Armenia

Armenia - The first Christian country known to man

Armenia is a mountainous country on the south side of the Caucasus. It covers about the northeast fifth of the former settlement area of the Armenians, which was divided into Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia (Armenistan) in 1639. The latter belonged to Turkey, which had over a million of its Armenian population deliberately exterminated in 1915/16. The Turkish government still denies this genocide to this day. The former symbol of Armenia, Mount Ararat, is also located on Turkish territory. It can be seen clearly from many parts of the country, but the border with neighboring Turkey has been closed due to ongoing political tensions.

Armenia is considered to be the first Christian country in the world because it made Christianity the state religion in 301, 10 years earlier than Rome. The well over 4,000 monuments are therefore mainly evidence of Christian art and architecture, which were there in the 4th-11th centuries. Century found its heyday.

Radio Yerevan

For once, a joke by the famous "Radio Yerevan" should be quoted:

Question to Radio Yerevan: "Is it true that the Comrade General Secretary won a red car in the lottery?"

Radio Yerevan: "In principle, yes. But it wasn't Comrade General Secretary, it was citizen Pyotr Petrovich. And it wasn't a car, but a bike. And he didn't win it, it was stolen from him. But the bike was actually red. "

Armenia: history

The early history of Armenia

The area in which today's Armenia stretches shows the first traces of settlement as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Chr. On. Although this early population was bound by a single culture, the landscape of the country prevented the emergence of a larger political community. Not until the 13th century BC BC and the enormous migration of the sea peoples, several smaller principalities were established, which are historically known as the Nairi countries.

According to Abbreviationfinder website, the great power Assyria, which called these countries Uratri, tried to force them to pay tribute. Under Aramu it came because of the increasing threat from the Assyrians in the 9th century BC. Chr to unite the Nairi countries to form the Kingdom of Urartu, which should very quickly find a high level of economic prosperity. The capital of the empire was the city of Tuspa (now Van). Urartu reached its greatest extent under King Sarduri II, who lived from about 765 to 733 BC. BC ruled, but was defeated by the Assyrians in the fight for rule. Further battles with the Assyrians followed, which eventually resulted in a destruction of the Urartean Empire by the Assyrian King Sargon II (721-704 BC) ended. Despite attempts to revitalize the empire, however, it slipped into insignificance and was around the year about 585 BC. Completely destroyed by the Scythians and Medes.

The formation of Armenia and the ancient times

The name "Armenia" was mentioned for the first time in the time of the Persians, around 520 BC. Recent research has shown that the Armenians were either in the 7th or 6th century BC. Immigrated to Urartu, mixed up with the local population and finally assumed their rule. According to Herodotus, they were under their ruler Arame during immigration(Armenos) from Phrygia, which also explains the name "Armenia". The Indo-European people built Urartu into a new state that would later develop into Armenia. The earlier Urartu was founded between 546 and 331 BC. Ruled by the Persians. These had ousted the Medes and expanded their former domain into a first world empire. This extended from Asia Minor to India and also included the province of Armenia, which at that time was still divided into Eastern and Western Armenia.

After Alexander the Great in 334 BC Having started his campaign against the Persians in the 3rd century BC and conquered the empire a few years later, Armenia came under Hellenistic influence without having been conquered. After the division of the Alexandrian Empire between the Diadochi, it came into the interests of the Seleucids, whose empire included Persia, Mesopotamia and parts of Asia Minor. But they were used by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia (188 BC) defeated, whereupon Artaxias proclaimed himself king of Armenia. He founded the dynasty of the Artaxids, which in the coming years could force the independence of Greater Armenia as an independent kingdom. When the power of the new state increased to 55 BC. Moved to its climax, Tigranes the Great was appointed "King of Kings", who, however, fell to the Romans because of his alliance with Mithridates of Pontus to recognize Roman sovereignty over Armenia.

Armenia as the first Christian country

After the Parthians had succeeded in placing representatives of their ruling house (Arsacids) on the Armenian throne, the Sassanids were able to bring Greater Armenia under their power between 252 and 297. However, at the end of the 3rd century they had to give up their supremacy after they had been defeated by the Roman emperor Diocletianus in 297/98. Trdat III followed. from the Arsacid dynasty. This king made Christianity at a time when the great victory of Constantine the Great against Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge (Pons Milvius) in Rome was still unthinkable301 on the state religion of Armenia. Armenia became the first country in history to be united by a purely Christian religion.

In 387 the Great Armenian Empire was divided between Rome and the Sassanids. But it was also the time in which the Armenians created an impressive Christian culture, architecture and literature and received their own alphabet in 406 through Mesrop Mashtots. Christianity did not remain unchallenged. Under Yazdegerd II, the Sassanids tried to introduce the teachings of Zarathustra in Armenia, which in 451 resulted in a vehement rebellion among the residents of the country. At the end of the following disputes, Christianity was recognized by the Sassanids in 484.

Armenia in the Middle Ages

For Armenia, antiquity ended with the country being a main area of combat between Byzantium and the Sassanids. The Byzantines had conquered most of Greater Armenia by about 640, but by the 7th century the Arab tribes managed to gain permanent control over the land. Meanwhile, Ashot I was able to re-establish an Armenian kingdom around 885, which was recognized by the caliph, but also by the basileus in Constantinople. Under Ashot II,who ruled between 915 and 928, the freedom struggles of the Armenians were successfully ended. The Armenian kingdom, however, went under in the second half of the 11th century due to internal crises and lost wars, with the Byzantines murdering the last ruler. However, the refugees from Armenia established the independent principality of Lesser Armenia in Cilicia in 1080, which was to ally itself with the Crusaders against Byzantium and Ottomans. After Lesser Armenia fell to Cyprus in 1342 and later to the Egyptian Mamluks, it became part of the Ottoman Empire for a very long time, in which the Armenian-speaking area was combined as the province of Armenistan and given limited autonomy.

Armenia's Modern Era

With the beginning of the 19th century and the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Armenia came more and more under the influence of Russia after the seventh Russo-Turkish War(1828 to 1829) controlled the eastern part of the country and other parts of Armenia after the ninth Russo-Turkish War (1877 to 1878). However, the sovereignty of Armenia promised in the "Peace Treaty of Sèvres" in 1920 was not realized because of the political movements in the former Ottoman Empire, especially through the Mustafa Kemal Ataturks. The nationalist Young Turkish movement around Talaat Pasha, which came to power in 1908, began in 1915 with the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. This was the prelude to one of the blackest chapters in both countries: the Armenian genocide.

This genocide was related to the Armenians' struggle for independence and occurred between 1915 and 1917. Between 300,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were killed in massacres and as a result of the death marches. Most Armenians still see the genocide as an unpunished injustice, which they demand to be properly remembered. The official Turkish point of view speaks against this, which legitimizes the deportations as security measures required by the war and which draws back heavily on the circumstances at that time as well as the attacks on the Armenian side.

After being removed from the "Treaty of Sevres" by him under revision, "Treaty of Lausanne" in favor of Turkey distance, divided in 1920 Turkey and the later USSR Armenia among themselves - recorded in the 1921 Treaty of Kars. Eastern Armenia became part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic in 1922 and a formally autonomous Union Republic of the USSR in 1936. This union republic (= Armenian Socialist Soviet Republic) became an important location for the chemical, shoe industry and computer science. Not only did many important components for Soviet space travel come from it, which was to become a popular tourist destination for Russians because of its pleasant climate. However, the Armenian SSR was among others a haven for separatist movements within the Soviet empire

A devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale struck the Armenian region of Lori on December 7, 1988, killing around 25,000 people who also died as a result of the winter and the inadequate measures taken by the authorities. But for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, foreign aid workers were allowed into the country.

Armenia's independence

On September 21, 1991, the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union, followed by the establishment of the Republic of Armenia. The country's first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, was re-elected in 1996, but forced to resign two years later. The reason for this was that in the conflict with Nagorno-Karabakh he had pursued a policy that, in the opinion of the population, was too willing to compromise. In 1994 Armenian troops occupied about one sixth of Azerbaijan and no amicable solution to the conflict was subsequently found. Levon Ter-Petrosjan's successor Robert Kocharyan1997 rejected a peace plan advocated by Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the Azerbaijani government. In 1998 Kocharyan, until then President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, won the presidential elections. He was re-elected in 2003. After the elections in February 2008, the former Prime Minister Serzh Sarkissyan took over the presidency, following a policy similar to that of Robert Kocharyan. The opposition under Levon Ter-Petrosyan did not recognize the election result and reacted with demonstrations lasting several days, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency.

The economy of Armenia is suffering not least from the closed borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey. The country receives support above all from the approximately 7 million Armenians living in the diaspora. The establishment of diplomatic relations with Turkey has so far failed, among other things, because the Turkish government insists that the charge of genocide during the Ottoman Empire be withdrawn and that Armenia formally renounce any form of reparations.