Monthly Archives: May 2022

POST-WAR EXPERIENCE OF ANNALES SCHOOL (1945-1975) – 2022-1

Smbat Kh. Hovhannisyan
The paper discusses the post-war experience of the metamorphosis of the “Annales” school, when a long period of evolution and renovation began (1945- 1975), which later took its place in history under the name of “Glorious Thirty period”.

The author’s preliminary hypothesis is that as a result of the increased impact of social sciences on history, the “Annales” school not only revised its intellectual direction, but also systematized its achievements.

Following this research hypothesis, the paper examines both the transformations of the journal of Annales school (renaming of journal, introduction of the journal emblem, reorganization of the editorial board) and the fundamental grounds for the development of the Annales historiography (from “the VI section of the Practical School of Advanced Studies” to “The House of Human Sciences”) in the context of social and humanitarian disciplines.

Thus, the content of the post-war journal changed significantly: the numerous problems that have been only outlined so far are now being thoroughly analyzed. Moreover, despite the fact that pre-war ideas and concepts continued to be discussed, nevertheless, in parallel with them, the magazine already examined ideas that were not considered in pre-war historiography.

In a short period of time, the bundle of problems found in the magazine has already expanded to such an extent that it is difficult to give a detailed description of them.

As a result of the study, it is stated that as a consequence of reconstruction of the theoretical and human capital, the “Annales” school gradually has turned from a peripheral into an authoritative French and world historiographical school.

THE KING AND GOD – 2022-1

The ideological foundations of royal sovereignty in the Bagratid Armenia

Ruben L. Manasserian
The coronation rite of the Bagratids went through a series of stages that marked the evolution of ideas about royal power as divine institution. Ashot I Bagratid was proclaimed king at a meeting of the highest nobility, i.e., in the adoption of the royal title, the priority was the collective will – a secular act, as an expression of divine will. In the year of 885 Ashot I Bagratid was crowned with the participation of the catholicos, who personally placed the crown on him and gave his blessing. The participation of the highest church hierarchy in the act of coronation conveyed a character of a supreme divine sanction to the investiture. In the year 961 Ashot III the Merciful introduced the rite of anointing in the coronation which meant the consecration of the power and personality of the king, endowing him with God-sent grace (Holy Spirit).

According to church ideas, the king – the anointed of God, was elevated to the rank of a sacred mediator between God and the people. The introduction of the rite of anointing in the coronation by the Bagratids also had external political goals – it was directed against the great-power encroachments of the Byzantine emperors, who monopolized the right to bear the title of Basileus. Byzantium recognized only the title of archon (prince) for the Armenian monarch. Based on this fact, a view was expressed in science by K. N. Yuzbashyan, that the Bagratids, in accordance with the great-power position of Byzantium, equated their title of king with the title of archon, in other words, calling themselves kings, they meant themselves princes. This view does not find confirmation in the rite of anointing of the monarch. Borrowing it from the Bible, Ashot III the Merciful asserted his title of king as identical to that of King David. In the justification of the right of the Bagratids to the rite of anointing, as early as the beginning of the 10th century a legend was put forward about their origin from the family of the biblical David. The origins of this legend are rooted in the history of Moses of Khoren on the conversion of prince Bagarat – the ancestor of the Bagratids into Judaism in the II c. AD.

EPIC HAYK, HISTORICAL HAYK AND HIS HERITAGE – 2022-1

Sargis G. Petrosyan
The epithets of the Armenian ethnarch Hayk Abetatsin “born in the flame” and Abetayn “fiery”, in fact, was his mythological prototype of the homonymous god. This is explained by the fact that the historical prototype of the epic Hayk bore not only the name, but also the epithets of the god Hayk, his divine patron. It is also noteworthy that in this way the opponent of the historical Hayk – Bel also bore the name of his divine patron, the main god of the Akkadian pantheon – Bel (in Semitic “Bel” – lord, – the original epithet of the supreme god of the Sumerian- Akkadian pantheon Enlil).

The historical Hayk was the head of one of the southern Armenian tribes and the king of the dual country Armi-Armana, and the historical Bel is the famous king of Akkad and at the same time the despot of all Mesopotamia Sargon. They lived around the middle of the III millennium BC. Haik’s ancestral domain was located in the north of the Western Tigris River basin, and the patrimony of his relative Kadmos Arman (Armanum) was south of the river. Kadmos was not really a grandson, but the nephew (his sister’s son) of Hayk. Therefore, his ancestral possession of Arman was also referred to as the “house of Kadmos” (Armenian “tun Kadmeai”, cuneiform “Kadmukhi”). Before confronting the Akkadian despot, Hayk and his family moved to Hark, to the north of Lake Van. Having settled there, he turned Hark into the center of the “Haykazants tribal union”. Toponym Hark does not mean “fathers”, but it means “opposing”, “overcoming”, “casting out”.

According to ancient legends, Hayk killed Bel in battle, but this is folklore. However, no doubt, quite a few enemy soldiers fell from the well-aimed arrows of Hayk and his archers, since the place of their burial-ground was called Gerezmank, that is, “Graves” (later Gerezmanakk). After the victory over Bel, in order to strengthen the state system and his own monarchical power, Hayk began to carry out various reforms. The head of the social estate of farmers (and producers in general) became the eldest son of Hayk Aramanyak, the head of the military estate became his second son Khor, and the head of the priestly estate became the third son Manawaz. Hayk also changed the custom of succession to the throne. The former was through the female line, which he replaced with inheritance through the male line. Hayk proclaimed his eldest son Aramanyak his heir. The institution of two army commanders, due to the dual system of the structure of the ancient tribes, was abolished, and instead of Aramanyak and Kadmos, he entrusted the leadership of the army to his second son Khor. He declared his patron god Hayk the Supreme God, into whose cult the cults of the main deities of other tribes of the union joined. Thanks to this, after the death of Hayk, the cult of him, as a deified ancestor, also became the part of this soldered, renewed cult.

THE SUNSET OF RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION – 2022-1

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan
The current deadly battle between Russia and Ukraine – the sons of Ruthenia founded by chieftain Rurik of the Scandinavian Rus (Ros) tribe in 862, is a clash of centuries-old archetypes that will pave the way for the clarification of the eastern borders of Western civilization.

Though Francis Fukuyama, recently inspired by the events in Ukraine, tried to find a modern value system in the causes of this bloodshed and described what was happening as a qualitatively new milestone in the triumph of the idea of freedom, we stick to the viewpoint expressed by “Vem” still at the beginning of 2014 – in the days of the Russian-Ukrainian first war, that the well-known London plan was launched to bring the “birth of the Cossack tribe” free Russians – Ukrainians, against Russia so as to put the latter, considered to be invincible, in a hopeless situation thanks to the persistent efforts of the Jewish-Turkish lobby deeply rooted within Russia.

The article presents the main stages of the implementation of that program and the levers and mechanisms of its key players to influence the Russian political leadership.

According to the author, since the 18th century, the Russian Empire had become stronger and had entered the arena of European and world politics through successive cycles of its rationalization, that is, Russia has developed and flourished as a European power. That is why the doctrine of Eurasianism, re-nominated in the 1990s by London’s prompt in the age of technological society and information, is in fact a vulgar Asianism that undermines the civilizational foundations of its own state.

Therefore, the prospect of the USSR restoration based on such a concept could not have stalled, even after the first “successful joint operation” in 2020 – after the 44-day war in Karabakh, since subsequent events showed that Russia sacrificed its ally for it not only economically, but is not militarily ready for further development of events.

The author considers that in such conditions the Ukrainian political nation is currently trying to become the Europe-directed face of the Russian double-headed eagle, whose Slavonic-Varyag nucleus persistently strives for Europe. Therefore, Ukraine, as a country of free Russians, is waging a life-and-death struggle against Tatar-Slavic Moscow, formed on the basis of the Finno-Ugric substratum.

Whereas, for Russia, to conquer Ukraine means to win itself politically and culturally, that is, in terms of civilization. Therefore, such persistence manifested in the arena of “defeating itself” opens the way of Russia’s suicide.