Armen Aivazian

THE HISTORY OF ARMENIA

AS PRESENTED IN AMERICAN
HISTORIOGRAPHY

A CRITICAL SURVEY

Yerevan - 1998
 The History of Armenia
As Presented in American Historiography

I dedicate this work to the loving memory of

my grandfather, Mkrtich Arshaki Aivazian
of New Bayazed.

“Be in the know so you may predict”

Ogyust Kont (1798-1857)

2
 Dear Reader

You have, at your disposal, a very rare work written by

historian Armen Aivazian, which has been republished by Louys
biweekly in Los Angeles by ‘Grkaser’ Publishing House in 2002.
The aim is to introduce to the wider Armenian audience the extreme
importance of this book.

Chief Editor ‘LOUYS’ journal - S. Kiremidjian

Publishing Editor - A. Djanibekyan

Translated by A. Marcky
By the request of Louysworld
May 2002 December 2008
Los Angeles, California Sydney, Australia

3
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My gratitude to Academics Mkrtich Nersisyan,

Lendroosh Khoorshoudyan, Doctor-Professor of
Historical Studies Babken Harutyunyan, Associate
Professor Gevorg Ter-Vardanyan and Meroozhan
Karapetyan and Associate Professor in Philology
Sooren Sahakyan for their corrections and very
meaningful critique.

I have received no financial assistance for

this work. It has been produced by my own
personal means.

4
 PREFACE

In 1992, I was invited to the United States of America by the American Council of
Young Political Leaders to participate in a two-week analysis program of the US
elections. It was an extremely interesting event.

In 1995, I was a recipient of an International Security studies grant provided by the

Carnegie Corporation of New York, working in affiliation with the Program on the
Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public
Affairs at Syracuse University.

From September 1997 till June 1998 I worked as a visiting Senior Fulbright Scholar,
affiliated with the Center for Russian and Eastern Studies at Stanford University,
USA.

I am extremely grateful to all the above institutions and individuals who gave me the
opportunity to travel and work in the areas of international relations and conflictology
and in leading American strategic centres. (These travels have not been in relation to
Armenian Studies). During my travels I met some wonderful people who were all
highly qualified specialists, each in their own field.

I have numerous American friends, whom I love and respect dearly. Thus, this
extremely critical survey does not bear any anti-American sentiment or motive
whatsoever. This book has been written from a scientific point of view, with the
intention of defending and establishing the truth.

This study has led to the definitive conclusion, that Armenian Studies are endangered
in America and internationally in general, the standards of which are of grave concern
in Armenia and the future of Armenian studies.

14th September 1998

Yerevan.

5
 1. INTRODUCTION

Armenian History as a Strategic Resource

The quality of good governance of a nation is dependent upon the concept of social
and economic wellbeing, which advances and unites a whole nation. The historical
and spiritual inheritance of a nation is the imminent cornerstone in creating a healthy
and united society.

Hence, Armenian history is the irrevocable strategic resource of Armenia. This serves
as a solid foundation upon which a stable government is built, the result of which is
apparent in the four thousand year old Armenian civilization and its uniquely strong
Armenian identity. When this is seen as a valuable source of exploitation and
“extensive monetary gain”, then surely ones national and cultural identity is worth
more than oil, gas, gold and other expendable mineral resources, the latter of which
can only safeguard ones nation and its advancement for a fleeting moment in history,
as opposed to the invaluable inheritance of ones national and cultural identity, which
is, in essence, a source of unceasing and everlasting wealth.

The majority of developing countries, including those with rich resources who do not
have a rich cultural history, will often be threatened by dangerous social and political
turmoil. We too, will face a similar fate if we do not resolve our problems and take
ownership of our rich spiritual past with all its worth. If this fails, then our national
security will be jeopardised. Subsequently, the scientific research of Armenia is of
paramount importance. Results of this research should be served on to the
international community through appropriate means, not just for academic purposes,
but for the purpose of introducing the newly established Armenian government as
well. The deep knowledge of our roots is essential for the unity of our nation and also
an important factor in educating the younger generations in becoming good citizens.

Honestly speaking, at present, there are known and unknown forces, who do not wish
to see Armenia as a strong strategic force and having understood the great importance
of Armenian history, have surpassed us, and have long since begun working on a
politically motivated agenda of loot and destruction of our history, piece by piece. I
am referring to programs that are well known in international scientific circles and
who have, for decades, been engaged in the falsification of the origins of Armenian
history. The Armenian nation is well aware of the works of these Turkish and
Azerbaijani scholars who were subjected to a heavy backlash by Soviet Armenian
scientists from the 1960’s to the 1980’s. These will be examined herewith, but we
have yet to seriously evaluate the manipulation of Armenian history by the West,
especially that which is taking place in Armenian Studies Centers in the United States
of America. Taking into account the national security of Armenia (internal-civilian
and external-international), the falsified version of Armenian historiography and
Armenian studies in the West, is more dangerous and harmful, than the Turko-
Azaerbaijani historical fallacies. This is aimed at Armenian interests on an
international scale and this propaganda is an integral part of this aim.

6
 Pro-Turkish Attitudes in Western Academic Circles

In Western intellectual and academic circles, pro-Turkish attitudes in the Near and Far
East began forming at the beginning of the 19th century, when for the first time British
and Russian monarchies began having intense conflicting interests in the Near and Far
East. Initially, the foundation for pro-Turkish attitudes were laid by the Anglo-
Russian conflict of interests, followed by USA/West – USSR/East, when the global
political race lasted for a very long time, except for a break during WWI and a brief
break during WWII. These breaks, however, were short lived and did not alter the
mentality and the position of the pro-Turkish intellectuals and academicians, who
were serving the West1. But during the Cold War (1945-1990), pro-Turkish forces
scored an important victory. This was a time when the global strategic race was
becoming more intense between the two super powers the USSR and the USA and
hostilities were taking place in every corner of the world between the members of the
Warsaw Pact (Treaty) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These
hostilities were in essence being played out like a gaming theory, which had
infiltrated the political arena. It was called a game of zero-sum, which meant that the
gain of one party was the loss of the other and vice versa. In these circumstances, it is
natural that, Turkey’s moral, physical and international integrity was being threatened
by the historical and political aspirations and the call for the return of its lands by
Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. Since Turkey was a member of NATO and
Armenia an integral part of the USSR, this meant that the Communist bloc would
become even more powerful and this conflict of interest was simply unacceptable by
the West. This would be a blow to its political aspirations.
This is what Christopher Walker, an exceptionally unique Western historian, has
written in this regard:

“Prejudice against Armenians in Western academic, and even diplomatic circles was to some
extent legitimised by the Cold War (when the attitude was to support Turkey whatever the
cost); and despite the ending of the Cold War, a number of Western academics and
ex-diplomats appear to remain quite ‘Brezhnevite’ in their incapacity or unwillingness
to extend any understanding to the Armenian viewpoint, or to look seriously at its documentary
basis. They continue to give almost uncritical support for the Turkish official version. As a
result, much of what poses to be serious writing in academic journals about modern Armenian
history is parti pris, selective and unreliable. It is Cold War, Nato history, which has an interest
in cover-up and which does not seek to discover or explain the situation as it really was. Large
amounts of important documentary evidence (especially German eyewitness dispatches of
1915) are simply overlooked by Ankara’s clients.”2

_____________________________________________________________________
1.Christopher J. Walker, “Greenmantle’s Absent Armenians: A Study of Anglo-Ottoman
Attitudes,” Armenian Review, Winter 1992, Vol. 45, #4/180, pp
2. Christopher J.Walker . ed., Armenia and Karabakh: The Struggle for Unity. Forward by Gerard Chaliand
(London, Minority Rights Publications, 1991), P.3
7
This is a perfect evaluation of historical events, but having said that, there is a need to
add the following:

1. Western global political hostilities towards Russia did not cease even after
the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is true, that many distinguished American
political analysts openly declared that, “The end of the cold war is also over,” and
it is necessary to continue to reinforce and expand our position3. The expansion of
NATO towards the East confirmed that this was the single most important aim of
the West. During the second half of the 1990’s, due to the grim events that took
place in global politics, Armenia, yet again, found herself in exactly the same
camp as Russia, not having clear and distinct borders. But Turkey continued to
remain an ally of the West, hoping to become a super power in the region (we
have incidentally referred to these issues in another study).4 In addition to all these
events, Azerbaijan is using every means towards becoming the link between the
West and the Transcaucuses and the Middles East. As a result the dark and
shadowy Western school of “Armenian Studies” that existed during the Cold War
has had no reason to re-evaluate or change its position.

2. The Western school of “Armenian Studies” has not only raised its hand on
modern Armenian history, as thought by Walker, many others and ourselves,
which we will illustrate herewith, but is also fallaciously manipulating
ancient and medieval Armenian political and cultural history as a whole. This
is a perfectly normal progression, because history, as a whole, is “organically”
linked with the notion of cause and effect. It is scientifically impossible to
study one period of history that is separated by time from the previous and
following periods. It is impossible to isolate a historical event. Therefore, a
“convincing” fallacy and distortion of history works within similar norms.

_____________________________________________________________________
3.See eg. John J. Maresca, The End of the Cold War is Also Over (Stanford University :Center
for International Security and Arms Control, April 1995), pp.1-23. Andrey Revunov, Strategia:
Amerikantsi namerevayoutsia usilit cvoe vlianie na yuzhnikh rubezhakh Rossii” , Nezavisimoye
voyennoye obozrenie (Moskva), No. 42, 6-12 noyabriya, 1998.
4. See Armen Aivazian, “Gharabaghi hakamartootyan kargavoroome yev Hayastani razmavarakan
anvtanngutyune” menagrootyan mej. Yerevan “Hayastan”, “Hayinfo”, 1998:

8
 Western “Armenian Historiography” evaluated as wrong and its reasons

What were the reasons that caused Armenian historiographers in Armenia to disrupt
and in time put an end to the ever so increasing tendencies of the West in further
distorting Armenian history? Let us mention a few:

a) There appeared to be no criticism of Western “Armenian studies,” hence an

attitude of oversight and indifference started taking shape.

Armenian specialists in Russia and Europe founded Modern Armenian

historiography at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. They
included European historiography, linguistics and other social sciences in all their
studies relating to Armenian history, as instructed by their teachers. These
specialists referred to their teachers and European specialist of Eastern Studies in
general, with often, exaggerated reverence.

This lack of oversight and indifference was multiplied by, yet another problem,
this being, the oversight of national values by some Armenians, whose roots were
deep seeded in the circles of foreign governments. This attitude was then passed
on to the following generations of Armenian historiographers.

b) The school of Soviet Armenian historiography, which made great advances,

especially during the 1940’s till the 1990’s, had a minimal number of specialists
who were fluent in European languages.

c) The isolation of Soviet sociologists and historians from the West and the
western scientific world.

d) The fear of being accused of nationalistic views, which the older generation had
experienced in 1937.

e) The majority of our experts (especially medieval specialists) who were familiar
with European languages were, in general, ill-prepared in international politics
and sociology. Historically, we have not paid much attention to the importance of
politicising historiography and historical theory. In Soviet times, the notion of
western freedom and liberty was extremely romanticised, with the exception of
those western writers who were known in Armenian circles and openly showed
interest towards Armenia (especially those who were literate in either written or
spoken Armenian). They were glorified for almost all their works and
publications, without attempting to delve into the depths of these ‘famous’ works.

One would think, not being ruled by a Soviet Communist Party, scientists living in
western liberal societies, would not be interested in any gain other than true
academia and be guided by honest and historically truthful opinions.

9
 The truth is, the amount of finances that were being spent by the USSR on
“propaganda and publicity” in the international arena, similar amounts or more
were being spent and very effectively, on the propagandist war by the western
supporters and allies of Turkey.

f) Amongst those serving the West are a few writers who are Armenian by birth
and who are deeply involved in misguiding and confusing Armenian intellectuals
in Armenia, as it is difficult to believe, that they are knowingly and at times
“subtly” doing deliberate disservice to Armenian historiography and the Armenian
nation.

e) Of late, western ‘historiography’ is fulfilling its set tasks not in the crude
Turkish or Azerbaijani way, but in a more subtle, seemingly scientific manner,
under the disguise of academia. This kind of fallacy is relatively difficult to
recognise and therefore, extremely dangerous.

As well, it is important to note that the points mentioned above (or each point taken
individually) was enough to put a historian in Armenia or any other specialist in a
situation where, he would feel extremely embarrassed and confused to make any
suggestion and would therefore, be caught up in this Gordian knot created by western
“Armenian studies.”

Another important point worthy of mention is, that by speaking of the false
Western school of Armenian Studies, we always have in mind the people in ruling
academic circles or groups in the USA, who are in charge or have been in charge of
established Armenian faculties and all the publications. Some of these are:
Robert Thompson (at present the decan of the Faculty for Armenian studies named
after Galoost Gulbenkian at Oxford University), who was previously the decan of the
Faculty of Armenian studies at Harvard University between 1969-1992; Since 1965,
Nina Garsoian has been in leading positions at Columbia University where she was
the first decan of Gevorg Avetisian faculty of Armenian History and Sociology and
was retired in 1993)5; Ronald Suny (who has for more than a decade been the head of
Modern Armenian History at the faculty named after Alec Manoukian at Michigan
University, and since 1995 Professor at the faculty of Sociology); James Russel (who
replaced Thompson as director of the faculty of Armenian Studies); Peter Cowe (a
guest lecturer at UCLA in Los Angeles, Narekatsi faculty); Levon Avdoyan (in
charge of the Caucasian section of US Congress); George Bournootian (teacher at
Iona College in New York and member of the Armenian Benevolent Union); Robert
Hewsen (who is at present teaching at Rowan College in New Jersey and is engaged
in Armenian historical geography and mapping)6 and other specialists working under
their leadership.
_____________________________________________________________________
5 Nina Garsoian see details – From Byzantium to Iran: Armenian Studies in Honour of Nina G. Garsoian
(Atlanta, Georgia, Scholars Press, 1997), pp XIII-XV.
6 Short Biographical see R. Hewsen, Russian-Armenian Relations, 11700-1828 (Cambridge, Mass.: Society of
Armenian Studies, 1984),p. (I), Preface.

10
Besides those mentioned above, there are scientists and experts in the West, including
the USA, whose works are truly scientific and are unlike works which are flawed,
unscientific and are “written to order” for various reasons.

Let us name a few: Louise Nalbandian (1974)7; American Sociologist Mary

Kilbourne Mattossian8; Vahakn Dadrian (currently examining and working on his
extensive program on genocide which has been funded by the Gugenheim
Foundation); Levon Chorbajian (Professor of Sociology at the University of
Massachusetts); Rouben Adalian (in the 1990’s lecturer of sociology at John Hopkins
University in Washington and director of Ani Armenian Studies Institute); Ina
Baghdiantz9 (at present decan of the newly established Jarakian faculty at Tufts
University); David M. Lang (1990) and Christopher Walker (historians living in
London) and others.
However, some scholars and almost all the Armenians of the diaspora have put their
faith in the representatives of the false-school of Western “Armenian Studies” and
their publications, without being familiar with the sources of Medieval and Ancient
Armenian History.

***

This is not a full and comprehensive study of the issues raised in relation to American
Armenian studies. Our aim is to examine and shed light on certain fundamental issues
in American historiography. In the first part of this study we will examine a book
published in 1993, where the author tries to, once in for all, “legitimise” the extreme
fallacy and manipulation of “Armenian studies” in America of the last few decades.
The book is appraised as “the first post-soviet Armenian historiography”10 and has
been widely circulated in the United States of America. We will see how the facts
manifested in the book, best describe the unscholarly and highly politicised stance of
“Armenian Studies” in America.

In the second part, we will summarise the notable “achievements” of the American
“Armenian Studies” in the past three decades and their intentions.

_____________________________________________________________________
7 The following work is worthy of mention: Louise Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The
Development of Armenian Political Parties Through the Nineteenth Century (Berkley University of California
Press, 1963).
8 See Mary Kilbourne Matossian, The impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia (Leiden,Netherlands: E.J.Brill
1962).The translation and publication of this extremely valuable study into Armenian is undoubtedly of utmost
importance.
9 We are acquainted with the Ph.D. dissertation of Ina Baghdiantz, The Armenian Merchants of New Julfa:
Some Aspects of Their International Trade in the Late Seventeenth century. Ph. D. dissertation (Unpublished
Dissertation, Columbia University, 1993).
10 Robert H. Hewsen, “Review of Ronald Grigor Suny’s Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History
. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993, “American Historical Review October, 1994, p. 1357.

11
 PART ONE

R.G. Suny’s ‘ Looking toward Ararat: Armenian Modern History’ the most
prominent book in American ‘Armenian studies’ or the false scientific school
of progressive advancement.

1. Introduction

In 1993, Ronald Grigor Suny’s book ‘Looking toward Ararat: Armenian Modern
History’ was published by Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Pp. XI, 289. The
author is well respected in American academic circles as well as the Armenian
community in America. He is known as one of the leading specialists, specialising in
national problems of countries of the former Soviet Union, also modern history of
countries in the Transcaucasus. This is how, Norman Naimark, decan of Russian and
East-European studies at Stanford University, praises his friend, “Suny is not only a
highly specialised methodologist in Russian and post-Soviet history, but is also
famous for his achievements in Georgian and Armenian historiography.”11

We will clarify this commendation later. But for now, some information on
R.G..Suny. Since 1995, he has been a professor at the faculty of Sociology at the
University of Chicago, which is one of the most famous universities in America. Prior
to that, for over a decade, he was a professor at the faculty of Modern Armenian
History - Alec Manoukian foundation at Michigan University. During these years
Suny produced his most “prominent” book, known to be the greatest “achievement”
in “Armenian Studies” in America.

2. Suny’s main aim

In the preface of his book ‘Looking toward Ararat’, Suny mentions the main aim of
his work, that is to “decompose” hai,

“…for political nationalists, the basis for their political ideology, the continuous
existence of the Armenians as a historic people, their origins in the Armenian
plateau, arms them with the right of self-determination, nationhood, and a
historically sanctified claim to the territories that constitute Armenia.”12

According to Suny, this Armenian view is nothing but “the collection of beliefs”.
Here is his next sentence (which, incidentally, shows that Suny, being fully aware of
___________________________________________________________________
11 Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford
University Press, 1993). P XII.
12 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op.cit., pp.4-5.

12
his anti-Armenian stance and his chosen path, has rushed to stop his most likely
critics by saying),

“Because this view of Armenian history plays such an important political role
for Armenians…, any attempt to dispute it, to decompose the collection of
beliefs that make up this reading, must be done with care and sensitivity, with
full awareness that such an investigation may be perceived as an attack on the
very soul of the nation.”13

Although Suny’s aim in the above quote is sufficient enough to prove it unscientific,
it is important to clarify the basis of his theory. Hence, thanking the author for his
major prediction (or perhaps assignment), for being so very honest about his
confession, let us examine his love of dualism.

3. Questions on Ancient and Medieval Armenian History

The sources Suny refers to are often simply not mentioned and this is one of the
inaccuracies of the methodology used in his book, which does not happen merely by
chance. This is exactly how he has unscientifically “proven” the origins of the
Armenians.

“the Proto-Armenians migrated into eastern Anatolia, the Armenian Plateau,

in the mid-sixth century BC.”14

There are two major fallacies in this short sentence.

1)
Connecting eastern Anatolia to the Armenian Plateau is both historically and
geographically wrong. Until the last few decades, the geographical border of
Anatolia was synonymous with The Peninsula of Asia Minor. Since the
1920’s, first in Turkey, then in the West as well, Anatolia and the newly
concocted Eastern Anatolia was used purposefully, to define the whole area
east of the Turkish Republic, including Eastern Armenia and Kurdistan. Even
those who employ this kind of geographical misnomer of Anatolia, have not
tried to connect it with the whole of the Armenian highlands, which also
includes Eastern (Persia/Russia/Soviet/independent) Armenia. However, Suny
includes Eastern Armenia into the territory of Anatolia. This is revealed in his
following description of Karabakh. “A mountainous region at the easternmost
edge of the great Armenian mountain-plateau stretching through eastern
Anatolia.”16 Note that other American “Armenian specialists” have also started
to include the Armenian highlands as a part of Anatolia. Speaking of ancient
times, Nina Garsoian also includes the Armenian highlands into Anatolia by
saying,
_____________________________________________________________________
13 ibid, p. 5.
14 ibid, p. 7.
15 See, e.g. Armenian soviet encyclopaedia. No.1 (Yerevan, 1974), p 373. Comp. Encyclopedie de l’Islam.
Nouvelle edition. Tome. I (Leyde-Paris: E.J. Brill, 1960), p. 475; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 2 (Chicago-
London-Toronto, 1961). P. 536.
16 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 193.
13
 ( “ The political situation prevailing in Anatolia and particularly on the
Armenian highlands…”).17

We will, however, pay close attention to Suny’s use of the Anatolian edge and the
underlying deep nuances. But now, we will return to the question of the origins of
Armenians.

2) Suny does not say where the Proto-Armenians “migrated” from, to the
Armenian highlands. Hence, one can assume he is referring to the already old
theory that the Proto-Armenians were the Phrygians who invaded and captured
the historical Armenian territory in 6th century BC. However, it has been
shown by Modern Armenian studies that ethnic Armenians existed and
belonged to the Armenian highlands long before and during the Urartu rule (9-
6th century BC.)18 Solid evidence in this regard has been scientifically proven
and documented in specialised English literature by prominent foreign
specialists.19 Incidentally, Suny remains totally mute about the existence of
this popular view, as well the major scientific research that shows the
homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans was the Armenian highlands and its
surrounding regions).20 Therefore, he either finds this research irrelevant or
unworthy of mention (perhaps it would endanger the Turkish view that the
Armenians are immigrants), or is simply unaware of it.

Speaking of the formation of the Armenian people, Suny makes the following
declaration,

“ Up to the reign of the great king Tigran (95-55 BC), Armenians were in the
process of original social linguistic formation. The Proto-Armenians became
an identifiable group with their own Iranian-style tribal structure and borrowed
paganism.)21
_____________________________________________________________________
17 Richard Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern times, Vols.1-2, (New York
St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p.37
18 See G.A. Kapantsyan, Khayasa – kolibyel armyan. Etnogenets armyan. Etnogenez armyan i ikh
nachalnaya istoriya, Yerevan, 1947. G.B. Jahookyan, Hayots Patmootyun, nakhakristoneyakaan: Yerevan
1987: G.B. Jahookyan “Haykakan sherte urartakan ditsaranoom”, O soatnashenii khayaskogo i armyanskogo
yazikov”, “Lezvakan nor tvyalner hayots nakhakristoneakan kroni yev havatalikneri masin”- Patma-
banasirakan handes, 1985, No. 1, 1988, No. 1,2, 1992, No.1. B.N. Arakelyan, G.B. Jahookyan , G.K.
Sargsyan, Urartu- Hayastan: Yerevan, GA, 1988: S. Hmayakyan, Vani tagavorootyan petakan krone:
Yerevan 1990:
19 See eg. R.D.Wilkinson, Introduction to the history of Pre-Christian Armenia (Cambridge, Mass.: Society for
Armenian Studies,1983), pp. 3-6, 72, notes 8 and 9; Edward Gulbekian, “Why did Herodus Think the
Armenians Were Phrygian Colonists?” Armenian Review 44 (3-175) (Autum 1991), pp. 65-70.
20 See T.V. Gamkreleedze, V.V. Ivanov, Indoyevropyeskiy yazik i indoyevropitsi. Rekonstrooktsiy i istoriko-
tipologicheskiy analiz pryazika i protokooltoori. Predisl. R.O.Yakobson, v 2-ukh tomakh. Tbilisi 1984. This
work has many times been referred to in European languages as well as published in English: See also
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes
(Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 264-265; Colin Renfrew, Archeology and Languages: The Puzzle of
Indo-European Origins (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987); Colin Renfrew, “The Origins of Indo-European
Languages,” Sci. Am.261(4), pp.106-114 (1989). A.B. Dolgopolski, “ The Indo-European homeland and
Lexical contacts of Proto-Indo-European with other languages,” Mediterr. Lang. Rev. (Harassowitz) 3:4-31.
Merrit Ruhlen, The Origin of language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue (Toronto: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. 1994), pp. 186-188.
21 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p.7

14
First of all, it is not clear how, according to Suny, Proto-Armenians having invaded
Armenia only four hundred and fifty years earlier, in 1st century BC were able to form
an Iranian-style tribal structure (unless, by saying this, he is suggesting a new
nonsensical theory, that the Proto-Armenians came from Iran). Secondly, in the 1st
century BC which were the tribes that had progressed from Proto-Armenians to
Armenians? What were their names and when did the formation of this tribal structure
come to an end? In reality, Modern Armenian studies is not aware of such tribes, but
the structure of the Armenian nation is known to have ended at least in 6-5th century
BC. Our dear Professor has not answered yet another question. Did the “Proto-
Armenians” he mentions, not have their own pagan elements (or perhaps they were
atheists)? Or, as he says, they had simply borrowed the “Iranian and Greek gods” and
accordingly founded their “national (ref.. to A.A.)… pagan religion”, toward which
they had shown surprisingly “devout dedication”.22 On the contrary, there is
specialised literature on the Proto-Armenian and Armenian pagan religion.23

Finally, it would be very interesting, if Suny could really clarify what he means by
saying that the Armenians became an “identifiable group” only in 1st century BC.
Then who did they define as “hai”? Was it Hekateos Miletatsi (550 BC), the
inscriptions of Behistun by King Darius (520 BC), or perhaps Herodotos Xenophon,
(5th century BC). These are manifestations that Suny himself refers to.24

Not being fully satisfied, Suny, most irresponsibly, announces that the Armenians had
formed “an identifiable ethnic-religious community” by the beginning of the 4th
century AD.25 As a result, the English speaking audience, totally unaware of
Armenian history, would, in this mixture of concoctions and misinformation, believe
that the Armenian nation was formed between 1st century BC and 4th century AD,
which is not based on true facts and is totally wrong.

4. Armenian Genetics

Special attention should be paid to Suny’s intention of keeping Armenians as far away
from their roots as possible. Straight after mentioning the existence of Proto-
Armenians in the 6-5th century BC, he goes on to say,

“Perhaps, there are genetic connections between this ancient people and
some living today in Soviet Armenia,26 but having lived in a region of
volatile East-West migrations, invasions and conquests, modern
Armenians are more the product of ethnic intermingling, than they are
the pure biologic heirs of Urartu.)27

___________________________________________________________
22 idid, p. 8
23 See eg.18:
24 ibid , p. 7 comp. RonaldGrigor Suny, The revenge of the Past: op. cit, p. 175, note 72.
25 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 8.
26 It is well known that in 1993 Soviet Armenia did not exist, therefore, our ‘Armenian specialist’ has refrained
from editing his book, or his mind, in a proper manner.
27 ibid, p. 7.
15
Suddenly, mentioning Urartu right at the very end, Suny very humbly tries to allow
himself some room to retreat, but the whole context of his work definitely creates the
impression, that the Armenians have acquired this elemental gene much later. He
almost goes on to say this took place during the period of Soviet Armenia, because
Suny describes migrations, invasions, conquests and exterminations, which have been
carried out right up to the twenties of this century.

In reality, the genetic homogeneity has been the basis of bringing the Armenian nation
together and ensuring its continuity, which can be defined as the cornerstone of ones
identity. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The Armenians have very distinct
features and resemblance. They are tall, dark, their eyes are large and the nose long
narrow and at times aquiline. Their heads are short which stretches up from the back
of the neck so that the skull is cone shaped.28 This is the description by which an
Armenian is easily recognised in far off foreign lands.

Indeed, the Armenian kings during the first century BC had these features, which are
shown on coins, especially Tigran the Great, Artavazd II, Tigran III.29 According to
scientists and anthropologists, skulls that have been dated to the second and first
centuries BC and which have been reconstructed by the most modern methods, reveal
extreme genetic likeness between ancient and modern generations of Armenian.30
According to specialists, “skulls unearthed in Noradooz, belonging to early iron age
man, do not differ at all from the skulls of modern Armenians. They are bestowed
with extremely protruded nasal bones the bridge or base of which is very high and has
a strong skeletal profile.”31 Yet another multifaceted research has reached a similar
conclusion.

“The variation of the genetic code in Rhesus (d) ABO that has been discovered
in Armenians living in mountainous Kharabakh, Armenia, Georigia and France
and has been researched at different times has remained the same. It is evident
that the PA and d genes in this population occurs at a higher frequency”.32

___________________________________________________________________
28 Vol. (Chicago-London-Toronto, 1996), pp.380-381
29 For copies of photos see, Zareh Ptookyan. Artashesyan harstootyan dramnere: Vienna, 1969
M.A.Moosheghyan Hayastani dramakan ganzer, Yerevan 1973.
30 See Rooben Harutyounyan and Nvard Kochar, Inch en patmum mer genere, Yerevan, 1989, pp.55,
61-62.
31 ibid. p.55.
32 V.M. Nersisyan, P.Z.Delanyan, I.B. Danelyan, N.Y. Badoonts “Osobbennosti racpredelenuya
fenomen ee genov system AVO and rhesus Y nasileniya Nagornogo Karabakha”. (Genetics Russian
Academy of Sciences) Tom 30, 2, 1994 February, p. 274.
16
This kind of homogeneity in human genetics has its historical explanation, which is as
follows. Even though Armenians may have intermarried or assimilated with
foreigners and often by force rather than by will, they have not assimilated with great
numbers of ethnic groups to have caused a considerable amount of genetic change.
The Armenians have lived an extremely long period of factual endogamy because of
geographic, historic, social and religious reasons. This means that mixed Armenian
marriages have always been at a minimal percentage (not taking into account the
Armenians living in the diaspora, who have been exposed to naturally occurring
cultural changes and assimilation). Let us mention three main reasons that have been
favourable for Armenian endogamy.

1) Armenian ethnic homogeneity is a historic fact beginning from the

last several centuries BC (note, Strabo’s famous proclamation
regarding Armenia being monolingual during King Artashes I ),33 till
17th century AD. As well, during 17-18th centuries AD, the
Armenians were a majority in the historic regions of Armenia.
2) From mid 13th Century AD, due to the lack of powerful strategic and
political governance, Armenian assimilation was becoming apparent.
At the same time it was impossible to assimilate others with
‘Armenians’.
3) It was practically impossible to marry Muslims, Catholics, Greeks,
Georgians and Assyrians due to religious beliefs and for fear of being
isolated from the community. We may note the following declaration
in Armenian constitutional books “The law shall be laid for those
seeking intermarriages.” Disobeying this law would have attracted
severe punishment for the person deciding to intermarry and their
parents as well.34

And so, the Armenians have continually preserved a high standard of genetic
homogeneity with all its divisionary repercutions.35 It would not be an exaggeration to
say, that today children born of Armenian parents are genetically much closer to the
Armenians living during the last few centuries BC, than compared with those of
present day French or Spanish (it is needless to talk of American, Australian,
Brazilians and other younger nations) to their ancestors living in10th century AD. As
mentioned, our conclusions have been confirmed by research and findings by
anthropologists, genealogists, biologists, scientists and doctors.36
___________________________________________________________________
33 Strabo, Geography, Compiles and translated by F. Lasserre (Paris, 1975), book XI, Chapter 14, 5(Coll.
G.Bude, vol. VIII, p. 123). The dealied analysis of Strabo’s proclamation see Gagik Sargsian, Identity
and Self-awareness, The Rise of Mets Haik (Identitas), A, Yerevan, ‘Kamar’, 1995, p. 91-93.
34 Mkhitar Gosh, Geerk Datastani. Kanonagir Hayots H.A. Ashkhatasirootyamb Vazgen Hakobian, Yerevan
Hratarak. 1964, p. 231:
35 Factual endogamy and its social outcomes see: U.B. Bromley, Ocherki teory etnosa. Moscva, 1983, cc 206-7.
36 For details and manuscript studies see: Rouben Harutyunyan and Nvard Kochar, same work., pp. 51-61, 75-86,
102-104, 132, 136-137.

17
Finally, let us note, that Suny’s wrong theory of Armenian genetics is most likely
based on his source, a well known fraudulent Turkish writer Kyamuran Gyurun, who
has expressed himself more clearly, “The ancient Armenians have nothing in common
with the modern Armenian community”.37 Thus, we can conclude that Suny’s and
Gyurun’s perceptions of Armenian genetics are extremely distant from historical
reality and existing specialist literature.

_____________________________________________________________________
37 See Manvel Zoolalyan, Falsification of Armenian History in Modern Turkish Historiography (ancient and
medieval era)5 Yerevan, 1995, p.46.

18
 5.‘Questions’ about the origins of Azerbaijanis and Armenians of
Karabagh

Suny, in a premeditated and unfounded way, negates the genetic continuity of ancient
and new generations of Armenians, and at the same time does not hesitate to proclaim
that Caucasian Albanians were, a) ‘distinct ethno-religious group, b) that the very
same people, although Turkish speaking and Shia Muslims are ‘the direct ancestors of
present-day Azerbaijanis’ 38. He has said this without taking into account the evidence
brought forward by historiographers, that the meta-ethnic39 Albanians of the Caucasus
consisted of 26 tribes, each of which, according to Strabo, spoke in their own tongue40
These tribes were united under one kingdom called Kingdom of Aghvank for nearly
five centuries, from 1st Century BC to 462 AD, when it was decomposed by Persia.
After that, these tribes continued to exist separately, each under its own heterogenous
tribal name, the direct descendants of which are the peoples of Daghestan and
northern Azerbaijan who spoke in Lezgi languages. These tribes were the Lezgis
(լ ե զ գ ի ն ե ր ), Udis (ո ւ դ ի ն ե ր ), Thabasarantsis «թ ա բ ա ս ա ր ա ն ց ի ն ե ր ),
Tsakhooris «ց ա խ ո ւ ր ն ե ր ), Rootultsis (ռ ո ւ թ ո ւ թ ց ի ն ե ր ), Agooltsis
(ա գ ո ւ լ ց ի ն ե ր ը ), Kris (ք ր ի զ ն ե ր ը ), Budooks (բ ո ւ դ ո ւ գ ն ե ր ը ) and
Khinaloogs (խ ի ն ա լ ո ւ գ ն ե ր ը )41.

Suny’s theory, that the Caucasian Albanians are the direct ancestors of the present day
Azerbaijanis is false and fictitious, because the Azerbaijanis are, a) according to
Shireen Hunter, the product of intermingling of Iranian and Turkish peoples, b) they
speak Turkish, c) their religion is Shia Muslim (the Armenized Albanians were
Christians), d) they have inherited a mixture of Turkish and Iranian cultures42 as noted
by Shireen Hunter.

Continuing his Turko-Azeri path, Suny writes,

“Karabakh had been in ancient and medieval times part of the kingdom
of the Caucasian Albanians… in time the Karabakh Albanians merged with
the Armenians.The central seat of the Albanian church at Gandzasar became
one of the bishoprics of the Armenian church…43

Fortunately, there is no need to refute the detailed falsifications of the infamous Zia
Booniatov and the fallacies adopted by his students, as they have been proven to be
false in numerous studies and research by scholars during the 1960-1990’s,
_____________________________________________________________________
38 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op.cit., p. 193.
39 See details in S.E Brook, H.H. Cheboksarov. Metaetnicheskiye obshnesti. – Rasi I Narodi, T.6, Moskva, 1976,
pp. 15-41.
40 Strabo, Geograph. Compiled and trnsl. By F.Lasserre (Paris,1975), book XI, 4,6.
41 Regarding these tribes and about more than 20-names see- A.A. Akopian, Albaniya-Alunk v greko-latinskikh e
drevnearmyanskikh istochnikakh, Erevan, 1987. This fundamental writing has been presented in Revue des
Etudes Armeniens, Vol.XXXI(Paris, 1988-1989), pp. 485-495. Compare Patmabanasirakan Handes, 1987, No.
3, pp 166-189, especially pp 167-168, 172-175.
42 Shireen T. Hunter, “The Muslim Republics of the Former Soviet Union. Policy Challenges for the United
States ,” The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1992, pp. 59-62.
43 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op.cit., p. 193.
19
which have been published in Russian French, English and Armenian.44 We will
however, make two important notations:

a) There have never been ‘Albanians in Karabagh’ who, ’would have

intermingled’ with Armenians, because the Albanian tribes used to live on the
left bank of the Kur river, but Karabagh was quite a distance away from the
right bank of the river.
If, however, the same Albanian blood flowed through the veins of
Azerbaijanis and Armenians of Karabagh, then the genetic similarity of these
two peoples would be undeniable.
But prolific research has shown, that there is a huge genetic difference
between Azerbaijanis and Karabagh Armenians45.

b) The Gandzasar monastery built in 1216-1238, was the spiritual, religious and
cultural centre of the Armanians, and today, it is the most prominent Armenian
architectural monument recognized internationally46. And so, this self
proclaimed ‘professor of Armenian history’47 defines Gandzasar as an
‘Albanian church’.

By doing this, Suny has in fact become an accessory to the Azerbaijani attempt of
falsifying history, and this is greatly responsible for the destabilisation of Armenian-
Azerbaijani interethnic relations. It is important to note, that Azerbaijani
historiography has not only attempted to re-examine Armenian history, but has also
falsified Iranian history, which has become the topic of criticism in circles outside of
Armenian historiography48. Is it possible that Suny is oblivious to the famous
Azerbaijani falsifications and existing extensive literature in this regard? Most
certainly not. He has chosen to follow the Azerbaijani fallacies, even though he has
read and on another occasion referred to these issues in his special booklet published
in 1988 by the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and also the same point of view,
edited in English by Walker49.

Suny’s writing style is worthy of mention. When he agitates this politically sensitive
question, he does not refer to any source and neither does he give a clear timeline of
events. For example, he claims that, “in ancient and medieval times Karabakh was
part of the Caucasian Albanian kingdom.” An uniformed Western audience,
____________________________________________________________________
44 For a short summary of this theory and literature see: Christopher J. Walker, ed., Armenia and Karabagh,
op. cit., pp. 73-79, 138, note 19. Also see the following journal: K osvesheniu problem istorii i kulturi
Kavkazskoi Albanii i vastochnikh provintsii Armenii. Cbornik ctatey, Erevan, 1991.
45 V.M. Nersisyan, R.Z. Delanyan, I.B. Danelyan, N.Ya. Badunts, “Ocobennocti raspredeleniya Fenotipov…”
ukaz, soch, pp.271-275.
46 See A.L. Yakobson, “Gandzasarskiy monastir i khachkari: Fakti i veimeisli”, --K ocvesheniyu problem i
kulturi Kavkazckoi Albanii i vostochnikh provintsiy Armenii, pp.448-456. See research and literature on
Gandzasar, Documents of Armenian Architecture (Documenti di Architectura Armena). Milano, Italia
1987, pp.22-25. The inscriptions of Gandzasar Monastery and names of its founders-builders can be found
in the book Gandzasar by Bagrat Uloobabyan, Yerevan, “Hayastan”, 1981.
47 See, Ronald Grigor Suny, 1993 The revenge of the Past, op. cit., p. XII and the cover.
48 See, Enayat Olla-Reza, Azarbaijan & Arran, Teheran, 1982 (Persian and Russian translations were published
in Yerevan 1993. See also Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucuses in Transition: Nation Building and
Conflict (Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1994), pp. 14-15, 190.
49 See Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 269 (note1), 281.
20
would come to the conclusion that, in the 14-15th centuries, Karabagh was an integral
part of an independent Albanian kingdom that existed in the Transcaucasus. In one of
his articles published in 1978 and later republished in 1987, Suny writes, “during the
ninth and tenth centuries, Artsakh/Karabakh was part of the Caucasian Albanian
kingdom”50. However, as we have already noted, this kingdom existed from the1st
Century BC till 462AD, but Artsakh (Karabagh) was part of this kingdom from 451-
462AD. If we are to assume that Suny did not know this in 1978-1987, then after the
readings of his booklet published by the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, he was
well aware of the Albanian questions. And so, Suny is knowingly using this slimy
style, in order to cover up for his Turkish and Azerbaijani sources, which he has
refrained from quoting in his book.

6. The international reputation of the Armenian kingdom and its borders

Suny writes,

“Only once in their past was the entire Armenian plateau unified under a single
Armenian ruler…51

It is a familiar Turkish fallacy52. It is interesting that Suny does not clarify who the
only Armenian ruler was, and does not refer to any source to support his claim.
Fortunately, his most likely source, Kamuran Gurun, speaks more clearly. According
to Gurun, “The only time (ref. Hai A.A.) these feudals were independent, was from
94BC till 66AD during the reign of Tigran”53 and then “if we put a timeframe on this
era, it lasted merely 30 years. After that Armenians were nothing but hired soldiers
used by Romans and Persians for their battles.”54

It is unnecessary to go into detailed historical facts at the moment, however, just a

reminder, that in reality, Armenia continued to be one of the most powerful empires in
the Middle East for many centuries. During the Armenian Artashesian and
Arshakooni era, the Armenian highlands were almost under total control of Armenia,
which was internationally known as one of the most powerful empires of the time.55

_____________________________________________________________________
50 Kamuran Gurun, The Armenian File: The Myth of Innocence Exposed (London-Nicosia-Istanbul: Published
jointly by K. Rustem & Bro. and Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., 1985), p. 15.
51 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 214.
52 This Turkish theory has been discussed in detail in the following book by Manvel Zoolalyan, The
Falsification of Armenian history in modern Turkish historiography, also compares Clive Foss, “The Turkish
View of Armenian History: A Vanishing Nation,” in The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, ed. by
Richard G. Hovannisian (New York: St. Martins Press, 1992), p;. 254.
53 See Kamuran Gurun, The Armenian File: The Myth of Innocence Exposed (London-Nicosia-Istanbul:
Published jointly by K. Rustem & Bro. and Weindfeld & Nicolson Ltd., 1985), p. 15
54 Ibid. p. 10
55 For details see Part Two of this book.

21
 7. The fraudulent change of name of Armenia with Anatolia

The simultaneity of events in Suny’s book are regulated to work in harmony with
Turko-Azerbaijani historiography. In his previous quote, Suny has used the
geographical term Armenian plateau instead of Armenian edge. Is this accidental?
Certainly not. In the above book, Armenian edge is hardly used, as compared with
Anatolia and Eastern Anatolia, which is used wrongly in certain places (see pp. 55,
56, 67, 95, 98, 104, 111 and so on).The fraudulent change of the word Armenia is
more pronounced in the Index (pp. 283-289). The reference to Armenia is almost non-
existent in the index. It simply refers to Republic of Armenia; Soviet Armenia and
Turkish Armenia. Ancient and medieval Armenia; Persian Armenia and Russian
Armenia do not have a place in the index of his book, though he very cunningly
quotes ‘Ancient Armenia’ (p.7), ‘Medievel Armenia, ‘Western Armenia’ (p.18),
‘Historical Armenia’ (pp. 19, 104), within the context of his book. In addition to
these, he does not use the traditional terminology of Western Armenians or Turkish
Armenians, instead he uses his newly created term Anatolian Armenians. (In the eyes
of a professional historian, Anatolian Armenians would mean those Armenians who
are living outside of historic Armenia, on the peninsula of Asia Minor). Judging from
Suny’s extensive use of Anatolian edge, which he has used more extensively within
the context of his book than the indices, it is a wonder he has not titled his book
Eastern Anatolia in Modern History instead of Armenia.

This approach was planned long ago by the Turkish propaganda machine. It is clear
that this plan was developed by a former Turkish secret service agent Esat Uras, who
later became the leader of this Turkish ideology.56 The following Turkish quote was
written in capital letters,

“It is necessary to reiterate the following, Armenia can only be a memory

based on its geographical territory, which has no political borders.”57

Suny is relatively a better writer than Uras, because in Uras’ expansive book ‘The
Armenians in History and The Armenian Question’, the word Armenia does not
appear in the Index at all58.

_____________________________________________________________________
56 See Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to the
Caucasus. (Providence & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995), p. 444.
57 See reference to Uras’s book by Christopher J. Walker, “THE ARMENIANS IN HISTORY AND THE
ARMENIAN QUESTION, by ESAT URAS. An English translation of the revised edition and expanded
Second edition. Pp. XIV, 1048, Ankara. Documentary Publications, 1988, “Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society (1990) No. 1, p. 166. See the Armenian translation in “Pyunik” journal 1991, March 31 edition, p.9-10
58 Esat Uras, The Armenians In History And The Armenian Question. An English translation of the revised and
expanded second edition, pp.XIV, 1048. Ankara. Documentary Publications, 1988, p.1035.

22
After analysing the Turkish historian’s recent book, Manvel Zoolalyan has come to
this conclusion, “All those who represent Turkish historiography express the view,
that during its entire history, Armenians have never had their own statehood and have
existed only as a small community. The land called Armenia is just a geographical
notion.”59 In the previous quote, Suny clearly repeats this Turkish view. Unfortunately
the Turkish attack on the word Armenia and its fraudulently change to Eastern
Anatolia 60 has served its purpose and is now used by Western academics. It has also
infiltrated Russian political literature. The Russians however, use Western Armenian
edge more frequently.

In addition, Suny has been involved in Turkish and pro-Turkish deliberations in

‘decomposing’ the historic word Armenia. In his book, Armenia in the Twentieth
Century, published in 1983, he claims, “There is no Armenia but Soviet Armenia, and
there is no Armenian nation but the one which dreams at the base of Ararat.”61
Thereby, not only does he consider historic Armenia ‘null and void’, but also tries to
weaken the ties between Armenia and the Armenian diaspora by attempting to deprive
millions of Armenians their heritage. Mary Kilbourne Mastossian62, an American
sociologist, has criticized this claim in the past, which unfortunately has fallen on deaf
ears.

____________________________________________________________________
59 See Manvel Zoolalyan, Enver Konukhchu, Erzeroom from the Seljooks till the Republic, Ankara, 1992 p.974
(Turk.), - Patmabanasirakan Handes, 1997, No. 1, p. 267.
60 For details see, Manvel Zoolalyan, The Falsification of Armenian History in Modern Turkish Historiography
in the same work, p. 28, 42, 60.
61 Ronald G. Suny, Armenia in the Twentieth Century (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), p. 83.
62 See Mary Kilbourne Matossian’s lecture notes Armenian Review, 1984, 37 Issue, pp. 89-91.

23
 8. Joseph Emin’s Travels in Armenia and Suny’s determinations
Let us look at the most speculative segment of Looking Toward Ararat, where Suny
has made some stunning claims. This is what he has to say:

“The notion that Armenians were not always (and consistently) aware that
they made up a distinct and historically distinguished nation, that they were
part of a coherent linguistic and religious community with a unique culture, is
difficult for many Armenians today to accept. Their very experience at home,
in church, and in school has been the affirmation and reaffirmation of a legacy
that stretches back at least to Tigran the Great, if not Urartu, certainly to
Grigor Lusavoritch (“Armenia was the first Christian nation”), to Saint Vardan
and the defence of religion and nation against those who attempted to destroy
Christianity and thereby eliminate the essence of Armenianness. It is precisely
this age-old legacy that conscious and patriotic Armenians in the diaspora are
dedicated to preserving in the face of the acculturationist and assimilationist
attractions of Western society. Yet when one takes a closer look at the early
modern history of Armenians, (sic.—not Armenia), (ref. 16-18 century –
A.A.), one finds that all but a rudimentary sense of being Armenian had been
lost for many (if not most) Armenians, particularly in Armenia proper, in the
years before the nineteenth-century revival. Language and religion (and these
in adulterated forms) were almost all that was left of Armenian culture and
consciousness as Armenians entered their third millennium.”63

Suny tries to justify his grandiose thoughts by picking references from one source
only, a novel written in English by a unique Armenian, a leader of the national
liberation movement, Joseph Emin (1726-1809). His book was published in London
in 1792. First let us look at Suny’s reproduction of Emin’s story, and a few more
sensational ‘discoveries’. The professor writes:

“As an illustration, let us remember the story of the adventurer Joseph Emin,
who traveled in Anatolia (sic.) in the mid-eighteenth century and confronted
the Armenians of the most backward regions of the Ottoman Empire with their
own past. Emin, an Armenian who had grown up in British India, took upon
himself a lifelong mission to liberate the Armenians (sic.)64 from Muslim
rule…
In 1759 he started out for eastern Turkey (sic) “into the mountains of Upper
Armenia,”… When he reached the first Armenian village, Emin narrowly
escaped a beating at the hands of the villagers who were startled to hear a
mounted horseman speak Armenian. In order to save himself Emin pretended

____________________________________________________________________
63 Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 55
64 Emin was seeking to liberate Armenia and not ‘just the Armenians’. We notice that Suny, as a principle,
refrains from using the word Armenia, which would have been the right thing to do, as the Armenians were
living under Muslim rule in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Constantinople and elsewhere.

24
 to be who the peasant had thought him to be, a Turk. Later in a private
meeting with the village head Emin asked why the Armenians opposed his
riding alone: were they against Armenians being warriors or acting freely?
The headman answered: “Sir, our liberty is in the next world; our king is Jesus
Christ.” Emin asked: “How has that come about? Who told you?” They
answered: “The Holy Fathers of the Church, who say, the Armenian nation has
been subject to the Mohametans from the creation of the world, and must
remain so till the day of resurrection; otherwise we could soon drive the
Ottomans out of our country.” Surprised by this novel reading of history, Emin
pulled out his copy of Movses Khorenatsi and asked the priest to read from it.
Here was proof that the Armenians had been independent long before the
Ottomans had come to Anatolia (sic). 65, 66

Here, Suny discontinues Emin’s story and begins to misrepresent 16th and 17th century
Armenian history.

“This peculiar story told by Joseph Emin illustrates the abysmal lack of
awareness of the Armenian peasants of eastern Anatolia…
These accounts reveal two interesting aspects of the Armenian condition:
1. Part of the effectiveness of Muslim rule over Armenians (sic. not
Armenia) stemmed from Armenian conviction that this subjugation was in
some sense justified, was ordained by God, and that liberation would come
either in heaven or only after 666 years (according to ancient prophecies). (sic.
a reader/audience will not understand the reference made to the prophecy
quoted by Suny, because he has failed to complete the full episode in Emin’s
novel. A.A.)
2. The passivity of the Armenians was… encouraged by the leading
authorities among the Armenians, particularly the clerics.
By the eighteenth century many Armenians had very little left of their national
culture, except for a language reduced to mutually incomprehensible dialects
and mixed with vocabulary borrowed (???!!! - A.A.) from the dominant
nationality. Their religion was mixed with superstitions and borrowings from
pagan practice, and their church was notoriously corrupt…. Knowledge of
Armenian history had been effectively wiped out, except among small group
of monks who copied the ancient texts…
Thus, the Armenians were in social backwardness, cultural annihilation, and
political impotency.”67

Let us examine Emin’s story in full and shed light on Suny’s unsubstantiated findings.
By looking at the above quotes, we will determine how informed this professor from
Michigan and Chicago University is about Armenian manuscripts.

65 Once again Suny refrains from using the word Armenia. According to him Movses Khorenatsi has written
about independent Armenian Anatolia, which does not make sense.
66 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., pp. 55-56
67 Ibid. p.56
25
 8.1 Armenian Culture and Manuscripts of the 16th –18th Centuries
Knowledge of Armenian history by the people
According to Suny, “Knowledge of Armenian history had been effectively wiped out,
except among a small group of monks who copied ancient texts.” Sadly, the professor
does not wish to share his statistics with us. He does not state the number of monks in
this group, nor does he name the ancient texts and how often they were copied.

In reality, the Armenian intellectuals as well as the ordinary Armenian in the 17th-18th
century were not involved in physically ‘copying’ anything. They continued to
successfully write books on philosophy, theology, historiography, architecture,
grammar, also composed poetry and music while under the repressive rule of Turkey
and Persia. The truth is, in the 17th and 18th Centuries, the Armenians were more
advanced in education and printing than the Turks, the Persians or any other ruling
nation in the region.

8.1.1. The Armenian printing press

Between 1512 and 1759, that is before Emin arrived in Armenia, the Armenians had
printed 570 different types of books68, almost tens of thousands. The majority of these
books contained topics relating to Armenian history, and some were simply Armenian
history books. For example, the voluminous Girk Patmootian, by Arakel Davrizhetsi
who died in 1670, was completed in Holy Etchmiadzin in 1662 and printed in
Amsterdam in 1669. This was the first book on Armenian historiography69 that was
published during the lifetime of the author. (This book was translated into French and
Russian)70 .
In 1638 The Armenians of New Julfa established the first printing press in Iran. It was
the first in the Middle East. This unique device was handmade and set up by local
Armenian craftsmen. It was not imported from Europe.71

Suny implies, that Emin’s copy of Movses Khorenatsi’s book was a manuscript
copy. We are certain it was a printed copy, as Movses Khorenatsi’s Armenian History
was published six times, first in Marseilles in1683, in Amsterdam in 1695 and again
in 1698 (the city is not mentioned, but is most likely to be Constantinople). It was also
published in Constantinople in 1735 (a brief composition by Minas Hamadantsi), in
London in1736 and in 1752 in Venice.72 Hence, Emin’s copy would have been one of
the above publications.
_____________________________________________________________________
68 See N.A.Voskanian, K.A.Korkotyan, A.M.Savalyan, Hai girke 1512-1800: Armenian manuscript of
the ancient type book: Introduction by N.Voskanyan, edited by R.A. Ishkhanyan, Yerevan, 1988, pp 1-441:
69 See Arakel Davrizhetsi, Kniga istorii. Perevod s armyanskogo predisloviye L.A. Khanlaryan, Moskva, 1973,
p18
70 See ref.52 & M.Brosset, Collecion d’historiens armeniens. Livre d’histoire, compos’par le vartabied Arakel
de Tauriz, t. 1 St. Petersbbourg, 1874, p. 267-608.
71 See Levon Minasyan, Printing press of New Julfa and all books printed, New Julfa 1972. Also see Rafael
Ishkhanyan, Hai grki patmootyun, V. 1, Yerevan, 1977, pp. 351-379.
72 See N.A. Voskanyan, K.A. Korkotyan, A.M. Savalyan, Hai girke 1512-1800, pp. 88-90, 116-118, 126-129,
331, 338, 415-416.

26
In spite of having a printing press, the tradition of manuscript writing by Armenians
continued and thousands of hand-written books were produced.

In order to better understand the importance of Armenian achievements, we need to

look at the cultural reality prevailing in Turkey and Persia, which were the ruling
nations of the region at the time. The first Turkish book was printed in 1729, which
was facilitated by the Armenian printing press in Constantinople. The first Armenian
printing press was established in Constantinople in 1565 and was significantly
advanced by then.73

The first Persian book was printed in 1826,74 whereas the first Georgian book was
printed in 1708.75 We wonder if the professor is aware of any other ancient texts that
were printed in Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Assyrian or any other language in the region at
the time.

8.1.2. Armenian education

Suny tries to reaffirm his claim about the ‘cultural annihilation’76 of the Armenians,
and says, “prior to the Russian annexation, the Caucasian Armenians did not have
schools. (!!??- -A.A.)77.

First of all, thousands of hand written books were copied and recopied, which in fact
were quite expensive to do at the time, as it is indeed today. This proves that Suny is
totally undermining the cultural and material wealth created by the Armenians in the
16th – 18th centuries. Secondly, the education and literacy standards of the Armenian
people at the time, were much higher than those of the Ottoman Turks, Assyrians
(who often attended Armenian schools )78 and slightly higher than those of the
Persians.

As a result of devastating wars in the 15th and 16th centuries, Armenian culture
suffered a setback. However, the 17th century witnessed a revival in Armenian
educational culture. Education spread from the famous school in Baghesh to Tathev,
then throughout Armenia.79 In 1639, the school in Etchmiadzin had 50 students,
[quote from Classical Armenian] “ our spiritual brothers, fifty in number, are studying
the Holy scriptures in the Bible and are being educated by reading philosophy…”80

_____________________________________________________________________
73 See U.A. Petrosian, Osmanskogo Imperia: Mogushestvo I gibel, Moskva: Nauka, 1990, pp. 144-145 (in 1748
the Turkish print was taken off the press, which resumed at the end of the 18th century). Comp. B.M.
Tughlachian, Armenian Printing in the Ottoman Empire and facilitating the Turkish printing culture… People
of theNear & Middle East, XII: Turkey. Yerevan, GA, 1985, p.98-114.
74 See Abdul Razzak Dumbuli, Muasire Sultanie (Persian, works of Persian Kingdom). The book was
republished in Teheran in 1973.
75 See N. Berdzenishvili, I. Djavakhishvili, S. Dzhanashia, History of Georgia, Part 1, Tbilisi, 1946, P.387.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid. p.58
78 See A. Movsisyan, Sketches of The Armenian school and pedagogy, X-XI centuries, Yerevan, 1958, p. 302
79 See Nerses Akinian, The Baghesh School, 1500-1704, Vienna, 1952.
80 Memoirs from XVII century manuscripts (1641-1704), Vol.3, Edited by Vazgen Hakobyan, Yerevan 1984,
Vol. 3, p. 537.

27
In a letter written in March 1639, the school was named “new Athens”, “Decan
Simeon… arrived at the Holy Sea and by the grace of the holy Spirit (ref. students –
A.A.), young and old gathered together, in all 30 in number and started to study…”81
Arakel Davrizhetsi also confirms the arrival of Simeon Jughayetsi 82 in Etchmiadzin,
who mentions “…all the monks and the students and decans gathered, 30 in number,
and started taking lessons.”83 Philosophy, Theology, Astronomy, Study of Manuscript
texts, History, Geography, Geometry, Elocution, Chemistry, Armenian grammar,
Maths, Psychology, Astrology, Music and many other subjects were taught in higher
educational institutions in Armenia.84 Instead of ‘copying and recopying’ Simeon
Jughayetsi wrote a book on Armenian Grammar (printed in Constantinople in 1725)
and a book on Psychology (printed in Constantinople in 1728.)85

In order to have a better understanding of how important national education and

quality learning was for Armenian leaders, including spiritual leaders, we will
mention one such historic event. Leaders of the Armenian community as well as
spiritual leaders of New Julfa (“..illuminated group of spiritual and national leaders”),
sent a memorandum on the 1st of May 1693, (printed in 200 copies at the Armenian
Printing Press in New Julfa, established in 1638), to The Holy Sea of Etchmiadzin,
the Spiritual leaders of Ararat and Atrpatakan, expressing disapproval of the unfair
appointment of Catholicos, Nahapet 1st (1691-1705). The memorandum also reiterates
12 important priorities to be considered by the Armenian Catholicos, the first of
which is regarding moral issues and the second point being the creation of an
educational network. This is, in fact, the first point of action requested by the leaders
in New Julfa, which speaks of reading the Holy Bible (“continuously, non-stop”).

[Catholicos of All Armenians] “other nationalities are following the Christian

model and are opening schools. It is well known to the bishops that we are
putting our best efforts into this work, as are the Persians, because the
advancement and stability of our nation depends on it. As you may have
noticed, the Georgians have remained backward and illiterate due to the lack
of same.”86 [Original quotes on this page are from Classical Armenian.]

After reading the above quotes, the audience can then make a valued judgment of
Suny’s claims, that the Armenians were “in social backwardness, cultural annihilation
…”, or the Armenians “… not a single people with a clear national sense”87, and that
the Armenians until the 20th century were “a simple ethnographic conglomerate.”88
Sadly, the professor has fallen short of explaining where he got this new literary
phrase from and its definition.
_____________________________________________________________________
81 See, H. Poghose Ananian, The Diary of Decan Voskan, “Novels”, 1967, No. 6-8, p. 133.
82 Comp. H. Gh. Mirzoyan, Analysis of XVII century Armenian philosophical thought, Yerevan, 1983, p.148,
Ontro. 216.s
83 See, Arakel Davrizhetsi, Girk Patmutiants. Work by L.A. Khanlaryan, Yerevan, 1990, p. 321.
84 See, for example, History of the Armenian People, Vol. 4. Yerevan, 1972, p.437-450.
85 See, N.A. Voskanian, K.A. Korkotian, A.M. Savalian, Hai Girke 1512-1800, pp. 263-264, 278-279.
86 See, Y.T. Ter-Hovhaniants, History Nore Jugha vor Aspahan. Vol. II, Nor Jugha, p.118-119.
See detailed review of this document by Armen Aivazian, Yerkoo Pastatught Hai yekeghetsu patmutyan
divanits (1665 & 1693). – Shoghakat, Stambul, 1996, (in print). A summarised version was published in
Hayastani Hanrapetutyun daily (26 March 1995, p.6) titled “Kathoghikosakan entrutyunnerin veraberogh
yerku Karevor pastatught (1665 & 1693)”
87 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p.4.
88 Ibid. p.27.
28
Suny’s greatest ‘invention’, that Caucasian Armenians did not have schools before the
annexation of Russia, is at least worthy of a Nobel prize. He says the first Armenian
school that taught Armenian was founded at the beginning of the 5th century, by
Mesrob Mashtots.
There are innumerable books and literature on teaching institutions in Armenia.89
Would Suny tell us why Armenian books were written for various subjects, if not for
the purposes of teaching them in Armenian schools?90

In short, Suny’s ‘inventions’ demonstrate his lack of elementary knowledge of

Armenian history, as well as proves that he is deliberately attempting to falsify
Armenian history.

_____________________________________________________________________
89 See, the following works as examples, A. Movsisian, Sketches of the history of the Armenian school and
Pedagogy. Reference to the said work by A. Alpoyadjian, Patmutyun Hayots, Cairo, 1946. Soon
“Bazmavepum” (first published in Venice) will be republished in Yerevan about the history of just one school,
Sahak Chemchemian, Nakhidjevani varjharane yev Hrome (XVII century), Yerevan, 1998.
90 See, example, G Djahukyan, Kerakanakan yev Ughagrakan ashkhatutyunnere hin yev mijnadaryan
Hayastanoom, Yerevan, 1954.

29
 8.2 Questions relating to the Armenian language
According to Suny, the Armenian language “by the eighteenth century was reduced to
mutually incomprehensible dialects and mixed with vocabulary borrowed from the
dominant nationality.” Yet again the sources of his assumptions are unknown. It is
important to stress that even “in the [catastrophic] period (fourteenth to eighteenth
centuries)”91 the majority of Armenians continued to speak in different dialects and
were able to communicate in written and spoken Armenian. Therefore,

1.The Armenian language was never corrupted. During this period the grammatical
structure and syntax of the Armenian language was complete and alive. Incidentally,
during this period many books on grammar and historiography were written. In
addition, many unique dictionaries were compiled and a large number of books
translated. These facts are well documented in numerous publications and exist in
well-preserved manuscripts today.92

2.Classical Armenian continued to be used as a formal language until the second half
of the nineteenth century (it was also used occasionally until the end of the twentieth
century).

3.Medieval (Cilician) Armenian was widely used and had acquired the status of a
formal language from the beginning of the twelfth century. On the basis of this, the
Constantinople dialect, Western Armenian began to evolve into a formal language.

4.Suny is wrong about the Armenian dialects as well, and thinks due to these factors
the Armenian language was ‘distant and different’. On the contrary, these factors are
intertwined and compliment one another. Just as in all ancient dialects, disused
phrasal parts have the same phonetic and grammatical structure of the living
language. Thus, modern Armenian and its grammar have the same compact formation
and tight structure as the classical Armenian. Classical Armenian does not have any
similarity to Indo-European word formations. Dialects have always existed
concurrently with the classical, medieval and modern Armenian languages, which
have helped and enhanced its development. Thus, classical Armenian is based on the
Taron and Araratian dialects, Modern Armenian/eastern Armenian on the Araratian
dialect and western Armenian on the Constantinople dialect.

This is the history of the development of the Armenian language, which has evolved
and improved through centuries and millenniums.

___________________________________________________________________
91 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit.,p. 54
92 The best was to understand these details would be to refer to Hacob Anasyan’s Armenian Manuscripts of
V-XIII centuries, 2 volumes published in Yerevan, 1959, 1978.

30
In short, Suny has no idea whatsoever about this specialised branch of Armenology,
which has been internationally recognised at least from the beginning of the 19th
century. Besides, a special Institute of Linguistics was created in conjunction with the
Armenian Academy in Yerevan in 1943, where specialised linguists have been
successfully working on the study of dialects since 1973. Three very unique works
published on this topic are recognised by leading international specialists.93

Incidentally, if Suny had analysed Emin’s story correctly, then his ‘corrupted and
disjointed dialects’ of Armenian would not have turned out to be a bogus thesis.
It is a fact that Emin was born in Hamadan, Persia94 and grew up in India. For the first
time he visited his historic fatherland in the state of High Haik and communicated
freely in Armenian with the peasants, who were talking to him in dismay, in different
dialects. (See the true quote by Emin in his book mentioned below).

Let us now discuss Suny’s blatant allegation, that the Armenian language ‘was a
mixture of words borrowed from the ruling nationality.’ In a very subtle way, Suny
tries to create an impression, that the Armenians were less advanced than the Ottoman
Turks and Persians (because at the time it was under the rule of these two nations).
Does Suny not know, that the Ottoman language is full of words borrowed from the
Arabic and Persian (as well as Greek, Armenian and European) languages. Since 1928
the Turkish language has undergone many changes (for the better), so much so that
the ordinary Turk today does not understand the Ottoman language. Professor
Dankoff of Chicago University has written a book ‘ Armenian Loanwords in
Turkish’, where he has named at least 806 words borrowed from Armenian.95
Hence, Professor Suny does not have any real-historical basis for representing the
Turkish or Persian rule over Armenia, or a similar ‘enlightened’ notion of the French
dominance in Africa.

Now we shall try and shed light on the source of Suny’s claim. It is apparent that Esat
Uras has written exactly the same thing in his book, almost word to word. He says,
“Even today, Armenian can be divided up into eight different dialects, most of which
are corrupt and totally incompatible.”96

____________________________________________________________________
93 G.B Jahukyan, The Structure and Development of the Armenian Language, Yerevan, 1972.
Ibid. Armenian History prior to the creation of written language, Yerevan, 1987.
94 The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian, Written in English by himself, 2nd ed. (first published
in London in 1792), (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1918), p. 5.
95 See, R. Dankoff, Armenia Loanwords in Turkish (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1995). Comp. Uwe Blasing,
Armenishe lehngut im Turketurkishen am Beispiel von Hemsin (Amsterdam-Atlanta: GA, 1992).
There are Armenian specialists who have done detailed research in the same area. See, Khachik Amiryan,
Hyereni Pokharyal barere ardi Turkerenum (Armenian loanwords in modern Turkish), - Merdzavor yev
Midjin Arevelki yerkrner yev zhoghovurdner XII, Turkey: Yerevan, 1985, pp. 143-164: Ibid: Hayerenits
Pokharyal barer Turkerenoom, Yerevan, 1996. Nerses Mkrtchyan, Hayerenits Turkeren antsats norahayt
Pokharutyunne, -- Merdzavor yec Midjin Arevelki yerkrneryev zhoghovurdner, Part XVI, 1996, pp. 230-243.
96 See, Esat Uras, The Armenians In History And The Armenian Question, op. cit., p. 333

31
In 1990, Christopher Walker wrote the following in his discussion paper on Uras’
book, where he draws attention to this very point.

If this sentence has any meaning other than malice, then one could say the
same for the English language. Language is the most important factor and
integral part of a nation and the main reason for this adulteration of the
Armenian language… is undoubtedly related to the main idea expressed in the
Forward of the book in Turkish – ‘to erase from memory the existence of the
Armenian nation.’ 97

It is clear that Uras and Suny are saying one and the same thing, and are in essence
working together. Let us compare Suny’s and Uras’ originals.. “by the eighteenth
century… [the Armenian] language [was] reduced to mutually incomprehensible
dialects and mixed with vocabulary borrowed from dominant nationality.”98
Uras, “Even today, Armenian can be divided up into eight different dialects, most of
which are corrupt and totally incompatible” and “Greek and Latin influence reduced
Armenian to a state of extreme confusion.”99 The vocabulary and paraphrasing of the
above quotes are almost identical and synonymous.

Suny’s attack on the foundations and beginnings of the Armenian nation and its
language is not an isolated case. As we have already noted, Suny alleges that the
Armenian language was in its original linguistic formation until the 1st century BC.100
What does Suny know about (original linguistic formation) the Armenian language, or
is he simply unaware of the existence of volumes of literature to support it? Even a
beginning specialist in Armenian History would be familiar with the works of Greek
scholar Strabo (64BC – 24AD) who wrote that the Armenian language was the
dominant language right across the Armenian Empire in the 2nd century BC.101
This demonstrates that the linguistic formation of the Armenian language would have
been complete long before this. The same with Encyclopaedia Britannica, which
correctly supposes that Armenian was already the dominant language in the Armenian
Plateau in 7th Century BC.102

In yet another reference to the Armenian language, Suny tries to disconnect the
Armenians of today from searching their roots back in the 1st millennium BC.

____________________________________________________________________
97 See, Christopher Walker, the above discussion paper, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1990) No.1,167.
98 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op.cit., p.56, also pp. 18,55.
99 Esat Uras, The Armenians in History And The Armenian Question, op. cit., 329, 333.
100 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 7.
101 Strabo, Geography, op. cit., book XI, Chapters 14, 5(Coll. G.. Bude, vol. VIII, p. 123).
102 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Fifteenth ed., 1984, Macropedia,Vol. 2), p. 23.

32
Our dear professor describes the language of the modern and ancient Armenian as
“connected but also distant and different.”103 This is what this person, who is
completely in the dark in linguistics, has no knowledge of classical Armenian and
barely speaks modern Armenian says about Armenian, (a new gem of sunyism).
It seems this language belongs to a group of dead people, whose language was
conserved and did not evolve or progress. This is how classical and modern Armenian
has been defined. What a brilliant mind! This American professor of Armenian
history simply is unaware that the vocabulary of ancient and modern Armenian are
synonymous and the grammar passed from one to the other. An ordinary Armenian
can learn classical Armenian without being instructed. It is also a historical fact, that
ancient and modern Armenian are relatively much closer than Latin and Italian, Latin
and French, ancient Celtic and English, ancient Persian (up to 7th century AD) and
modern Persian, ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew and many other ancient
languages. This itself speaks of an ancient civilization.

Thus, we can only say, that this enlightened professor (or shall we call it sunyism)
does not have enough knowledge to make professional judgements about ancient
Armenian history and the Armenian language, his facts are unfounded and false.

_____________________________________________________________________
103 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p.7

33
 8.3 A substantial examination of questions on Emin

We return to Emin’s meeting with the villagers and remind the audience, that Suny’s
use of this insignificant episode from the novel as an historic fact, is contemptuous
and unmethodical. Let us now examine how honestly he has interpreted this episode.
He has selected parts of the text that are not complete and presented them in a way
that suits him. This whole segment of Emins story has been carefully translated, true
to the word, into western Armenian by H. Khashmanian. However, [the segment
below, is the original text from Emin’s book.]
In 1759 Emin left Aleppo with his three Armenian troopers. (We remind readers that
Emin has written his autobiography in third person.)

“They travelled twenty-eight days in the rain and snow, over a great many
mountains; when, before they entered a village called Yengy-coch, they saw
the spears of the Turkish troops stuck up before each door, by guess about
500; these happened to be the broken part of the army against prince
Solomon, the Emerate Georgian. Emin said to his men, “You may stay in that
village, and rest for the night in an Armenian house; I will go on, lest those
devils should be inquisitive about me.” Leaving them behind, he pushed his
way through deep snow, and after three hours more travelling, came to
another Armenian village called Jinis, just in the dusk of the evening. When
the countrymen saw him mounted on a fine grey horse, they took him to be a
Turkish trooper; but when he spoke to them in their own language, it made
them angry; they ran to their clubs in order to beat him heartily, using
menacing language, and asking. How he durst travel alone without a caravan,
since he was a Christian? Emin, seeing this behaviour, and before they could
begin their rough operation, spoke to them in the Turkish language, and
threatened to have all the villagers put to the sword by the troopers on march,
who would be there the next morning. No sooner had they heard the sham
Turk, whom they took to be a real one, than the poor creatures were
frightened out of their senses, and a hundred of them came down upon their
knees, begging for mercy, and promising a sum of money, if he would forgive
them, and not think about it any more; at the same time expressing their
fidelity to the Othmans, who are the only people able to travel alone, in the
depth of winter, or at any season of the year.
Emin, pretending to be satisfied, promised faithfully to say nothing about it.
Then alighting from his horse, he was conducted by them with respectful awe
to the burg master’s warm house, where they killed sheep, and took very good
care of his horse, with trembling fear. When the pilou and cabat was ready for
supper, Emin ordered all the people to go to their houses, but granted the
burgomaster and his brother the favour to remain in the room, to serve and
keep them company. The victuals were laid, the tablecloth upon the ground:
that day being Wednesday, and a fast day, he seemed backward in eating;

34
 The Armenians thought his anger was not over, and that he wanted to be
bribed; for that diabolic custom reigns among the Turkish troops, who, on
their march, for one or two days halt the Armenian villages, where they grow
sulky on purpose, neither eating themselves, nor letting their horses feed, till
they exact a sum of money from the poor landlord. They were going to make a
contribution, when Emin ordered them to stir from his presence; began to
speak very familiarly to them, saying, “You, Christians, what is the reason of
your objecting, if any of your countrymen should take a fancy to be a warrior?
And why are you not free? Why have you not a sovereign of your own?” The
answer they made was, “Sir, our liberty is in the next world; our king is Jesus
Christ.” Emin said, “How came that about? Who told you so?” They
answered, “The Holy Fathers of the Church, who say, The Armenian nation
has been subject to the Mohametans from the creation of the world, and must
remain so till the day of resurrection; otherwise we could soon drive the
Othmans out of our country.” Emin said, “Now my friends, I will swear by the
Holy Gospel, not to behave as you did before.” They said, “Yes”, and did
swear. He said, “In the first place take away the meat, for I am a Christian,
and fast as well as you.” Then taking out of his pocket the Geographical
History of Moses Khorinesis, he sent for a priest that could read a little,
shewed genealogy of the kings of the Armenians… [Here Emin begins to
preach and instil the idea of freedom, by bringing examples from European
countries and the Bible- -A.A.]
Emin, going on with this harangue, was interrupted by the secular priest, who
cried out very loud, “He is in the right;” and running out of the house, called
all the people of the village, men, women, and children, who came all in a
flock, and would ardently kiss Emin’s feet .He had not, like the holy fathers,
ambition enough to let them, but received every one of them, but received
every one of them in his arms with equal affection, saluting them all without
distinction. There was then seen a sort of joyfulness and lamentation mixed
together, worthy to be described by any man of eloquence. The honest secular
cried out, “My dear brethren, love and respect him; for he is the very man
prophesied of by St. Nerses the Great,104 about six hundred and thirty years
ago, who will be instrumental in delivering us from the hands of our
oppressors, and of the enemies of our faith… besides, the holy prophecy is for
666 years to be fulfilled… 638 years are expired, there remain 28 years more
to complete our persecution; then we shall become free then no power in the
world can oppress us.” 105

___________________________________________________________________
104 Either the priest of Jinis or Emin have mistaken 4th century Armenian Catholicos (Nerses the Great) with
Nerses Shnorhali who lived in the 12th century who was born in 1100 and died on August 13, 1173, According
to the priest, Nerses became a Saint around 1129.
105 See,The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian, pp. 140-143. Translated by H. Khashmanian,
(Beirut. Mshak Press, 1958), p. 154-157.

35
The above segment from Emin’s book clearly brings us to a definitive conclusion, one
that is exactly the opposite of what Suny is saying. Thus,

1.The Armenian villagers had thought Emin to be a “Turkish horseman’. They

(‘frightened out of their senses’) had unknowingly wanted to beat him. This was
because they knew the Turkish troops in a neighbouring village, who had been
defeated by Christian Georgian troops a few days ago, could easily take revenge on
them.

2.When the ‘Turkish horseman’ Emin, had asked the frightened villagers if they
wanted to be free and have their own king, the latter had shown their ‘loyalty to the
Ottomans’ (their fidelity to the Othmans). This behaviour is understandable, as it was
in accordance with the Ottoman Sharia (Islamic law) by which all non-
Mohammedans had to abide. You don’t need to be a scholar to understand this simple
truth. Similar social behaviour may be experienced in every day life, when one has to
say what one is supposed to say, be it the untruth.
Let us, for example, imagine a similar situation in Eastern Berlin in the 1950’s to
1980’s. If a person on the road, were to openly advocate the reunification of East and
West Germany, even if he were a well known KGB agent, then the ordinary East
German on the street, who may have had similar aspirations, would have undoubtedly
been petrified and scared to agree with him. This is exactly what happened with the
Armenian villagers when Emin asked if they wanted to be free.

3.In order to prove the unproven, Suny has given an illogical explanation to the
normal behaviour of the Armenian villagers of Jinis. Hence, he goes on to say,

a)The Armenians had forgotten that they were living in Armenia, their own
motherland, implying that in reality the country was not even theirs. Suny has made
this very point clear in yet another publication, “The notion of Armenia was non-
existent amongst Armenians.”106 According to Suny, when Emin met the Armenian
villagers, most did not know they had ever had independent statehood in the past,
because ‘the knowledge of Armenian history had been completely wiped off their
memory.’ This incredible ‘concotion’ by Suny has crawled into a textbook used in
American Universities in relation to national matters in the Soviet Union, which has
been repeated by a young specialist in ‘Armenology’ Nora Dudwick.107

_____________________________________________________________________
106 See, Ronald Suny, “Some notes on the National Character, Religion, and Way of Life of the Armenians,”
unpublished papeer presented at the Lelio Basso Foundation conference, Venice, October 18-20, 1985, p. 4;
the following article was included, Nora Dudwick, “Armenia; the nation awakens,” in Bremmer, I. and
Taras, R. ,eds., Nations & Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993), pp. 261-287: at 264, note 25 (p. 281)
107 Ibid.
108 The Cambridge History of Iran. Vols. 6, 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886, 1991).

36
 Suny is not the only one to express this notion. The plan to wipe from memory the
word Armenia seems to have become common practice by many famous western
historians, especially those in America and Britain. One such example is the most
reputable and comprehensive publication, The Cambridge History of Iran, 6th Edition,
which covers the period between 1335 to1735, where Armenia is mentioned twice (p.
59, 419), and in the 7th volume, which covers the period between 1735 to1991,
Armenia is non-existent. These volumes consist a total of 2100 pages. The intent
becomes more clear when we compare the number of times the word Georgia is
repeated. In the 6th volume, pages 59, 71, 75, 79-80, 163, 172, 245-6, 268-9, 285-6,
296, 309, 327., and in volume 7, pages 20, 47, 95, 97, 114, 126-131, 136, 159, 517,
583, 299-300, 305, 311, 315, 317-319, 325, 327-34, 365, 374, 377, 379, 381-2, 385,
583, 601, 706108.
Does this not lead to the conclusion, that it is these very western European sources
that have tried to dismiss the word Armenia in their studies and research? Is it
possible, that not even one of these historians, who contributed to this multi-volumed
publication, never came across the word Armenia during their research? It is very
likely that the dismissal of the word Armenia originated from these European sources.
Hence, we leave this as food for thought for our readers.
There are also numerous European historical sources relating to the history of the
region in the14th to19th centuries, which have ample documented evidence of the
history of Armenia. Despite being subjected to massacres and genocide by Turkish
groups, the Ottoman Turks and the Persians, the Armenians had never lost their
national identity and Armenia continued to exist.109

b)Suny continues to insist that the Armenians did not even think of their freedom and
independence. He is bold enough to say, “Armenian historians write as if Armenians
continued to maintain their traditional national consciousness and aspirations for
freedom and independence.”110 This last falsification is blasphemy and contempt
directed at our entire history.
We will not discuss the considerable amount of research and documented evidence
that exists in historical journals, textbooks and various types of literature. We will
simply examine parts of Emin’s story, which Suny has deliberately avoided. No
doubt, Suny would have understood the natural behaviour shown by the villagers of
Jinis, however, he deliberately chose to misinterpret and falsify events, by using one
episode and not continuing to the next, in order to twist the story to suit his ‘theory.’

_____________________________________________________________________
109 See, example, excerpts taken from the Laws of the Vatican, 16-17 centuries, a compiled documentary
[Chick H. (the compiler)] A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Mission of the XVIIth and
XVIIIth Centuries. Vol. I-II (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939). The accurate and true information by an
English author, Christopher Walker, Visions of Ararat, (London, 1997).
See detailed examination of European sources by Manvel Zulalyan, Hai jhoghoverdi 13-18 dareri patmutyan
Hartsere est yevropatsi heghinakneri. Girk A-Kaghakakan patmutyun, Yerevan, GA. 1990.
110 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 95. Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking; The End of the
Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Community,” a paper prepped for presentation at the colloquium on
“The Historian, Nationalism, and the End of Empire,” at Prinston University, May 3, 1996, p. 6.

37
Then he says, when Emin declares he is an Armenian and speaks of freedom and
independence, the “most backward” Armenian villagers accept him with utmost
reverence.
Emin writes, (“and running out of the houses, all the people of the village, men,
women, and children, who came all in a flock, would ardently kiss Emin’s feet. There
was then seen a sort of joyfulness and lamentation mixed together, worthy to be
described by any man of eloquence.”)
If the Armenian villagers were not aware of having had statehood in the past, then
why did they tell the ‘Turkish horseman’ that they were living in their own country.
(“We could soon drive the Othmans out of our country”). This speaks of the fact that
the Turks themselves knew this country was Armenia, a fact that cannot be denied.
This historical fact has been supported innumerable times. For example, in 1649 the
Turkish author Katip Celepi wrote the following in his Jihan-Nyuma, published in
1732, “At present Greater Armenia consists of Van, Kars and Erzrum vilayats, and
Smaller Armenia (ref. Cilicia- A.A.) by the vilayats of Adana and Marash. Some
books refer to Akhlat as the old capital of Armenia. After the decline of the
[Armenian] government, the population was reduced to rayats, which spread right
across Tarsus and Msis (in Cilicia)”.111 At a later date, when speaking of Erzrum,
Celepi says it was governed by “the Persians, Armenians and the Byzantyans.”112
In 1957 when Ankara was commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of Katip
Celepi, a new examination of Jihan-Nyuma was published for the occasion, and the
famous title ‘The country of Armenia’ was replaced by ‘Eastern Anatolia’.113

Suny has overlooked one other fact about Emin’s story and that is the following
declaration by the Armenian priest, “My dear brethren, love and respect him; for he is
the very man prophesied by St. Nerses the Great, about six hundred and thirty years
ago, who will be the instrument of delivering us from the hands of our oppressors,
and of the enemies of our faith. There remain 28 years more to complete our
persecution; then we shall become free; then no power in the world can oppress us”.

111 “Djikhan-nyuma” ee “Fezleka” Kyatiba Chelebi kak istochnik po istorii Armenin (XVIveka), Predislovie,
perevod ee komentarii A.A. Papazyana (Erevan: AN. Arm. SSR, 1973), s.54. In due course, A.H Papazyan
noticed a number of mistakes and misquotes, these are: a) Eastern Armenia which was under the rule of Sefyan
Iran has been totally left out of the description of Greater Haik. b) In the 17th century there were 5 not 3
Velayats in Western Armenia, they were Van, Kars, Erzrum, Bitlis and Cheldere. C) Small Haik has been
Mistaken for Cilician Armenia. (See, A.H. Papazyan, Katib Celepi’s ‘Jihan-nyuma’ as a source for
Geography of Historic Armenia – Patma-Banasirakan handes 1966, No.4 (35), p 230-231):
112 Ibid. page 90.
113 See, Katip Celepi, Hayati ve eserleri hakkinda incelemeler. Ankara, 1957. See, A.H. Papazyan, about
Ketip Celepi’s “Jihan-Nyuma” as a source for Geography of Historic Armenia, Ibid. p.232.

38
4. It is obvious that Suny has no idea about the prophecies of St. Nerses. He is also
unfamiliar with Ashot Hovhannisian’s elaborate research titled, Episodes from the
History of Ideology of Armenian Liberation, [Hai Azatagrakan Mitk]. The first
volume published in Yerevan 1957, portrays the visionary ideals of Medieval
Armenia, which is correctly titled, The Legend of Armenian Liberation.114 This was in
fact a program for the liberation of Armenia between the 10th to 18th centuries, and
was prevalent amongst the elite as well as the masses. The main idea of this
multifaceted legend was that Armenia would liberate itself from its oppressors, by the
assistance of powerful Christian nations. These powerful Christian forces of the time
were the Byzantines, then the Francs (the Catholic Europeans) and later the Russians.
A number of ancient versions of this legend predicted these Christian liberators to be
the ‘armans’ or ‘vormans’, the offspring of those serving Terdat the Great, King of
Armenia (298-330), who were left behind in Rome at the beginning of the 4th
Century.115 The fact that the Armenian priest of Jinis referred to Emin as their
liberator, brings us to the conclusion that he was familiar with the ‘armans’ version of
this legend. There is a correlation between the two versions: a) Armenia would lose
its independence, and, b) it would get it back again. This clearly proves that the
Armenians were always aware of having had their own statehood in the past.
Furthermore, the Armenian Liberation Legend has been manifested in many
Armenian manuscripts, as well as European sources. Heinricus Brunner, a Swedish
Orientalist who travelled to Armenia in 1699, wrote the following about this popular
legend,

”According to an old prophecy… the Armenians…who were powerful once,

having angered God, would lose their empire and be scattered around the
world, just as the beloved people of Jehovah. But there will come a time when
God’s anger will give way to compassion. A European emperor will reinstate
their king and liberate the Armenians by bringing them back to their ancient
land, thus, putting an end to their sufferings.”116
The Armenians await their King today, just as the Jews await Messiah (ref.AA).
_____________________________________________________________________
114 See, for example, Haikakan Sovetakan Hanragitaran. vol. 6. Yerevan, 1980, p. 121.
115 See, Ashot Hovhannisyan, Drvagner Hai Azatagrakan Mtqi patmutyun.vol. 1, Yerevan, 31st Publication,
1957, p. 33-57, 66, 76-78. the journey of Terdat III to Rome, which has not been scientifically proven.
The legend of Terdat III has been referred to Terdat 1 (65-88) his famous visit to Rome in 66 AD and his
coronation by Neron. If Terdat III did not travel to Rome, then we can say that the Armenian soldiers
serving in Rome goes back to 1st century AD and not 3rd century AD. I am referring to the Armenian archery
battalions that were taken to Rome in 233 by the Roman Caesar, Alexander Severus, after the Armeno-
Roman war against Sasanian Persia. Later these Armenian battalions successfully fought against the
German tribes. In 237 their achievements were so successful that Titos was crowned as the new Caesar of
Rome. These facts exist in Roman inscriptions and many other sources. (See, History of the Armenian
People vol. 2, Yerevan, 1984, p. 34, comp. Aellus Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 61, 8 Scriptores
Histori Augustae, Hohl., vol. 1, Lipsiae, 1927; Herodianus, Ab excessu divi Marci libri VII. 2. Ed. K.
Stavenhagen, Lipsiae, 1922; “Trebelli Pollionis,” Tyranni triginta, 32, 3, Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed.
Hohl, vol. II, Lipsiae, 1927, p. 132. Also see R.D. Wilkinson, Introduction to the History of Pre-Christian
Armenia, op. cit., p. 62.)
116 See, Heinricus Brunner, Epitomae commentarium Moysis Armeni, de origine et regibus armenorum et
parthorum etc, .Stckholmiae, 1723, p. 96. Annotation, see Ashot Hovhannisyan, Episodes from the History
of the Ideology of Armenian Liberation. vol. II, Yerevan 31st publication, 1959, p. 315. See further details on
Brunner, by Gohar Muradyan Late medieval Swedish scholar about the People of the Caucasus and
Russia. – Iran-Name No.16-17 (1995-1996), pp.22-29.
39
Numerous other European travellers such as, Tavernien, Sharden, Du Lallen, La
Baule la Gyuz, Pogose Firomallin and the most famous Catholic missionary in the
East, Rafael de Man and others,117 have confirmed the awareness of the Armenian
legend by the people and their strong desire to restore their independence.
Yet another episode from Emin’s travels, which Suny would not want to discuss, is
when Emin arrives in Astrakhan in 1763.

“The prophesying Armenian merchants took for granted that he was the very
man whom Haly Moses, the great patriarch, had foretold six hundred and
twenty years before118 and bringing their children with them, prostrated
themselves at his feet.”119

Influenced by the legend, the Armenians began to call him “prince of Armenia”, “the
prince of all Armenians”, “the man of extraordinary character in every respect, brave
and generous to the very soul, fit to be called a prince of all princes.” In a letter from
the Georgian King Heraclius (14/25 November, 1762), he is addressed as “Your
Highness, the prince, Emin Aga.”

These facts bring us to the conclusion that Suny has not even read Emin’s novel,
otherwise he would have noticed that both Eastern and Western Armenians were
encouraged by Emin and were beginning to prepare for rebellion.

In 1763, archbishop Jonas of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist wrote to Emin:

“I have been working for eleven months past by writing, and have very easily
brought over to your interest and heroic way of thinking, all the great
Armenians in Turkey, Constantinople, Smyrna, Caisary, Tokhat, Arezrum,
Diarbeker, (in which last place he was born), Vuer (Van? – A.A.) &c., &c.--
they are citizens. As for fighting men, you shall have 40,000 to meet you at the
end of six days journey; the Assyrians and Yezdy Curds are likewise to join
us.”122

_____________________________________________________________________
117 For all discussions see, Ashot Hovhannisian, Episodes from the History of Ideology of Armenian Liberation,
vol. 2, pp. 163-223 and H.S. Anasyan, 17th century liberation movements in Western Armenia [17 dari
azatagrakan sharjhumnern Arevmtyan Hayastanum] (Patmakan Hetazotutyunner), Yerevan, 31 publ., 1961
pp. 153-170.
118 It is likely that the reference is to Movses II Yeghvardetsi Catholicos (574-604) or Movses Khorenatsi, and
the chronology has been confused – A.A.
119 See The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian, p. 199.
120 See The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian, p. 182, A.R. Ionnisyan, Iosif Emin , Erevan Izd-vo
Gosuniversitet, 1945, p. 109-111 (vtoroye izdannie veishla v svet n AN Arm. SSR, 1989).
121 Detailed works and research on Archbishop Hovnan, see, A.R. Ionnisyan, Iosif Emin, pp.145-161, 230-235.
122 See, The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, an Armenian, pp. 234-235, pp. 228-229.

40
Suny could have chosen similar points to discuss not only from Emin’s novel, but
also from the unparalleled historical research conducted on Emin’s book by the late
academician Abgar Hovhannisyan (Suny is not only unaware of the novel, but also
the monologue from the novel, which was published in 1945 and 1989,123 as well as
all existing sources and research regarding Emin and his era.)

Finally, it is clear that Suny has taken upon himself ‘to conclude’ that the
Armenian’s have never had the desire to liberate themselves.

a)It is evident that Suny does not know about the existence of the popular epic
Sassna Tsrer,[Ս ա ս ն ա Ծ ռ ե ր ] the central theme of which is based on national
liberation and independence, which has been preserved in all its glory till today.
Incidentally, European travellers of the 16th century were the first to write about this
legend.124

The heroic epic of ‘Sassna Tsrer’ is a brilliant historical record of the Armenian
people, a living oratorical testimonial. It has always been extremely popular amongst
the Armenian people. This popular novel speaks of heroism, the strong foundations of
Armenian statehood, the Armenian family unit, Armenian unity and many related
issues. If in the past the classical manuscripts were not accessible for the ordinary
person, then ‘Sassna Tsrer’, ‘Arshak’ and similar novels continued to inspire and
keep the hope for freedom and independence alive.
Furthermore, Khorenatsi’s Armenian History was a compulsory subject in numerous
church and other religious schools (the proof being, numerous ancient publications
and hand written manuscript copies of the book). It is false and immoral to assume,
that those who were uneducated, were devoid of thinking or being patriotic and
unable to defend the motherland. Or, were the killings, slaughter and destruction by
foreign aggressors more appealing to the Armenians and other minority groups such
as the Yezdis and Assyrians?

b)Suny is completely denying the great battle for independence in the 1720’s, where
according to Armenian and non-Armenian sources, 30,000 to 60,000 permanent
troops were able to liberate the Eastern Highlands-Gharabagh and Kapan.125 It can be
said, that this brilliant era in Armenian history has remained an unknown quantity
‘terra incognita’ in American ‘Armenology’.

_____________________________________________________________________
123 See ref. 120
124 See Roberto Gulbenkian et H. Berberian, “La Legende de David de Sassoun d’apres deux voyageurs
Portugais du XVIe.siecle,” Revue des Etudes Armeniennes Tome VIII (Paris, 1971), 175-188.
125 See, Ezov, op. cit, documentee 213,215, 216, 219, 224, 231, 233, 252, 301; A Chronicle of Carmelites in
Persia, op. cit., p. 578; [Judasz Tadeusz] Krusinski, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, Vols.II
(New York: ARNO Press, 1973; reprint of the 1740 London ed), p. 131; P.T. Arutyunyan, Osvoboditelnoe
dvizheniye armyanskogo naroda v pervoi chetverti XVIII vek, Moskva: Izdatelstvo AN SSSR, 1953, pp. 158-
162; Armyanskoye Voisko b XVIII veke. Dokumentee, Podgotoveel k izd. A. Khachatryan, Erevan: Izd. AN
Arm. SSR, 1968, pp. 69-72; A.M. Aivazyan, Iradarzutyunnern Aysrkovkasum 1723, yev Artsakhahayeri
Arajin ognakan razmerte Syunik, Patmabanasirakan handes No. 4 (131)(1900), p. 68-71.
41
And so, two leading American historians, George Bournoutian and Robert Hewsen,
who specialise in 18th century history, declare in ignorance, that David Beg was Chief
of the armed forces of Gharabagh and Kapan.126 Whereas, David Beg’s principality
never spread beyond the borders of Kapan into Gharabagh. Gharabagh was an
Armenian alliance, the leaders of which are also well known, such as the Catholicos
of Gandzasar, Yesai Hasan-Jalalian, the Chief of the Armenian armed forces of
Gharabagh, Avan-Youzbashi, Tharkhan-Yuzbashi and so on.

Generally speaking, American Armenologists have avoided the study and research of
the Armenian battles for independence, and have also failed to present the existing
facts of that era to their English speaking audiences. There are two reasons for this
kind of ‘scientific discrimination’. Firstly, numerous battles won by the Armenian
troops against the well regulated and outnumbered armies of Persia and Turkey 127
prove, that the Armenian nation fought for its freedom and independence and was a
force to be reckoned with. This totally contradicts and negates the ‘historical theories’
put forward by Turko-Azerbayjani-sunylike theorists. Secondly and more
importantly, was the beginning of the Cold War, when the ideological demands of the
West were to be served by ‘Armenologists’ such as Suny and others. Therefore, they
would naturally shun the 1720’s, which saw the beginning of the Armeno-Russian
political and military cooperation. This cooperation during the Cold War was aimed
at Turkey, a NATO ally. It also reinforced the relationship between the Armenian and
Russian people living within the Soviet Union. In 1991, when Armenia got its
independence, this historic political and military cooperation became an alliance
between the two countries of Armenia and Russia, once again becoming a major
obstacle for the expansion and influence of NATO in the region. This is exactly why
Suny has criticised Soviet Armenian historians by quoting,

“In their efforts to legitimise the present links between Russia and Armenia,
Soviet historians have made much of Russian orientation of the eighteenth-
century meliks of Karabagh…. in fact the Russian orientation was neither a
consistent attitude of Caucasian Armenians nor a widespread movement
among the majority of Armenians.”128

___________________________________________________________________
126 G.Bournoutian, A History of Qarabagh, An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabagh’s
Tarikh-e Qarabagh (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1994), p. 17; Ibid, The Khanate of Erevan Under
Qajar Rule, 1795-1828 (Costa Mesa, CA and New York, Mazda Publishers, 1992) p. 4, note 12; Robert
Hewsen, Russian-Armenian Relations, 1700-1828 (Cambridge Mass.: Society for Armenian Studies, 1984),
pp. 13-14.
127 See the time-chart for the places and dates of the 13 major battles between the Armenian and Ottoman troops
between 1723-1727, and the losses by the Ottomans in A.M. Aivazian, The Rebellian of the 1720’s and the
Threat of Genocidal Reprisal (Centre for Policy Analysis, American University of Armenia, 1997), p. 20.
128 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 34.

42
5)A few more comments on the Armenian national liberation movement and the
stance taken by the spiritual leaders of the Armenian Church. This is how Suny
describes it, “the passivity of the people was encouraged by some famous Armenians,
especially the clergy.” As we have already seen, Archbishop Hovnan (Jonas), a very
high ranked clergyman of the Armenian Church was instrumental in the Armenian
liberation movement and was one of Joseph Emin’s most loyal allies in the 1720’s.
The Armenian Catholicos Yesai Hasan-Jalalyan of Gandzasar (1728) was also one of
the most famous leaders of the Armenian national liberation movement in the 1720’s,
who in a letter dated 24 September 1718 wrote (the letter has been preserved in its
Russian transliteration):

Oh, if only it were to become reality (i.e. the liberation of Armenia) the will
and hope of our people, in order to liberate my poor people from the hands
of the oppressors --- my forsaken people, everyone, including young and old
Christian Armenians want their freedom, for whom we are immensely
worried. But they remain hopeful and gather all their strength to see the day
of their long awaited freedom.129

The Catholicos, Yesai Hasan-Jalalyan is not a twentieth century historian, but who
knows, Suny may also blame him for spreading liberal ideas amongst the Armenians?
In order to prove the theory of the ‘passivity’ of the Armenian spiritual leaders as
frivolous, we bring one last example. On April 2, 1723, the Turkish ambassador
visiting Catholicos Astvatsatoor A. Hamadantsi (1715-1725) in Etchmiadzin,
said,“You are to blame for uniting with the Russians and having 60,000 Armenians
armed and ready to fight.”130 The Persian liaison officer in Yerevan was blaming the
Catholicos for that very reason.131 The allegations were not unfounded. According to
the same well-known source132 “Our Catholicos (i.e. Astvatsatoor Hamadantsi –
ref.A.A) and the army were secretly writing letters to one another.”133
Thus, one of the immediate participants of the Armenian national liberation
movement of the 1720’s was none other than the Catholicos of all Armenians and
numerous other spiritual leaders whose names we will not mention here. Once again
Suny is unaware of the existence of information on ‘The Chronicle of Petros di Sarkis
Gilanentzi’, even though it exists not only in the original Armenian language, but also
in the translated versions of Russian and English. (See footnotes 130 and 132).

We will not reflect on the irresponsible comments directed at the Armenian Church
by Suny, who says, “Their religion was based on practices adopted from pagan

129 Armiano-russkie otnosheniya v pervoi tretiy XVIII veka. Sbornik dokumentov. To. II, chast I. Pod. red. Ash.
Ioannesyana. (Erevan: izd. AN Arm. SSR, 1964), doc. 155, c. 371.
130 See, “Zhamanakagruyun Petros di Gilanentsi” – Kroonk Hayots Ashkharhin, 1863, No. 2, p. 196.
131 Ibid.
132 See, Petros di Gilanentsi, Dnevnik osadi Ispaganiafganami (1722-1723)> Perevod I obicneniya K. Patkanov.
Sankt Peterburg, 1870, s. XXVIII. Hamematutyun Ash. Hohannisian Petros di Sargis Gilanentz
. Holy Etchmiadzin, 1916, p. 12. Also see The Chronicle of Petros di Sarkis Gilanentz. Translated from the
original Armenian and annotated by Caro Owen Minasian. With an Introduction and additional Notes by
Lockhart, Lisbon, 1959, pp.X-XII.
133 See, “Zhamanakagrutyun Petros di Sargis Gilanentsi”, p. 104. – Kroonk Hayots ashkharhin, 1863, No. 3,
p.196.
43
superstitions and rituals, and the church was infamously corrupt…” The intention of
this sentence is to create a bad impression about Armenians and the Armenian
Church. Suny has also compared the Armenian Church with other non-Armenian
churches and has created an impression that the non-Armenian churches were more
influential and void of superstitions. We can make numerous comparisons here. The
Armenian Church has never been on a witch hunt and never pursued people engaged
in science and other similar ‘sins’ and burnt them at stake. One such example is the
world wide Inquisition in the Catholic Church, which was engaged in burning at stake
(auto da fe) hundreds and thousands of people. In Spain only, 35,000 people were
burnt at stake between 1481-1808. (The last burning was recorded in Valencia in
1826.)134

Let us continue the comparisons by mentioning a Dominican clergyman by the name

of Brocard of Strasbourg who visited Cilician Armenia in 1230. He wrote his true
impressions about the Armenian Church and the Catholicos.

The spiritual leader of the Armenians is called the Catholicos. I stayed with
him for fourteen days. He has around him archbishops, bishops, abbots and
other clergymen. His dress, his sustenance and habits are exemplary, one I
have never experienced or seen before, be it in clergy or layman. I declare
in all honesty my opinion that his clothes are not worth more than five
sterling shillings, even though he has mansions, a high income and is richer
than any ordinary man. He wears a rough fur coat made of sheepskin with
very wide, ugly and worn out sleeves and under that an ugly looking old
robe.. All the clergymen and abbots are well respected..
I spoke to some well-respected clergymen such as Hovhannes Voskeberan,
Grigor Nazianzatsi and Kyuregh Agheksandratsi. All clergy and laymen
alike are extremely religious, who only pray and sing and do all the things
that are necessary. I did not see a single person who laughed or behaved
disrespectfully in church (it is likely that Brocard had witnessed this kind of
behaviour in Europe-A.A.). In their church the Sermon is conducted with
grace... I have seen many other exemplary customs amongst the laymen,
abbots and sectarians, which would be very rare in our country.135

Let us remember a few enlightened and creative Catholicoses of the 17-18th centuries.
Movses G. Tathevatsi (1629-1632), Pillipos A. Aghbaketsi (1623-1655), HacobD.
Jughayetsi (1655-1680), Agheksandr D. Jughayetsi (1705-1715), Astvatsatur
A.Hamadantsi (1715-1725), Simeon A.Yerevantsi(1763-1780). After going through
numerous difficulties, the latter founded the first printing press in Etchmiadzin in 1771
and a paper mill in 1776, etcetera, etcetera. When Armenia lost its independence, the
Armenian Church had to lead its people through an extremely complicated historical
period.
_________________________________________________________________
134Haikakan Sovetakan Hanragitaran, Yerevan, 1980, p.514.
135Mkrtich yepiskopos Aghavnuni, Kilikiyo hai arkunikin yev hai yekeghetsakanutyan masin XIII darun otar
chanaparhordi me teghekutyunnere.-Sion (1933, hunis), p. 179-182.
44
It is important to note that the church was able to complete this mission successfully
most of the time and less successfully at times.

We leave the more detailed explanation to the spiritual leaders of the church today
and if it is delayed, then we have to accept the fact that Suny, with his pathetic
knowledge of the Armenian Church has simply mistaken our most brilliant leaders
with certain spiritual leaders of the late 20th century whom he has met personally. We
wonder if the high-ranking clergyman, who invited Suny to take part in a very
important Armenian Ecumenical Conference held in Paris in May 1996, is aware of
the above assessment of our church by Suny.

6)One last comment on the information given about Joseph Emin. Suny describes
Emin as an ‘adventurer’.136 This word in English only has negative connotations
which is used to describe people who are out to make a fortune or gain through
adventure.137 Whereas Emin was a patriot in the true sense of the word, who had
endangered his life time and again to reach his ultimate goal, which was to liberate
Armenia from the hands of foreign oppressors. He is not the only freedom fighter
Suny has tried to discredit. Most recently, during a lecture at Princeton University,
Suny gave an offensive and historically wrong description of the most respected
freedom fighters of the Armenian national liberation movement of the 19th century.
He said, “Social bandits and brigands, like Avo near Van or Arabo and Micho near
Taron, became rebels and freedom-fighter.”138

Hence, we have convincingly proven the value, the price and the‘depth’ of Suny’s (in
his words) ‘a closer examination of’ modern and ancient history of Armenia.

_____________________________________________________________________
136 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit. p. 55. Comp. Suny, “Nationan-making, Nation-breaking,” op.cit,p.4.
137 See, e.g. one of the best English Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Tenth
ed.,1993,p.17) adventurer is 1. one that adventures: as a: SOLDIER OF FORTUNE (“one who follows
military career wherever there is a promise of profit, adventure, or pleasure”, Ibid., p. 1118): b: one that
engages in risky commercial enterprise for profit; 2. one who seeks unmerited wealth or position esp. by
playing on the credulity or prejudices of others.”
138 See, Ronald Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking,” op. cit., p. 9. When Suny refers to the most beloved
sons of the Armenian people, he does not even mention the name of Gerard Libaridian’s concluding speech
of his dissertation, which we do not have at our disposal.
See, Gerard Libaridian, The Ideology of Armenian Liberation. The Development of Armenian Political
Movement (1639-1885) (PH.D. dissertation in history, University of California, Los Angeles, 1987).

45
9. Interpretation of the Armenian Genocide by Suny and his counterparts.

The study of the Armenian Genocide in the USA has two wings. The first being a
number of well known diasporan Armenian and foreign historians who are totally
unbiased in their examination of international, social and a multitude of other factors
that instigated the monumental tragedy of the Armenian people. (The great works of
Vahakn Dadrian are worthy of mention here). The second wing consists of falsifiers,
who are being financed by Turkey and who deny the Genocide directly or indirectly.
(Many traditionally anti-Russian but pro-Turkish American sociologists take a similar
stance and rub shoulders with this group). This is the only area of Armenian studies in
America that is scrutinised by the American-Armenian community. Here, the
falsifiers usually face a backlash, often from righteous non-Armenian historians.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of work to be done in order to overcome the resistance of
this false wing, which is attached to Turkey with numerous strings.139

How has Suny appraised the questions of the Genocide? We can immediately say he
has not denied the fact, but has falsified the entire historical detail of the Genocide in
a manner that has raised the question of a new, more dangerous version of denial.

a) Demographic falsification has been used by the only well known revisionist in
history, Justin McCarthy. His false demographic census has slipped into Suny’s book,
“a demographer sympathetic to Turkish denial of the Genocide”140

Thus the main demographic ‘fact’ that Suny presents to his audience is,

“The non-Muslims were 17% in Anatolia in 1912”141.

139 See W. Smith, Eric Markusen, and Robert Jay Lifton, “Professional Ethics and the Denial of the
Armenian Genocide,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies Vol.9 *Spring 1995, 1), pp.1-22; R.P.Adalian,
“The Ramifications in the United States of the 1995 French Court Decision on the Denial of the
Armenian Genocide and Princeton University,” Revue de monde armenien moderne et contemporain 3
(1997), pp. 99-122; Robert Fisk, “US academics join rush to deny Turkish massacres of Armenians:
Slaughter viewed as accident of First World War,” The Independent (London), Monday, 2 June 1997.
See details of connections between the Turkish government and institutions of historiography in the
USA, Vol. 3 of Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Turkish State and History: Clio Meets the Wolf (Institute
for Balkan Studies, Thessalonike: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, New Rochelle, New York, 1993), 2nd
ed., pp. 79-118.
140 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 217
141 Ibid., pp. 107, 217.

46
As a result, if we take away the Greeks, Assyrians, Georgians and other non-Muslims
from the 17%, it will mean that the Armenians were at a much lower percentage. This
percentage is not revealed. Here Suny prefers to remain mysteriously mute. Thus,
what is being served to the Armenians is that Genocide took place not in Armenia but
in Anatolia, which is an inseparable part of Turkey. Secondly, the Armenians in those
regions were at a relatively low percentage, therefore, even though genocide occurred,
you have no right to claim land from Turkey. You did not have that right then and you
don’t have it now.

But what is the historical truth? Firstly, when speaking of the Armenian Genocide, the
use of Anatolian edge confuses the reader. The Armenians were demanding autonomy
and self-rule not in Anatolia, but in the six vilayats of Western Armenia, which were
the Van, Bitlis, Kharberd, Diarbekir, Erzrum and Sivas regions. Suny has once again,
overlooked the existing historical sources and well known works, according to which,
in 1912 the Armenian population in the above vilayats was between 36-41%. This
clearly shows that their percentage was relatively higher than other ethnic groups,
each taken separately. (In Vaspurakan the Armenian population was over 60%)142.
In fact, the 1912 demographic census as a pre-Genocide statistical count is not
acceptable, because the real Genocide began in the1890’s when massacres and the
imposition of forced change of religion pushed hundreds and thousands of Armenians
out of the country. So, prior to WWI their numbers had reduced dramatically. What is
more, the official Turkish demographic census cannot be accepted as a reliable source
of historical Western Armenian demographics, just as the works of Western
turkophile authors are not reliable. In the past, a Turkish high ranked official admitted
that Sultan Abdul-Hamid had ordered a decree by which demographers were to
“deliberately (kasden) reduce the numbers of the Armenian population,” and “ we
reduced the numbers of the Armenians in order to show that they never existed.” On
another page, the same author admits that, “The regions which were populated by
Armenians and Kurds the Turks were a minority.”143

On another occasion again Suny ‘carefully’ tries to temper down the Turkish crimes,
once again reiterating “in Anatolia”. This is the only early fact he has presented.

142 See, for example: E.K. Sarkisyan, “Administrativnaya ee demograficheskaya politica

Osmanskogo pravitelstva v Zapodnoy Armenii”, v Strani ee Narodi Blizhnego ee Crednego
Vostoka, T.V. Turtsia. Erevan : AN Arm. SSR, 1970. pp. 357-380; Richard Hovanissian,
Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkley, Calif.: 1967), p. 37; Levon Marashlian,
Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks, and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge,
Mass.:- Zorian Institute, 1991); H.H. Galstyan, Arevelian Hayastani bnakchutyan azgayin
kazme est Vital Kinei vichakagrutyan – Merdzavor yev Midjin Arevelki yerkrner &
jhoghovurdner. XII: Turkiya: erevan, 31, 1985, p. 59-79.
143 Seyh Muhsin Sani [Huseyin Kazim Kadri], 10 Temmuz Inkilabi ve Netauici [June 10-the
revolution and its effects] Istanbul, “Orhaniye”, 1336 [1920], p. 116, 121, 123. Original in
Ottoman. For reference see Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Ottoman Archives and Denial of the
Armenian Genocide,” in The Armenian Genocide History, Politics, Ethics, op. cit., pp. 294,
308 (notes 45, 46). In this article Dadrian proves with numbers the premeditated falsifications
by J. McCarthy, as well as Esat Uras whose sources have been used by J.McCarthy.
144 See, Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking,” op. cit., p.3
145 Ibid.
47
 At the end of the 19th Century the Armenian nationalists proclaimed their
rights [ref., “To claim Anatolia as their motherland”144 ] and the Turk
nationalists responded.
[Armenian nationalists made such a claim in the late nineteenth century and
Turkish nationalists responded.]145

What Suny is clearly saying is that the Armenian nationalists had provoked the
clashes for no reason, and had tried to take over Turkish Anatolia, and so the Turkish
nationalists had ‘retaliated’. This is an extremely simplistic and equally transparent
tongue twister. According to him the nationalists had played a ‘tit for tat fighting’
game. But what were the real owners of the land, the Armenians doing?

In his lecture at Princeton University Suny said that the number of people that
perished during the Genocide between 1915-1918, according to conservative
statistics, (he does not mention any other statistics. A.A.) were around 600,000 to
1,000,00”146. In his Looking toward Ararat, in one place he writes, between 1915-
1916 “a few hundred thousand to nearly 1,500,000 Armenians perished”. Yet on
another page, Suny speaks of massacred Armenians in 1915-1922 to be around
600,000 to 1,500,000147. The same year, in another book published in 1993, he notes
that between 1915-1922 the count of Armenians that perished is known to be between
“600,000 up to 2,500,000”148.
If this is not classical opportunism, then what is it? When the same author is using
numbers that are far apart and elastic, and is saying different things to different
audiences, he is simply sewing the seeds of incredulity and suspicion towards the
numbers of Armenians that perished in the Armenian Genocide.

b)Suny’s next condescension to the Turkish falsification of the Armenian Genocide is

quite remarkable.

In 1915, it was only within the context of the inevitable disintegration of the
Empire, when the Russians were threatening from the East and the Australians
and British had landed in Gallipoli, the Ottoman government decided to
radically solve the Armenian question once in for all. (The above quote is
mine A.A.) and the following is from the original text – “Rather than a long
planned and carefully orchestrated program of extermination, the Armenian
Genocide was more a vengeful and panicky act of suppression” 149.

146 See, Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking,” op. cit., p.16

147 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 114, 217.
148 Suny, The Revenge of the Past, op. cit., p.74
149 Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking,” op. cit., p. 16.
150 Comp. Ibid., pp 10-11, 16, 18.
151 For example, famous falsifier Stanford Shaw writes, “The careful examination of the secret
documents of the Ottoman government of the time does not show any document to prove
that any one of the leaders gave the orders to carry out a massacre” Stanford J. Shaw and
Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol.2 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 316.
48
As we can see, Suny insists that the 1915 Genocide (a) was not orchestrated, (b) “it
was not a planned and orchestrated program,” but rather (c) the decision taken by the
Young Turks to exterminate the Armenians was a result of political and psychological
pressures of the War150. As we have said before, Suny is not denying the Genocide,
but he is putting forth three main reasons that are taken from the Turkish propaganda
arsenal151. By doing this, Suny is aiding and abating those who are denying the
Armenian Genocide. The last part of the above section was taken from Suny’s lecture
of May 1966 at Princeton University (the same is elaborated in more detail in his
book152). While elaborating the above falsifications, Suny has once again breached the
scientific code of ethics by showing disregard for the detailed analysis of the Turkish
falsifications, which are contrary to the above, by a leading expert on the questions of
the Armenian Genocide, Vahakn Dadrian, who has exposed the falsifications of the
Turks, Germans, Austrians, British and others in detail in his established work
published in the USA in 1995. Suny has not only deliberately overlooked the analysis
in this book, but also numerous other studies that present the real truth153.

Besides, Suny does not consider the 1890 Armenian massacres as Genocide154, he
also negates the historical truth that the 1915 Armenian Genocide organised by the
Young Turks was the continuation of the monstrous politics of Abdul Hamid and its
hair-raising results. What is more, this is how Suny speaks of the 1890 massacres of
Sassun,

In 1894 clashes between the Kurds and Armenians in Sassun led to the
intervention of state troops and the killing of hundreds of Armenians as the first
stage of a series of massacres that would culminate in the genocide of 1915. But
the (sic.A.A.)1894-1896 massacres in eastern Anatolia can be seen as part of an
effort by Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore an old equilibrium in interethnic
relations…155

Thus, according to Suny, the Turkish troops had just ‘intervened’ in the clashes
between the Kurd and the Armenians, meaning that they had only taken the ‘peaceful’
role of, for example, UN troops. This kind of analysis of the massacres of Sassun is
nothing less than immoral. Whereas, Dadrian has dedicated a whole chapter to these
events, where he has analysed and examined the details on the bases of imperial
archives, which prove that the immediate organizer was the Turkish government, and

152 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., pp. 94-115.

153 See, Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethics Conflic from the
Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, op. cit., pp. 219-247, where you will see the detailed action
plan and its execution by the Turkish Government. See also Vahakn N. Dadrian
“The Secret Young-Turk Ittihaddist Conference and the Decision for the World War I Genocide of
the Armenians,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol. 22 No.1, Summer 1994, pp173-
202.
154 See the wrong approach of Western historians, M.G. Nersisyan, Arevmtahayeri 1915-1916
tseghaspanutyan patmutyan mi kani hartseri shurdj – Patmabanasirakan Handes No.2:142 (1995),
pp. 11-20.
155 Suny, “Nation-making, Nation-breaking,” op., cit., p. 10.
156 See, Vahakn N. Dadtrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide, pp. 114-116.

49
the massacres of Sassun were carried out by regular Turkish troops dressed in Kurdish
clothes156.

Hence, the interpretation of the Armenian Genocide by Suny and his counterparts can
be evaluated as a classic example of scientific opportunism, and the false pretence of
accepting the Armenian Genocide is just another way of pulling the wool over the
eyes of diasporan Armenians, a way of holding the position of an ‘esteemed scholar’
whereby freely falsifying Armenian history in every way, without any obstruction.

It must be said that others in the USA have also noticed Suny’s interpretation of the
Armenian Genocide. In 1986, Rouben Adalian in his essay regarding Suny’s book
“Armenia in the twentieth Century” has written the following:

“Suny does not differentiate between massacre and genocide. He treats the
Armenian holocaust as a massacre with a larger number of victims. Its
ideological roots in Turkish nationalism are never mentioned. Its
deliberateness is ignored. Its finality overlooked. Its tragedy trivialized… To
contend that, “Turkish actions against the Armenians were taken in dispersion
and panic” (pp 8,18) is to minimize the guilt, responsibility and inhumanity of
the perpetrators of the genocide. Besides, the statement is false… the facts so
evidently show a very clear plan of action, executed with efficiency and not
halted until fully implemented…I found Suny’s analysis of the genocide of the
Armenians disturbingly shallow.” 157

It is incredible, that Adalian’s critique has been overlooked by the American

‘Armenological’ studies and has simply fallen on deaf ears. As well, the American-
Armenian communities and institutions ignorantly continue to hold Suny in high
regard.158

157 Rouben Adalian’s review of Ronald Grigor Suny, Armenia in the Twentieth Century.
Chicago, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983. – in Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies
Volume 2 1985-1986, pp. 217-222.
158 Let us chronologically mention the last event only: in September 1998 the Center for
Armenian Studies at Columbia University had organised and patronised Suny’s lecture at the
Davis auditorium, where he criticised Rober Kocharyan’s firm standing on Gharabagh, the
Armenian Genocide and questions on relations with Turkey as (hard-line and nationalistic).
See, Prof. Michael Harutunian, “Suny predicts Trouble for Armenia,” Columbia University
Armenian Center, Press Release – Event Report, September 25, 1998.

50
 10. Interpretations of ethnic cleansing of Armenians from
Nakhidjevan and Shushi

Suny writes, “The city of Shusha, once an Armenian cultural center became almost
entirely Azerbaijani.”159 He fails to explain the ethnic cleansing of Armenians that
took place in Shushi. In his book there is no mention of the organised massacres of
Armenians and the torching of Armenian suburbs by the Musavaths in March 1920.
Hence, Suny makes believe that the ethnic cleansing of Armenians took place in a
seemingly natural process without any bloodshed.

On the same page he refers to the census of Nakhidjevan without any detail. He
writes, “Unlike Karabagh, Nakhichevan was very largely Azerbaijani populated.”160
On another page he writes, “There the Armenians in significant minority in the 1920s,
had declined to 15%.”161 It is very clear as to why this ‘Armenologist’ makes
reference to the year 1926 and not 1916, when the Armenians were 40% of the
population of Nakhidjevan.162 No one can argue that the 60% majority of the
population was not Azerbaijani, but an ethnic mix of Shia and Sunny Turkish
speaking Muslims, Kurds, Assyrians, and Russians. This ethnic mix started evolving
between the 1920s till the 1960s. Therefore, Suny’s claim that the Azerbaijanis
were a majority in Nakhidjevan is completely false and baseless.

Instead, the truth is that the Armenians were forcibly removed by an organised agenda
developed in Baku, and were denied the right of return to their homes and subjected to
economic and social pressures.163 Suny claims that the decline in the Armenian
population was due to “Azerbaijanis with in-migration and higher birth rate had
increased.”164 There is no doubt that these statements are in line with Turko-
Azerbaijani falsifications.

He also does not hesitate to reprimand the Armenians for being suspicious of the anti-
Armenian political stance of Azerbaijan. Thus, he continues,

“Confident that they were culturally superior to Muslims, the Armenians

generally kept themselves separate from Azerbaijani society.”
“Many Armenians hold that Azerbaijanis are a primitive and savage people,
barely civilised by the Soviet experience.”
“Though they (ie. Karabagh Armenians – AA ) lived in neighbouring districts,
the Armenians saw that their standard of living was not as high as Armenians
in the Armenian Republic.”

159
Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 195.
160
Ibid. p. 195
161
Ibid. p. 188
162
“Kavkazkiy kalendar na 1917 god.” P. 214-221; Christopher J. Walker, ed. Armenia and
Karabakh, op. cit., pp. 64-65
163
See details in for example, Vladimir Khodjabekyan, Bagrat Asatryan, “Eez istorii
Armyanskogo nasileniya Nakhichevana”, Vestnik obshestvennikh nauk AN Arm. SSR, 1988, No.6
pp. 18-27.
164
Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., p. 188
51
52 “Hostile towards Azerbaijanis, whom they blamed for their social and cultural
discontent, Karabagh Armenians preferred to learn Russian rather than
Azeri.”165

These fallacies and fabrications were put into circulation in early February 1988 by
Soviet Azerbaijan and Moscow. At the time these fallacies were subjected to strong
criticism and proven wrong by Armenian historians.”166 As always, Suny does not
focus on the truth.

11. Bringing disrepute to the Karabagh Movement

In reference to the national liberation movement of Karabagh, which began in 1988,

Suny describes the conflict as follows:

“Unlike the national struggles in the Soviet Baltic, which have been largely
constitutional and free of popular violence, the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
over the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabagh (Mountainous Karabagh)
has been far more volatile, less manipulable by political authorities, and more
subject to rapid unpredictable escalation.”167

This kind of evaluation is defective and deliberate, as Suny does not speak of the most
important factor, which is the Armenians of Artsakh were denied their right of self-
determination in a peaceful way by the Soviet central committees in Moscow and
Baku. They were also denied their constitutional right to a peaceful solution by being
deliberately massacred by the above forces in a planned and organised manner.
Secondly, Suny does not mention the fact that the Armenian side worked hard to
achieve a peaceful constitutional solution. He mentions the fact 7 pages later,
“Yet for the next few months the Soviet government, as well as the Armenians, sought
some kind of ‘constitutional’ solution.”168 In short, Suny is implying that the Baltic
States are civilised (i.e. ‘constitutional’) and the Armenians and Azerbaijanis
‘uncivilised’ (i.e. ‘unconstitutional’). By saying this he is clearly drawing a line
between the two. Suny is deliberately trying to turn a simple question into a
problematic one, instead of simply clarifying the issue as to who is to blame in these
hostilities. In his writings Suny fails to say that the endeavours and struggles of
Karabagh Armenians were just and moral in every aspect, and were in line with both
Soviet and international norms. In this book published in 1993, there is not a single
mention of the right to self-determination and self-defence of Artsakh Armenians.
Furthermore, in June 1997, when Suny participated in an international conference on
conflicts in the Trancaucasus organised by the American University of Armenia, he
advocated leaving Karabagh under Azerbaijani rule. He went on to say, “Armenia’s
only practical chance for expansion came at the expense of Azerbaijan in
Karabakh.169 This kind of cheap Turkish rhetoric is nothing out of the ordinary for

165
Ibid. pp. 188, 194, 200.
166
See for example, Pravda o Nagornom Karabakhe. Materiali ee dokumenti v Erevan; GU, 1989.
Grigor Avakyan, Nagorniy Karabakh: Otvet folsifikatorom, Erevan: “Ayastan”, 1991.
167
Suny, Looking toward Ararat, op. cit., 193.
168
Ibid. p. 200
169
This whole report, which was a mixture of historical fallacies was then, without any elaboration or
comment served on to the English speaking audience by the official newspaper of the
Armenian General Benevolent Union. See, Ronald Grigor Suny, “Living with the other: Conflict
Suny. Here is another quote from the same report, “Armenia attempted to take both
Karabakh and parts of eastern Anatolia.”170 Instead, he should have said between
1918-1920 Armenia was trying to hold on to its land – Karabagh and Western
Armenia. He implicates that Armenia was trying to occupy these lands, as if it
belonged to someone else.
Armenia’s inequable struggle for independence is being called ‘attempted takeover of
Karabagh and some parts of eastern Anatolia’. Yet again Suny shows his true colours.
He uses the word take, which has several connotations. In the context of war and
military conflict it takes on the meaning of occupy and not just take. It takes on a
whole new and serious meaning when he uses the concocted name of eastern
Anatolian edge, instead of Western Armenia. The official Russian translation is
slightly different, “pitayutsia zapoluchit ee Karabakh, ee zemli vostochnoi
Anatolii.”171 [transliteration - ‘an attempted takeover of Karabakh and lands in eastern
Anatolia.]

What is interesting is that once upon a time Suny had a different stance on issues
concerning Karabagh. In 1978 in an article called ‘The Karabagh Problem: A
Historical Perspective,’ published in the April 5 and 8 issue of the Armenian Mirror-
Spectator, he unreservedly defends the self-determination of the Karabagh Armenians
and goes on to say that,

… the Soviet decision to hand over Karabagh and Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan

is ethnically, historically and geographically inconsistent. The single most
important factor for the Armenians is the ethnic one. According to Lenin’s
political propaganda, people everywhere should have the right to choose their
republic and their own government. Therefore, from an ethnic point of view,
since 80% of the population of Karabagh are Armenians, it should be part of
the Republic of Armenia, just as Nakhichevan should be part of the Republic
of Azerbaijan.
Secondly, if we look at the question from a historical point of view, then both
should be part of the Armenian Republic.
…If we look at it from a geographical point of view, according to their
positions Karabagh and Nakhichevan are really part of the highlands that is the
territory of Armenia. In fact Nakhichevan must be a part of Armenia because
it is surrounded by the Armenian highlands and the Republic of Armenia.
…The claim for the region of Nagorno-Karabagh by the Armenian people is
just.
…There is proof that due to the lack of Azebayjani supervision over the
Karabagh region, social and cultural development has been very slow.
…[As regards national issues, Soviet authorities] must return to Lenin’s

and Cooperation among the Transcaucasian peoples,” AGBU, September, 1997, pp. 27-29. One
year on, the same speech was published by the American University of Armenia,
The Transcaucasus Today: Prospects for Regional Integration, June 23-25, 1997. Edited
Conference Report (American University of Armenia, Extension Program ), pp. 51-57.
See the critical review “HAH students in response to Andranik Burnazian et. al.” – “AZG”,
Daily 15 July, 1997, p. 4.
170
AGBU , September, 1997, p. 27.
171
Zakovkazie segodniya: perspektivey regionalnoy integratsii, 23-25 iyunya, 1997.
Otridaktirovanniye tekst veystuplenii, Erevan: Amerikanskiy Universitet Armenii.
Otdelenie Spetsialnikh kursov.
53
 policies and give people the right to freely determine their political status
and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development …172
[Translated from Armenian due to unavailability of the original text. A.M.]

Should we not ask why in 1978 and 1993-1997 Suny had a totally different view on
issues concerning Karabagh? The answer is very clear. In 1978 American politics was
directed at inflaming and creating nationalistic movements in the Soviet Union. But in
1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington’s intentions changed,
especially in regard to Karabagh. The United States of America started to advocate
territorial integrity by sacrificing people’s right of self-determination. This kind of
American politics was self-explanatory. It was directed at weakening the Russian
position and influence in the south, then Far, Central and Middle East regions, which
would then give Turkey, a NATO ally a better chance of asserting itself in the region.

In order to better understand this change in US attitude on Karabgh, we must take into
account the resolutions passed by the US Senate and House of Representatives on
Karabagh before the collapse of the Soviet Union, which clearly defended and
encouraged the Armenians. (It is important to reiterate that both the Armenian
government and Armenian organizations in the diaspora have overlooked these
resolutions and have failed to refer to them in their efforts in resolving problems.)

1. In July 1988, the US Senate passed a resolution on Karabagh, calling on the

Soviet Government “to respect the legitimate aspirations of the Armenian
people of Nagorno-Karabagh.” Joint signatories to this resolution were
Republican Senators John McCain of Arkansas, Senator Pete Wilson from
California and Senator Robert Doyle from Kansas city.
2. On July 19, 1989 the US Senate passed a resolution which clearly states that
the United States must:
a) Encourage 1st Secretary of the Supreme Soviet, Mikhael Gorbachov to
call for a dialogue between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Deputies. (A
few days before this resolution was passed, a special program went to
air on Soviet State television where Gorbachov met the Armenian and
Azerbaijani delegates and clearly sided with Azerbaijan. A.A.).
b) To call on Mikhael Gorbachov to convene a meeting and encourage
dialogue between representatives of Nagorno-Karabagh and the leaders
of the Armenian national movement, including the Karabagh
Committee members who were recently released from prison, and to
adhere to “their demands of reunification with the Armenian
homeland.” (The most interesting aspect of this point is the
justification of the reunification of Karabagh with its Armenian
homeland - A.A.).
c) To be ready to accept the view of the people in the Karabagh region in
a just and equitable manner.
d) During this dialogue make sure those who committed violent acts
against the Armenians are caught and brought to justice.
172
This article has been republished after nine years. See, Ronald Grigor Suny, “The Karabagh
Problem: A Historical Perspective,” The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, November 14, 1987,
pp. 8-9.
54
 The author of this resolution was Democrat, Senator Clairbourne Pell
of Rhode Island.

3) On November 19, 1989 the US Senate and the House of Representatives

unanimously passed Resolution No.178 in support of the Armenians, which
specifically reiterated:

“The US joint Resolution No.178 expresses support for the just and
peaceful aspirations of the Republic of Armenia in solving the Karabagh
issue-
As the people of the United States of America have strong historical and
cultural ties with the Armenian people,
as the Armenian population of NagornoKarabagh, which is 80%, as a
majority has continuously expressed “its desire for self-determination and
freedom”,
as the present situation in Nargorno-Karabagh is causing great concern,
and is a matter of dispute between the two peoples of the Republics of
Armenia and Azerbaijan,
as the government of the Soviet Union has called the killings in the city of
Sumgait, Azerbaijan on 28-29 February ‘massacres’,
as discrimination against the Armenians in Karabagh continues, there are
mass rallies and a unrest in the region,
as the 3 month blockade [of Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia] continues,
just as the looting and destruction of cargo destined for Armenia after the
earthquake has caused unemployment amongst the Armenian people, in
spite of the efforts of the Soviet Union, the American and International
community after the tragic earthquake on December 7, 1988,
as the United States supports the fundamental rights of the Republic of
Armenia in solving the Nagorno-Karabagh issue,
The Congress of the United States, the Senate and the House of
Representatives believe we,
…(3) must encourage the leader of the USSR, Mikhael Gorbachov to
restore order, to immediately put an end to the blockade of Nagorno-
Karabagh and Armenia, and ensure the safety of Armenians in Nagorno-
Karabagh and Azerbaijan and protect them from attacks,
(4) call on the Soviet Union to resolve the Nagorno-Karabagh issue in a
just manner and to respect the aspirations of the people of Nagorno-
Karabagh during their dialogue…” and so on and so forth.

This resolution is very symbolic in a sense that it accepts the right of self-
determination of the Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabagh, and does not consider
it a part of Azerbaijan. On the contrary, it very clearly separates the two.
The US Senate unanimously accepted a few more resolutions on 17th of May 1991,
which were very encouraging for the Armenians, (Senate Resolution No. 128) on July
26th. The House of Representatives unanimously accepted a similar resolution on 13th
June 1991. It is interesting to note that in these resolutions the blockades against
Armenia and Karabagh were clearly seen as intimidation, “..the blockades and other
uses of force and intimidation.”

55
The only practical resolution was the US Senate resolution passed on 29th June 1992,
where the United States government was to stop economic aid to Azerbaijan until it
lifted its blockade of the Republic of Armenia and the- newly declared - Autonomous
region of Nagorno-Karabagh. In the same declaration the Karabagh Armenians are
known as a minority in Azerbaijan, and speaks of protecting the individual rather than
the people as a collective whole.173

And so, talk of peoples right to self-determination ended. This resolution was signed
by President Bush on October 24, 1992, immediately preceding the elections and
became legal. This was done to ensure the American Armenian vote.174

Thus, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, American attitudes toward Nagorno-
Karabagh took a sharp turn. Today, even the humble resolution against the
Azerbaijani blockade is in danger of being revoked.

Returning to Suny’s changing interpretations of issues on Nagorno Karabagh, we

come to the conclusion, that the assignment he took on from unscientific institutions
in 1978 are greatly different to those handed to him in 1992, from the same
institutions. In short, Suny is lead by the changing politics of the big government, and
sings and dances by the rules of his paymasters.

173
Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition: Nation-Building and Conflict, op. cit,
pp. 51-52.
174
Ibid. p. 193, notation 42.
56 to be continued…