formation and activities of the foreign body uniting the efforts of the revolutionary forces. And as for the armed struggle against tsarism within the country, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation carried it out with its own forces

Samvel A. Poghosyan

One of the important monuments of the Armenian social, political, legal and philosophical thought is the work “Pitfall of Glory”. It was published in Madras, India, at the end of the 18th century and was planned to become the constitution of the future Armenian state. As the first draft of the constitution, “Pitfall of Glory” has received a lot of attention from historians, jurists and philosophers.

Our goal is to cover the “Pitfall of Glory” from a different angle. No
studies and analyzes were carried out regarding the concept of the “Nation-Army” put forward in the work. The article analyzes the concept of the “Nation-Army” presented in the work in detail. “Pitfall of Glory” is devoted to almost all spheres of the state’s activities, including the army, arming the population and military training. Along with the professional army, it was considered necessary to have the ability to use the fighting abilities of the entire male population at any time.

The aim of the research was to identify the components of the “Nation-Army” concept put forward in the monumental work “Pitfall of Glory”, which were not the subject of study before. All articles related to the issue were covered.

The research was carried out on the basis of the historical comparative method and the principle of historicity.

Discussions of the “Nation-Army” idea have been quite relevant in the recent years. When the state is surrounded by enemies that are several times greater than it is, it is necessary to use its own human and military resources as efficiently as possible.

The purpose of the study is to identify, illuminate and analyze the
conceptual approaches aimed at increasing the defense capability of the future national state in the “Pitfall of Glory” constitutional draft.

We can say with confidence that “Pitfall of Glory” was not only the draft of the first Armenian constitution and the creation of a republic, but also the first Armenian initiative aimed at the formation of the concept of the “Nation-Army”.