This article examines the representation of the Paulician and Tondrakian movements in Soviet Armenian historiography from a class-struggle perspective. While pre-Soviet scholarship approached these movements primarily within a theological framework, Soviet Armenian historiography — grounded in Marxist ideology and historical materialism — reinterpreted them as expressions of social struggle cloaked in religious form. Drawing on Engels’ interpretations of the 16th century Reformation and the German Peasants’ War, Soviet authors projected core concepts of Marxist historiography — such as class antagonism, social utopianism, and peasant resistance — onto the medieval Armenian context. As a result, the Paulician and Tondrakian movements were stripped of their religious character in favor of the ideological imperatives of the time.
The article interrogates the theoretical and evidentiary foundations of these claims, exposing the anachronistic language employed and demonstrating the limitations inherent in interpreting the Paulician and Tondrakian movements through a Marxist historiographical lens.