"A History Of Armenia" Excerpts

The following choice bits are from:

A History of Armenia
by Vahan M. Kurkjian
published by the
Armenian General Benevolent Union of America
1958 /YR

From an online publication

Russians take the Erevan province from the Persians

The army of Abbas was defeated and the city of Tabriz was occupied by the Russians. By the treaty of Turkmen-Tchai in 1828, Persia surrendered the Khanates of Erevan and Nakhjevan, their sole remaining possessions on the left bank of the Arax. Etchmiadzin, the spiritual capital of the Armenian people, was thus delivered from incursions, often humiliating and sacrilegious. However, the creation of an "Armenian autonomous province" under Russian suzerainty, which had been promised or hoped for, did not meet with the approval of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, General Paskevitch.


Shah-Abbas seized upon this excuse to attempt a revenge for the reverses inflicted upon Persia by the Turks. He promptly invaded Azerbaijan, took the province of Ararat and advanced towards the West. He was brought to a halt, however, when confronted by a powerful force under the general, Sinan Pasha, sent against him by the new Sultan of Turkey, Ahmed I (1603-1617). Shah-Abbas, realizing his inferiority, had to give up Armenia, but not before he had burned and destroyed everything within reach, reducing the country to a waste and making it useless for the victorious Turks. At the same time, he ordered the Armenians to emigrate to Persia and settle there as colonists. The entire population of Eastern Armenia was thus deported, and those who were unwilling to quit their ancestral homes were forced to do so under the threat of whip and bludgeon, even of steel. Weary caravans did finally, after a long march, reach the banks of the Arax River, the crossing of which cost the lives of thousands. Those of the evacuees who could manage to evade their conquerors slipped away to the north, to seek refuge in Astrakhan, on the Volga River, to join eventually the preceding Armenian emigrants in Moldavia, Bukovina and Poland.


The news of a Russian campaign was therefore joyfully hailed by the harassed people, and their courage was revived to the point of aiding the army of liberation. General Paskevitch captured a dozen important towns and cities in Armenia — Kars, Akhalkalak, Akhaltzikh, Bayazid, Diadin, Alashkert, Hassan-Kala, Erzerum, Khnous, Baiburt, etc. The Czarist armies, victorious also in European Turkey, were threatening Constantinople when Western powers, intent on maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, interceded. By the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, Russia was persuaded to restore to Turkey all her new acquisitions in Asia with the exception of the districts of Anapa, Poti, Akhalkalak and Akhaltzikh.



The Armenians were bitterly disappointed, and fearing Turkish vengeance for their adherence to the Russian cause, ninety thousand of them emigrated towards Alexandropol and adjacent Russian territories. This was a pitiful exodus; half of them died from starvation and exposure on the way. The survivors found themselves confronted with another oppression. The Russian administration, heir to the Byzantine policy of championship of the Orthodox Church, was not in sympathy with the faithful Armenian churchmen, who, being orthodox too, had clung to the autonomous existence of their own creed. Greek intolerance of bygone centuries seemed to have been transmitted in force to these Slavs of the East. Despite the periodical incitement of religious fanaticism by the Russian Orthodox clergy, the Armenians have always acknowledged their gratitude for the full security given to them within the Russian frontiers in those early days of the 19th century.


The main body of the deportees was, after a toilsome journey, herded through Azerbaijan and Kurdistan towards Ispahan, where Shah-Abbas established in 1605 an Armenian town, New Julfa, not far from his capital city. The King evinced a real sympathy towards the exiles, and as soon as they had settled in their new home, he proclaimed religious liberty within his realm. He himself occasionally attended the ceremonies of the Armenian Church, and did not tolerate any molestation of Christians by his Moslem subjects. Unfortunately, many of his successors failed to adhere to his wise policy, and under the influence of fanatical mollahs, mistreated the Armenians.


The reforms were to be executed in the six Armenian provinces, Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Sivas and Kharput. Scarcely had the paper been signed when secret orders were issued from the palace of the "Red Sultan" for the general massacre which took place in 1895 and 1896. The number of the dead, almost all of them able-bodied men, reached 100,000 — according to the conservative estimate of the British Blue Book, 63,000.


The Armenian historian is telling us:

In the early 17th century, the Ottoman Turks took parts of Armenia from the Persians.

The Persians truly "deported" the Armenians from Eastern Armenia

[But we are not told that the Erivan province had a Muslim majority before the Russian conquest. This area became populated with Armenians much more afterwards, as part of Russian policy, principally with Armenians from the Ottoman Empire.]

When Russia flexed her muscles in 1828-29 against the Ottoman Turks, many Armenians betrayed their Ottoman nation.

Russian promises to Armenians, via General Paskevitch, were broken.

90,000 Armenians left with the Russians, for fear of Ottoman revenge upon the Armenians' disloyalty

[With the WWI parallel, Richard Hovannisian wrote in 1967 that 300,000 Armenians did the same, about half dying from famine and disease. These are called "genocide victims."]

The Russian Orthodox clergy encouraged religious fanatics, a holdover from the Greeks, against the Armenians

The Persian Shah Abbas treated the Armenians kindly

The number of 1890s Armenian dead is reported as from one-half to one third of today's typical claims of 200,000 to 300,000.

Post WWI Developments (link)



Treaty of Alexandropol; February revolution
















The Armenian historian is telling us:

The British used the Armenians as pawns.

The Armenians willingly joined the Soviets.

The Turks had nothing to do with this decision, remaining "static."

The Gumru/Alexandropol Treaty is the first time the Turks had heard of the Bolshevization of Armenia.

The violence of early 1921 was between Armenians only, resulting in a "self-genocide" of 20,000 lives. When some writers refer to the "Armenian Genocide of 1915-1921," they are including these victims as having died at the hands of the Turks.