A    R    M    E     N    I     A              R    E    B    O    R    N

K H A C H A T U R    A B O V I A N. THE XIXTH CENTURY PROFILE GRAVURE OF
THE OUTSTANDING PATRIOT WRITER-TEACHER. ABOVIAN IS CONSIDERED ONE OF
THE FATHERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT WHO TAUGHT
THAT "...KNOWLEDGE WILL BREAK THE CHAINS OF FOREIGN TYRANNY..."

'HISTORY IS INDEED LITTLE MORE THAN THE REGISTER
OF THE CRIMES, FOLLIES AND MISFORTUNES OF MANKIND.'
-- EDWARD GIBBON

Written by Gevork Nazaryan

Beginning from the XVth century Armenia was plundered and conquered by the nomadic Turkic tribes that came from the steppes of Central Asia. Ak-koyunlu and Khara-koyunlu, killed, looted and plundered Armenian villages, towns and cities. The Turkic rule had a devastating effect on Armenia. The nomadic and semi-barbaric lifestyle of the Turks led to the formation of the tyrannical rule of the Ottoman Turks, who fought for control of Armenia against the Safavid and Kajar dynasties of Persia in a series of military campaigns, each having a very negative impact for the native Armenian population. In 1604, the Persian Shah Abbas I decided to relocate the Armenian population of Eastern Armenia to Persia. He pursued a scorched earth policy and wanted to make a wasteland of Eastern Armenia, thus rendering it useless for the advancing Turkish armies. Hundreds of thousands Armenians were relocated to Iran, and Armenian population of Eastern Armenia had considerably dwindled. Eventually the Persians and the Turks decided to divide Armenia, leaving Western Armenia [parts of Greater and Lesser Armenia] and Cilicia to the Turks -- the Persians retaining all of Eastern Armenia. The massacres of Armenians in Western Armenia and Cilicia, continued throughout the centuries of Turkish domination.

STEP‛ANOS NAZARYAN. THE OUTSTANDING TEACHER AND IDEALIST.
ONE OF THE LEADING FATHERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT ERA.

In the second part of the XIXth century, when Western Armenia and Cilicia, were still in Turkish hands, as opposed to Eastern Armenia which was liberated by the Russian army and Armenian volunteers, the Turks continued their in particular anti-Armenian policies and generally anti-Christian xenophobic policies towards the "infidels" -- Armenians, Greeks and West Syrians among others. Centuries of Turkish persecution, discrimination oppression and brutal massacres did not brake the freedom loving spirit of the Armenian people. Many Armenians resented the backward, barbaric ways of the Turkish empire -- "the sick man of Europe" as the the Turkish empire was known in the West. In 1860s and 1870s in order to break the chains of foreign oppression and injustice and the "second class" citizen status, the Armenians of Zeyt'un and Sasun rose up in defense of their freedom and honor. The Ottoman sultan used the pretext to drown in blood the freedom fighters and once again launched a series of pogroms and massacres of peaceful populace. After sustaining a number of defeats at the hands of mountaineer freedom fighters the Turkish "army" would unleash itself on the defenseless women and children of the villages and towns.

H  I  W  S  I  S  A  P‛  A  Y  L [AURORA BOREALIS -- NORTHERN LIGHTS]
THE VOICE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, REASON, TRUTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE OF
THE ENLIGHTENMENT TEACHERS PUBLISHED IN THE 1850s.

The Sasun Massacre created a furor throughout Europe, with many intellectuals and human rights advocates demanding that the European governments take action in order to punish the Turkish government and the Sultan in particular who gave orders of the massacres.

FROM NOW ON YOUR SPELL OF COWARDLY MANIPULATION
WILL BE REMOVED... YOU HIGH PRIESTS OF LIES...
YOU TYRANNICAL PARASITES THAT WANTED TO KEEP THE
KNOWLEDGE ONLY TO YOURSELVES IN ORDER TO CONTROL THE PEOPLE...
....DARKNESS CANNOT STOP   T H E   N E W  D A W N   OF LIGHT...
...FROM NOW ON ONLY   L I G H T,  T R U T H  A N D   F R E E D O M
ARE OUR GUIDING VIRTUES...

-- S  T  E  P‛  A  N  O  S       N  A  Z  A  R  Y  A  N
OPENING QUOTES FROM   A U R O R A    B O R E A L I S

The outcry throughout Europe for justice and protection of the Armenian people, as well as other peoples living under the yoke of the Turkish empire directly led to the Berlin Conference of 1878 where the problem of eliminating the xenophobic policies of the Turkish government towards their own citizens were put in question. This scornful issue became known as the Armenian Question which focused itself on eliminating discrimination and oppression of the Armenian people in the Turkish empire.

O N E     O F     N A Z A R Y A N 'S     L E T T E R S     T O     A B O V I A N

Years later, the Armenian Question would be solved...a solution... concocted by a criminal Turkish regime that set a historic precedent that forever marred Turkish history, adding to its "credit" the "honor" of executing the FIRST GENOCIDE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. The Turkish government after realizing that Armenians seek an end to oppression and injustice answered the call for equal rights and freedom with a "tested" Turkic method - violence... intimidation...fear...torture... rape... starvation...mass killing ...Genocide. When Henry Morgenthau Sr., the U.S. ambassador to the Turkish Empire [1913-16], sounded the alarm to the rest of the world that "a murder of a nation is taking place," Talaat Pasha, one of the three criminal ring leaders of the Young Turk regime who masterminded the Armenian Genocide, while talking to the U.S. ambassador calmly answered "What Armenian Question...? I have solved the Armenian Question...we did something that the Sultan wanted to do for at least 50 years, but was unable..." Indeed...World War I, that began in 1914, finally became the perfect backdrop to put in action the pre-planned policy of complete extermination of the Armenian people and the solution of the Armenian Question, between 1915 to 1923. The plan put in action by the Young Turk regime was a systematic destruction of the Armenian people by means of Genocide. Immediately following the Berlin Conference of 1878, the Turks not only did not keep their word on stopping the oppression of the Armenian population, but on the contrary intensified the persecutions and attacks on their Armenian subjects. The bloody Sultan Abdul Hamid II [called the "Red Sultan" in the European press] formed, the so-called 'Hamidye battalions' -- death squads often made up of Kurdish bandits who were willing to loot, plunder and kill Armenians on virtually daily basis.

S T E P‛ A N      V O S K A N Y A N. ONE OF THE LEADING TEACHER
E D U C A T O R S    O F    T H E    E N L I G H T E N M E N T

Throughout 1894-96 alone, anywhere between 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians perished at the hands of these death squads. The Armenian outcry for justice to the world, specially to the great powers of Europe, who in the Berlin Conference had promised to pressure the Turkish government into ending these massacres turned out to be empty promises. In 1909, the Young Turk regime that came to power a year earlier due to a revolution that forced Abdul Hamid's abdication and was viewed by even some Armenians as "the party that will fight for the brotherhood of Armenians and Turks", organized the Adana Massacre in which no less than 40,000 were once again butchered by a crazed Turkish mob.

JOHANNES LEPSIUS [1858-1926]. DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY WHO DEDICATED HIS
WHOLE LIFE IN DEFENSE OF THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE. FOUNDER OF
THE DEUTSCHE-ARMENISCHE GESSELSCHAFT [THE GERMAN-ARMENIAN SOCIETY]
THAT PUBLISHED MONUMENTAL WORKS INCLUDING AMONG OTHERS DEUTSCHLAND
UND ARMENIEN [GERMANY AND ARMENIA] AND ARMENIEN UND EUROPA
[ARMENIA AND EUROPE]. LEPSIUS PERSONALLY DEFENDED IN THE BERLIN
COURT THE GREAT AVENGER AND NATIONAL HERO SOŁOMON TEHLIRIAN
WHO HUNTED DOWN AND EXECUTED TALAAT PASHA ONE OF THE THREE KEY
RING LEADERS OF THE CRIMINAL YOUNG TURK REGIME. THE COURT FOUND
TEHLIRIAN NOT GUILTY FOR THE EXECUTION OF THE VERDICT GIVEN IN
ABSENTIA IN CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE YOUNG TURK LEADERS WHO HAD FLED
TO VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD.

BEGINNING IN THE FIRST HALF OF XVIIITH CENTURY THE ISLAND MONASTERY
OF SAN LAZZARO [SAINT LAZARE] ESTABLISHED BY THE GREAT ABBOT
MEKHITAR BECAME A WORLD RENOWNED LEARNING CENTER KNOWN
AS THE ARMENIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED
BY THE DECREE OF EMPEROR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES COUNTLESS WORLD CELEBRATED SCHOLARS
AND SCIENTISTS WOULD COME TO THE ISLAND ACADEMY RETREAT
TO IMMERSE THEMSELVES INTO THE BOUNDLESS OCEAN OF KNOWLEDGE...

ROBERT COLLEGE [EST. 1863] AND BEBEK SEMINARY [EST. 1840]
R.C. FOUNDED BY THE RENOWNED AMERICAN MISSIONARY THE VERY
REV. CYRUS HAMILTON [1811-1900]. ONE OF THE GREAT FRIENDS OF
ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND CHAMPION OF ARMENIAN FREEDOM.

After, the Adana Massacre a lot of Armenians saw the true reality between the "brotherhood" offered by the Young Turk regime. In fact, the regime in of itself embodied the worst elements of the Turkish society, launching an ideology of Pan-Turkism, which preached "Turkey for the Turks," and a bigger almost unbelievable fantasy of "we need a Turan - a Turkic homeland from Europe to China." Unfortunately these "romantic" policies turned out to be all to real for the Armenian people, who were viewed as the first obstacle, a thorn that prevented the realization of this chauvinist  ideology of "cleansing" the "Turan" of all non-Turkic peoples.

M I S A K‛   M E T S A R E N C‛. THE GREAT YOUNG IDEALIST
ROMANTIC POET OF EARLY XXTH CENTURY

Armenians, Greeks, Slavs, Arabs, Kurds, Syrians were all alarmed by the proclamations of the Young Turks, starting as early as 1913, right before the outbreak of the World War. Alarmed, many Armenian revolutionary freedom fighters formed defense units, famous of which were the squads of the national hero General Andranik who saved thousands of Armenian lives during the years of the Genocide. Those Armenians that fought and joined the Resistance against the Turkish death squads in places like Musa Dagh [immortalized in Franz Werfel outstanding novel based on the heroic resistance -- The Forty Days of Musa Dagh -- in the epic battle of Musa Dagh the Armenians fought for more than forty days and threw back dozens of Turkish charges on a mountain fortress of Musa Dagh. The Turkish "army" made up of criminals released from jails after suffering thousands of deaths, was shocked by the degree of the Armenian fighting spirit, they expected an "easy kill" in implementing the orders of their masters in this part of Armenia. The Turkish "army" did not have the belly to carry out the the planned killing spree, facing a determined vengeance of a people that had decided to fight to the death rather than be simply slaughtered like cattle] and the Armenians of Van also miraculously survived and found safety in distant lands, leaving their ancestral land -- Erkir -- and fleeing the killing machine of the Turkish gendarmes. General Andranik joined the Russian army and fought against the Turkish killers in the Balkan Wars of 1912 in Bulgaria. The Turks here were busy this time killing the Bulgarian patriots who rose up in order to break the shackles of the Turkish bondage. General Andranik became very popular and famous among the Bulgarian people who were fighting a war of freedom in their national liberation struggle. He was highly decorated for his bravery, always charging in front of his troops on his, by this period already iconic, white stallion. In one of the battles during the Bulgarian campaign, his squad of few hundred men captured a 10,000 strong Turkish army. During WWI, General Andranik led the Armenian volunteer fighters from Eastern Armenia in order to save the encircled Van Armenians, who held out in the Van citadel and believed they were doomed to death like the rest of the Armenian throughout the Turkish empire, when Andranik's forces broke through and liberated the tens of thousands of Armenians of Van-Vaspurakan that found refuge in the impregnable Van castle overlooking the city. The first genocide of the twentieth century...The Armenian Genocide began on April 24, 1915, with the arrests and executions of the 600 most prominent members of the Armenian Intelligentsia of Constantinople, followed by the group killings of the enlisted Armenian soldiers, who were drafted in late 1914 and early 1915 and were purposely placed mostly in organizational (civil order) battalions were rounded up in small numbers and shot in vast deserts of Syria and countryside of Anatolia.

M  I  K‛  A  Y  Ē  L     N  A  L  B  A  N  D  E  A  N. ONE OF THE GREAT
ENLIGHTENMENT WRITERS OF THE XIXTH CENTURY

SEPTEMBER 11, 1847 ISSUE OF AZGASĒR [THE PATRIOT] NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED
IN CALCUTTA BY LEADING MEMBERS OF THE ARMENIAN INTELLIGENTSIA.
ILLUMINED COSMIC MOUNTAIN WITH THE CELESTIAL ARC[H]/ARCH/ARK ON
THE APEX...THE MOTTO OF THE NEWSPAPER IMMEDIATELY BELOW
THE NEWSPAPER HEADER ...USUMN ARNĒ ZMARD ERJANIK...
-- EDUCATION BRINGS HAPPINESS TO A HUMAN BEING
[SYMB. THE OPEN BOOK RIGHT ABOVE]
THE COVER STORY OF THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE FOCUSED
ON THE EDUCATION OF ARMENIAN GIRLS AND WOMEN
AS THE FOREMOST FACET OF THE OVERALL ILLUMINATION.

THE HEADER OF THE MARCH 5, 1849 ISSUE OF AZGASĒR ARARATEAN
[PATRIOT OF ARARAT] CALCUTTAN NEWSPAPER THAT CONTINUED THE FINE
MISSION OF EDIFICATION OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT FATHERS.

FEW OF THE PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE RENOWNED LAZARIAN NOBILITY.

 The Turks killed the Armenians in groups, large and small over a period of years, with most of the killing done during the years of World War I. But the attempted cover up of "transfer" [to the scorching deserts...] of Armenians  did not work. Hundreds of eyewitnesses -- missionaries, journalists and diplomatic representatives who at that time were in Western Armenia, Anatolia and Syria, took photographs, wrote telegraphs and alarmed the world that a systematic genocide at the hands of the Turkish government is taking place by sending thousands of letters and memoranda to the governments and newspapers throughout the globe. The Armenian survivors of the Genocide, who were miraculously saved had to make a new life and destiny in other places, most notably in Eastern Armenia. The ancestral lands in Western Armenia were cleansed of their native population during the Genocide which to the criminal Young Turks was the initiation for the realization of their grand dream of seeing a pan-Turkist Turan. Holy Mount Ararat -- the Twin Mountains -- the sacred symbol of Armenia was orphaned, losing its native farmers of the soil that always prayed in the early hours facing the sun, rising between the twin peeks of holy Masis... If you have ever been to Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia you might friend will in all probability experience this feeling. Mount Ararat indeed has the biblical grace and majesty which calls from even far away. An Armenian living in Yerevan knows this all too well. He sees Ararat everyday of his life, Mt. Ararat in of itself is yet another symbol for the Armenian people, a grim reminder of the Genocide, and a homeland uprooted of its native people.

THE MURATIAN ACADEMY OF THE MEKHITARIST FATHERS IN PARIS
WHERE MANY OF THE LEADING ARMENIAN ENLIGHTENMENT EDUCATORS
RECEIVED THEIR GRADUATE EDUCATION.

RAFAELIAN ACADEMY OF THE MEKHITARIST FATHERS  IN VENICE.

MURAT-RAFAELIAN SEMINARY OF THE MEKHITARIST FATHERS IN VENICE.

B A R A G I R K‛   H A Y O C‛ -- DICTIONARIVM ARMENOLATINVM.
THE ARMENIAN-LATIN DICTIONARY PUBLISHED IN 1633 IN VENICE
BY THE ORDERS OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU MADE UNIVERSALLY FAMOUS
BY THE RENOWNED XIXTH CENTURY WRITER ALEXANDRE DUMAS
IN THE THREE MUSKETEERS [OR RATHER INFAMOUS IN THE  DRAMATIC NOVEL
BY THE FREELY APPLIED POETIC LICENSE OF THE AUTHOR] AS THE
GREAT ANTAGONIST OF THE HERO D'ARTAGNAN...

THE GREAT LAZARIAN INSTITUTE IN MOSCOW FOUNDED IN 1815 BY THE LAZARIAN
NOBILITY. ENGRAVING BY  E. DE LACOMBE [PRIVATE COLLECTION, PARIS]. TODAY
THE EMBASSY OF RA IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION. NOTE THE GARNI MITHRÆVM
ARCHETYPE...REVIVAL OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM OF THE ANCESTORS.

XALIPEAN SCHOOL IN THEODOSIA. XIXTH CENTURY ENGRAVING.

FRONT PAGE OF THE JANUARY 1, 1843 ISSUE OF ARŠALOYS ARARATEAN
[DAWN OF ARARAT]. ONE OF THE IMPORTANT NEWSPAPERS OF THE
ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF SMYRNA. THE SUBTITLE READS: POLITICAL,
PHILOLOGICAL, COMMERCIAL PAPER. THE ARMENIAN LOVE FOR KNOWLEDGE AND
WISDOM MANIFESTED THROUGH MANY MILLENNIA IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
COUNTLESS SCHOOLS AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY PUBLICATIONS THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE.

MEKHITARIST COLLEGE IN CHALCEDONY.

A XVIIITH CENTURY ENGRAVING OF A SECTION OF THE ARMENIAN QUARTER
IN AMSTERDAM SHOWING THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. THE ARMENIAN
COMMUNITIES PLAYED A QUINTESSENTIAL ROLE IN CULTURAL AND
SOCIO-POLITICAL PROGRESS NOT ONLY IN THEIR SACRED HOMELAND
BUT THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE.

THE FRONT PAGE OF THE 1880 JANUARY-FEBRUARY ISSUE OF P‛AROS HAYASTANI
[BEACON OF ARMENIA] JOURNAL PUBLISHED IN ST. PETERSBURG.
THE LEADING STORY IN THIS ISSUE WAS IN HONOR OF GENERAL YOVHANNES D.
LAZARIAN FROM THE RENOWNED LAZARIAN NOBILITY.

R E B I R T H

REBORN FROM THE ASHES OF DEATH...THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE ARE EVER STRONGER
IN THEIR DETERMINATION TO CREATE AND BUILD CIVILIZATION -- ANEW --
SUCH IS THE UNDYING ARMENIAN SPIRIT IN ITS TRUE ESSENCE.

M O R I T Z   W A G N E R. THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL ADVENTURER AND TRAVELER.
A PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH WHO DEFENDED
CHARLES DARWIN'S FINDINGS. IN 1843 HE JOINED KHACHATUR ABOVIAN
IN A DARING EXPEDITION TOWARDS THE APEX OF MOUNT ARARAT [METSN MASIS].
HE EXTENSIVELY TRAVELED THROUGHOUT ARMENIA BETWEEN 1843-44.
HE PUBLISHED HIS VALUABLE RESEARCH ON THE FLORA, FAUNA AND
THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THE SACRED LAND OF ARARAT.

Today the Republic of Armenia, a small fraction of historic Armenia, like a --- PHOENIX --- reborn out of the ashes of death and Genocide,  is a living reminder of the tenacity of the Armenian Spirit for Life and progress. Fighting against time and all the perils brought forth, always returning in the infinite spiral of the Cosmic Wheel and the Cycle of Life...almost magically reaffirming this unique peoples Eternal nature and principle...in many millennia of the Armenian history and civilization that goes back to time... immemorial -- the  I N F I N I T E.