by James Millar
Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika had a major impact on Armenia. Russia anticipated problems in the Ukraine and the Baltic states, but no one predicted the great eruption of Armenian nationalism, primarily over Karabakh. On February 28, 1988, the Karabakh Soviet passed a resolution for the transference of Karabakh to Armenia. Gigantic peaceful demonstrations followed in Yerevan. The Azeris reacted by carrying out pogroms against the Armenians in Azerbaijan. Gorbachev’s inaction soured Russo-Armenian relations, and dissident leaders, known as the Karabakh Committee, gained credibility with the public.
In May 1988, Demirjian was replaced by Suren Harutiunian, who promised to take the Karabakh issue to the Supreme Soviet. Moscow rejected the transfer, and a crackdown began in Karabakh and Yerevan. The terrible earthquake of December 7, 1988, Moscow’s inept handling of the crisis, and Azeri attacks upon Karabakh resulted in something extraordinary. Armenians, the most pro-Russian of all ethnic groups, demanded independence. Haru-tiunian resigned, and after declaring its intent to separate from the USSR, the Armenian National Movement, under the leadership of Levon Ter-Petrossian, a member of the Karabakh Committee, assumed power in Armenia. On September 21, 1991, the Armenian parliament unanimously declared a sovereign state outside the Soviet Union and two days later, on September 23, Armenia declared its independence.
INDEPENDENT, POST-SOVIET ARMENIA
On October 16, 1991, barely a month after independence, Armenians went to the polls. Levon Ter-Petrossian, representing the Armenian National Movement (ANM), won 83 percent of the vote. Neither the Dashnaks nor the Communists could accept their defeat and, ironically, they found common cause against Levon Ter-Petrossian’s government.
Receiving a clear mandate did not mean that the government of Levon Ter-Petrossian would be free from internal or external pressures. The major internal problem was the virtual blockade of Armenia by Azerbaijan, exacerbated by the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and the earthquake zone. Other domestic issues involved the implementation of free-market reforms, the establishment of democratic governmental structures, and the privatization of land. The external concerns involved future relations with Russia, Turkey, Georgia, and Iran. The immediate concern, however, was the conflict with Azerbaijan over mountainous Karabakh and the political uncertainties in Georgia, which contained 400,000 Armenians.
Ter-Petrossian attempted to assure Turkey that Armenia had no territorial claims against it and
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that it desired neighborly diplomatic and economic relations. Rather than espousing an ideologically dogmatic and biased outlook, Armenia was to have a pragmatic and flexible foreign policy. In the long run, however, Armenian efforts to establish political and economic relations with Turkey did not materialize. The Turks not only maintained their blockade of Armenia, but also insisted that the issue of Karabakh had to be resolved before anything else could be discussed. The Azeri blockade had resulted in food and fuel shortages and, since 1989, had virtually halted supplies for earthquake reconstruction. The closing down of the Medzamor Nuclear Energy Plant in 1989 meant that Armenian citizens, including the many refugees, would have to face many difficult winters.
The presidential election of 1996 was marred by accusations of fraud. A broad coalition supported Vazgen Manoukian, the candidate of the National Democratic Union, but the election results gave Ter-Petrossian a victory with 51 percent of the vote. The opposition accused the ruling party of massive frauds in the counting of the ballots. Foreign observers cited some irregularities, but concluded that these did not significantly affect the outcome. Continued rallies, riots, and some shootings resulted in arrests and the ban on all public gatherings for a short time. By early 1998, a major split over Karabakh had occurred between Levon Ter-Petrossian and members of his own cabinet. Prime Minister Robert Kocharian, Defense Minister Vazgen Sargisian, and the Interior and National Security Minister Serge Sargisian joined forces against the president, who was forced to resign. Kocharian succeeded him.
The parliamentary elections of May 1999 reshaped the balance of power. The Unity Coalition, led by Vazgen Sargisian, and the People’s Party of Armenia, led by Karen Demirjian, won the elections and left Kocharian without any control over the parliamentary majority. Sargisian became prime minister, and Demirjian became the speaker of Parliament. They removed Serge Sargisian, a Karabakhi and Kocharian’s closest ally, from his post of minister of the interior. Karen Demirjian, meanwhile, became the speaker of Parliament. But on October 27, five assassins entered the building of the National Assembly of Armenia and killed Sargisian and Demirjian, as well as two deputy speakers, two ministers, and four deputies. With the government in the hands of Kocharian, the economy at a standstill, and the Karabakh conflict unresolved, Armenians by the tens of thousands voted with their feet and emigrated from the country. See also: ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH; AZERBAIJAN AND AZERIS; CAUCASUS; DASHNAKTSUTIUN; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NAGORNO-KARABAKH; TER-PETROSSIAN, LEVON
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bournoutian, George A. (1992). The Khanate of Erevan under Qajar Rule, 1795-1828. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (1994). A History of Qarabagh. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (1998). Russia and the Armenians of Transcaucasia: 1797-1889. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (1999). The Chronicle of Abraham of Crete. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (1999). History of the Wars: 1721-1738. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (2001). Armenians and Russia: 1626-1796. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (2002). A Concise History of the Armenian People. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Bournoutian, George A. (2002). The Journal of Zak’aria of Agulis. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Press. Hovannisian, Richard. G. (1967). Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hovannisian, Richard. G. (1971-1996). The Armenian Republic. 4 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Libaridian, Gerard. (1991). Armenia at the Crossroads. Wa-tertown, MA: Blue Crane Publishing. Libaridian, Gerard. (1999). The Challenge of Statehood. Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Publishing. Matossian, Mary Allerton Kilbourne. (1962). The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Nalbandian, Louise. (1963). The Armenian Revolutionary Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Suny, Ronald Grigor. (1993). Looking toward Ararat. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
GEORGE A. BOURNOUTIAN
ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH
The Armenian Apostolic Church has a long and ancient history. Its received tradition remembers the apostolic preaching of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thaddeus among the Armenians of Edessa and surARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION rounding territories. It is likely that there were Armenian Christians from early times, such that Saint Gregory the Illuminator, in the fourth century, who worked among people who had previous contact with Christianity. The Armenian Church celebrates the year 301 as the time when Gregory converted King Trdat. The king, in turn, made Christianity the state religion. There is disagreement among scholars about this date. It should also be remembered that the idea of Christianity as state religion was an innovation at that time.
Events of the fifth century were critical to the making of a distinctively Armenian Christian culture and identity. The foremost of these was the invention of the Armenian alphabet by the monk Mesrob Mashtots and his community. Translations of scripture, commentaries, liturgy, theology, and histories were made. Greek and Syriac literature were important sources. In addition, the fifth century witnessed the first flowering of original Armenian literature. An example is Eznik Koghbatsi’s doctrinal work, Refutation of the Sects. The Battle of Avarayr in 451 against Persia, although a defeat for the Armenians under Vartan, has been remembered as critical for winning the Armenians the right to practice their Christian belief.
The fact that the Armenians eventually rejected the Christology of the Council of Chalcedon (
451) has defined their communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches and their schism from the Orthodox churches that grew out of Constantinople (that is, the Orthodox churches of the Greeks, Georgians, and Russians, among others). The dispute concerned the way in which the natures of Christ were properly described. The Armenian Church believed that the language of Chalcedon, defining the person of Jesus Christ as “in two natures,” destroyed the unity of divinity and humanity in Christ.
Throughout much of its history, the Armenian Orthodox Church has been an instrument of the Armenian nation’s survival. The head of the church, called catholicos, has been located in various Armenian cities, often in the center of political power. In the early twenty-first century the supreme catholicos is located in the city of Echmiadzin, near the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Another catholicos, descended from the leaders of Sis in Cili-cia, is located in Lebanon. During the existence of Cilician Armenia (from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries), when Crusaders were present in the Middle East, the Armenian Church had close ties with Rome. Nerses Shnorhali, known as “the Graceful” (1102-1173), was an important catholi-cos of this period.
The Armenian Church played a significant role in the succession of Muslim empires in which its faithful were located. Because some of these were divided according to religious affiliation, the leaders of the Armenian were, in fact, also politically responsible for their communities. The Armenian Church was greatly affected by two phenomenon in the twentieth century: the genocide in Turkey, in which 1.5 million died, and the Sovietization of eastern Armenia, which ushered in seven decades of official atheism. The genocide essentially destroyed the church in Turkey, where only a remnant remains. It has also profoundly affected the way in which the Armenian Church approaches the idea of suffering in this world.
The church thrived in many parts of the Armenian diaspora, and is regaining its strength in newly independent Armenia. In the post-Soviet period, the church has struggled to define itself in society, having to overcome the decades of persecution and neglect, as well as making adjustments in a political culture in which it is favored but must still coexist in an officially pluralistic society.
The liturgy of the Armenian Church (the eu-charistic service is called patarag) with Syriac and Greek roots, has been vastly enriched by the hymnody of Armenian writers. Contact with Rome has also been important in this context. Armenians, preserving an ancient Eastern tradition, celebrate Christmas and Epiphany together on January 6. See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; ORTHODOXY; RELIGION; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Maksoudian, Krikor (1995). Chosen of God: The Election of the Catholicos of All Armenians. New York: St. Var-tan’s Press. Ormanian, Malachia. (1988). The Church of Armenia: Her History, Doctrine, Rule, Discipline, Liturgy, Literature, and Existing Conditions. New York: St. Vartan’s Press.
PAUL CREGO
ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION
See DASHNAKTSUTIUN.
ARMORY
ARMORY
The Armory (Oruzheinaia palata) was a Muscovite state department that organized the production of arms, icons, and other objects for the tsars and their household; later it became a museum. Partial view of the Kremlin Armory in Moscow. © WOLFGANG KAEHLER/CORBIS
An Armory chancery (prikaz) was established in the Moscow Kremlin at the beginning of the sixteenth century to supervise the production and storage of the tsars’ personal weapons and other objects, such as saddles and banners. By the middle of the seventeenth century, it encompassed a complex of studios, including the Gold and Silver Workshops and the Armory Chamber itself, which employed teams of craftsmen to produce a wide variety of artwork and artifacts and also stored and maintained items for the palace’s ceremonial and liturgical use and for distribution as gifts. The chancery commanded considerable funds and a large administrative staff, presided over by such leading boyars as Bogdan Khitrovo, who was director of the Armory from 1654 to 1680, during which time it emerged as a virtual academy of arts.
From the 1640s onward, the Armory had dedicated studios for icon painting and, beginning in 1683, for nonreligious painting. Its most influential artist was Simon Ushakov (1626-1686), whose images demonstrate a mixture of traditional compositions and more naturalistic use of light, shade, and perspective. Characteristic examples include his icons “The Planting of the Tree of the Muscovite Realm” (1668) and “Old Testament Trinity” (1671). He also made charts and engravings and painted portraits. The development of portrait painting from life by artists such as Ivan Bezmin and Bog-dan Saltanov was one of the Armory’s most striking innovations, although surviving works show the influence of older conventions of Byzantine imperial portraits and Polish “parsuna” portraits, rather than contemporary Western trends. Teams of Armory artists also restored and painted frescoes in the Kremlin cathedrals and the royal residences: for example, in the cathedrals of the Dormition (1632-1643) and Archangel (1652).
Russian Armory artists worked alongside foreign personnel, including many from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who specialized in woodcarv-ing, carpentry, and ceramics. Other foreigners worked as gunsmiths and clock- and instrument-makers. A handful of painters from western Europe encouraged the development of oil painting on canvas and introduced new Biblical and historical subjects into the artistic repertoire. By the late 1680s secular painters began to predominate: Armory employment rolls for 1687-1688 record twenty-seven icon painters and forty secular painters. Nonreligious painting assignments included making maps, charts, prints and banners, and decorating all manner of objects, from painted Easter eggs and chess sets to children’s toys. Under the influence of Peter I (r. 1682-1725) and his circle, in the 1690s artists were called upon to undertake new projects, such as decorating the ships of Peter’s new navy and constructing triumphal arches. In the early eighteenth century Peter transferred many Armory craftsmen to St. Petersburg, and by 1711 the institution was virtually dissolved, surviving only as a museum and treasury. From 1844 to 1851 the architect Karl Ton designed the present classical building, which houses and displays Muscovite and Imperial Russian regalia and treasures, vestments, carriages, gifts from foreign delegations, saddles, and other items.
ARMS CONTROL
See also: CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL; CATHEDRAL OF THE DORMITION; ICONS; KREMLIN; PETER I; USHAKOV, SIMON FYODOROVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cracraft, James. (1997). The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hughes, Lindsey. (1979). “The Moscow Armoury and Innovations in Seventeenth-Century Muscovite Art.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 13:204-223.
LINDSEY HUGHES
ARMS CONTROL
Russia’s governments-tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet-have often championed arms limitation. Power and propaganda considerations as well as ideals lay behind Russian and Soviet proposals. Because Russia and the USSR usually lagged behind its Western adversaries in military technology and economic strength, Russian leaders often called for banning new weapons or abolishing those they did not yet possess. Russia sought to bring the weapons of all countries to the same qualitative level. If that happened, Russia’s large size would permit it to field larger armies than its rivals. By contrast, the United States often led the world in military technology and economic strength. Accordingly, U.S. diplomats often called for freezing the existing military balance of power so that the United States could maintain its advantages. Such measures, if implemented, would often have put Russia at a disadvantage.
FUNDAMENTAL BARRIERS TO DISARMAMENT
Besides its large size, Russia had the advantage of secrecy. Both tsars and commissars exploited the closed nature of their society to hide weaknesses and assets. With its open society, the United States had fewer secrets to protect, so it advocated arms treaties that permitted onsite inspection. The usual pattern was that the United States wanted inspection first; disarmament later. The Soviets wanted disarmament first; inspection later, if ever.
Language differences ma
gnified these difficulties. While English has just one word for disarmament, Russian has two, and thus distinguishes between voluntary and coerced disarmament. Voluntary disarmament, as the outcome of selfrestraint or negotiation, is razoruzhenie, whereas disarmament by force is obezoruzhit. Vladimir Ilich Lenin, however, believed that razoruzhenie was a pacifist illusion. The task of revolutionaries, he argued, was to disarm its enemies by force. Soviet diplomats began calling for wide-scale disarmament in 1922. They said that Western calls for “arms limitation”-not full razoruzhenie-masked the impossibility for capitalist regimes to disarm voluntarily. Soviet ideologists averred that capitalists needed arms to repress their proletariat, to fight each other, and to attack the socialist fatherland.
Seeking a more neutral term, Western diplomats in the 1950s and 1960s called for “arms control,” a term that included limits, reductions, and increases, as well as the abolition of arms. But kon-trol in Russian means only verification, counting, or checking. Soviet diplomats said “arms control” signified a Western quest to inspect (and count) arms, but not a willingness actually to disarm. After years of debate, Soviet negotiators came to accept the term as meaning “control over armaments,” rather than simply a “count of armaments.” In 1987, when the USSR and United States finally signed a major disarmament agreement, President Ronald Reagan put the then-prevailing philosophy into words, saying: “Veriat no proveriat” (trust, but verify).
THE MAKING OF ARMS POLICY
A variety of ideals shaped tsarist and Soviet policy. Alexander I wanted a Holy Alliance to maintain peace after the Napoleonic wars. Like Alexander I, Nicholas II wanted to be seen as a great pacifist, and summoned two peace conferences at The Hague in an effort to achieve that end. Lenin, however, believed that “disarmament” was a mere slogan, meant only to deceive the masses into believing that peace was attainable without the overthrow of capitalism. When Lenin’s regime proposed disarmament in 1922, its deep aim was to expose capitalist hypocrisy and demonstrate the need for revolution. From the late 1920s until his death in 1953, Stalin also used disarmament mainly as a propaganda tool.