Category Archives: SCIENTIFIC

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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Summary

From the Viewpoint of Self-determination and the Principles of Territorial Integrity

Alexander S. Manasyan
All the three state formations which have emerged in Transcaucasus with the name “Azerbaijan” since 1918 have developed through an evasion or violation of principles of self-determination and territorial integrity of the two fundamental principles of the international law. In 1918 the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR) was established by the Turkish regular army without the implementation of the principle of self-determination. ADR did not have recognized and/or internationally confirmed the borders. In 1920 the 11th Red Army of the Soviet Russia subverted the ADR established by the Turkish army and founded the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (AzSSR). The principle of self-determination was not implemented in this case either. This time the principle of self-determination was violated with the justification that AzSSR was established as a non-national, an international republic. On this very grounds, Nagorno Karabakh and Nakhijevan were alienated from the Soviet Armenia and annexed to nonnational AzSSR. Nakhijevan was annexed to AzSSR with the status of a territory under AzSSR protectorate and has maintained this status by the Kars agreement which is active up till now. In 1991 Baku refused to be the successor of AzSSR and became the successor of ADR which was established by the Turkish army and disappeared without having legitimate borders. The newly independent Azerbaijani Republic also emerged through a violation of principles of territorial integrity and self-determination both because it restored a statehood which was deprived of borders and was not recognized de jure, and because it could not be established in the territory of AzSSR in 1991 when the Kars agreement was active and NKR had declared its independence. This was obvious in 1991, and Baku did not declare any borders, while they ought to declare their borders. The Azerbaijani Republic, if examined from the viewpoint of principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, is an illegal formation.

Summary

Hrant B. Abrahamyan
According to the public and direct indications of the former and present presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Heydar and Ilham Alievs, during the last two decades the Azerbaijani historians have obstinately tried to “prove” through spreading false documents in foreign languages in the whole world as if Armenians came to Karabakh only in the years 1826-1828, after the Russo-Persian War. Proclaiming Karabakh an unknown area to history till 1918 and “the oldest area” of Azerbaijan, they artificially try to tie the well-known fact of the migration of the Armenians from Persia and Turkey at the end of the 1820s and in the beginning of 1830s with the historical source of the emergence of the problem of Karabakh. Whereas, in the mentioned historical period the emigration of the Armenians from the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia) and the immigration from Persia was mainly directed to the State of Yerevan, partially also to the State of Tbilisi and other provinces of Transcaucasia and Southern Russia. As for Karabakh, notwithstanding the numerous persecutions against the Armenians in the 17-18-th centuries, the majority of the local Armenians had preserved its collective residences until the establishment of the Russian domination. In the mentioned historical period among the Christian population, which had moved to the territory of the Russian Empire, 750 Armenian and Greek families, about 3500 people, who made 2.8 percent of the total number of the immigrants, tried to settle in Karabakh. The Armenians who had migrated from Persia at first settled in the ruined city of Barda (Partav) upon the command of the imperial functionary Abazov. And as is shown in the reports of the imperial functionaries broadly used in the present publications, not sustaining the damp and hot climate, 300 families out of the aforementioned 750 departed from Karabakh. The remaining 450 family re-habitants, who made about 2000 people, in the months AugustSeptember of the year 1828, were infected with an unknown to them disease and, massively dying, were buried in the general graveyards. The reports and other documents of the imperial functionaries testify that only about 100 families survived that epidemic who continued to be pursued by the oppressions of the Tatar nomadic tribes. Whereas, already in 1832-1833, according to the data of the parishioner calculation carried out all over Karabakh, 5600 families, or 28 thousand Armenians resided here. The successors of the 100 Armenian families, who had migrated from Persia and had settled in Karabakh after undergoing a number of difficulties, mainly lived in Maragha village in the Martakert region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1988, without even trying to hide that wellknown fact at all, they placed a signboard on the edge of the road leading to the village which announced that Maraghan was founded 160 years ago. Yet, even after the event of April 10, 1992, when the Azerbaijani armed forces burst into Maragha and committed a massacre of the inhabitants of that village; the Azerbaijani preaching continues to use the ill-starred signboard about Maragha’s foundation, which was de-armenialized by them, to “prove” that as if the Armenians are newcomers in Karabakh.

Artak V. Maghalyan
In the absence of the Armenian independent statehood, the Artsakh principalities were the only force based on which, if possible, the Armenian state could revive. In general, the Artsakh principalities were free and sovereign, so long as the heart of the ruler of one of them was not captured with the sense of treachery. When in 1752 by the connivance of the governor Varanda Melik-Shahnazar II Panah Khan, the head of a tribe of nomadic Sarydzhallu, was firmed up in Artsakh, he and his son Ibrahim managed to significantly weaken the Armenian principalities. Inflicting great damage they could not change the situation in the province.

With the establishment of the Russian dominion in Karabakh the khanate was abolished because of its administrative and political failure and the lack of significant support among the local population.

On the Applicability of the Fundamental Tenets of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide“ adopted by UN on December 9, 1948

Summary

Vladimir D. Vardanyan
The article is dedicated to the issues of applicability of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention to the events constituting the Armenian Genocide. The international legal development of the prohibition of the crime of genocide in the framework of the United Nations is one of the focal aspects of the paper.

Having analyzed the controversial points of view on possibility of the retroactive application of the Genocide Convention author comes to the conclusion that there is no official position on that matter. The issue of retroactive application of the Genocide Convention as an issue of legal interpretation is exclusively under the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in accordance with Article IX of the Convention. Since there is no Court jurisprudence on the issue of its retroactive application, any statement for or against its retroactivity will remain non binding and disputable.

Recommended for publication by the Department of Contemporary Armenian, Institute of Language, Armenian National Academy of Sciences

Summary

Seda Gasparyan
The article deals with the study of the Armenian word եղեռն (yeghern) and the semantic field of its equivalence in English. Proceeding from the well-established statement of the dialectical correlation between language and speech the author carries out the research on both the emic level (i.e. the language system) and the etic one (i.e. from the point of view of its functioning in speech). The study of the field of equivalence in the language system is based on different data registered in Armenian and English monolingual and bilingual dictionaries.

The confrontative study of these data reveals the presence of a common dominant seme (crime) in the semantic structure of the majority of them, as well as the possibility of rejecting some of the semantic equivalents offered.

By the research carried out on the etic level it is established that full equivalence is provided not only by semantic but also stylistic and pragmatic adequacy of linguistic elements. The role of the horizontal and vertical contexts, as well as the speech situation cannot be underestimated.

In the closing part of the article, the results of the investigation are summed up graphically presenting the constituent semes in the semantic globality of the word genocide ­ the only internationally established term, equivalent to the Armenian word եղեռն (yeghern).

The legend of “late albains”

Henrik S. Svazyan
The state of «Azerbaijan» appeared on the historic arena only on 1918. During existence of the USSR the heirs of the Caucasian Tatars got artificial name «Azerbaijanin» on that «basis». As a result of the illegal decision (July 5, 1921) of the Caucasian Bureau RC(B)P, Mountainous Karabakh was forcibly annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan. It was a political pretext of treating the ancient and medieval history of the Great Armenia’s regions of Artsakh and Utik as a target for attacks by the «Azerbaijani» falsificators of history. As far as it had been impossible to find a «historic justification» for the annexation of the Armenian territories by comparison with Armenia and Armenian centuriesold history, thus the historians of Soviet Azerbaijan, following the «experience» of Cemalist Turkey, started to appropriate the history of proper Aluank and the Albanian tribes which disappeared from the historic arena after the 8th century.

After Azerbaijan became independent, notoriuos Azerbaijani falsificator F.Mamedova published a monography «Caucasian Albania and Albanians» (Baku, 2005, in Russian) where she continued and deepened this falsifying shrewdness. F.Mamedova, through absolute falsification of historic data, called the Armenian population of Utik and Artsakh, which ethnically had no relation to the Albanian tribes, by the artificial term «late Albanians» and tried to prolong the latter’s history up to 19th century. Such an approach is besically contrudictory not only to the data of the Armenian, but also Arabic (Ibn al-Asir, al-Dinavari, Yakubi, Tabari and others), Byzantine (Constantine Porphyrogenitus) and other sources.

In the context of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide 

Armen Ts. Marukyan
Despite all obvious deficiencies onesidedness and artificial mistakes commited at the trial of the Young Turks by the Turkish justice, it has had not only historic, but also very important legal and political significance for the historic-legal substantion of the fact of the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish Military tribunal found guilty the high officials also in the mass killings of Armenains. The proof of such a charge in the Turkish court meant indirect recognition of the Armenian Genocide by modern Turkey. Later, probably, as a result of it, the Kemalists tried to neutralize the decisions of the Military tribunals. From this point of view, it seems that at the present there is a need to internationalize the decisions of the Military tribunals, i.e. it is necessary to undertake the investigation of that lawsuit on the basis of available documents in the International court with a new condemnation againts the Turkish state-that it has been guilty in committing the Armenian Genocide.

Atom Sh. Margaryan
Based upon the experience of global financial and economic crises, this article examines the issues surrounding the development of the Republic of Armenia’s current financial system. The concept of the modern study of crises is touched upon, in particular, the character of financial crises are discussed, the reason for their emergence, the different stages, and to overcome these, scientific and theoretical issues. Accordingly, a crisis is viewed as one of the stages in the natural development of the national economic cycle.

By classifying crises, cyclical, structural and coordinated crises are identified and studied.

The rise and expansion of Kondratiev waves are discussed. Within the context of observing economic crises, the peculiarities of the manifestation of global financial crises and their influence on the economy of the Republic of Armenia are discussed.

Accordingly, the hypothetical assertion is put forward, that during a global economic crisis, those countries in transition or developing countries are affected more severely, because crises have a cyclical characteristic; added to these are structural, coordinated and institutional crises.

As a result of studying the economic situation in the Republic of Armenia, recommendations are made based upon the conclusions and generalities, the application of which will provide the ability to overcome the crisis or to soften its blow.

These apply not only to political and institutional structures, but also to fiscal and monetary-credit policies.

Gevorg S. Stepanyan
Literary, lithographic and documentary sources witness that the Armenian population had been living in Eastern Ciscacausus since antiquity and that that territory was considered to be within the sphere of the influence of Armenian civilization. With the efforts of the Caucasian Tatars, heirs of the Turk-Oghuz, and the Turkish army who came to their aid, contemporary historians of the Azerbaijani state, which had been created only in 1918, over the last several decades, when reflecting upon the history of the left bank of the Kur River of “Bun Aghvank” and Shirvan, have “created” the ancient and medieval history, which has nothing to do with reality; a fable of an Aghvan-Azerbaijani-Turkish heritage.

Azerbaijani historiography has thoroughly distorted the roots of the ethnic formation of its own people – with the “excuse” of finding “Azerbaijanis,” “Azerbaijani tribes,” or the “Azerbaijani race” they have appropriated the ethnic-cultural and political history of the Eastern Cisscaucasus peoples – the Armenians, the Lezgis, the Tatars and others.

The objective of this artificial notion, is to appropriate the created spiritual and material culture of the indigenous people of the territory and by doing so present themselves as an ancient people.