Материал: Payaslian S., The History of Armenia From the Origins to the Present

The internal difficulties were compounded by deepening British and French colonial domination,49 the escalation of geopolitical competition among the major powers, and the proliferation of western-influenced political and increasingly organized opposition challenging the sultan’s sovereignty.50 In 1878, using the Russo-Turkish war (1877–1878) as a pretext, Sultan AbdulHamid suspended the constitution indefinitely and ended the Tanzimat period. Confronted by the twin evils of imperial decline in foreign relations, on the one hand, and growing internal instability, on the other, he reacted with malicious zeal to eradicate opposition to his rule. During the RussoTurkish war, Patriarch Nerses Varzhapetian of Constantinople encouraged Armenians to support the sultan, but some Armenians in the eastern provinces viewed the war as an opportunity for Russian intervention and protection from the destruction wrought upon them at the hands of the local Turkish and Kurdish tribes. Across the border, Armenian volunteers served in the Russian military. Russian forces, led by generals M.T. LorisMelikov and Hovhannes I.I. Lazarev, captured Kars in November 1877, while General A.A. Gukasov took Bayazid and Alashkert and in January 1878 marched toward Erzerum. In the meantime, Russian forces advancing across the Balkans had reached Adrianople (Edirne). To prevent further Russian advances to Constantinople, the Sublime Porte agreed to a peace treaty. The Armenian patriarchate petitioned the tsarist government to include in the peace treaty a provision granting Armenians administrative reforms in the six provinces.51

The Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878), which concluded the war, required Ottoman recognition of the independence of the Balkan states and granted Russia in addition to Batum the Armenian districts of Ardahan, Alashkert, Bayazid, and Kars. Significantly, Article 16 of the treaty provided that prior to the withdrawal of Russian forces, the Sublime Porte ameliorate, “without further delay,” conditions in the Armenian provinces and protect them against Kurdish and Circassian attacks.52 The European powers, most prominently Britain, viewed this treaty as a Russian imposition of pan-Slavic designs on the Balkans and the Ottoman empire and demanded a congress of major powers to revise the Russian scheme. Fearing the domestic consequences of yet another military engagement, Tsar Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) agreed. Three months after the signing of the San Stefano treaty, Russian representatives met with the European powers at Berlin under the auspices of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.53

The British successfully maneuvered the Berlin negotiations to deprive Russia of some of its territorial and political gains at San Stefano. The Treaty of Berlin returned the Armenian districts of Alashkert and Bayazid to the sultan and, although requiring that the Sublime Porte introduce necessary reforms to secure the safety of the Armenians, it repealed San

Stefano’s stipulated direct linkage between reforms and Russian withdrawal. Instead, under Article 61, the European powers assumed collective responsibility for the Ottoman reforms, with the proviso that the Sublime Porte report its efforts to that end. Armenian protests to this insulting trivialization of their cause proved futile.54

While the European powers conferred in Berlin to reformulate the San Stefano treaty, British and Ottoman representatives met in secret to arrange for the defense of Ottoman territories against future Russian encroachments. The Cyprus Convention, signed between London and Constantinople, provided for British occupation of Cyprus “to balance Russian acquisitions in the Caucasus,” and added that if Russia insisted on occupying Ottoman lands in the future, Britain would provide the sultan the military support necessary to defend his domain. In turn, the sultan, in cooperation with the British government, would earnestly seek to implement the reforms for the protection of his Christian subjects.55 The reversal at Berlin notwithstanding, Armenians in general remained hopeful that the major powers would consider their cause.

THE EMERGENCE OF ARMENIAN NATIONALISM

The emergence of modern Armenian nationalism in the nineteenth century stemmed from a number of factors.56 Eric Hobsbawm attributes the rise of national consciousness in various groups to their growing sense of a distinct cultural, linguistic, and, therefore, ethnic identity. He explains that as a result of the “multiplication of potential ‘unhistorical nations,’ ethnicity and language became the central, increasingly the decisive or even the only criteria of potential nationhood.”57 The development of modern Armenian nationalism in the nineteenth century in Turkish and Russian Armenia was no exception; it took place within the context of the emergence of influential bourgeoisies divided along ethnic (e.g., Arab, Kurdish) lines.58 During the early part of the century, Armenian nationalism appeared in the form of cultural reawakening, although by the end of the century, it had evolved into armed revolutionary struggle in reaction to oppressive Ottoman rule. Armenian nationalism benefited enormously from the importation of European and Russian philosophies of nationalism and socialism. The Armenian cultural reawakening involved the reassertion of national identity as distinct from neighboring cultures and, paradoxically, the integration of western principles and values espousing liberation, nation-building, and state-building.59 The Mekhitarist Order, a Catholic order, represented one of the first steps toward the revival of Armenian culture. Among its members were Mekhitar Sebastatsi (1676–1749), founder of the order on the island of Saint Lazarus in Venice in 1717); Mikayel Chamchian (1738–1832) author of

the classic Hayots patmutiun (History of Armenia); Father Ghevond Alishan (1820–1902), author of Sisakan (About Sis), Hushikk Hayrenyats Hayots (Memories of the Armenian Fatherland), Hayastan haraj kan zlineln Hayastan (Armenia before becoming Armenia), and the monumental Hayapatum (History of Armenia); Edvard Hurmuzian (poet and translator, 1799–1876); and Arsen Bagratuni (1790–1866), author of Hayk diutsazn (Hayk the Hero).60 Mekhitar Sebastatsi, a religious leader, sought to revive the Armenian language and literature through the publication of the masterpieces in Armenian classical literature.61 The movement was eventually led by a new generation of intellectuals, some of whom with training in European universities. They were heavily influenced by the European Enlightenment, various French and Russian revolutionary thoughts, and like their Russian counterparts, they were engaged in the struggles for selfdefinition and modernization as a nation and as individuals.62 This “renaissance generation,” usually defined as the period between the 1850s and 1880s, advocated not only reforms within the Ottoman political system but also within Armenian institutions and society. The Armenian Church as the dominant institution, they argued, had for too long exercised monopoly over Armenian arts and letters, and its conservative nature, including its insistence on employing the grabar (classical) language, had prevented an Armenian enlightenment. The similarly conservative orientation of the Ottoman system merely reaffirmed the traditionalist proclivities of the Armenian Church, society, and customs. Armenian modernists emphasized liberalization and secularization of Armenian culture and endeavored to lead the transition from the classical to the vernacular Armenian language.63

A number of institutions served as the springboard for the Armenian enlightenment. The nineteenth century witnessed the founding of the Lazarian Academy (or Jemaran) in Moscow in 1815, the Martasirakan school in Calcutta in 1821, the Nersisian College in Tiflis in 1830, and the Gevorgian Jemaran in Echmiadzin in 1874, along with a score of other educational institutions throughout Western (Turkish) and Eastern (Russian) Armenia. These institutions, especially the Lazarian and Nersisian colleges, worked closely to develop the vernacular Armenian language and became active in the translations of European works into Armenian as a way of disseminating the philosophies of the Renaissance and Enlightenment while promoting literacy and liberation across the Armenian communities.

The nineteenth century produced such intellectual giants as Khachatur Abovian (1805–1848), author of the monumental novel, Verk Hayastani (Wounds of Armenia); Mkrtich Peshiktashlian (playwright and poet, 1828–1868); Raffi (Hakob Melik-Hakobian, novelist, 1835–1888); Hovhannes Hisarian (writer, archaeologist, 1827–1916); Rafayel Patkanian (Kamar Katiba, poet, 1830–1892); Nahapet (Nahabed) Rusinian (linguist, 1819–1876); and Krikor Odian (Grigor Otian) (lawyer, 1834–1887). The last two were among

the authors of the Armenian National Constitution of 1863; Odian also participated in the formulation of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876. There were the clergy as well: Nerses Ashtaraketsi (1770–1857), prelate of Tiflis (later catholicos at Echmiadzin, 1843–1857); Mkrtich Khrimian “Hayrik” (Father) (1820–1907), patriarch of Constantinople and subsequently catholicos at Echmiadzin, 1892–1907); one of Khrimian’s prominent disciples, teacher and priest Garegin Srvantsdiants (1840–1892); and Tlkatintsi (Hovhannes Harutiunian, 1860–1915), whose literary works, similar to those of Khrimian’s and Srvantsdiants’s, idealized Armenian provincial and village life.64

Cultural reawakening also included advances in physical sciences. Armenian scientists had in general left their homeland because of the political and economic conditions and sought education and training in foreign lands. Among the leading scientists were Andreas E. Artsruni (1847–1898), Harutyun Abelyants (1849–1921), and Hovhannes Adamyan (1879–1932). Educated at the Nersisian College, Abelyants continued his training in chemistry at universities in Heidelberg and Zurich, where he also became a professor of chemistry. Adamyan developed a technology for color television and held patents in Germany (1907) and Russia (1908).65 Armenian scientists made advances in cosmology as well. In the 1840s an observatory was built on the St. Lazarus island in Venice, where Armenian scientists such as Khoren Sinanian studied cosmic structures, planets, and Halley’s comet. H. Parseghyan published the Principles of Astrology and Comets in Constantinople in 1880 and 1885, respectively. These publications delved into such controversial issues as the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican heliocentric view and, in the case of Nazaret Taghavaryan (1862–1915), theories of Darwinism and evolutionism. Taghavaryan was educated in Paris and founded the scientific periodical Gitakan Sharzhum [Scientific Movement] in Constantinople in 1885.66

The repressive governments under Sultan Abdul Hamid and Tsar Alexander III (r. 1881–1894), coupled with European diplomacy of deception at the Treaty of Berlin, caused gradual shifts in the philosophies of Khrimian, Srvandztiants, Raffi, and Patkanian from Armenian nationalism as a cultural reawakening to nationalism as an armed revolutionary movement. Armenian literary movements and cultural nationalism developed into emancipatory and revolutionary nationalism. The transmutation of the San Stefano treaty into the Berlin treaty proved a significant transition in Armenian self-perception and strategic thinking for purposes of defense, as the Ottoman government failed to introduce effective reforms. As Turkish hostilities intensified, some Armenians responded by arming themselves rather than continuing to rely on outside powers for protection. Such groups included the Black Cross Society at Van (established in 1878) and the Protectors of the Fatherland in Erzerum (1881). Organized political parties espousing nationalist ideologies and revolutionary strategies emerged in the 1880s: the Armenakan Party in 1885 in Van, the Hnchakian

(Bell) Revolutionary Party in 1887 in Geneva, and the Hay Heghapokhakan Dashnaktsutiun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, ARF) in 1890 in Tiflis.67 Despite their ideological differences and modus operandi, these parties, but most prominently the Dashnaktsutiun, cooperated with the Young Turks in opposition to Sultan Abdul Hamid and agreed on the common objective of protecting the physical security of their communities. A key contributing element in this transition was “the absence of a ‘bourgeois’ nationalism”; as a result, “a radical nationalism of the intelligentsia linked the future of all Armenians regardless of class or country in a common, sacrificial struggle.”68

INTO THE CAULDRON OF NATIONALISMS

By the late nineteenth century, the explosive admixture of national struggles for liberal reforms and outright independence, first in the Balkans on the west and subsequently by some Armenians in historic Armenia in the east, as well as Turkish movements opposing Sultan Abdul Hamid, created a perilous environment of Turkish nationalist chauvinism, paranoia, and mutual hostilities. The Armenian nationalist movement was a part of the wider phenomenon of nationalisms, including Turkish and Arab, that had emerged throughout the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman government sought to eradicate such threats to the system and frequently imprisoned their leaders.

The government arrested Armenian community leaders and intellectuals suspected of conspiracies against the Sublime Porte. Governmentsanctioned, organized and unorganized wholesale massacres began in the region of Sasun in 1894. The notorious Hamidiyé regiments, Kurdish troops armed and organized by Sultan Abdul Hamid, attacked Armenian towns, massacred thousands of inhabitants, and destroyed homes and lands. Some of the major massacres occurred at Sasun in August-September 1894; Trebizond, Urfa, and Erzerum in October 1895; and Diarbekir, Arabkir, Kharpert, and Kayseri in November 1895. Additional massacres took place during the second half of 1896. The massacres claimed more than 100,000 (and by some estimates about 300,000) Armenian lives before they ended in late 1896.69 Sultan Abdul Hamid became known as the “Red Sultan.”

By then conditions in Russian Armenia had deteriorated as well. The assassination of Tsar Alexander II by the Russian terrorist group “Will of the People” (Norodnaia Volia) in March 1881 ended decades of RussoArmenian cooperation. Tsar Alexander III showed little tolerance for Armenian national aspirations in political and economic matters. In contrast to his predecessors but very similar to the Ottoman Sultan, he viewed his Armenian subjects as a threat to Russian unity and therefore insisted on uncompromising policies of “Russification” (obrusenie) through