Armenia, a high tableland in the upper valleys of the Euphrates, Tigris, Aras, and Kyr, 400 to 500 miles long, by nearly the same breadth. In ancient times an independent country, it repeatedly recovered its independence down to the middle ages, although with varying boundary. It is now, however, distributed between Russia, Turkey, and Persia, and stretches, in its utmost extent, from Asia Minor on the W. to the Caspian Sea on the E., and from the Caucasus on the N. to the Murad Sn on the S. The interior consists mostly of pastoral plateaus, 2700 to 7000 feet above sea-level, crowned by conical heights or traversed by mountain-chains, and culminating in Mount Ararat, 16,969 feet high. A chain of mountains, stretching from Ararat to the confluence of the two head-waters of the Euphrates, divides Armenia into a northern half, containing the plateaus of Bayazid, Erzerum, Kars, Akhalzikh, and Erivan; and a southern half, in which lies the plain of Murad Su, 4650 feet high at Mush. On the plateau of Erivan, the principal cones are Little Ararat, 12,840 feet high; Great Ararat, 17,212 feet; and Ala Göz (with three pinnacles), 13,436 feet. Surrounding Lake Van is the chain of the Ala Dagh, rising, in Tura Jeln, to 13,720 feet. To the east of the valley of the Aras, the plateau of Kara Bagh attains a height of 11,000 feet. The mountain-system of Armenia is mostly volcanic, in which trachyte and augite porphyry are mainly represented. The numerous cones are for the most part old craters. The volcanic nature of Armenia is still testified by its hot mineral springs, such as the sulphur springs of Tiflis, and by its earthquakes, which, in 1840, wrought the complete destruction of a village of 200 houses on Mount Ararat, and in 1859, of the town of Erzerum. The Murad Su or East, and the Kara Su or West Euphrates, form the head-waters of the Euphrates; whilst the Shett, rising to the south of Van Lake, and an arm of the Diarbekr, rising in the Alinjik Dagh, constitute the head-waters of the Tigris. Other rivers are the Aras, the Kur, and the Tchorak. Of lakes, there is Van in Turkish, Goktcha or Sevan in Russian, and Urmia in Persian Armenia. Armenia is rich in metals, possessing mines of silver, lead, iron, arsenic, alum, rock-salt, and especially copper.
The climate is distinguished into a region of rains, with subtropical climate, embracing the valley of the Kyr from Tiflis to the Caspian Sea and the valley of the Upper Tigris; a region of perpetual snow, which, in Ararat, except on the NW. side, starts as high as 14,000 feet, but elsewhere descends some 3000 feet lower; and an intermediate region of very various grades, including the plateau of the frontier mountains and the plateau chains, to a height of 12,000 to 13,000 feet. This third zone ranges from a South-European climate in the plain of the Kara Hissar, to a Mid-European climate, with harvest as late sometimes as August and September, in the mid-slopes of the frontier mountains. The plateaus—volcanic, dry, and singularly bare of wood—have a very severe climate; the winters long and inclement; the summers short, very hot during the day, but always cold at night. The cold north winds, against which Armenia has no protection, encountering the east and south winds, give rise to the storms that render the navigation of the Black Sea coast so dangerous. Much the richest belt of vegetation is the broad valley of the Aras; but the marshes produced by the many irrigating channels make this the most unhealthy part of Armenia. There are, nevertheless, rich vineyards and orchards, fields of cotton, tobacco, rice, hemp, and flax. The high tablelands are chiefly pastoral, though a little corn is also cultivated.
The ancients distinguished Armenia Major, the larger and eastern half, bordering on Media and the Caspian Sea, on Mesopotamia and Assyria, from Armenia Minor to the west of the Euphrates. Turkish Armenia comprises, besides the old Armenia Minor, the vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Dar-sim, Erzerum, as also parts of the vilayets of Diarbekr and Charput. Russian Armenia, formerly Persian, forms the NE. part of old Armenia Major, and includes the governments of Erivan, Elizabet-pol, and Kars, as also parts of the government of Tiflis. In this Russian division of Armenia are situated the three old monasteries—Etchmiadzin, seat of the patriarch of Armenia, Haghpad, and Sanahine. Persia holds the SE. corner of Armenia Major in the province of Azerbaijan.
The Armenian is rather above middle stature, of darkish-brown or yellow complexion, with black, straight hair, large nose, wide rather than high forehead. He is of quick, adaptive intelligence, and specially qualified for trade. The women are often handsome, with erect carriage, regular features, and fine dark eyes. Only a part of the Armenians live in Armenia, most of them having been long dispersed all over the world. Yet is their essential national cohesion and indissolubility of national character almost as strong as is that of the Jews, though it has not had such unremitting fires of persecution to anneal it. They belong to the Iranian group of the Indo-Germanic family. The Armenians, at the present day, are to be found in almost all Turkish provinces; in Russia, Persia, and India; in the great commercial cities of the Mediterranean; in the Austrian empire; at London, Manchester, and other capitals of Western Europe, occupying posts as money-changers, bankers, and merchants, though also as artisans and porters. Their number in Armenia itself is estimated at 1,000,000 at the most; in Persia and adjacent territories, 100,000; in European Turkey, 400,000; in Russia, 500,000; in India, 5000; in Africa, 5000; in Transylvania, Hungary, and Galicia, 16,000. Their total number is calculated at not more than 2,500,000. Among the foreign invaders domesticated in Armenia are the Turks, mostly engaged in agriculture; the nomadic Kurds; in the SE., the Tartars; Nestorians occupying the mountains of the Persian frontier, and speaking a Syriac dialect; Georgians, in the north. Greeks, Jews, and gipsies are also scattered throughout Armenia. The Armenians themselves are at home mostly shepherds and tillers of the soil, living in low, mud-built cottages, or underground dwellings, very meagrelly furnished. The houses are built at the side of or round a small court-yard, the rooms with no apertures for light except into the yard. The cattle sometimes house with the family. In summer, the roof is utilised for smoking, eating, and sleeping. Marriages are arranged by the parents, and the women have a place very subordinate to that of men. So late as 1856 a wife might not speak to her sister-in-law for the first six months after marriage; nor to her mother-in-law for nine months; nor to her father-in-law for eighteen months; and when at last she might speak, it must be in a whisper; and the whisper survives even to-day in a London Armenian family. The women, seldom the men, weave carpets, silk and woollen stuffs, stockings, horse-coverings, shawls, &c., but especially lace, for which gold and silver threads are obtained from Russia. Long centuries of oppression and almost servitude have very much sapped the military habits and spirit of the people, though in the last Russo-Turkish war many Armenians distinguished themselves by their bravery. A large number hold high places in the Russian army, among the most distinguished being General Loris Melikoff.
History.—The Armenians called themselves Haik, whence Hajastan, the Persian name for Armenia; the name Armenia being conferred by the Medes, who applied this, the name of a single obscure clan, to the whole land. They have been known as a nation under this name since the time of Herodotus, and probably earlier. After being ruled by kings of their own, they fell successively under the Assyrian, Median, and Persian empires, retaining under the Persians their own princes, and merely paying tribute to the Great King. Having, under Digran or Tigranes, become the centre of an empire extending from the Orontes to the Caspian, Armenia was shattered by the Roman Lucullus, who penetrated to Artaxata at the NE. of Ararat (69 B.C.). Shapur, the second of the Sassanid kings, conquered Armenia, but under Diocletian it was recovered for Rome, and Tiridates the Great returned to his ancestral throne. This Tiridates having been converted to Christianity by St Gregory the Enlightener, Armenia became henceforward the bulwark of Christianity in Asia. Overrun by the Persian fire-worshippers, and, after the fall of Persia, by the Mohammedan califs of Bagdad, sometimes supported, sometimes abandoned, by the Byzantine emperors, and a prey to internal dissensions, Armenia yet re-emerged, in the 9th century, into a state of some importance.
In 885 A.D., Aschod I., of an old and powerful Armenian family, ascended the throne, with the permission of the califs, and founded the third Armenian dynasty—that of the Bagratidæ, who claim descent from King David of Israel. Under them Armenia was prosperous. The magnificent ruins of their capital at Ani, between Etchmiadzin and Kars, still testify to the transitory splendour of their kingdom. In the 11th century divisions and internal strife again began to weaken the country; till at length the Greeks, having murdered the last monarch of the Bagratidæ, seized a part of the kingdom, while the Turks and the Kurds made themselves masters of the rest—only one or two of the native princes maintaining a perilous independence. In 1242 the whole of Armenia Major was conquered by the Mongols. Leon VI., last king of Armenia, was taken prisoner by the Saracens, 1375, and died at Paris in 1393. In 1472 the eastern part of Armenia became a Persian province. Afterwards the western part fell into the hands of the Turkish sultan, Selim II.
The subsequent history of Armenia is that of devastation by the Mongols and the hosts of Timur, and of a long contest between the Ottoman sultans and Persia for the possession of that ancient kingdom. At length Russia approached from the north, welcomed by the Armenians as a suzerain preferable to either Turkey or Persia. Even before crossing the Caucasus and establishing herself in Georgia, Russia had interfered for the protection of the Armenian Christians. The Armenian patriarch Narses, too, had encouraged his people to look to Russia for protection. In 1827 the Czar wrested from Persia the whole of the upper valley of the Araxes, including Etchmiadzin. On the conclusion of peace between Russia and Turkey in 1829, when the Russians retired from Erzerum, a multitude of Armenian subjects of Turkey followed them, electing to settle in Russian territory. According to Professor Bryce, Mr Creagh, and other travellers, the Armenians enjoy, under Russia, security of person and property, and protection for the honour of their families, such as was not vouchsafed to them by either Turkey or Persia. At the close of the Russo-Turkish war, by the Treaty of Berlin (1878) Ardahan and Kars were ceded to Russia, thereby adding 6687 sq. m. of territory, with a population of 271,151, to the district of Erivan already in
Russian possession. During the negotiation of the Berlin Treaty, Great Britain entered into a secret compact with the sultan, guaranteeing Turkey the integrity of her Asiatic possessions on condition that Turkey should effect reforms and protect the Armenians from Kurds and Circassians. In 1894, a series of horrible atrocities in the Sassoon district led to a European commission, and to remonstrances by Britain, France, and other powers. It was estimated that 80,000 Armenians had perished during these massacres up to 1896. In that year there was a renewal of the atrocities. Owing to jealousies among the powers nothing definite was accomplished towards a permanent reform.
There are Armenians at St Petersburg, Moscow, and in South Russia. At Venice are the Mechitarists (q.v.). In London, Manchester, Amsterdam, and Marseilles are Armenian merchant-houses. Armenians have been settled at Manchester since about 1840. In 1862 they had grown numerous enough to rent a private house for the celebration of divine worship. In 1870 they built an Armenian church, where divine service is conducted every Sunday, according to the ritual of the (non-united) Armenian Church, whose 'Catholikos' has his seat at Etchmiadzin. The number of Armenians in Manchester is about 120, their 35 merchant-firms negotiating the commerce between that city and Turkey, Persia, and the Russian Caucasus. There is also a pretty numerous Armenian community in London, composed for the most part of Armenian families from India. There are, besides, one or two Armenian merchants at Liverpool, and almost always a few Armenians studying at Edinburgh and Oxford.
The Church.—The earliest authentic accounts of the introduction of Christianity into Armenia date from the apostolical exertions of St Gregory (q.v.), who in the beginning of the 4th century converted King Tiridates and a large part of the people. In the same century Armenian Christians were found studying at Athens. Christianity was further confirmed in Armenia by Mesrob's translation of the Bible into the Armenian language in the 5th century. In the ecclesiastical controversy concerning the twofold nature of Christ, the Armenian Christians refused (491 A.D.) to accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, and constituted themselves a separate church, which took the title of Gregorian from Gregory himself. For several centuries a spirit of scientific inquiry, especially in theology, manifested itself amongst them to a far wider extent than in the other eastern churches. Their greatest divine is Nerses of Klah, belonging to the 12th century. The Roman Catholic popes at various times, especially (1145, 1341, 1439) when the Armenians accepted the help of the West against the Mohammedans, tried to persuade them to recognise the papal supremacy; but only in 1439 was union with Rome accepted by the scattered members of the Armenian Church outside of Armenia, on the basis that, while assenting to the dogma of the two natures, they should retain their national and ritual peculiarities. The Armenian Church was thus split up into a Catholic or united, and a Schismatic or non-united party, fanatically opposed to each other. The dogma of the pope's infallibility induced for a time dissension among the united party. The theology of the Schismatic or non-united Armenians attributes only one nature to Christ, and holds that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; the latter doctrine, however, being held by it in common with the 'orthodox Greek Church,' although contrary to the theology of the western churches. With respect to the 'seven sacraments,' it entertains the peculiar notions that at baptism one must be sprinkled three times, and as often dipped; that confirmation is to be con- joined with baptism; that the Lord's Supper must be celebrated with pure wine and leavened bread; that the latter, before being handed round, must be dipped in the former; and that extreme unction is to be administered to ecclesiastics alone, and that immediately after (and not before) their death. It believes in the worship of saints, but not in purgatory. It exceeds the Greek Church in the number of its fasts, but has fewer religious festivals. Divine service is held in Turkey chiefly by night. Mass is celebrated in the old Armenian language; preaching is in the new. Its sacerdotal constitution differs little from the Greek. The head of the church, whose title is Catholikos, and to whom the Armenian patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople are subordinate, resides at Etchmiadzin, a monastery near Erivan, the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Armenian nation since 302 A.D., and claiming to be the oldest monastic foundation in the world. Incorporated in this monastery is a seminary or college for the education of Armenian priests, attended by about eighty young men from all parts of Asia Minor and Persia. This school is supported by the monastic revenues, which, from landed property in Erivan and Georgia, and from the contributions of the Armenian churches throughout the world, are said to amount to about £10,000 a year. Since 1839, Protestant missions, especially of the London Missionary Society, have been at work in Armenia. The American Foreign Missions have thirty-three Protestant congregations in Armenia, with more than 1800 members, many of them self-supporting, and supplied with native pastors.
Literature.—Previous to the introduction of Christianity by Gregory (300 A.D.), the Armenians had adhered to the Assyrian or Medo-Persian system of culture; but excepting a few old songs or ballads, no remains of that early period exist. After their conversion to Christianity, the Greek language and its literature soon became favourite objects of study, and many Greek authors were translated into Armenian. The earliest inscriptions are cuneiform. At a later period the Greek alphabet was used by the West, and Syriac by the East Armenians. In the beginning of the 5th century, St Mesrob, along with Sahak the Great, wrote the Armenian translation of the Bible, esteemed the highest model of classic style. The most flourishing period of Armenian literature extends from the 4th to the 14th century. The numerous Armenian theological writers and chroniclers of this era supply materials for a history of the East during the middle ages which have hitherto been too much neglected. These Armenian writers generally copied the style of the later Greek and Byzantine authors. In the 14th century literature began to decline, and few remarkable works were afterwards produced; but since their dispersion, the Armenians have ever cherished their national literature. Translations of several Greek authors, made in the 5th century, have been partly preserved, and contain some writings of which the originals have been lost—namely, the Chronicle of Eusebius; the Discourses of Philo; Homilies by St Chrysostom, Severianus, Basil the Great, and Ephraem Syrus. Among philosophical and theological writers may be mentioned: David, the translator and commentator of Aristotle, Esnik, and Joannes Ozniensis. The Vitæ Sanctorum Calendarii Armeniaci (Lives of Armenian Saints, 12 vols. Ven. 1814) contains many notices of the history of Armenia. A considerable stirring of intellectual and even literary activity has recently manifested itself both at Erivan and in Constantinople. The Armenian belongs to the Indo-Germanic group of languages, and though it is usually regarded as an offshoot of the Iranian branch, recent scholars of eminence have main- tained its right to rank as a distinct branch, intermediate between the Iranian and European divisions of the group. It has certainly a very independent character, and has many peculiarities of structure. There are usually no distinctions of gender amongst nouns, and there are seven cases; while the verb has four conjugations and four tenses. In many respects the syntax of old Armenian, the language of literature, which is no longer a living tongue, resembles classical Greek; whereas the modern Armenian, split up into four dialects, contains many Persian and Turkish words. The Eastern dialect is, as might be expected, much purer than that of Constantinople. The language has great strength and flexibility; is consonantal and harsh to the ear. The alphabet, which has thirty-six characters, usually said to have been partly formed on the Greek model by St Mesrob, seems rather to have been adapted by him from the Palmyrene alphabet (see ALPHABET). There are grammars by Petermann (2d ed. 1872), Lauer (1869), and, of modern Armenian, Riggs (1856); and there are English-Armenian dictionaries by Ancher (1821) and Bedrossian (1879).
Appended is the verse John iii. 16, in old or ecclesiastical Armenian:
Օ՛ւի այնպէս սիրեաց լիստուած զաշխարհ՝
մինչև զՈրդին իւր միածին ետ. զի ամենայն
որ հաւատայ ՚ի նա՝ մի՛ կորցէ, այլ ընկալցի
զկեանսն յաւիտենականս.
See Saint-Martin, Mémoires sur l'Arménie (1818); Curzon, Armenia (1854); Haxthausen, Transcaucasia (Leip. 1856); Creagh, Armenians, Koords, and Turks (1880); Gatteyrias, L'Arménie (Paris, 1880); Troitzky, The Ritual of the Armenian Church (in Russian, 1875); Hamachod, Chronological Succession of Armenian Patriarchs (London, 1865); Karekin, History of the Armenian Literature (in Armenian, Ven. 1865-68); The Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (trans. by S. C. Malan, 1870); Nève, L'Arménie chrétienne (1887); and books on the recent troubles and complications by 'A Special Correspondent' (1892), 'An Old Indian' (1896), A. Lepsius (1897), Rendel Harris (1897), Mrs Lidgett (1897), and G. H. Hepworth (1898).