Category Archives: SCIENTIFIC

On the Example of Islamic Medicine and Arabic Manuscripts of the Matenadara

Venera R. Makaryan

Medieval medical handbooks are works on practical medicine with individual and general pathology used with the works on general medicine in parallel.

Prepared for publication, edited and
commented by Yervand Pamboukian, series “Vem” № 4, Yerevan,
publishing house “Lusakn”, 2022, 732 pages

Hovik B. Grigoryan

One of the founders and key figures of ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Rostom
(Stepan Zoryan) was one of the influential figures of the Armenian social and
political thought of his era, who was always in the center of events related to the
Armenian society. Therefore, putting new documents related to him into scientific
circulation goes beyond personal and party spheres, and becomes the subject of
interest of historians and political scientists.

Aram S. Sayiyan

This article presents the history of the creation and the activities of Turkish
special services and groups in the Ottoman Empire from 1919 to1923. After the
war, special groups began to operate in the vilayets not yet occupied by the allies.
Among these groups, the most powerful was Karakol, which existed for almost a
year and a half, and ceased to exist on March 16, 1920, when the Entente troops
occupied Istanbul and arrested the leaders of the organization. The officers of
“Karakol” who remained at large, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Muglalı Mustafa
Bey, formed the “Officers’ Group”, and in February of 1921 he was forced to
change the name of the organization to “Yavuz”. In the end, Mustafa Bey, in order
not to be captured by the British, leaved Istanbul for Ankara and the group ceased
to exist. In addition to these groups, there were other secret organizations in
Istanbul and Anatolia that acted independently.

Summary

A Comparative Analysis of the Positions of the Global and Regional Actors towards the Second Artsakh War

Lilit V. Dallakyan

The article attempts to identify the causes of the Second Artsakh war, the framework of the potential winners, as well as the obvious losers. Attention is particularly paid to the consequences of the war, the new challenges Armenia is facing, as well as the potential opportunities that have opened up for Armenia. New strategic directions of development are presented; the urgent questions requiring making decisions in external and integral policy, goals and direction of possible diversification in foreign policy are being discussed.

In the new geopolitical situation Armenia is facing new challenges and at the same time is getting new opportunities. If after the Second Artsakh war Armenia found itself squeezed between Russian-Turkish power and decisions were imposed on Yerevan, including over the Zangezur corridor, then with the change of the president in the United States and the escalation of the Russian-American conflict in Ukraine, Armenia had a chance to maneuver. It is already clear that the Ukrainian crisis is part of a large game that began with Putin’s famous Munich speech and the goal of which was to change the centers of power in the geopolitical scene. At the same time, it is obvious that the US has begun to show interest in traditionally Russian spheres of influence. Today, the West, in particular the United States and France, are active not only in Armenian-Azerbaijani, but also in Armenian-Turkish relations, and activated their efforts within the framework of the Minsk Group.

The second Artsakh war showed that for 30 years Armenia did not succeed in either domestic or foreign policy, has no allies in the international arena, did not use the potential of the army without transforming and modernizing it. It is vital for the RA to modernize the army, create a competitive economy, deepen relations with the Diaspora and use its financial, intellectual and lobbying potential, including concerning Armenian question and legitimize the demands of Armenia.

Today, more than ever, the time has come for making important decisions for the country and for changes in strategic thinking, and delay in making these decisions can lead to irreversible consequences and be destructive for the Armenian statehood.

Summary

Ovik G. Musaelyan (Stepanakert)
This article discusses a number of fundamental problems concerning the internal relations of a literary text and affecting the role of the “secret code” in the process of its perception. This process of perception takes into account the fact that  literary creation itself is a closed system, and internal structural relations are
essential in assessing the value of a fiction. Regardless of the story structure, meaning and content of the fiction, these relationships are its key part, uniting the main structural elements and typological features of the text. At the same time, these relations determine the possibilities, boundaries and aesthetic criteria of the
metaphysical perception of art. Each significant fiction carries a secret that has not been fully revealed, the presence of which makes literary creativity accessible
mainly at the highest levels of intuition. The deeper the mystery is the more layered the creativity. This principle operates not only in fiction, but also in all other genres of art, revealing the originality of each artwork and emphasizing its features. This analysis is based on aesthetic, cultural, psychoanalytic theoretical generalizations of samples of classical and modern art and aims to give a more reasonable idea of the role and significance of the phenomena under consideration.

And the durability of institutions

Naira Zh. Mkrtchyan
The events, taken place in Armenia and around it recently, have made acute the issue of reconstruction of life within polity as it faces various challenges. The changes within polity are viewed as the only true way of resolution of the situation emerged. And first of all, it deals with the institutions, their durability and design of social order in general. The need and necessity of reconstruction of polity via changes are evidences of an actuality of crisis in it. In effect, throughout centuries Armenia experienced different crises and reconstructions of life in society (in community). The last one of them was caused by the independence of Armenia and collapse of the USSR. As a result, liberal democracy became the ideological frame for the initiated reconstruction in polity. In the background of these institutional changes, the ruptures between past and present have huge impact not only on durability of institutions but also on resilience of social order.

Taking into consideration the importance of durability of institutions, these (temporal) ruptures between past and present completed by spatial ones enable to grasp the recurrent long-term losses and short-term restorations of Armenian state and statehood in a new light and find solutions for getting out of this unchangeable rut.

And the prospects of forming an anti-Turkish alliance

Summary

Lilit V. Dallakyan

In recent years, trying to rediscover its role in the international arena,
Turkey expanded its influence in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and the
South Caucasus, using military, political and economic instruments. However, such
persistent and retrospective efforts led to the emergence of new obstacles and
barriers to Turkish progress, the accumulation of which over time can lead to the
formation of an anti-Turkish alliance.

Turkey is trying to use the so-called “bubble effect” in the international
arena. That is, that state, not having enough power politically and economically,
especially without being a superpower, artificially increases its role in the
international arena, trying to extort dividends from its strategic position and
simultaneous military presence in different regions. Obsessed with the ideas of
Pan-Turkism and neo-Ottomanism, Erdogan is ready to send troops to any part of
the world, because by creating zones of instability, he tries to force the great
powers to take him into account and to make concessions on important issues for
him.Taking into account the serious economic problems as the consequences of the
epidemic, the desire of the superpowers not to get involved in an active military
conflicts, the fear of terrorism and refugees issues, Turkey uses the policy of
blackmail to achieve its goals.Turkey has already created zones of instability in a
number of regions; he is waging a geopolitical struggle against the countries in the
same military alliance with him. They can be divided into three main directions:
the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East and the South Caucasus. At the same time,
it should be noted that these issues are interrelated.

The increase of the element of nationalism in the content of Turkey’s foreign
policy is closely connected with the circumstances of the coalition with the nationalists
in the domestic political life. As a result, the country’s economic situation is
deteriorating day by day, so the time to extort dividends by speaking in the language of
blackmail with the international community is running out. Meanwhile, Erdogan has
plunged Turkey into such complicated deadlocks in domestic politics, foreign policy,
economy and even in civilazional issues, that his resignation will not be a sufficient
condition for coming out of them soon. But the whole problem is that the Turkish
president has intention to do everything to stay in power by the time of the celebration
of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey in 2023.

In all likelihood, a stubborn adventure of Erdogan is somewhat fueled by
certain Western powers, which, losing their former geopolitical function, see
Turkey as a tool to deepen confrontations on several playing fields and even a
playing card sacrificed for that purpose.

Therefore, on the one hand, they are now strengthening their defense alliance
with Greece, encouraging the formation of an anti-Turkish alliance already underway
in the Eastern Mediterranean, on the other hand, provoke Erdogan’s majestic winds
and directing him to Crimea, Ukraine and especially Central Asia. This wedge removal
policy is the old and also new methodology of Hitler’s pacification, in the role of which
Erdogan is forgiven for threatening to expel the ambassadors of the leading Western
countries. As the role of the Eastern Hitler assumed by Erdogan is not a direct threat to
the West, but to Armenia, Iran, Russia, and in the prospect for China, at some point, the
formation of an anti-Turkish alliance may unite the parties of the global confrontation,
especially the interests of Russia and the USA, as the Russian-Turkish Munich, which
made Armenia and Artsakh a new Czechoslovakia, has already failed on a global level.
Russia and Turkey have no longer territories to concede to each other, so the field of
their possible anti-western deal has been severely narrowed. Instead, the likelihood of a
deal with the West based on the third is superfluous principle against each other
increased, which could lead to the formation of a broad anti-Turkish collaboration
based on a combination of US and Russian interests.

As a player in the political development and modernization of the Republic of Armenia

Summary

Mariam M. Margaryan, Gevorg M. Ghukasyan
The results of the democratic transition in the post-Soviet space clearly show that vectorism (linear liberalization) led to crises of political development.

Due to the neglect of ethno-cultural peculiarities in the political process, almost all countries have faced crises of political development. The existence of such crises is explained by the fact that in the process of political modernization the measure of civilization has not been used as a basis for strategic management.

The civilizational dimension of political modernization makes it possible to consider the strategic management as a key mechanism for renouncing mechanical Westernization and implementing modernization based on its own civilizational identity.

As a result, there was a disappointment of expectations in the post-Soviet countries, which pushed citizens to alienate themselves from their own state, to replenish or to create their own ethnic communities in different countries. In case of continuous increase of the political role of the Diasporas, the citizens alienated from their own state have the opportunity to rediscover their own identity and to defend it in the current era of multiculturalism.

Summarizing the revolutionary changes taking place in the post-Soviet countries, it can be stated that overcoming the crises of political development presupposes a system of theoretical approaches and practical experience, which will allow completing the cultural, social-psychological institutional peculiarities when analyzing the political development and modernization in the Republic of Armenia. In this context, this article proposes to assess the impact of other actors in the political process on political modernization, in particular the institution of ethnic lobbying.

Mariam M. Karapetyan

The paper discusses the possibilities of using language teaching as a tool for the development of media literacy. In particular, methods of developing distance-setting skills in relation to media-texts through language analysis are given.

The metalinguistic, metacognitive meaning of this approach is interpreted. The school teaching of the language (in this case, Armenian) is considered as a way of institutional introduction of media literacy, and Armenian language teaching is considered as a tool for achieving mass media literacy. The paper also examines the conceptual fundamentals for the introduction of media literacy in “Armenian language”, namely, the compliance with the new subject criteria of education.

Theoretical observations are accompanied by practical tasks and by the analysis of theoretical and practical material from Armenian language textbooks. So, how specific linguistic topics can help in the development of media literacy?

Due to this circumstance, the paper has scientific and practical significance and can be used as a practical guide for introducing media literacy into language learning.

And the issue of Azeri-speaking regions of Iran

Summary

Sargis M. Mkrtchyan
Relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have had difficult ups and downs over the past three decades. They were conditioned by the attractive and repulsive factors existing between the two countries.

Attracting factors are history, religion, language, being contiguous, opportunities for economic cooperation, etc. Among the repulsive factors are the issue of clarifying the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, the issue of Artsakh, different perceptions of the state-religion relations, the direction of foreign policy, especially the aspirations of the Republic of Azerbaijan towards the Azeri-speaking regions of Iran.

The problems of the Iranian Azeris and the ethnic groups of Iran in general, raised by the Pan-Turkic and the Pan-Azeri circles without any real basis, are mainly carried out for political and mercenary purposes. Modern communication resources and various means of propaganda are used. History, symbols, reality are distorted, cultural heritage is appropriated.

Since independence, the Republic of Azerbaijan has anchored the identity of its people on linguistic and ethnic factors, while after the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian authority has given priority to Islamic ideology and values. Azerbaijan has joined the Turkey-Israel-US axis, while Iran is trying to get closer to Russia. At present, Iran’s enemy (Israel) or rival states (Turkey) make good use of the issue of Iranian Azeris to weaken Iran and divide the country if possible.

During the past 30 years, in fact, repulsive factors have prevailed over gravitational factors. Today, there are more problems and distrust between the two countries than close relations.

The overt or covert aspirations of the Republic of Azerbaijan towards the Azeri-speaking regions of Iran are directly related to Iran’s national security. It is fraught with the danger of the division of Iran, which is not only a blow to Iran, but is the greatest threat to Armenia’s national security.