Category Archives: SCIENTIFIC

Summary

Roman S. Melikyan
The article is devoted to the versatile study and system analysis of the Internet-Media. The structural and functional differences of Traditional and Modern Media are established and developed with individual theses and approaches. Internet-Media is considered in the context of the formation and development of Civil Society. Here we substantiate the vision that the role and importance of Internet-Media is irreplaceable for the availability of information, dissemination and development of democracy in the 21st century.

In Turkish ottoman encyclopedic and academic documents and maps

Summary

Karen H. Khanlarian (Tehran)
Historical evidences prove that the authorities of “Ittihad ve taraki” party (Union and Progress) of young Turks in Ottoman Turkey had a distinctive role in the nomination of so called “Azerbaijan” state, established in May 1918. It was by their order that the “Musavat” party named this newly emerged statehood as “Azerbaijan” on the territories where once were existing as “Albania”, “Shirvan” or “Shervan”. The authorities of “Ittihad ve Taraki” along with the “Musavatists” strived for creating a favorable political ground to annex the Azerbaijan province of Iran to this newly created state.

Has any historical land named “Azerbaijan” ever existed on the northern bank of Arax River? Does this falsification have any significant relevance to the historical lands of Azerbaijan of Iran? The panturkist historians have implemented extensive researches in this regard and traditionally have created some criteria based on which they boldly reject the authenticity of the Iranian, Russian, European and Armenian historical sources, calling them “fake”, “false” or “with bias

The main purpose of this paper is to reveal the geographical concept of “Azerbaijan” based on the Turkish ottoman encyclopedic and academic documents and maps.

The facts mentioned in this paper prove that based on the official maps and encyclopedic and academic documents, published materials and textbooks in Turkish ottoman empire, the geographical territories where the so called “Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan” state was created were existing as “Shirvan” or “Shervan” starting from the 16th century until May 1918. And Azerbaijan (Aturpatakan or Atropatena) was part of territory of Iran, as an Iranian province on the southern bank of Arax River.

Hence, without doubt we can conclude that the concept of “Azerbaijan Republic” is a geographically and politically fake phenomenon

The tendencies of military and political alliance’s formation

Lia S. Evoyan
This article is an attempt to shed light on the current political developments in the South Caucasus in general and Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia political triangle in particular. It analuzes the existent distribtuion of power and its future tendency in the region. In this context Turkey-Azerbaijan military-political strategic partnership is discussed with its political and ideological background, In addition, the policy of Turkey-Azerbaijan alliance towards the integration of Georgia to their military-political bloc is examined. Finally the article discusses Georgia’s possible role in the current regional developments and states its possible political outcomes for the Republic of Armenia.

The article is written based on the examination of the dynamics of the regional and international political developments, including the last official statements and agreements between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Towards the Problem of Recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey

Summary

Anush R.Hovhannisyan
In the last ten years, steps aimed at reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia has considerably increased. But it is obvious that real reconciliation between the two nations and between the two societies is impossible without the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

“Denialism” is the term commonly used to characterize the positions of both the Turkish state and society towards the Armenian Genocide. Although the arguments of Turkish state denialism were widely discussed scholarly, the motivations for public denial are still less investigated. Why has Turkish society chosen simply to forget, to ignore or deny the crimes committed by their ancestors or as Taner Akcam said “wish to forget history?”

Some scholars explain it by the lack of historical consciousness in Turkey. According to them, the public sphere has been totally dominated by the imposed official state narrative and to be critical of the official text, publicly oppose and contradict it means to question the very existence of the state and Turkish identity. Society was unable to question this narrative, so ignorance, amnesia and fear became part of their survival strategy. In our article, we argue that in such collectively committed crimes as genocide and its denial there must be a kind of “solidarity” between the state and society: society must be hostile towards the target group to allow the genocide and it’s denial to occur. Whatever the motivations for this are, society cannot move forward without confronting and acknowledging the crimes of the past.

In the last years “the desire to not remember the past” or the “Armenian Genocide taboo” is losing ground; part of Turkish society wants to know what really happened in 1915 and is demanding open discussion of the Armenian Genocide. This group of historians, journalists, intellectuals and common people still comprise only a small part of Turkish society and cannot considerably influence state policy. But the process of the further democratization of Turkey could change the attitude of society towards this issue that is that the genocide will stop being viewed as rational and acceptable policy.

A Comparative Analysis of the Young Turk Trials of 1919-1921 and 1926

Summary

Meline V. Anumyan
The article compares the Young Turk trials of the 1919-1921 Military Tribunal of the Ottoman Empire and the 1926 Independence trials in the Turkish Republic and highlights the preservation of the Ittihat tradition in the Republic of Turkey.

The 1919-1921 Ittihat trials took place thanks to international pressure and as a result of the coming to power, once again, of the Freedeom and Agreement Party who was in opposition to the Unity and Progress Party (Ittihatin). The Young Turk trials that took place in 1926, in the case of the assassination attempt in Izmir and Ankara or the “Group of Black Bandits,” wasn’t so much due pressure as certain attempts at intervention on the part of a number of states. The deportation and extermination of the Armenians, the creation of the “Special Organization”which played an important role in the realization of the Armenian Genocide, dragging the country without valid reasons into the world war, allowing for economic abuses, working within the black market and threatening the country’s security all served as a basis for the 1919-1921 Ittihat trials. In addition to these accusations the trials of 1926 spoke to the objective of taking over power by those Young Turks who had dragged the country into war and then sped off abroad, their activities in foreign countries and their later attempts to reestablish their party in Turkey. Among the accusations in 1926, the accusation of deporting and slaughtering Christians, in particular, Armenians was outrightly absent. Moreover, during the entire course of the trial, there was not a single mention about the extermination of the Christians by the Young Turks during the First World War.

The criminal case against the Unity and Progress party of 1919-1921 was not one of retribution by the powerless Ittilaf government; that was the 1926 trials of Izmir and Ankara by the Kemalist government, comprised of the same Ittihat party. The 1926 trial of the Young Turks, by putting an end to the Ittihatist “deep state” in Turkey, placed the foundation for the development of another Kemalist deep state – to settle scores with the Armenian retaliation against several escaped leaders of the Ittihat, however leaving the Ittihat idealogy and practice intact in political life.

An Analysis and Proposals in connection with the 60th Anniversary of the Document’s Entry into Force

Summary

Armen Ts. Marukyan

The United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force during the Cold war. Thereby it is not accidental that at the time of the convention’s adoption the United States of America and the USSR were, in reality, not trying to create preventative measures and to outline real punishment for the given crime through an internationally binding document, but rather they were trying to turn the convention into a tool to use against their opponent. As a result, many important provisions were left out of the document, and the Convention was turned into a simple document of mutual concession between the U.S. and the USSR. However, notwithstanding all the shortcomings, the adoption of the Convention was a serious step forward for international law. Presently the Republic of Armenia as a signatory to the Convention, and using the provisions in that document as a foundation, can present a proposal for amendments and additions and in doing so try to make it a more productive tool for the eradication of the consequences of the Armenian Genocide.

The Issue Surrounding the Appropriation of State Funds by the Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland

Summary

Ararat M. Hakobyan

One of the most controversial issues in Armenian historiography is the appropriation of state funds by the Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland following the defeat of the 1921 February Rebellion. Soviet Armenian historiography in particular, inspired by political objectives, has presented a one-sided version of the appropriated state funds taken from Yerevan by the Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland.

This incident was presented as looting, squander and appropriation. Meanwhile, due to events and the existing situation, the 10 billion Rubles taken from Yerevan and the remaining valuables were spent with the objective of taking care of the 10,000 outcast refugees, members of the former administrative apparatus, for the protection of intellectuals and military personnel, and those issues pertaining to an educational, cultural and political nature. Simultaneously, a number of facts show that along with this targeted spending, there were funds that we squandered and looted, something which was unavoidable taking into consideration the conditions of the extraordinary situation.

Summary

Artak V. Maghalyan

The history of the Meliqdoms of Artsakh constitutes an important segment of the history of Armenia. In the absence of an independent Armenian statehood, for centuries the Meliqdoms represented the sole power which could potentially serve as a basis for the resurrection of the Armenian state.

For decades, Azerbaijani historians have been trying to falsify the History of Armenia and to present events related to Armenia and the Armenians through reflections in distorted mirrors of the Azerbaijani state propaganda. In this context, Armenian Artsakh – with its past and present – remains the primary target of Azerbaijani pseudo-historical constructions. One can hardly find a period in the history of Artsakh which would not be purposefully falsified by the Azerbaijani historian-falsifiers. The latters are targeting particular at the remnants of the Armenian statehoods in Artsakh, namely the history of the Meliqdoms of Khamsa (Five Principalities). Azerbaijani “studies” published in Azerbaijan and abroad make all efforts to present the Meliqdoms of Artsakh as “Albanian” (of Caucasian Albania) entities, which fall in sharp contrast and contradiction to accounts of numerous historical sources and original documents of the time. The Azerbaijani state-sponsored propaganda translates these pseudo-scientific “studies” into various languages and disseminates them around the world.

The present article focuses on two such pseudo-scientific publications, namely by O. Efendiev, Corresponding Member of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences, and G. Mamedova, Candidate of Historical Sciences. Their articles were included in a compilation entitled “Garabag: Kurekchay – 200” published by A. Bakikhanov Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences on the occasion of the 200-th anniversary of the Treaty of Kurakchay.

The present article reveals the falsifications of the above-mentioned Azerbaijani authors regarding the Meliqdoms of Artsakh in the 17–19-th centuries, and on the basis of reliable historical sources, as well as original documents demonstrates the falsehood of the Azerbaijani “historiographical theories”.

Summary

Artashes I. Shahnazaryan

The obvious distortion of historical facts and events in the publication “Goris 2010, a Season of the Theatre of the Absurd,” signed by Ramiz Mehtiev, the chief of staff of the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan are revealed in this article. “Scientists” are contributing to the ongoing anti-Armenian hysteria in Azerbaijan by ignoring the content of Armenian lithography and other original sources by “revealing” “dukes” and duchies in Medieval Artsakh, by appropriating the works by Armenian historians and their attempts at subterfuge are refuted by Arabic, Armenian and Georgian original sources.

Illustrated here is the latest incursion against Armenian history and Armenian culture by Azerbaijani “scientists,” which is intricately connected with that country’s consistent policy, since independence, of the massive destruction of Armenian monuments and the distortion of medieval place names and serves as a so-called “scientific basis” for such crimes.

Also elucidated here is their latest attempt to artificially present the time period of the formation of the Azerbaijani people older than it actually is and to connect them with the old and medieval history of the region.

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.

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