Category Archives: HISTORY

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”.

Vardan A. Aleksanyan

During the long reign of the famous leader of the 10th century, Anania Mokatsi, the Armenian Church faced various internal and external challenges directed against the national-church structures. Anania Mokatsi ascends the throne of the spiritual ruler during the period (during the 40s of the 10th century) of the weakening of the Catholicos power, when national and spiritual unity was threatened. The restoration of the spiritual and religious unity of the country, the establishment of social solidarity were the main guarantees of national security. 

Part three: The AR Federations’ connections and relationships with the Russian opposition and revolutionary parties on the eve of the First Russian Revolution (1901-1904)

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan

The article reveals that the tsarist regime in Russia, through its branched agency network, as a result of its persistent and consistent policy of governing oppressed peoples, exploited classes, and parties with radical sentiments, already on the eve of the first Russian Revolution, became a hostage of its own agency network, since its greatest dreg – Azefism – was the embryonic stem of its future revolutionary dictatorship.

(plots, masks, and characters)

Albert A. Stepanyan

The main objective of this study is the metaphysics of the urban space of Athens in the classical age. It determined the forms of transition of the social behavior of citizens from ancient religious algorithmic rituals to creative theatricality. Both poles comprised various aspects of human life private and public, political and psychological, legal and religious. However, transitivity was not exhaustive: the poles, although modified, persisted for a long time.

On the Occasion of the 160th Anniversary of the Ratification of the National Constitution

Ararat M. Hakobyan

The 30s-50s of the 19th century in the history of Ottoman Empire are known as “Tanzimat”, the period of reforms. In that historical period, a group of enlightened Western Armenian intellectuals, influenced by European progressive revolutions and highly educated there, and inspired by liberating ideas, based on the difficult and disastrous situation of the Western Armenians, as well as taking advantage of the difficult external military-political situation created for Turkey in the middle, started the constitutional movement, as a result of which 1860 was developed over the
years.

On the occasion of 100th anniversary of the formation of the USSR

Ararat M. Hakobyan

Armenian historians and jurists in different periods gave different
assessments of the state-legal status of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
(ASSR) from 1920 to1922. Historians and jurists of the Soviet period, guided by
the Soviet communist worldview, class ideology and methodology, in their works,
for obvious reasons, as a rule, denied the existence of the independent statehood of
the First Republic of Armenia. They tried to present as a period of real
“independence” and “freedom” of Armenia and the Armenian people not only the
existence of 1920-1922 Soviet Armenia, but also the entire period when Soviet
Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian Federation and the USSR.
Unquestionably, by the modern standards of the historical science, these arguments
do not correspond to reality. The assertion of the Soviet authors that allegedly only
with the “November Revolution” of 1920 and the Sovietization of Armenia did the
Armenian people gain true independence does not correspond to reality.

Part two: The ARF European Propaganda and the Birth of the “Pro Arménia”

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan

The second general meeting of the ARF, which started on April 5, 1898 and
lasted for about three months, decided to strengthen the propaganda carried out in
favor of the Armenian issue abroad involving in it the best forces of the Armenian
youth studying in European countries.

Summary

Ashot A. Melkonyan

In the last decades of the 19th century the majority of the Armenian national-political organizations considered the liberation of Western Armenians as their priority within the framework of the Article 61 of the Berlin Congress of 1878. The Hnchakyan party, established in Geneva in 1887, in parallel with the liberation of Western Armenia from the Ottoman yoke, in their program adopted in1888 set a goal of achieving the freedom of the Armenians living under the rule of Russia and Persia, by creating a single liberal-democratic (Ramkapet) republic.

The analyses of the numerous program documents of the Hnchakyans, and especially the articles published in the “Hnchak” newspaper, as well as the study of the practical steps of the party, testify that the leaders of the party had a thorough understanding of the difficulties regarding the liberation of Western Armenia and achieving the distant goal of creating a socialist society. They perceived the idea of Armenia’s autonomy in the context of state independence.

The evasive behavior of the “Young Turks” in issues vital to the peoples of the empire forced many to refuse close cooperation with them. Moreover, while the bloody regime of Sultan Hamid II was in power, according to many Hnchaks, the idea of an independent Armenia should not have been removed from the agenda.

Although the distrust towards the Young Turks was great, the Hnchak party, after 1908 actually bypassed the program provision about creating of a unified Armenian state in the distant future and continued to adhere to the position of preserving the unity of the Ottoman Empire. However, starting from 1912 on the days of the Balkan war, the relations between the Hnchaks and the Young Turks were interrupted.

On June 15, 1915, during the First World War, 20 famous figures from the Hnchakyans party were hanged in Constantinople by the Turkish authorities on charges of intentions to create independent, autonomous Armenia and to alienate part of the imperial lands.

The Hnchak party warmly welcomed the proclamation of the Republic of Armenia at the end of May in 1918. As it is known, the attitude of the Hnchaks towards Soviet Armenia was never hostile. Regardless of the political system, they continued to perceive the Armenian SSR as their homeland, and its status in the Soviet Union as a national-autonomous state entity.