1. Ancient land at grips with adversity
2. URARTU, The first Kingdom in Armenia
3. Persian rule
4. Armenia partitioned
5. The renaissance of Armenia, TIGRAN THE GREAT
6. The ARSACID dynasty
7. The first Christian state in the world
8. Battle for faith
9. The BAGRATID dynasty
10. The CILICIAN Kingdom of Armenia
11. Persian rule in Eastern Armenia
12. OTTOMAN Empire and THE GENOCIDE
13. The first republic and the SOVIET regime
14. Independence
15. The Armenian Diaspora in the Last Hundred Years (1895-1994)
16. Armenians in Eastern Europe
17. Armenians in Western Europe
18. Armenians in the Middle East
19. Armenians in South Asia and Australia
20. Armenians in South America
21. Armenians in North America
22. Origins of the Armenian nation

Ancient land at grips with adversity

The present-day Republic of Armenia occupies but a fraction of the ancient Armenia, which extended from the lesser Caucasus Mountains south across the Armenian plateau to the Taurus Mountains. Frequent earthquakes still remind us that the land lies near the great geological fault between the Asian and African subcontinent plates. The Armenian plateau is a highland which rises directly above its surrounding regions. Geography undoubtedly played a key role in the history and culture of Armenia. Forming an important coin of vantage and a highway of great value for trade and commerce between Asia and Europe, Armenia it seems was destined to be at grips with adversity. The land with its untold riches and its strategic position of primary import, stirred the ambitions of many "superpowers" of the region. For a succession of centuries, the Armenians were in constant warfare with invaders and conquerors - Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Parthians, Arabs and Turks - who rolled over their homeland, although certainly not without meeting the most stubborn resistance. Throughout these turbulent centuries, the Armenians successfully asserted their historical identity and upheld their national heritage against great odds. Although on occasions overpowered by superior forces and reduced to the status of vassals, they nevertheless enjoyed a semblance of national autonomy. Yet, the very vicissitudes that troubled its existence contributed to the creation of a varied and original culture, held together by the constants of social. intellectual and religious institutions.

URARTU, The first Kingdom in Armenia

By the 9th century B.C., a confederation of local tribes flourished as the unified state of Urartu. It grew to become one of the strongest kingdoms in the Near East and constituted a formidable rival to Assyria for supremacy in the region. The Urartians produced and exported wares of ceramic, stone and metal, building fortresses, temples, palaces and other large public works. One of their irrigation canals is still used today in Yerevan, Armenia's capital - a city which stands upon the ancient Urartian fortress of Erebuni.

Persian rule

In the 6th century Urartu fell to the Medes, but not long after, the Persian conquest of the Medes, led by Cyrus the Great, displaced them. Persia ruled over Armenia from the 6th century until the 4th century B.C. Its culture and Zoroastrian religion greatly influenced the spiritual life of the Armenian people who absorbed features of Zoroastrianism into their polytheistic and animistic indigenous beliefs. As part of the Persian Empire, Armenia was divided into provinces called satrapies, each with a local governing satrap (viceroy) supervised by a Persian. The Armenians paid heavy tribute to the Persians, who continually requisitioned silver, rugs, horses and military supplies. The governing satraps of Armenia's royal Orontid family governed the country for some 200 years, while Asia became acquainted with invading Greeks from the west.

Armenia partitioned

With the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander the Great of Macedonia in 331 B.C., the Greeks appointed a new satrap, an Orontid named Mithranes, to govern Armenia. The Greek Empire, which stretched across Asia and Europe, was one in which cities rapidly grew, spreading Hellenistic architecture, reli-gion and philosophies. Armenian culture absorbed Greek influences as well. As centers at the crossroads of trade routes connecting China, India and Central Asia with the Mediterranean, Armenian cities thrived on economic exchange. The Greeks also infused Armenia's version of Zoroastrianism with facets of their religious beliefs. After Alexander's sudden death in 323 B.C., the partitioning of his empire and warring among his generals led to the emergence of three Greek kingdoms. Despite pressure from the Seleucid monarchy, one of the Greek kingdoms, the Orontids, continued to retain control over the largest of three kingdoms into which Armenia itself had been divided: Greater Armenia, Lesser Armenia and Sophene.

The renaissance of Armenia, TIGRAN THE GREAT

Seleucid influence over Armenia finally dissolved when, in the second century B.C., a local general named Artaxias (Artashes) declared himself King of Greater Armenia and founded a new dynasty in 189 B.C. Artaxias expanded his territory by defining the borders of his land and unifying the Armenian people. The "renaissance of Armenia" was accomplished during the reign of Tigran the Great (95-99 B.C.), who proclaimed himself "King of Kings." Under Tigran II, Armenia grew to a great degree of military strength and political influence. According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, the Roman general Lucullos said of this king, "In Armenia, Tigran is seated surrounded with that power which has wrested Asia from the Parthians, which carries Greek colonies into Media, subdues Syria and Palestine and cuts off the Seleucids." And Cicero, the Roman orator and politician, adds, "He made the Republic of Rome tremble before the powers of his arms." Armenia's borders extended from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.

The ARSACID dynasty

Tigran's victories were, however, destined to hasten his downfall, which occurred in 66 B.C. His son, King Artavazd II, governed Greater Armenia for 20 years until Anthony and Cleopatra had him brought to Egypt in chains. Artavazd refused to name Cleopatra as his queen and was executed. By 64 A.D. the new Arsacid dynasty, a branch of the Parthian Arsacids, came to power, and the country as a whole soon became a buffer zone over which the Romans and Parthians fought for domination. In order that we may realize the real implications of the history of Armenia and grasp the soul of this people, we must turn our gaze upon the beginning of the 4th century, which was momentous in its consequences for the growth of the nation.

The first Christian state in the world

One of the most crucial events in Armenian history was the conversion to Christianity. By adopting the new religion, Armenia established a distict Christian character of its own and, at times, became identified with the Western world. King Tiridates III (Trdat), having been converted by Gregory the Illuminator, proclaimed Christianity as the religion of the state in 301 A.D. Thus, Armenia became the first nation to embrace Christianity officially. This was 12 years before the Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan which declared tolerance of Christians in the Roman Empire. Gregory the Illuminator, later canonized, was elected Catholicos of the new Armenian national Church, the first in a long line of such clergy to he elected supreme head of the Armenian Church. The creation of the Armenian alphabet in 405 A.D. solidified the unifying factor of the Armenian language for the divided nation. Mesrop Mashtots, a scholar and clergyman, shaped the thirty six (three characters were added later) letters that distinguished Armenia, linguistically and liturgically, from the poweres surrounding it. The alphabet representing the many distinct consonants of Armenian has remained unchanged for 1500 years.

Battle for faith

The conversion to Christianity was inevitably to bring in its wake complications of a political nature and to arouse grave anxieties in neighboring Persia. The Sassanian Persians took advantage of Armenia's inner weakness and launched a campaign to stamp out Christianity there and replace it with Mazdaism. Under this common threat, the princes, nobility and the people of Armenia rallied, and in 451 under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief (sparapet) Vardan Mamikonian the Armenians heroically faced the Persians at Avarayr in defense of their faith and national heritage. Heavily outnumbered, they were defeated; Vardan Mamikonian and many valiant men fell fighting. But guerrilla warfare continued in the mountainous regions. Vahan Mamikonian, a nephew of Vardan, continued the struggle. This time the Persians, realizing the futility of their policy, were obliged to come to terms with the Armenians. Freedom of religious worship was restored with the Treaty of Nvarsag.

The BAGRATID dynasty

In the 7th century, the mighty Arabs stormed into Armenia and conquered the country. Beginning in the 9th century, Armenia enjoyed a brilliant period of independence when the powerful Bagratid Dynasty asserted political authority. Resumption of international trade brought prosperity and the revival of artistic and literary pursuits. The capital of Ani grew to a population of about 100,000, more than any urban center in Europe. Religious life flourished and Ani became known as the "city of one thousand and one churches." In the middle of the 11th century, most of Armenia had been annexed by Byzantium.

The CILICIAN Kingdom of Armenia

The destruction of the Bagratid Kingdom was completed by raids of new invaders, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia. With little resistance from weakened Byzantium, the Seljuk Turks spread into Asia Minor as well as the Armenian highlands. This invasion compelled a large number of Armenians to move south, toward the Taurus Mountains close to the Mediterranean Sea, where in 1080 they founded, under the leadership of Ruben (Rubenid dynasty), the Kingdom of Cilicia or Lesser Armenia. Close contacts with the Crusaders and with Europe led to absorbing Western European ideas, including its feudal class structure. Cilician Armenia became a country of barons, knights and serfs. The court at Sis adopted European clothes. Latin and French were used alongside Armenian. The Cilician period is regarded as the Golden Age of Armenian Illumination, noted for the lavishness of its decoration and the frequent influence of contemporary western manuscript painting. Their location on the Mediterranean coast soon involved Cilician Armenians in international trade between the interior of Western Asia and Europe. For nearly 300 years, the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia prospered, but in 1375 it fell to the Mamelukes of Egypt. The last monarch, King Levon VI, died at Calais, France in 1393, and his remains were laid to rest at St. Denis (near Paris) among the kings of France.

Persian rule in Eastern Armenia

While in the 13th century the Armenians prospered in the Cilician Kingdom, those living in Greater Armenia witnessed the invasion of the Mongols. Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, Armenia was divided between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran. With the annexation of the Armenian plateau, the Armenians lost all vestiges of an independent political life. The Persian leader Shah Abbas I inaugurated a policy of moving populations of entire Armenian regions to his country to create a no-man's land in the path of the Ottoman advance, and to bring a skilled merchant and artisan class to his new capital, Isfahan. The Armenian community of New Julfa, a suburb of Isfahan, was held by Shah Abbas I in great esteem and became one of the economic bases of the Safavid state. Persians ruled Eastern Armenia until 1828, when it was annexed by Russia. However, it was the Ottoman Turks who governed most of the Armenian land and population (Western Armenia).

OTTOMAN Empire and THE GENOCIDE

During the 19th century, Armenians under Turkish rule suffered from discrimination, heavy taxation and armed attacks. As Christians, Armenians lacked legal recourse for injustices. They were taxed beyond their means, forbidden to bear arms in a country where murdering a non-Muslim often went unpunished, and were without the right to testify in court on their own behalf. During the late l9th century, the increasingly reactionary politics of the declining Ottoman Empire and the awakening of the Armenians culminated in a series of Turkish massacres throughout the Armenian provinces in 1894-96. Any illusion the Armenians had cherished to the effect that the acquisition of power in 1908 by the Young Turks might bring better days was soon dispelled. For in the spring of 1909, yet another orgy of bloodshed took place in Adana, where 30,000 Armenians lost their lives after a desperate resistance. World War I offered a good opportunity for Turks to "solve the issue." In 1915, a secret military directive ordered the arrest and prompt execution of Armenian community leaders. Armenian males serving in the Ottoman army were separated from the rest and slaughtered. The Istanbul government decided to deport the entire Armenian population. Armenians in towns and villages were marched into deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia. During the "relocation" many were flogged to death, bayoneted, buried alive in pits, drowned in rivers, beheaded, raped or abducted into harems. Many simply expired from heat exhaustion and starvation. 1.5 million people perished in this first genocide of the 20th century. Another wave of massacres occurred in Baku (1918). Shushi (1920) and elsewhere.

The first republic and the SOVIET regime

The defeat of the Ottoman Turks in World War I and the disintegration of the Russian Empire gave the Armenians a chance to declare their independence. On May 28, 1918, the inde-pendent Republic of Armenia was established, after the Armenians forced the Turkish troops to withdraw in the battles of Sardarapat, Karakilisse and Bashabaran. Overwhelming difficulties confronted the infant republic, but amid these conditions the Armenians devoted all their energies to the pressing task of reconstructing their country. But due to pressure exerted simultaneously by the Turks and Communists, the republic collapsed in 1920. Finally, the Soviet Red Army moved into the territory (Eastern Armenia) and on November 29, 1920, declared it a Soviet republic. Armenia was made part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic in 1922, and in 1936, it became one of the Soviet Union's constituent republics. The tumultuous changes occurring throughout the Soviet Union beginning in the 1980's inevitably had repercussions in Armenia.

Independence

In 1988, a movement of support began in Armenia for the constitutional struggle of Nagorno Karabagh Armenians to exercise their right to self-determination. (This predominantly Armenian populated autonomous region had been placed under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan by an arbitrary decision of Stalin in 1923.) That same year, in 1988, Armenia was rocked by severe earthquakes that killed thousands, and supplies from both the Soviet Union and the West were blocked by the Azerbaijani Government fighting the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh. Both of these issues have dominated Armenia's political arena since the first democratic election held in Armenia during the Soviet era. In 1990, the Armenian National Movement won a majority of seats in the parliament and formed a government. On September 21, 1991, the Armenian people overwhelmingly voted in favor of independence in a national referendum, and an independent Armenia came into being.

The Armenian Diaspora in the Last Hundred Years (1895-1994)

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Armenian communities outside the Ottoman and Russian empires, with the exception of Iran and Egypt, had either assimilated religiously and culturally, or had lost their economic and political influence and were generally reduced to insignificant clusters in a number of urban centers across the old world. The massacres of 1895-1896 and the anti-Armenian policies of Sultan Abdul-Hamid forced many Armenians to emigrate from Anatolia. Some joined the communities in Europe and the Middle East, others journeyed to the Americas. The Armenian genocide created hundreds of thousands of refugees who eventually settled both in the old and new worlds. Although a significant number repatriated to the Armenian republic in 1918-1919, many, as we have seen, fled in 1920-1921, or were deported by Stalin in 1936-1939. A second wave of approximately 100,000 repatriates arrived in Soviet Armenia in 1945-1948 and a third, much smaller group in 1953-1965. By 1985, however, nearly half of the post-war repatriates had emigrated to the West. Revolutions and civil wars in Asia and North Africa, throughout the four decades following the Second World War, resulted in the diminishing of the Armenian communities there and the growth of the Armenian Diaspora in Europe, Australia, and the Americas. The historical events of the last one hundred years have thus resulted in a pattern whereby new Armenian immigrants have rejuvenated older diasporas by reviving their Armenian identity. At present Armenians, together with the Jews, are the only significant nationality/religious group which have more members living in the Diaspora than in their own country. It is estimated that out of the more than seven million Armenians in the world barely over three million live in the Armenian republic. Like the Jews, Armenians are to be found in almost every country of the globe. The following brief account will survey those communities, which can be described as being politically or culturally active.

Armenians in Eastern Europe

The large Armenian communities of Eastern Europe no longer exist. In Poland, the last Armenian Catholic archbishop died in 1938 and most of the remaining Armenians were killed during the Second World War. Lvov, now part of Ukraine, still maintains an active Armenian community centered around its fourteenth-century church. The world wars and the communist regime virtually ended Armenian presence in Hungary. The Armenians of Romania and Bulgaria, received many refugees from the political upheavals in neighboring Russia and Turkey in the years 1915-1922. Following the Second World War Communism closed most of the private enterprises owned by these Armenians. Many Romanian Armenians left for Europe and the United States, while large numbers of Bulgarian Armenians repatriated to Soviet Armenia. In the 1960s, they, too, began to leave for Europe and the United States. Some 5000 Armenians remain in Romania and are concentrated in Bucharest, Constantza, and Tulca. The 10,000 Bulgarian Armenians live primarily in Sofia and Plovdiv. Both communities maintain Armenian centers and churches. The Armenian Community of Cyprus is also the product of refugees who arrived during the 1895-1922 years. In 1926 the Melkonian Educational Institute was founded to educate and shelter the orphans of the genocide. During the Lebanese civil war, the Melkonian had many students from that war-tom country. Today a large number of its students are Bulgarian Armenians. The 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus seriously affected the Armenian community, for most of the Armenian quarter of Nicosia, with its clubs, school, and church, fell into the Turkish-occupied sector. The same was unfortunately true of Famagusta, whose Armenian church and monastery of Surb Makar have been left in ruins and converted to a store. The Cyprus community, which had over 15,000 members before the invasion, has been reduced to only 2,000, with the rest emigrating to the West. Prior to 1895 there were only some 500 Armenians in all of Greece. About 150,000 Armenians arrived after the massacres and the genocide, especially following the expulsions of the Christians from Smyrna in 1922. After the Second World War, thousands left for Armenia, North America, Australia, and Europe. A number of churches, including an Armenian Evangelical church, serve the 10,000 Armenians in Greece, most of whom live in Athens.

Armenians in Western Europe

The Armenian communities of Western Europe had also declined by the end of the nineteenth century. The arrival of refugees from Russia and the Ottoman Empire expanded some established centers and created new ones as well. Of all the Italian cities which had Armenian communities, Venice has remained the only one with a significant Armenian presence, due to the Mekhitarians of San Lazzaro and their Murad-Raphaelian school on the main island. The Armenian communities of Belgium and Holland experienced Europe's world wars firsthand. During the First World War, many Armenians, who were still Turkish citizens, left Belgium for Holland to escape the German onslaught and from fear of being sent back to Turkey to be drafted. Most returned after the war and a chair in Armenian studies was established in the University of Brussels in 1931, with the famed professor Nicholas Adontz as its first chair holder. The community in Holland had all but disappeared, when it got a minor influx from the Armenians who had left Dutch Indonesia in the 1950s after the nationalist government took over there. More Armenians came to Holland from Iran, Turkey and Lebanon in the 1980s and eventually managed to repurchase the Armenian church in Amsterdam, which had been closed in the 1850s. Although barely 10,000 strong, the Armenian communities of Belgium and Holland are culturally active. France is the only Western European nation to have received a major influx of the survivors of the massacres and genocide, as well as refugees from the political upheavals in the Middle East. Members of the Armenian middle class of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and European Turkey who had been educated in France or in local French schools, and who spoke French as a second language, settled in France during the 1930s. In the Second World War, Armenians served in the French army and in the Resistance. Following the war, many Armenians, who escaped the political and military revolutions in the Arab world emigrated to France. The French community not only has grown to some 250,000, but has become the most active Armenian community in Europe. Some thirty-five Armenian churches, twenty of them Apostolic, serve the Armenians who are concentrated in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, and Nice. Armenian newspapers, organizations, schools, and institutions of higher learning thrive as well, including the Mekhitarian school in Kvres. The French-Armenian community has produced artists such as Aznavour, Carzou, and Jansem and scholars such as Sirarpie Der Nersessian. The widely-respected scholarly journal Revue Des Etudes Armeniennes is published in Paris. A number of post-World War II communities have appeared in Western Europe as a result of political upheavals in the Middle East and are growing steadily due to recent Armenian emigration from the former Soviet Union. The most active of these are in Austria, England, Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland. There had been a few Armenians in Austria as early as the seventeenth century and the first coffee-house in Vienna was reportedly established by an Armenian. A number of Armenians from the Polish army had settled in Vienna after they helped to repulse the Turks in 1683. The arrival of the Mekhitarians in 1811 opened the doors to a small number of students from Russia and Turkey. England received a few Armenian merchants from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries who in 1780, set up an Armenian press in London. Others arrived after the First World War. Geneva is one city in Switzerland that has a significant Armenian presence. Six churches and a number of cultural centers serve the 50,000 Armenians who live in these communities.

Armenians in the Middle Eas

The Armenian communities in the Middle East experienced their greatest change in the last one hundred years. The Armenian communities in the Arab world received a large percentage of the refugees and survivors of the massacres and genocide. They increased the numbers of the Armenians in Egypt, Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Sudan and Ethiopia. The European mandates enabled the Armenians to make advances in the economic and administrative sectors and to establish cultural and political associations. Egypt, with its strong Armenian community, was the guiding head of the Armenians in the Arab world until the mid-twentieth century. At the start of the twentieth century the Egyptian Armenians found a new leader, Boghos Nubar, the son of Nubar Pasha. Boghos had studied agriculture and engineering in Switzerland and France. Upon his return, he had served as the director of the Egyptian railways and had supervised the irrigation plan for the Sudan. He had become a banker and corporate officer in a number of companies and, like his father, was granted the title of pasha. The massacres of the Armenians in 1895-1896 in Turkey and especially the Armeno-Azeri clashes in Transcaucasia, beginning in 1905, had a sobering effect on the Armenian middle class of Egypt. Liberals and disenchanted socialists felt that there was a need for a world-wide Armenian philanthropic organization. On Easter day (April 15), 1906, ten Armenian professionals met at Boghos Nubar's mansion in Cairo and drafted the by-laws of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). Although initially there were some plans for the AGBU to also act as a political assembly, the idea was immediately abandoned--that role was soon taken up by the Sahmanadir Ramkavar party. The AGBU's mission was to help the Armenians in historic Armenia by establishing or subsidizing schools, libraries, workshops, hospitals, and orphanages. It was to provide the peasants with land, seeds, animals, and tools and to assist in time of fire, famine, earthquakes, and other natural or man-made disasters. The aid was for all Armenians, regardless of religious or political affiliation. By 1913 the AGBU had 142 chapters in Europe, America, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. During the genocide it lost all of its eighty chapters in the Ottoman Turkey. The first decade after the First World War was spent locating orphans and creating orphanages and hospitals. Refugees had to be sheltered and when the Near East Relief withdrew from the Arab lands, AGBU and other Armenian organizations replaced it. The emergence of many new communities, most in dire need, diverted the efforts of Armenian cultural and philanthropic organizations to select parts of the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. As the Bolsheviks consolidated their power in Armenia, it became increasingly difficult for outside organizations to work there, and although the AGBU managed to help Armenia, it concentrated its efforts in the Diaspora. At the end of the British protectorate of Egypt in 1922 the AGBU headquarters moved to Paris and after the Second World War to the United States. The departure of AGBU did not adversely affect the Armenian community of Egypt. The role of the Armenians in the Egyptian government, as well as prosperous Armenian businesses, helped that country remain a major Armenian center, where numerous schools, churches, and newspapers guided the 40,000 Armenians living in Cairo and Alexandria. The political changes in Egypt following the military uprising in 1952 and the economic policies of Egyptian president Nasser after 1956, forced the emigration of many Armenians to Europe, Australia, and the United States. At present there are only some 5000 Armenians left in Egypt, primarily in Cairo. Despite the decline of its Armenian community, Egypt remains an important and active Armenian cultural center. The much smaller community in Ethiopia received new immigrants at the start of the century and built a church and a number of schools. The Ethiopian Armenians gained favor with Emperor Haile Selassie and an Armenian, Kevork Nalbandian, even composed the former national anthem of Ethiopia. The military revolution there (1974), which nationalized Armenian businesses, reduced the community from some 1,000 to 150 members. The Armenians of Sudan were centered in Khartoum where they built a church. The civil war in Sudan, which began in the late 1980s has drastically reduced the numbers of that community as well. The Armenian communities of Palestine and Jordan, which were never large, also attracted some refugees from Turkey who laid the foundations for new centers in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Amman. The short-lived security during the British Mandate soon gave way to Arab-Jewish strife. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the Arab-Israeli wars, many Armenians emigrated to Europe, United States, and more peaceful centers in the Middle East. The majority of the Armenians of that region are primarily involved in the religious and scholarly activities surrounding the Armenian patriarchate of Jerusalem. Most of the Armenian survivors of the massacres and genocide settled in modem Syria, mainly in Aleppo. The new arrivals were aided by Armenian and American missionary and philanthropic organizations and succeeded in invigorating the earlier settlements and creating one of the most active Armenian Diasporas in the twentieth century. In many ways the Armenian schools, churches, centers, and hospitals in Syria, especially in Aleppo and its environs, became the inspiration and models for the Armenian communities of Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Amman during the second half of the twentieth century. Until the end of the Second World War, the region was under British and French mandates. Fortunately the area did not become a theater of war during the Second World War and actually benefited from the material and personnel, which were concentrated there to repulse the Germans from North Africa. Armenians, Assyrians, Christian Arabs, and a number of non-Sunni Muslim sects such as the Druzes, 'Alawis, and Isma'ilis, were favored by and cooperated with the Europeans. Syria's independence in 1944 did not threaten the well-being of the Armenian community which continued to grow to some 75,000. The revolution of 1958 and the creation of the United Arab Republic with Egypt, as well as the military coup of 1963, not only hurt Armenian businesses, but restricted Armenian cultural activities. Some emigrated to Lebanon, others to the United States. Luckily, Syria soon abandoned the political and economic programs of Egypt and starting in 1971 President Hafez al-Assad reformed the extreme policies of the Ba'th Party and created a more tolerant Syria, where social programs and businesses have striven to sustain the large population growth of the country. The 'Alawis are in charge of major government posts and the Armenians are treated well. In Aleppo alone there are some 40,000 Armenians who utilize Armenian centers, ten schools, a hospital, and organize numerous community-sponsored events. The community in Damascus has also grown in the last quarter of a century and new Armenian businesses have managed to stop the flow of emigration. In fact Armenians from Lebanon, Iraq, and Kuwait, who have fled turmoil in those countries, have settled, temporarily or permanently, in Damascus. Syria, with over 100,000 Armenians has, at present, the largest Armenian community in the Arab world. The Armenians of Lebanon were, for a time, the most important Armenian community outside of the Soviet Union and the United States. The core of the modem community also arrived as a result of massacres and genocide in Turkey. By 1926 there were some 75,000 Armenians in Lebanon and the Lebanese Constitution granted them and other minorities civil rights, which, in time, enabled the Armenians to elect their own members of parliament. The country's geographic location and the security offered by the French, as well as its Christian-dominated government, attracted more Armenians there and in 1930 the catholicosate of Cilicia moved to Antelias, outside of Beirut. Armenian Catholic and Evangelical Churches also established centers in Beirut. In 1939 the sanjak of Alexandretta, which includes Musa Dagh, was transferred to Turkey. As a result 30,000 Armenians moved into Syria and Lebanon. The Armenians of Musa Dagh settled in the highlands of Anjar. Armenians rose swiftly to economic and social prominence, and Lebanon's liberal government made it possible for all Armenian political parties to establish themselves. During the short-lived Lebanese civil strife of 1958 the Armenians split and sided with both factions. By 1974 there were over 200,000 Armenians, who had two dozen churches, some seventy schools, including institutions of higher learning, such as the Haigazian College, founded in 1955 by the Armenian Missionary Association of America and the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East. In addition there were more than fifty athletic, compatriotic, and benevolent organizations, and numerous literary and cultural periodicals and newspapers. The Lebanese civil war from 1974-1989 took its toll and although Armenians remained neutral and much of their community infrastructure remained undamaged, thousands left for safer shores, especially the United States. Some 75,000 have remained and thanks to their neutrality and the efforts of their leaders, have played a role in the Syrian-backed National Accord Document, and are once again enjoying the benefits of Lebanon's unique situation. Forty-seven Armenian schools and numerous associations and organizations, including an Armenian Fund for Economic Development are putting the community on the road to recovery with members in parliament and the central government. The Armenians in Iraq arrived primarily in the 1920's and, during the British mandate, established communities in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra. Armenians were engaged in private businesses, worked in technical, administrative and financial positions for the British Petroleum Company, or participated in the trade between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. Even after Iraq achieved its independence in 1932, the British presence did not end and the Armenians continued to enjoy the benefits of Iraq's economic rise, especially since they, unlike the Assyrians and Kurds, did not engage in antigovernment and nationalist activities and were viewed as loyal citizens. Armenian businesses, churches, schools, and organizations grew until there were some 35,000 Armenians in that country. The revolution of 1958 and the subsequent radical policies of the Ba'th Party forced the migration of many Armenians from Iraq to Lebanon, Kuwait, United States, and the Gulf States. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) Armenians were drafted and killed both in the Iranian and Iraqi forces. The difficult political and economic conditions, combined with the disastrous Gulf War, spelled the doom of the Armenian community of Iraq. Many emigrated or have temporarily abandoned the unstable situation. Less than 10,000 Armenians remain in Iraq today. By the twentieth century, Iran, like Egypt, was a major center of Armenian life in the Middle East. As we have seen, by the end of the nineteenth century, there were some 100,000 Armenians in Iran. The proximity of the Armenians in Iranian Azerbaijan to Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia brought them under the influence of the political activitics of Russian and Turkish Armenians. Armenakan, Hnchak and Dashnak cells opened in Tabriz and Salinas and a number of Armenian revolutionaries sought refuge from the tsarist and Turkish police there. The massacres of 1895-1896 brought Armenian refugees to northwestern Iran. The Revolution of 1905 in Russia had a major effect on northern Iran and, in 1906, Iranian liberals and revolutionaries, joined by many Armenians, demanded a constitution in Iran. Although the shah signed the document, his successor dissolved the maflis or parliament and it was only in 1909 that the revolutionaries forced the crown to give up some of its prerogatives. The role of Armenian military units under the command of leaders such as Yeprem Khan and Keri, in the Iranian Constitutional Movement is well-documented. Thousands of Armenians had escaped to Iran during the genocide. The Turkish invasion of Iranian Azerbaijan during World War One devastated a number of Armenian communities in that region, such as Khoi. The community experienced a political rejuvenation with the arrival of the Dashnak leadership from Armenia in 1921. The establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty began a new era for the Armenians. The modernization efforts of Reza Shah (1924-1941) and Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-1979) gave the Armenians ample opportunities for advancement. Armenian contacts with the West and their linguistic abilities gave them an advantage over the native Iranians. They SOOD gained important positions in the arts and sciences, the Iranian Oil Company, the caviar industry, and dominated professions such as tailoring, shoemaking, photography, auto-mechanics, and as well the managing of cafes and restaurants. Immigrants and refugees from Russia continued to increase the Armenian community until 1933. World War Two gave the Armenians opportunities to increase their economic power. The Allies decided to use Iran as a bridge to Russia. Western arms and supplies were shipped through Iran and Armenians, with their knowledge of Russian, played a major role in this endeavor. The Hnchaks, especially, were active and the Iranian Communist Party had an Armenian contingent. The majority of the Armenians remained loyal to the Dashnaks, while the minority, who had communist sympathies, either went underground or left with the Iranian Socialists when they fled to Russia in 1946. In 1953 the Iranian and few Armenian communists made a brief comeback during the Mossadeq period, but the return of the shah, once again decimated their ranks. Most Armenians, under Dashnak leadership, however, had remained neutral or loyal to the regime and were rewarded by the shah. For the next quarter of the century Armenian fortunes rose in Iran, and Tehran, Tabriz, and Isfahan became major centers with some 250,000 Armenians. The shah trusted and liked his Armenian subjects and Tehran, like Beirut, became a major center of Armenian life. Armenian churches, schools, cultural centers, sports clubs and associations flourished and Armenians had their own senator and member of parliament. Thirty churches and some four dozen schools and libraries served the needs of the community. Armenian presses published numerous books, journals, periodicals, and newspapers, such as The Wave (Alik). The better educated upper classes, however, were fewer in number and, compared to their counterparts in Lebanon, were relatively unproductive culturally. Although the Islamic Revolution has ended the second golden age of the Armenian community in Iran, the community has not lost its prominence altogether. Ayatollah Khomeini's restrictions, the Iran-Iraq War, and the economic problems resulting from Iran's isolation, forced the exodus of 100,000 Armenians. The current government is more accommodating and Armenians, unlike the Kurds and Iranian Azeris, have their own schools, clubs, and maintain most of their churches. The fall of the Soviet Union, the common border with Armenia, and the Armeno-Iranian diplomatic and economic agreements have opened a new era for the Iranian Armenians. The genocide, as we have seen, destroyed western Armenia and numerous other Armenian centers in Turkey. By the Second World War, Constantinople or Istanbul was the sole urban center with an Armenian presence. In 1945, an arbitrary property tax on the minorities impoverished many Greek and Armenian businessmen. Ten years later, mobs looted and burned Greek and Armenian businesses in Istanbul. At present there are some 75,000 Armenians in Turkey, the majority of whom live in Istanbul, where conditions, despite cultural pressures and occasional hostile acts, are not as unfavorable as one may imagine. Twenty schools, some three dozen churches, and a hospital maintain a strong Armenian identity. A number of Armenian newspapers, including the daily Marmara continue to publish, and Armenian organizations go about collecting donations and sponsoring cultural activities. The Armenian patriarch is also invited to official Turkish state ceremonies. Major problems include the lack of a seminary, Armenian institutions of higher education, and linguistic assimilation.

Armenians in South Asia and Australia

By the twentieth century the Armenian communities in South Asia had declined to a few thousand. Calcutta remained the only viable Armenian community in the region. In the 1920's, Armenians who had fled the Russian Revolution, civil war, and the Bolsheviks, began to arrive in Harbin, in the Chinese province of Manchuria, and in Shanghai. An Armenian Church was constructed in Harbin and Armenian merchants and artisans opened businesses in China and Southeast Asia. The Armenians worked closely and, at times, intermarried with, the Europeans of China. World War Two devastated the remaining Armenian centers in the region. The Japanese rounded up all Europeans in China, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, including the Armenians. Those who survived the ravages of the war were soon faced with the discriminatory policies of the nationalist or socialist governments, which followed the decolonization of South and Southeast Asia. The communist takeover of China in 1949 resulted in the emigration of its entire Armenian community, some of whom went to South America. Out of the once-successful community, some 1,000 Armenians remain in South and Southeast Asia, with a good part of them in India, especially in Calcutta, which still has an active Armenian school, club, and church. Such major upheavals forced the Armenians of South Asia to leave in droves and seek refuge in Australia, where a number of them had already immigrated during the 1920's. Political changes and economic hardship in Eastern Europe and the Middle East brought more immigrants to Australia (and a few to New Zealand), which in the 1990s boasts an Armenian population of some 35,000, mostly in Melbourne and Sydney, where churches, clubs, and newspapers have created an active community.

Armenians in South America

The Armenian community in South America, like that of Australia, arose in the early twentieth century, as a result of immigrants who had survived the genocide. Although they settled in various parts of the continent, the majority went to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, with some moving to Venezuela and Mexico. Unlike their compatriots who had emigrated to Europe or other parts of Asia, Armenians in the Americas had no previous connections, commercial or cultural, to aid them in acclimatizing to such a different culture. But, by the 1940s each of these countries had Armenian teachers, engineers, doctors, and lawyers. In addition, Armenian craftsmen opened their own businesses and, thanks to the economic boom in the region, became affluent. Their economic successes prompted other Armenians to relocate there from Greece and the Middle East and by the end of the 1980s there were some 70,000 Armenians in Argentina, 20,000 in Brazil, and 15,000 in Uruguay, concentrated in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Montevideo respectively. The numbers are somewhat deceiving, however, for with the exception of the Argentine Armenians, the Armenians of South America are not a cohesive community. A dozen churches (including Catholic and Evangelical), a number of schools, newspapers, and clubs and AGBU chapters have been established, but assimilation is taking its toll and hyper-inflation, as well as political instability, have resulted in emigration to North America.

Armenians in North Americaa

Sources mention that in the first half of the seventeenth century, an Armenian called Martin, who was originally from New Julfa, came to Virginia via Amsterdam. The genesis of the Armenian community in North America, however, began more than two centuries later. When American missionaries established schools in Turkey in the second half of the nineteenth century, they enabled some Armenians to come to the United States and attract more Armenian immigrants to the "promised land." A small group of Armenians thus settled on the East coast and built a church in 1891 in Worcester, Massachusetts. America was too far and too expensive for most to reach, however, and it was only after the massacres of 1895-1896 that a large contingent of Armenian men, realizing they had little to lose, took a risk and traveled to America. By 1900 some 15,000 had arrived. Between 1900 and 1916 some 70,000 Armenians immigrated to the United States. Statistics indicate that a great majority were men under 45 who were skilled and literate, and who had left their wives and families to seek their fortune. Before the closing of the gates in 1924, some 23,000 additional Armenians arrived in North America. Altogether over 100,000, the overwhelming majority from Turkey, settled in the United States and Canada. In 1948 a few thousand Armenians arrived from Europe under the Displaced Persons Act. Known as D.P.'s, they included Armenians who had fled western Russia with the retreating German armies. More Armenians arrived in the late 1950s and early 1960s, following the political problems in the Middle East. The early immigrants to the United States had settled in the urban and industrial centers of the East coast, primarily in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, with a few settling in the Midwestern cities of Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland. The only Armenians who did not follow this pattern were those who, at the end of the nineteenth century, settled in the San Joaquin Valley in Central California. Here, they engaged in farming and grape-growing particularly around Fresno. For the next half century Fresno Armenians suffered terrible discrimination from the natives. Signs saying "No Armenians," appeared in store windows and real estate offices. The Fresno community, nevertheless, expanded until the Depression when San Francisco and Los Angeles began to attract new immigrants. Until the 1960s the east coast and the midwest received the largest percentage of Armenian immigrants. As customary with other immigrant groups, the first two generations worked very hard to establish themselves in the new land. Some tried to assimilate as soon as possible, others clung to their traditions. They saved money to bring their families over and to open small businesses. Their literacy and skills meant that they would move upward whenever possible. Discrimination, which was great in some places and at certain times, did not deter the Armenians, who had lived through much worse. In the 1970s and 1980s some 80,000 Armenians from Soviet Armenia, some of whom had repatriated there in the late 1940s, taking advantage of d6tente and relaxed emigration laws created primarily for Russian Jews, came to North America. In addition Armenians fleeing the civil war in Lebanon, the fundamentalist Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War, relocated there as well. The 1988 earthquake and the deteriorating conditions in Armenia and in the former Soviet Union brought thousands more to North America. The great flood of Armenian immigrants in the last three decades, however, has preferred the greater Los Angeles area, which alone holds approximately 250,000 Armenians. There are at present some I million Armenians in the United States and 100,000 in Canada (primarily in Toronto and Montreal), giving North America the largest concentration of Armenians outside Armenia. By the third generation American Armenians had produced numerous doctors, lawyers, engineers, and academics, as well as very successful entrepreneurs. Armenian politicians, sports figures, composers, actors, artists and authors such as Alan Hovhannes, Rouben Mamoulian, Arshile Gorky and William Saroyan created a sense of pride among the new generation of American Armenians. With well over 100 churches, numerous schools, associations, academic and cultural societies, magazines, newspapers, as well as active and influential organizations, the Armenians in North America are a force to be reckoned with.

Origins of the Armenian nation

Armenian tradition has preserved several legends concerning the origin of the Armenian nation. The most important of these tells of Hayk, the eponymous hero of the Armenians who called them- selves Hay and their country Hayk' or Hayastan. The historian of the 5th century, Movses Khorenatsi, also relates at some length the valiant deeds of Aram whose fame extended far beyond the limits of his country. Consequently, the neighboring nations called the people Armens or Armenians. Archeology has extended the prehistory of Armenia to the Acheulian age (500,000 years ago), when hunting and gathering peoples crossed the lands in pursuit of migrating herds. The first period of prosperity was enjoyed by inhabitants of the Armenian upland in the third millennium B.C. These people were among the first to forge bronze, invent the wheel, and cultivate grapes. The first written records to mention the inhabitants of Armenia come from hieroglyphs of the Hittite Kingdom, inscribed from 1388 to 1347 B.C., in Asia Minor. The earliest inscription to be found directly upon Armenian lands, carved in 1114 B.C. by the Assyrians, describes a coalition of kings of the central Armenian region referring to them as "the people of Nairi."

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