Civilization
There have been people in the Armenian Plateau and Caucasus since almost 100,000 years ago. We do not know a lot, but some drawings in the caves and on the rocks evidence their presence. This area is generally considered as the cradle of civilization.
According to the archaeological and historical evidences the development of civilization in this region started around 980 BC with the formation of the Urartu kingdom. Many of the Urartu rulers built capitals in this area, such as the one set up around the Lake Van in the thirteenth century BC and that built in 782 BC by Argishti I, the ruins of which are preserved till today in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. The first written evidences of Armenians in historical writings are found in several inscriptions at Behistun, near the city of Kermanshah (modern-day Iran), which date to 600 BC. Birth
According to the legend the Armenian patriarch Hayk defeated the evil Assyrian ruler Bel in an epic battle, in order to win his people's freedom. He named this territory Hayastan, and the Armenians are still using this name. This legend is a part of Armenia’s rich and storied history, where Armenian heroes fought against evil invaders and conquerors for their freedom.
These legends are not fictitious; they are connected with historic events. Throughout its history, Armenia has often been under the attacks of other peoples who were trying to conquer the land and its people so that to exploit its resources. The mountainous terrain helped Armenia protect itself from invaders, and also preserved Armenian clans from unification and united resistance. During the next centuries, the politics of several strong Armenian rulers as well as the adoption of Christianity as state religion, and the advent of the Armenian alphabet fostered a strong Armenian national identity.
From Sea to Sea
The Artashesian Dynasty was established in 189 BC in Armenia. Tigran II was enthroned as the king of Armenia in 95 BC, following his father's death. With his education in warfare and diplomacy under Persian noblemen, Tigran II succeeded to expand the borders of Armenia to greatest size in its history. Under his rule, Armenia extended her borders to the Caspian Sea and to the Mediterranean Sea.
Creation of the Alphabet
With the development of the Armenian Church, the priests wanted to contribute to the people with their wisdom and knowledge. Due to the lack of Armenian alphabet, their sermons were conducted in Assyrian and Greek. At the end of 4th century AD, the clergyman Mesrob Mashtots began studying languages. So he focused all his attention on the pronunciation of Armenian words in order to create a distinct Armenian alphabet. Together with his students he travelled around Armenia and gathered the sounds Armenians used in their speech, and in 405 AD he created the thirty six characters that became the basis of the Armenian alphabet. His contribution to the Armenian culture was immense. The invention of the Armenian alphabet prepared the way for the first Golden Age of Armenia and during the next few centuries the Armenian writers and scientists have achieved world recognition due to his work.
The invasions
The Armenian Plateau and the Caucasus have always been at the crossroads of civilizations from geographical as cultural point of view. From ancient times, this region served as a part of the Silk Road, a road to get from the East to the West and vice versa. Armenia always has been of geopolitical interest to many of the neighbouring countries such as Assyria, Parthia and Roman Empire. After the spread of the Christianity in Armenia, the Arabs and the Persians began invading the country, thus making it a buffer zone between the East and the West. During the 7th century the Arabs conquered Armenia and she managed to restore her independency in 9th century due to the Bagratid Dynasty.
During the rule of the Bagratid Dynasty was the second Golden Age of Armenia. Many of the monasteries considered as representative for the Armenian architecture, were built under their order and will. The peace was broken by the invasions of Seljuk Turks in the 11th century, who were proceeded by other Turkic tribes from the East. The Seljuk Turks fought against the Persians and used Armenia as a battlefield. The last Armenian kingdom (Cilicia) survived until the 14th century.
After the attacks of the Mongols in the 13th century, there were lots of successive waves of invasions which continued to devastate the country. After the fall of Constantinople under the Ottomans rule, Armenia was overtaken in the early 16th century. Persia also was laying claims on Armenia, and Shah Abbas conquered Tbilisi, Yerevan, Nakhichevan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan. He also forced tens of thousands of Armenians to leave their homes in Nakhichevan to march to Esfahan. In the middle of the 17th century, the Ottomans and Persians settled their differences by dividing Armenia between their two empires. However, with the rise of the Russian Empire’ s power, Persia’s role in the region diminished in the 19th century, when Eastern Armenia was ceded to Russia under the Turkmanchai Treaty.
The First Genocide of the 20th Century
At the end of the 1800s, Sultan Abdul Hamid II sat at the head of the more and more disintegrating Ottoman Empire. In 1820, Greece managed to break free of the Turkish yoke, but the Empire still covered an extremely large area from Eastern Europe, the Near East, the Middle East, and the Armenian Plateau. Moreover, the different ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire were insisting for reforms that would give them equal rights or freedoms. Abdul Hamid decided to make an example out of an ethnic group to prevent a rebellion. Thus, in 1896, he ordered massacres, in which were killed more than 300,000 Armenians. This was the start of the darkest periods in Armenian history.
Although the Ottoman Empire’s territorial boundaries continued to diminish. A group of Turks planned and executed a complot against the Sultan and took the control over the empire. The regime of the Young Turk (as they came to be called) did not performed the needed reforms and in fact began to build an empire that unified all Turkic lands.
When the First World War commenced, the Young Turks allied with Germany against France and other European countries. They saw in it a good opportunity to carry out their Pan-Turkish ideals. As a result, on April 24 1915 they gathered all Armenian intellectuals living in Istanbul and executed them without giving any explanation for this cruelty.
Then they moved their cruel politic of extermination to the Armenian plateau, where they killed many people, they were often raping Armenian women, killing, or kidnapping them and their children. Others were deported.
By 1923, nearly 1.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire had been murdered or died due to the deportations or the violence. Most of the survived Armenians managed to leave for the neighbouring countries, others moved to Europe or America, thus creating Diaspora communities.
The first independent Republic of Armenia
With Russsia’s help the Armenians in Eastern Armenia were able to resist the Turkish attempts to conquer the country. Despite the difficult period Armenia finally managed to declare its independence on 28 May 1918. While the newly created Republic struggled to establish civil institutions such as a state university in 1919, two new powers appeared in the region - the Republic of Turkey, established by the Turkish nationalist and general in the Ottoman military, Mustafa Kemal, and the Bolsheviks.
Soviet Armenia
By November 1920, just two years after the establishment of independence of Armenia, the Bolsheviks attacked and occupied it. Soviet Union established peace with Turkey by giving her the Western Armenian provinces and leaving to Armenia the eastern province of Yerevan and Gyumri. Between 1921 and 1936 Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were made a part of the Union. In 1923, the Soviet Union due to Turkey’s demands ceded the Armenian provinces of Nakhichevan and Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, thus assuring to Turkey a border with their Azeri cousins. Once more the Armenians living in these areas were faced to persecution and death.
Despite all the difficulties, Armenia had a comparatively long period of industrialization and relative prosperity within the Soviet structure.
The earthquake, a new war and the collapse of the USSR
Due to the reform realised by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh tried to separate from the Azerbaijani SSR. In the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan – Baku and other cities the Azeri forces massacred Armenian populations to reject the referendum which would reunite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
On 7 December 1988, a big earthquake shook the northern regions of Soviet Armenia. It was felt as far away as the Armenian capital. Among the most devastated were Leninakan (now Gyumri) and Kirovakan (now Vanadzor) towns. This tragic earthquake turned huge number of people homeless, stopped the economic. Though the Soviet Union’s authorities promised to provide aid to rebuild this region, due to the disintegration of USSR was only a promise and left the Armenians to find their own solutions for the difficulties.
The Independent Republics of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh
On 21 September 1991, Armenia declared its sovereignty from the Soviet Union. This made her the first Soviet Republic to do so before the official disintegration of the USSR later the same year. Soon after that both Turkey and Azerbaijan blocked Armenia’s energy supplies and also the transportation of goods. This way they left Armenia only the Georgian border and a small border with Iran.
Despite the difficulties and rival neighbouring countries attempts to block and fail her independence, with the help of the USA and the Armenian diaspora, as well as some of the European countries, Armenia managed to pass this difficult period and to stabilise.
Unlike Armenia’s success to preserve its independence Nagorno-Karabakh's existence was at best perilous. During the Azeri rule the Armenian majority population were being prosecuted both religiously and culturally. Many of the Armenian churches and graves there were defaced; Armenian language was forbidden; the institutions, as well as the road network were left without maintenance.
In the late 1980s, the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh tried to exercise their rights by voting to separate from Azerbaijan and reunite with Armenia. In response Azerbaijan’s government led brutal pogroms against the Armenian communities there. This grew in an armed conflict led between 1991 and May 1994, in which Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians bravely defended their right to self-determination. The conflict was partially solved by establishing an independent from Azerbaijan and Armenia territory with self-government, which remains unrecognised by the world authorities, but the Armenians firmly assert their right to self-determination by living and working in Nagorno-Karabakh.
designed by assistant Antoaneta Anguelova
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