Armenia in History

By „Armenia“ one implies the area where the Armenian people was shaped as a nation, lived and made its history. Greek historians called this country Armenia about 3000 years ago.

The year of 1993 was the 4100th anniversary of the Armenian statehood. According to the History of the Armenians by Movses Khorenatsi in 2107 B.C. the legendary archer Haik defeated the army of the Assyrian king Belus and established the first Armenian kingdom. In 1824 B.C. the Armenian princedoms united and came under one authority thus giving birth to the geographic and political concept of Armenia.

The first indications of Armenia can be traces in Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions dating back to 3rd millennium B.C., and the Hittites testify the existence of a country called Hayasa which is believed to be the cradle of Armenians. According to Assiro-Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions (13rd – 7rd cc. B.C.) Armenia was also called Nairi (country of rivers). That legendary country consisted of kingdoms of over 60 tribes and included hundreds of towns. The Armenian kingdom is called Ararat kingdom in the Bible.

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Archeological excavations have revealed a unique and highly developed civilization in the kingdom of Urartu (Ararat). One proof of that civilization is the town-fortress of Erebuni founded in 782 B.C. on the territory of Armenia’s present capital city of Yerevan (Read more about Yerevan here )


After the fall of Urartu again an Armenian kingdom emerges in the region. The Armenians are the descendants of a branch of Indo-Europeans. According to Strabo, a Greek geographer and historian, the Armenians living in the Armenian Highland spoke one language: Armenian.

In the Hellenistic period, with the strengthening of ties and relations between countries and peoples, and international trade becoming more active, Armenia began to trade with neighboring and faraway countries and acting as a transit route. The Hellenic influence was notable also in social and economic sphere, the Greek language being the literary, commercial and legal medium of communication in the entire region. Many Armenian towns were founded during this period. The countries ancient capital Artashat (founded in 166 B.C.) was on a main road that bridged the Black Sea ports with India and Central Asia. Plutarchos calls Artashat the Armenian Cartagena and mentions that Euripides’s Bacchae was performed in Artashat in 53 B.C.

The first century B.C. is considered as Armenia’s Golden Age with its flourishing towns, arts and literature. Being in the crossroads of East and West Armenia was always a linking bridge in the region. One of the routes of the famous Silk Road crossed Armenia. This favorable geographical position adversely made Armenia an apple of discord between competing powers. Under such cruel historical conditions the Armenian people suffered innumerable tribulations but also became stronger in spirit. Armenians acquired such traits of national character as bravery, perseverance, and succeeded through hard work and creative effort in giving birth to magnificent masterpieces of art.

A very difficult period for Armenia was the first century A.D. The destructive policies of successive Parthian rulers lead the country to decline. Beginning from the second half of the first century Rome exhausted its influence in Armenia and stronger became the neighboring Parthian state. At that time founded was the Armenian Arshakouni dynasty which ruled until 4th century.

After a long struggle against Rome the Armenian king Trdat 1st was crowned by Nero in 66 A.D. and a period of revival started in Armenia. Many fortresses and towns were founded or rebuilt, and a notable advance was made both in arts and science. One of the newly emerged cities was Vagharshapat which later was became the cradle of Christianity in Armenia.

According to historians already in 33 A.D. the Armenian king Abgar Arshakouni adopted Christianity which was after his death rejected by his court.

In 301 Armenia adopted Christianity thus becoming the first country in the world to proclaim it state religion. For comparison, Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire in 313 by the Edict of Milan.

The invention of the Armenian alphabet in 405 by St. Mesrop Mashtots seems to be a landmark in the millennial history of the Armenian people that resulted in a powerful cultural bang.

In 449 a rebellion to liberate the country divided between Byzantine and Sasanid Persia burst out. Through great heroism and heavy losses the 66.000 strong Armenian troops were able to resist about 220.000 Persians in the battle of Avarair in 451. Afterwards the Armenians succeeded in further weakening the Persian state in guerilla warfare.

In the 7th century Sasanid Persia collapsed under the invasions of the Arabs. Armenia this time fell under the yoke of the Arab Caliphate. A lengthy national liberation movement ended with the victory of Armenians and in 859 Ashot Bagratouni of the Bagratouni dynasty was recognized Prince of Pinces, and in 885 he granted the title of the Armenian king by the Caliph.

Beginning from mid-9th century a notable rise in the country’s economic, spiritual, cultural and political life was marked. Fortress Ani, known from the 5th century, becomes the nation’s capital in 961. Ani was known as a town of „thousand and one churches“. It had mighty ramparts, gardens and suburbs.

In the 11th century the Armenian kingdom weakens due to both inner instability and under the influence of exterior forces, and Seljuk turks that had already appeared on the historical scene in the 11th century invaded Northern Armenia in 1064.

While Armenia proper lost sovereignty, on the southern costs of the Mediterranean rose another Armenian kingdom – Cilicia – and it lasted for about 300 years (1080-1375).

Armenians first set foot in Cilicia in 96-95 B.C. and in the course of time they spread along the Mediterranean costs. The Armenian princedom of Cilicia grew so rapidly and became so powerful that in 1198, with the consent of Byzantium and the crusaders, it was recognized as a sovereign kingdom.

During the 300 years of existence the Cilician kingdom was seldom lucky to enjoy peaceful days. Beginning from the 20s of the 14th century, the Armenians of Cilicia had to fight for their independence against Egyptian Mameluks and the Sultanate of Iconia. Yet, the Cilician kingdom left a rich cultural heritage achieving heights in arts and sciences, namely, architecture, literature, manuscript illumination, etc.

After the fall of the Tatar Empire invasions into Armenia by different plunderers did not cease. The troops of Lenk Timur (Tamerlane, 1386) and the Persian Shah Abbas the Great (1604) invaded Armenia devastating the country. After a lengthy struggle Western Armenia passes in 1639 to Turkey, and Eastern Armenia to Persia. This situation lasted until the 20s of the 19th century.

Armenian-Russian relationship starts from 10-13th centuries. Starting from mid of the 17th century the key issue in the political relations with Russia was the liberation of Armenia from Turkish and Persian tyranny. In 1804 war broke out between Russia and Persia, and in 1813 a number of historically Armenian districts (marzes) were joined to Russia by the Giulistan Accord.

In 1828 the Turkmencha Accord came to finally unify Eastern Armenia with Russia, and in the result of the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish war the Western Armenian marz of Kars was unified with Russia as well.

Starting from the end of the XIX century the Ottoman government planned and carried out massacres of Armenians. The reflections of heroic resistance in Sassoun, Zeitoun, Van and elsewhere still fresh, in 1915 the Turkish government carried out the Genocide of the Armenian nation to which around 1.5 Armenians fell victims.
The survivors were scattered all over the world, and a part of them found refuge in the Eastern Armenia.

On may 28, 1918, Armenia was declared independent state.

In 1920 Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was established.

In 1991 Armenia regained independent statehood.

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The Armenian Alphabet

One of the most important events in the history of Armenia happened in 405 AD, when the new Armenian alphabet was created. Before that, for about 16 hundred years, various forms of cuneiforms had been used in Armenia. After the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Armenia in 301 AD, the Church regarded the old systems of writing as inappropriate for religious use. An attempt was made to use the Greek and Syriac languages as the official languages of the Church and the state, but this was rejected after several decades, mainly because the ordinary people did not understand those languages, which made the spread of the new religion more difficult, and also because of the resistance of the nationalistically minded aristocracy and bureaucracy.

At the end of the IV century there were several attempts to adjust the old systems of writing to the needs of the Church, but they all failed, because the proposed versions did not reflect correctly the phonetic system of the language. In the nineties of the century king Vramshapuh asked a high-ranking official in his chancellery and a prominent scholar Mesrop Mashtots to make another attempt. Mesrop Mashtots travelled to Alexandria, then the biggest cultural and scientific centre of the world, and studied there various principles of writing. He came to the conclusion that the Greek alphabet was the most advanced one of that time since it had one letter for each sound and was easy to memorise and to use. So he created an alphabet which followed the principle of 'one letter for one sound' and was written from left to right and had capital letters, unlike all other languages of Eastern Anatolia and the Middle East, which were mostly written from right to left and had no capitals.

In 405 Mesrop Mashtots returned to Armenia, bringing with him the 36 new letters of the Armenian alphabet. The same year the Bible was translated anew and re-written in the new alphabet. The Armenian translation of the Bible, which contains more words than the Hebrew and Greek originals, was so perfect that it soon came to be known as the 'Queen of Translations'. The new alphabet stimulated an unprecedented boom in literature, and the V century was later called the 'Golden Age of Armenian Literature'.

The alphabet created by Mesrop Mashtots was so perfect that it has not been changed or reformed since 405 AD. The letters used today look exactly as Mesrop Mashtots created them. The Armenian alphabet played an enormous role in the preserving of the national and cultural identity of the Armenian people, and enjoys a very special love and respect. For the creation of the alphabet Mesrop Mashtots was later canonised by the Armenian Apostolic Church.

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Economy of Armenia

Economy of Armenia-overview: Under the old Soviet central planning system, Armenia had developed a modern industrial sector, supplying machine tools, textiles, and other manufactured goods to sister republics in exchange for raw materials and energy.

Since the implosion of the USSR in December 1991, Armenia has switched to small-scale agriculture away from the large agro industrial complexes of the Soviet area. The agricultural sector has long-term needs for more investment and updated technology. The privatization of industry has been at a slower pace, but has been given renewed emphasis by the current administration.

Armenia is a food importer, and its mineral deposits (gold, bauxite) are small. The ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian-dominated region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the breakup of the centrally directed economic system of the former Soviet Union contributed to a severe economic decline in the early 1990s.

By 1994, however, the Armenian Government had launched an ambitious IMF-sponsored economic program that has resulted in positive growth rates in 1995-98. Armenia also managed to slash inflation and to privatize most small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The chronic energy shortages Armenia suffered in recent years have been largely offset by the energy supplied by one of its nuclear power plants at Metsamor. The Russian financial crisis generated concerns about Armenia's economic performance in 1998. Although inflation dropped to 10% and GDP grew about 6%, the industrial sector remained moribund.

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Armenian Fonts

In order to be able to view Armenian language Internet pages you would need to install Armenian fonts. Please click here for getting Armenian Fonts and install them following the instructions below:

Download Armenian Fonts

• Download and unzip the file with WinZip or WinRAR.
• Open Control Panel (Start>Settings>Control Panel)
• Open Fonts folder.
• File>Install New Font
• Choose directory, where you unzipped the ArmenianFonts.rar file
• Many Armenian fonts should appear in the window of the dialog box.
• Select any of the fonts or all of them and press OK button.
• The font or fonts should be installed.

Now you are ready for viewing web-pages in Armenian

If you would like also to type Armenian, create documents in the Armenian language, you would need to install and run KDWin95, a program that works in Windows (95, 98, 2000, NT, XP) environment. Please follow the instructions below how to download, install and run KDWin95.zip

Download KDWin95.zip

• Download KDWin95.zip in your computer and unzip with WinZip or WinRAR.
• In the folder of KDWin95 find the application file Setup.exe and run it. This application will install KDWin95 in your computer.
• To start to type Armenian change the set language from US (the default language is US) to Armenian by pressing Alt+Shift, choose an installed Armenian font from the list of the fonts in your text editor and start typing Armenian.

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Armenian Holidays

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