History
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Armenia’s rich history infuses almost everything about the country. One of the oldest inhabited places on earth, Armenia is also a 21st century culture racing to meet the west.
Armenians comfortably straddle both old and new in their everyday lives, and a look at their history will help visitors to put their visit into perspective.
Cradle of Civilization
The first record of human inhabitants in Armenia are Homo sapiens remains discovered in the Hrazdan River gorge near present day Bjini, dated about one million BC. Other prehistoric sites include Stone Age workshops and a ca. 90,000 BC settlement in Yerevan where the first signs of the use of obsidian to make knives, spear heads and tools were found. Discovery of traces of grain indicate mankind moved from a hunter-gatherer society to a collective unit much earlier than previously thought.
Carved on Armenia’s mountain tops are hundreds of petroglyphs, dated to the Paleolithic (ca. 20,000 - 12,000 BC), Mesolithic (12,000 - 7,000 BC) and Neolithic (7,000 -5,000 BC) eras. Forerunners of the Indo-European language, these markings illustrate a time when mankind first pictured the world as round, created constellations and signs of the zodiac and divided time into months, weeks and days.
Prehistoric sites include the 4200 BC Karahundj Observatory (“Armenia’s Stonehenge”), a 5000 year old temple complex in Aragatsotn, and Neolithic and Bronze Age sites throughout the country, including the oldest discovered place to forge bronze, Metsamor.
Origin Myths
Ancestral Armenians shared a rich oral history with their Near Eastern neighbors, including a very old form of the Flood Epic, shared by Assyrians, Babylonians and Sumerians. Believed to be the spot where Noah and his son’s descended when the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, some say the Ararat valley is also the location of the first city after the Biblical Flood, and that Armenians are direct descendents of Noah.
The first mention of Armenia in writing is the ca. 4000 BC Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, where the country was described as a rich country where you must “go by mountain, return by water.”
One of the most famous founding myths is the story of Hayk, patriarch of a tribe of people ruled by the Assyrians. Seeking to break free of their overlords, Hayk led his tribe into the lands of Armenia, and the ensuing battle between Armenians led by Hayk and an Assyrian army of giants led by the god-king Bael is the stuff of legend, resulting in Assyrian defeat and the liberation of Hayk’s tribe, who named their land “Hayastan” in honor of their victorious king. In another series of myths, Hayk’s son, Ara, extended the country’s lands to all of the Armenian Plateau (Eastern Turkey and present day Armenia).
These myths are believed by some to be oral histories of the migration of proto-Armenian tribes into Anatolia (sometime between 3000-1200 BC) with bits of the Flood Epic, the Trojan war and Near eastern origin myths rolled into one. The oral tradition attempts to explain the assimilation of two tribes, the Hayassa-Aza and the Armen, into a unified people now known as the Armenians.
Ancient Empires
Second millennium BC Assyrians referred to Armenian lands as Nairi (land of the rivers) and later (around 1300 BC) as ”Ararta” or Urartu, inhabited by a powerful tribe based around Lake Van which posed the greatest threat to Assyrian power. The Urartians established their empire throughout Anatolia, including present day Armenia in the 9th-8th centuries, with a regional base at Erebuni in present day Yerevan. Erebuni is often called the birthplace of Yerevan; at 2800 years, one of the oldest cities on earth. Though they borrowed cuneiform from Assyrians, Urartians were a distinct culture, one of many tribes on the Armenian plateau, along with the Armen and Hayassa. The Urartians defeated Assyria, only to succumb to northern invaders. Almost immediately following the collapse of Urartu, the tribes in the Armenian plateau reorganized into a new kingdom, the Armen or Arameh. The earliest records of the name were made by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus (ca. 550 BC), who called them the Armenoi. Some thirty years later their country is designated as Armina in the inscription of Darius I at Behistun (Bisitun).
Urartian sites include Erebuni, Argishtihinili, and cuneiform boundary stones and fortresses throughout the country.
Greek & Roman Periods
Armenians were among the forces led by Darius the Great to attack Athens (490 BC) and by 401-400 BC, when Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (Anabasis) passed through, the entire basin of the western Tigris and the Euphrates lay within the boundaries of Armenian control. Xenophon called the area Armenia, ruled by Orontes.
The Orontid Dynasty was the first dynasty of the Armenian Kingdom, ruling as satraps until 331 BC, when they became kings outright.
Armenia’s Hellenistic period begins when Alexander the Great’s armies marched through the country on his way to India. Hellenism was perhaps Armenia's greatest cultural influence, becoming so deeply ingrained into the culture that aspects continue to the present day. Greek language became the language of court, Greek inscriptions have been uncovered at Armavir, the first Orontid capital and Hellenistic depictions of Armenia’s gods became widespread. Inscriptions indicate the existence of a Greek temple of Apollo and Artemis, served by a predominantly Greek priesthood, as well as a Hellenized temple to Mythras, a proto-Armenian fire god later adopted into the Roman pantheon. Greek temples were built throughout the country, the most famous of which is the temple at Garni.
The greatest Hellenistic achievement in Armenia was the 189 BC city of Artashat, built for King Artashes, founder of the next dynasty of kings. In legend designed by the Carthaginian general Hannibal, the city was the envy of the Near East, destroyed and then rebuilt during the reign of Nero. A later king, Tigran II, stretched Armenia’s boundaries for a short time to its greatest extent, between the Caspian, Mediterranean and Black Seas.
His successes threatened Rome, which began what turned out to be a 500 year struggle with Persia to dominate the Armenian Highland. Armenia was the battleground, its kings playing one power off against the other to retain independence. The period saw the rise of Armenia’s princely families (the “nakharars”), whose support was key to the kingdom’s defense, but who, in typical feudal style, spent as much time fighting for the crown as they did their common enemy. Artashes’ dynasty ended in the year 1, replaced by the Arshakunis, the greatest dynasty of kings in Armenia’s history.
Hellenistic and Roman sites in Armenia include Armavir, Artashat and the temple of Garni.
A New Identity
Though the apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus are believed to have preached in Armenia in the 1st century, Armenia officially entered the Christian era in 301 when the Arshakuni King T’rdat III converted at the hands of Gregory the Illuminator. The stuff of legend, the story of the country’s conversion is deeply ingrained in the Armenian character, and marks the first historical separation of the Armenian culture from its neighbors. It preserved a distinctly Armenian identity in the face of cultural annihilation by Sassanid Persians or Romans. Armenia was the first nation to officially embrace Christianity as its state religion; the Roman Empire did not do so until 380, under the Emperor Theodosius.
The next hundred years of the struggle over the conversion and the eventual adoption of a new alphabet in the year 405 finalized Armenia’s cultural independence, establishing an absolutely unique culture in the Near East that managed to assert its own identity as great empires around it rose and fell into obscurity.
Armenia’s pre-Christian past did not completely die out, surviving through continued local traditions and the transforming of pagan rituals into holy day celebrations. Churches were built over pagan temples, including a famous Hellenistic fire altar under the cathedral at Echmiadzin. Standing stones, Vishap (Dragon) stones and ancient observatories were knocked down, their stones used to build shrines, set into the walls of old churches or carved into the earliest khachkars (stone crosses). Many retain their earlier pagan iconography. Other rituals include the continuing rite of matagh, or sacrifice, celebrated at holy site in the country.
Early Christian sites include the World Heritage Site Echmiadzin complex (Echmiadzin Cathedral, Hripsimeh & Gayane martyria, Zvartnots cathedral).
Armenia’s 600 year reign of kings ended in 428 during a series of uprisings against the Sassanid Empire over the question of Armenia’s faith. A key battle was fought at Avarayr in 458, which Armenians call history’s first battle for Freedom of Conscience. Gaining freedom of religion in 484, the Armenians entered their first golden age of culture. Thousands of manuscripts and a number of cathedrals are traced to this period. The cathedrals were experimentations in central dome construction, and its engineering is believed by many to be the 5th century precursor to later Gothic cathedrals in Byzantium and Europe. Structures include the massive 7th century cathedral at Zvartnots; the tallest standing structure on earth when it was built. The church was so beautiful that when the Byzantine emperor Constans saw it during its consecration, legend says he attempted to kidnap the architect to have a copy built in Constantinople.
Early medieval sites include Zvartnots, Talin, Aruch and Yereruik, the latter a candidate for World Heritage Site status.
Golden Ages
In 640, Arabs swarmed from the south, destroyed the Sassanids in Persia and began conquering much of Asia Minor, forcing Armenia to capitulate in 652. The Arab period marks the beginning of 600 years of invasion and Armenian struggles to reassert its independence. Arab influence on culture was noticeable: a new style of art and design entered manuscript illuminations, and frescoes became more elaborate, using more floral and ornamental decoration.
Despite continued struggle to assert self rule, Armenia had several periods of peace and prosperity, including its second Golden Age, beginning in 851 when the Bagratuni Prince Ashot I was declared “Prince of Princes” by Arab and Byzantine rulers. Quickly moving to declare independence, the Bagratunis freed large portions of the old kingdom, beginning 200 years of cultural growth.
Resumption of international trade brought prosperity and the revival of artistic and literary pursuits. Hundreds of monasteries and churches, as well as thousands of exquisitely carved stone crosses (Khachkars) are traced to this period. Churches assumed their conical domed cruciform shapes, with elaborate carved images on the facades and frescoes in the inner sanctums. The Bagratuni capital city of Ani grew to a population of almost 100,000, at its time larger than any city in Europe. Religious life flourished and Ani became known as the "city of one thousand and one churches”.
Seljuk invasions ended Bagratuni rule in the mid 11th century, but a Georgian branch of the Bagratuni family rose 100 years later, establishing a new Golden Age in Armenia through the exploits of the Armenian Zakarian brothers. The Zakarians established their power in Gugark, Lori and Siunik. Among Armenia's most beautiful regions, the Zakarian lands were endowed with stunning architectural triumphs of the age: two of Armenia’s World Heritage Sites and three medieval universities.
Golden Age sites include 9th-13th century monasteries at Kabaiyr, Odzun, Haghbat & Sanahin (World Heritage Sites), Akhtala, Geghard (World Heritage Site), Marmashen, Harichavank, Sevan Vank, Goshavank, Haghartsin, Varagavan, Noravank, and the medieval universities of Gladzor, and Tatev.
The Dark Ages
The Mongol invasion of 1240 began a long period of decline in Armenia, accelerated by successive waves of Turkish tribes, including the armies of Timur, which completely destroyed the country. After Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, Armenia became the focus of wars between the Ottomans and Safavid Persians, and in a series of devastating campaigns, was emptied of much of its population, accelerating a migration begun with 11th century Seljuk raids. In one famous campaign, the Safavid Shah Abbas II force marched the population of Ararat region into Iran, denuding the landscape so pursuing Ottomans could not follow. Though they divided the country between them in 1639, the Ottoman-Persian wars over Armenia did not completely end until the mid 18th century, by which time the Russian Empire began to take interest in the region, beginning with expeditions by Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Russian campaigns accelerated in the early 19th century, leading to the usurpation of Eastern Armenia to Russian rule under the Turkmanchai Treaty of 1828.
Revival
The Russian era had a profound effect on Armenia, instituting western reforms and focusing the country’s attention on Europe. Armenian cities began the transformation into a modern society, and development of the economy, literature and arts are traced to this period. New found wealth from catering to the Russian market transformed Armenia’s cities into centers of Neo-Classicism and Art Nouveau. Emulating the new styles of the capitals of Europe, Armenians nevertheless continued to celebrate their past glories, and nowhere is this better represented than the buildings in Giumri’s historic center, known as Alexandropol in the 19th century. Over one thousand 19th century buildings remain testament to Armenia’s imperial period, its “Belle Époque”.
Belle Époque sites include old Abovian Street in Yerevan and the Alexandropol or Kumaiyri Center in Giumri.
First Republic
A century’s peace under Russian rule ended with World War I and the 1915 Armenian genocide, instigated by Young Turks reeling from losses in the battlefield. Taking place in Ottoman controlled Western Armenia, Turkish troops aided by Kurdish mercenaries killed 1.5 million Armenians, exiling up to another 500,000 to Syria and elsewhere. Tens of thousands of refugees poured into Eastern Armenia, which had bare resources to cater for such an influx. When the Tsar abdicated in 1917, Russian troops withdrew from the Turkish front leaving Armenia exposed. In the face of extraordinary difficulties Armenia managed to form the First Republic in 1918, after a series of battles that repelled Turkish troops attempting to smash through Armenia to create a Pan Turkic empire stretching to China. The key battles were at Sardarabad, Aparan and Vanadzor.
Soviet Armenia
Despite its successes in battle, the new republic was unable to cope with continued Turkish demands for territory and the needs of its swollen population. In 1920 the Soviet Red Army entered the Caucasus, taking Yerevan in December 1921. In 1922, Armenia’s first republic ended and Armenia became a part of the Trans-Caucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic along with Georgia and Azerbaijan. In a 1923 attempt to gain socialist inroads into Turkey, Stalin subdivided Armenia, awarding the Armenian territories of Nakhichevan and Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control. In 1936, the republics were separated to their current territories, in the process creating the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).
The Soviet period was a both a blessing and a curse for Armenia. Reasserting Russian control of the borders ended Turkish designs on attacking the country, and Socialist programs of universal health, housing and education were a boon to the country’s development, transforming an essentially feudal society based on agriculture into an industrial power run by an educated workforce.
Especially after World War II, Armenia experienced fantastic growth, propelled by rapid development of technology, science and research. Armenians became recognized as among the most important developers of Soviet military guidance systems, computer technology and engineering. Yerevan was transformed, growing from around 100,000 (with refugees) in 1921 to 1.4 million, almost half of the Republic’s population in 1989. Huge plants were erected in Yerevan, Giumri and Kirovakan (Vanadzor), and an intense reclamation of the Ararat valley began, with mammoth irrigation and reservoir systems.
By the 1970’s the Republic of Armenia was one of the richest republics per capita in the Soviet Union. It was also faced with new challenges, among them a number of environmental disasters created through its industrial growth and the economic malaise that pervaded the entire Soviet Union.
1988
In 1988, two events occurred to change Armenia and set it on its current path.
The first was a series of mass protests against Azerbaijani massacres of Armenians living in Azerbaijan; claimed by Azerbaijan to have been done in retaliation for efforts by the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh to free itself from Azeri rule and declare autonomy. When Azerbaijan attacked, Karabakh declared independence, beginning an undeclared war between the two entities that ended with a truce signed in 1995.
The second event was the December 7, 1998 Spitak earthquake, which killed over 24,000 people during the first tremors, up to 50,000 in total. The earthquake devastated the entire North of the country, with the greatest damage in Spitak, Vanadzor and Giumri. Over 500,000 people were left homeless. Soviet promises of immediate help were followed by ineptitude and corruption, and Armenia became the first Soviet republic to open its borders to mass western aid.
Followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union, these events propelled Armenia towards declaring independence and establishing a new republic in 1991.
Soviet era sites can be found in Yerevan, Vanadzor, Giumri and Spitak.
Armenia Now
Not unlike the First Republic of 1918-1920, the new state was confronted by hostile neighbors. Turkey and Azerbaijan imposed a total blockade on landlocked Armenia, leaving only the Georgian border to the north and a small border with Iran to the south as means to transport much needed goods, including humanitarian aid, into the country.
Western aid and Armenia’s remarkable ability to forge ahead in the face of adversity has made the blockade mostly irrelevant to Armenia’s survival, with Turkey opening an air corridor to Armenian flights and a channel of dialogue about reopening the borders. Warm relations with its northern and southern neighbors, as well as with the Russian Federation, has ensured an open corridor for trade, reopening a historic part of the Silk Road and the vast Middle Eastern market.
Armenia today is undergoing a new revolution, based on its transformation to a democratic, capitalistic society and a cultural race to meet the west. Yerevan is experiencing something of a building boom, with office towers, shopping malls and luxury condos going up throughout the city. Historic centers have been sacrificed to build a “New Yerevan”, but by and large the new streets follow those planned by Alexander Tamanian, Yerevan’s first city planner and architect of the 1930s “Pink City” that rose from the ashes of the genocide.
The country continues to face challenges. There is a continuing migration of able-bodied workers out of the country seeking gainful employment, with the remittances they send back making up a large portion of the economy. The country faces new environmental challenges as it focuses on economic growth, with litter, factory pollution and clear cutting of forests posing the greatest threats.
At the same time Armenia shows great potential to correct its problems. Once reduced to historic lows due to hydroelectric production, Lake Sevan’s waters are being restored to their original state. Awareness of illegal logging is becoming widespread and efforts to reforest the country are ongoing. Armenia has the highest per capita use of natural gas for powering cars, an economic decision that has nonetheless reduced overall Carbon emissions and done much to clean Yerevan’s pollution levels.
