The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars

461 Pages·2006·2.72 MB·English

by  Razmik Panossian

The Armenians
From Kings and Priests
to Merchants
and Commissars
RAZMIK PANOSSIAN
HURST & COMPANY, LONDON
THE ARMENIANS
To my parents
Stephan and Sona Panossian
RAZMIK PANOSSIAN
The Armenians
From Kings and Priests to Merchants
and Commissars
HURST & COMPANY,LONDON
First published in the United Kingdom by
C.Hurst & Co.(Publishers) Ltd,
41 Great Russell Street,London WC1B 3PL
Copyright © by Razmik Panossian,2006
All rights reserved.
Printed in India
The right of Razmik Panossian to be identified
as the author of this volume has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyight,Designs
and Patents Act,1988.
A catalogue record for this volume is available from
the British Library.
ISBNs
1-85065-644-4casebound
1-85065-788-2paperback
‘The life of a nation is a sea,and those who look at it from the shore
cannot know its depths.’—Armenian proverb
‘The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner;he
to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong;but he is
perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land.The tender soul
has fixed his love on one spot in the world;the strong man has
extended his love to all places;the perfect man has extinguished
his.’—Hugo of St Victor (monk from Saxony,12th century)
The proverb is from Mary Matossian,The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia.
Hugo of St Victor is cited in Edward Said,‘Reflections on Exile’,Granta,no. 13.

CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements page xi
1. Introduction 1
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND DEFINITIONS 5
A brief overview:going beyond dichotomies 6
Questionable assumptions:homogenisation and the role
of the state 10
The Armenian view 12
Defining the nation 18
— The importance of subjectivity 20
— The importance of modernity 24
— The characteristics of nations 28
2. The Initial Building Blocks:From the ‘Beginning
of Time’to the 17th Century 32
MYTHS,KINGS,CHRISTIANITY AND THE ETHNIE
FROM NOAH TO MOVSES KHORENATSI 33
The conversion to Christianity 42
The alphabet and the Golden Century 44
The paradigm of rebellion:the Battle of Avarayr 46
Movses Khorenatsi and the writing of history 49
Theoretical interlude:the concept of ethnie 52
THE NEXT THOUSAND YEARS… 57
Arab rule 58
The Bagratuni dynasty 59
The Turkic invasions 60
The ‘Diasporan Kingdom’of Cilicia 63
Subjects of empires,again:maintaining identity
as a religious community 66
3. Merchants,Diasporan Communities,and Liberation
Attempts:the 17th to the 19th Century 75
PREPARING THE GROUNDWORK,I:MERCHANT
COMMUNITIES AND DIASPORAN CENTRES 76
vii
viii Contents
New Julfa 78
India 80
Europe 82
Constantinople 83
Tiflis 86
Diaspora/merchant communities and national identity 87
— Diaspora merchants as the financiers of culture,learning
and identity 87
— Armenian printing 90
Theoretical interlude:print capitalism 94
PREPARING THE GROUNDWORK,II:THE MKHITARIST
BROTHERHOOD 101
PREPARING THE GROUNDWORK,III:EARLY ATTEMPTS
AT LIBERATION AND RUSSIAN RULE 109
The precedent of rebellion 110
— Initial attempts 110
— Israel Ori 111
— Davit Bek 112
— Joseph Emin 115
The Russian conquest of Eastern Armenia 119
4. A Multilocal Awakening:The Consolidation
and Radicalisation of Collective Identity in
the 19th Century 128
THE MULTILOCAL ARGUMENT 129
LANGUAGE 132
In the west 134
In the east 135
LITERARY CULTURE 137
In the west 138
In the east 142
POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 147
In the west 148
In the east 153
In Ottoman Armenia 160
Theoretical interlude:intellectuals and phases 180
5. Revolutionary Parties and Genocide,Independence
and Sovietisation:Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries 188
NATIONALISM THROUGH OTHERS:RELIANCE ON
EXTERNAL FORCES 189
Contents ix
THE ‘RELIGIOUS’DIMENSION IN SECULAR
NATIONALISM 194
POLITICAL AND REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATIONS 200
Early attempts at organisation 200
The Armenakans and their continuations 201
The Hnchakian Party 203
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation 205
Armenian Marxists/Social Democrats 210
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES 214
Protests and terrorism 214
Intra-community activities 217
Self-defence—in east and west 219
Alliance with the Young Turks 223
THE GENOCIDE 228
THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC AND SOVIETISATION 242
6. Differing Identities:Soviet Armenians,Diaspora
Armenians,1921–87 262
DYNAMICS IN SOVIET ARMENIA 266
The federal structure and centre-republic relations 267
Modernisation and national identity 270
Theoretical interlude:identity and modernisation 273
Soviet nationalities policies 274
Demographic issues and the homogenisation of Armenia 277
A national and nationalising political elite 282
The gap between ideology and reality 286
CREATING A DIASPORAN NATIONAL IDENTITY 291
Diasporan mobilisation 294
Education as the means 297
Language as the marker 299
Ideology as the directive 300
The social milieu as the setting 303
A new diasporan identity and its politics 306
Theoretical interlude:the modern diaspora 311
7. Strengthening National Identity,Soviet Style,1921–87 319
1965:A TURNING POINT 320
THE KEY FACTORS AND MECHANISMS IN BUILDING
NATIONAL IDENTITY 323
The dissident movement 323