From the foregoing history it will easily be understood that the
Armenians have been subjected to all kinds of cruelties. Owing to
calamitous wars, merciless persecutions, voluntary and involuntary
exiles, and emigrations into different countries, they have been justly
compared to the Jews. Like them scattered all over the globe the
Armenians are met with in every commercial city throughout Europe and
Asia. However, until the beginning of 1915 the great majority of them
still dwelled in the land of Ararat in the Turkish empire. There were
over two hundred thousand Armenians in the city of Constantinople, and
as many in other European countries. The number of the Armenians in
Turkish Armenia and in Asia Minor was not considered to be below two
millions and a half.[69]
The Armenians lived (before this world war) in their respective
villages, towns and cities. If a town, or village is not exclusively
occupied by the Armenians, then they had their own district clustered
by themselves with sufficient churches and schools for their religious
and educational needs. The dwellings in the villages and towns are of
primitive style in the interior being built either of unhewn stone
entirely, or half of stone and half of sun-dried bricks. The roofs
are flat. Large logs or beams are laid crosswise, supported by strong
pillars. These are covered with planks and earth to a thickness of
two or three feet, and then hardened to prevent leaking. But in spite
of all sometimes “through idleness of lands, the house droppeth
through.”[70]
Some of these villages are built on the hillsides, and the roofs of
the lower row of houses are on the level with the streets above, or
with the yards of the houses above. Some travelers, careless in their
observations or basing their statements on the information of others,
betray incorrectness in their assertions in regard to them when they
say that “the inhabitants are literally dwelling under ground.”
The villagers and some dwellers in towns were and are (what is left
of them in Asia Minor) exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits
and the raising and tending of cattle and sheep, their land and fold,
being within a distance of several miles from the villages and towns.
The farmers go to their fields of labor in the morning early and return
in the evening to their homes. They could not do like the farmers in
this country, live on or near their farms on account of insecurity of
life and property. The Turkish government had determined for years to
expose the Armenians to all manner of oppressions, thefts, plunders and
murders perpetrated by the Circassians, Kurds and Turks, especially the
former two, who have been human parasites on the Christian inhabitants
of Turkey.
In Armenia many families formerly could be found (still some may be
found) living in a patriarchal style like the families of Abraham, Job
and Jacob, who could raise a force and chase the invaders from their
borders; the younger sons and grandsons with the hired servants tending
the flocks and following the herds like Jesse’s younger son, and not a
few of them had the fate that Job’s servants had.
Many Armenian youths have been like Jesse’s youngest son, leading the
sheep on the lonely hills of Armenia. Yet none finds the life of an
Oriental shepherd an easy and pleasant one, not only because it is
exposed to dangerous conflicts with robbers, thieves, wild beasts and
ravenous wolves, but also the irksome anxiety to find green pastures
and still waters to lead the flocks thereto. Added to this is the
feeling of loneliness day and night and compulsive association with
the mute creature whom they call by their names. Some shepherds again,
like David, have a source of comfort, not the harp, but their flutes,
and the sheep seem to delight to listen to those pensive melodies,
when the shepherds play, while the shepherd-dogs with their accredited
faithfulness, always follow the flocks.
The farming implements are also in primitive simplicity, like the mode
of cultivation. The western plows, planters, sowers, cultivators,
reapers, and self-binders and threshing machines are comparatively
unknown in most of the places in the Turkish Armenia. The employment
of oxen and tamed buffaloes, instead of horses in some hilly and rocky
districts, for hauling and farming might be justifiable, but in many
places and for many many purposes on the farm the horses could be used
with advantage. They are not, however, except for riding and traveling.
It is due to the inexhaustive fertility of the land and to the industry
of the people, and not to the modern improvements or advantageous
circumstances, that the inhabitants of Armenia have not starved long
ago. If we, moreover, remember the absence of railroads and good roads,
the difficulty of transportation of the products into the market,
the dangers from the highway robbers encountered in traveling which
paralyze the spirit of enterprise and energy of the farmer, we well
may be surprised to know that they not only make a living, but that
thousands of bushels of grain were annually exported into the European
countries.
In every village, town and city of Armenia and in Asia Minor where
there were and are Armenians, churches and schools are found, one,
two, or more of them according to the numbers of the Armenian
inhabitants. Some of these villages and towns are wholly inhabited by
the Mohammedans who have seized the property of the Christians and have
also converted their churches into mosques and their schools into
_tekes_ (schools).
Many of the churches are of great antiquity, but some only a few
centuries old. They are invariably of substantial characters. One of
the peculiarities of the older churches is that their entrances or
doors are quite small and low. The reason of this was and still is in
the interior to prevent the enemies of their religion from desecrating
the sacred edifices by putting their horses into the churches and
converting them into stables, as the greatest insult to Christianity
and a single triumph of Mohammedanism. Sultan Bajazet himself boasted
he “would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on
the altar of St. Peter’s.” What Bajazet and others of his type and
character boasted that they would do in Europe, so both long before
and after him, others have done it in Armenia and elsewhere; and even
worse, as the following verse, composed by our immortal “prince of
poets.” Nerses Shnorhali (graceful or gracious), who lived in the
twelfth century:
“Close by the altar in the sacred fane,
Where daily God’s own paschal lamb was slain,
Hadji, the impious, made vile harlots sing,
And drunken broils throughout the temple ring.”
The Armenians, living in large towns and cities, were and are engaged
in various occupations. The following trades were almost exclusively in
the hands of the Armenians in Asiatic and partly in European Turkey:
Blacksmithing, goldsmithing, coppersmithing, locksmithing, watchmaking,
shoemaking, tailoring, weaving, printing, dyeing, carpentry, masonry,
architecture, etc. Some are storekeepers of all sorts. Others are
merchants and traveling merchants, money-brokers, bankers, lawyers
and physicians. “The Armenian nation,” says a writer, “is the life of
Turkey.” But the Turks have been committing suicide by attempting to
annihilate the Armenians in the Empire. Another says, “They are a noble
race and have been called ‘the Anglo-Saxons of the East.’ They are an
active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious and persevering,
they are the bankers of Constantinople, the artisans of Turkey, and the
merchants of Western and Central Asia.”
One of the first missionaries of the American Board, the Rev. Dr. H.
G. O. Dwight, says: “The principal merchants are Armenians, and so are
nearly all the great bankers of the Turkish government; and whatever
arts there are that require peculiar ingenuity and skill, are almost
sure to be in the hands of Armenians.”
“In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration
is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians,
who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of
ancient culture and high national capacity; neither the instinct nor
the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior.... Moreover,
the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his
system, like a child to whom his lessons are new, and when you see him
at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself how it
has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such
wooden figures.”[71]
One more quotation from another Englishman, which will be an exception
from the other testimonies, yet the exception proves the rule: “As
a people (the Armenians) there are few who have a good word for
them. They are said to be cowardly and treacherous, to be mere money
grubbers, and so on _ad nauseum_. The charges vary; but all agree that
the objects of them are objectionable somehow. They seem, in fact,
to be a sort of ‘Dr. Fell’ of nationalities for every one dislikes
them, though often enough they cannot tell the reason. Even the
writer, who has not the least objection to thieves, murderers, and
devil-worshipers, who has kindly feeling for a successful cheat, admits
to getting on less well with Armenians than with other Orientals.”[72]
Surely does the exception prove the rule. Every Armenian ought to be
thankful that he is not a thief, he is not a murderer, he is not a
devil-worshiper or even a successful cheat, so as to merit this Rev.
Dr. Wigram’s approval. However, there are some things that man cannot
deny; so this writer is compelled to say, “And yet there is much about
them that anyone must admire.... In the massacres of 1895, armed men
were butchering unarmed, and there was no test of anything but passive
endurance. Yet how many could have saved their lives by a mere verbal
acceptance (of Mohammedanism)?” But they did not.
In the days of old the Armenians were also noted as merchants and
traders in Western Asia. Herodotus, the great historian who lived in
the fifth century before Christ, tells us that next to the marvelous
city Babylon were the boats constructed in Armenia by the Armenian
merchants in the following manner:
“But the greatest wonder of all that I saw in the land, after the
city itself, I will now proceed to mention. The boats which came down
the river (Euphrates) to Babylon are circular and made of skin. The
frames which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians
above Assyria and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skin
is stretched outside and thus the boats are made, without either stem
or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled
with straw, and their cargo is put on the board, after which they are
suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored
in casks made of the wood of the palmtrees.
“They are managed by two men, who stand upright in them, each plying
an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various
sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five
thousand talents burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those
of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon the cargo
is landed and offered for sale, after which the men break up their
boats, sell the straw and frames, and, loading their asses with the
skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong
to allow a boat to return upstream, for which reason they make their
boats of skin rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build
fresh boats for the next voyage.”[73]
The prophet Ezekiel, more than a hundred and fifty years before the
time of Herodotus, in his enumeration of the ancient merchant nations
who were engaged in mercantile pursuits with the Phœnicians in the
markets of Tyre, speaks of the Armenians under the popular appellation
of “the house of Togarmah.” “They of the house of Togarmah traded in
thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.”[74]
The descendants of Togarmah, on account of their ingenuity and
intelligence, have accumulated great wealth, and demanded, by fitness,
from the indolent Turk, many high trusts in the government and its
affairs, but by the jealousy, cruelty, and cupidity of the latter many
of them have been precipitated from their elevated state and prosperity
into terrible misery, often ending in execution.
“The most remarkable circumstance is that these Armenians who have
undergone execution have the modes of their death commemorated on
their sepulchres by the effigies of men being hung, strangled or
beheaded. In explanation it is stated that having become wealthy by
their industry, they suffered as victims to the cupidity of former
governments, not as criminals; and hence their ignominious death was
really honorable to them and worthy of a memorial. An inscription on
one of the tombs of this class is as follows:
“You see my place of burial here in this verdant field,
I give my goods to the robber,
My soul to the regions of death;
The world I leave to God,
And my blood I shed in the Holy Spirit.
You who meet my tomb,
Say for me
‘Lord, I have sinned.’
1197.”[75]
Sultan Mohammed II after he made Constantinople his capital appointed
Bishop Onaghim, of Brousa, patriarch over the Armenians in his
dominions in 1461, as the head of his people with certain privileges.
This custom of appointing the patriarchs by the Sultans continued for
a long time. But it did not prove to be the popular way, on account
of abuses of procuring the offices, and unqualified persons often
obtaining the appointment by the influence of their friends. The
nation, therefore, obtained the right from the Porte to choose her own
patriarch by suffrage. The appointment, however, had to be ratified by
the Sultan of Turkey.
Some prominent Armenians drew up a Constitution in 1860 and presented
it to the Turkish government for approval. The Porte approved it with a
few changes. The following is the introduction of the Constitution:
“The privileges granted by the Ottoman Empire to its non-Mohammedan
subjects are in their principles equal for all, but the mode of their
execution varies according to the requirements of the particular
customs of each nationality.
“The Armenian patriarch is the head of his nation, and in particular
circumstances the medium of execution of the orders of the government.
There is, however, in the patriarchate a Religious Assembly for
particular affairs. In case of necessity these two unite and form the
mixed Assembly. Both the patriarch and members of these Assemblies are
elected in a general Assembly composed of honorable men of the nation.
“As the office and duties of the above Assemblies and the mode of
their formation are not defined by sufficient rules, for this reason
different inconveniences and special difficulties in the formation of
the general Assembly has been noticed.
“As each community is bound according to the new Imperial Edict (Hatti
Humayan 6-18 of Feb., 1856) to examine within a given time its rights
and privileges and after due deliberation to present to the sublime
Porte the reforms required by the present state of things and progress
of civilization of our times.
“As it is necessary to harmonize the authority and power to the
religions of each nationality with the new condition and system
secured to each community.
“A committee of some honorable persons of the nation was organized,
which committee prepared the following Constitution.”
The General Assembly is the principal body of the national
representative administration, which is composed of one hundred forty
members, twenty of these are clergymen, elected from Constantinople,
forty are representatives elected from provinces, and eighty are
representatives from the districts of the capital. This assembly is
elected for ten years, but one-fifth of its membership is changed by
election every two years. Thus the whole Assembly is changed every ten
years. The General Assembly assumes the entire responsibility of the
national affairs; the patriarch is the presiding officer. There are two
other assemblies or councils: Ecclesiastical or religious and political
or civil. The former consists of fourteen clergymen, the latter is
composed of twenty lay members. The members of these councils are also
elected from the General Assembly for two years.
The ecclesiastical council has its sphere of action in religious
matters and is the highest religious authority in the Turkish empire.
The political or civil council is the civil authority, and has four
sub-councils or committees under its supervision through which to
operate, namely, council of Revenues, council of Expenditures,
Judicatory Council and Educational Council (or the committee on
Education). These names indicate the sphere of their activities or
duties.
This mode of operation or division of the work is carried out into
the provinces wherever Armenians are found. The Bishops or their
substitutes are the presidents of these provincial councils. And all
the councils and sub-councils in the provinces and in the districts of
Constantinople are amenable to the General Assembly, and the Assembly
and the Patriarch to the Porte.[76]
Oppressions, resulting from wars, political and religious,
persecutions, the division of the country among different powers, and
the desire of the people to better themselves have caused the people to
scatter from their paternal homes all over the world. An early company
of emigrants entered India via Persia. After the appearance of the
East India Company, the Armenians rendered the Company very important
services, acting as interpreters. Thus they also received special
privileges as traders and became very wealthy. In every important city
they have their churches and schools and printing press. They have been
also liberal in giving large sums for the education of the poor and
orphan Armenian children.
The Armenians in Persia, or under the Persian rule, are not in a very
desirable condition, from a religious and educational point of view.
Especially those living in Western Persia, or Pers-Armenia, are subject
to all sorts of cruelties at the hands of the Kurds, with whom they
unfortunately neighbor. But the presence of the Russian armies who
occupy these regions may be the end of oppression in the East.
Russia having in the last century wrested from Persia and Turkey a
large portion of Armenia, there are over a million of Armenians in
the Armenian provinces of Russia, besides those who reside in the
commercial cities of the same empire. Their financial and intellectual
condition is far better than that of those living in Persia, or in
the interior of the Turkish provinces of Armenia. Now that the entire
Armenia is occupied by the Russian forces, the prospect is that
probably the dawn of the liberty of the long oppressed Armenians is at
hand. Russia of this century is different from the Russia of the past.
She will be liberty-loving, the good company that she is in will guide
her to heal the wounds made in the past, and make those who have served
her faithfully, both in the past and at the present, acknowledge her as
their liberator.
A proximate estimate of the number of Armenians in different countries
in the world may be given as follows: Two millions in the Turkish
empire, before the war; one million and three hundred thousand in
Russian Armenia and in the same empire; one hundred and fifty thousand
in Persia and in other eastern countries; one hundred thousand in
European countries and a hundred thousand in America; total three
million and six hundred fifty thousand.
The Armenians belong to the branch of the human family which is
commonly called the Aryan Race. The nations of Aryan stock extend
from Hindustan or India to Europe, for this reason it is also called
Indo-European or Indo-Germanic. This Aryan race is geographically
divided into two branches, the eastern and the western. The western
branch comprehends the inhabitants of Europe with the exception of the
Turks and others of Mongolian origin. The eastern branch comprehends
the Armenians, the Persians, the ancient Medes and Afghans and the
inhabitants of Northern Hindustan.
The studies of anthropology, philology, psychology and sociology have
confirmed the original unity of these nations. The Armenian language
also, therefore, belongs to the Indo-European family (the occidental
branch) of languages. This is proved not only by numerous words with
the identical sense in this family of languages, but also by the very
construction of the language itself. “In any case it is clear that many
of the oldest forms which the Armenian shared with other Indo-Germanic
dialects were lost and replaced by forms of which the origin is
obscure.... The attempt made by S. Bugge to assimilate Old Armenia
(language) to Etruscan, and by P. Jesen to explain from it the Hittite
inscriptions, appear to be fanciful.”[77]
There are, however, two Armenian languages, the ancient and the
modern; the former was the language of the pre-Christian era, and
after the conversion of the nation, and the translation of the Bible
into the same, it became the standard language of literature. “In
its syntactical structure the Old Armenian resembles most nearly the
classical Greek.” The modern Armenian is not a distinct language, but
it is simplified and adapted to the present use of the most of the
people. Within little more than a century it has become a very rich
language by numerous original and translated works, by periodicals and
papers published in various centers of learning, and especially by the
translation of the Bible. The relations of the modern to the ancient
Armenian might well be compared with that of the modern Greek to
ancient Greek language.
The Armenian literature of the pre-Christian era has not survived,
excepting a few fragmentary songs, which lingered until the time of
Moses of Khorene, in whose history of Armenia they are preserved; and
the inscriptions of Van, which some claim as “the oldest specimens of
the Asiatic branch of the Indo-Germanic family.”
Christianity brought with it into Armenia a great love for learning.
After the conversion of the nation, Armenian youths flocked into the
schools of Alexandria, Constantinople and Athens. Most of them engaged
in translating valuable works from the Greek and other languages into
the Armenian. A writer speaks of these translators in this manner:
“Some of them attained celebrity in this chosen pursuit. To this
tendency we owe the preservation, in Armenian, of many works that have
perished in their original languages.” “Hundreds of other translations
from Syriac and Greek writers soon followed (the translations of the
Bible), some of which are extant only in Armenian.”
The original works consist of theological and expository discourses,
commentaries, histories, sacred songs, devotional works, etc. “The
existing literature of the Armenians dates from the fourth century and
is essentially and exclusively Christian.” This “literature is rich and
continuous, uninterrupted through all the middle ages. It has furnished
the philosophers, historians, theologians, and poets.” The catalogue of
the works in the library of Etchmiadsin contains about 5000 titles.
“They (the Armenians) are a people of fine physical development, often
of high stature and powerful frame, industrious and peaceable, yet
more jealous of their rights and liberties than any other Oriental
race. They passionately cherish the memory of their fathers, and
preserve the use of their national language, which belongs to the
Indo-European family, and possess a _literature of considerable
importance_.”[78]
“These Armenians are a superb race of men ...; their physiognomy is
intelligent. They are the Swiss of the East. Industrious, peaceable,
regular in their habits, they resemble them also in calculation and
love of gain. The women are lovely; their features are pure and
delicate, and their serene expression recalls the beauty of the women
of the British Islands or the peasants of Switzerland.”[79]
“By nature the Armenians are deeply religious, as their _whole
literature and history_ show. It has been a religion of the heart,
not of the head. Its evidence is not to be found in metaphysical
discussions and hair-splitting theology, as in the case of the Greek,
but in a brave and simple record written with the tears of saints and
illuminated with the blood of martyrs.”[80]
There is no nation in the world which has suffered as much persecution,
oppression, injustice and martyrdom as the Armenians, yet there is not
a nation, even with less advantages, that can compare with them in
education. They are like the Jews also in this respect that wherever
there is a sufficient number, they have a church and close by is a
school. There is less illiteracy among the Armenians than among some
Roman Catholic countries.
Since the coming of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries a new
impetus has been imparted to the Armenians in the line of education.
Mukhetar of Sebaste, an Armenian monk, established an order of the
Catholic monks at the convent of St. Lazarus in Venice (1717),
which became a great center of learning. The monks of this order
and monastery have rendered great service for the education of the
Armenians in general, and the Catholic Armenians in particular. “These
fathers have won the interest and admiration of European scholars by
their publication of Armenian classics, together with many learned
original contributions.”[81]
The Armenian youths also, like in the olden times, flocked into other
centers of learning both in Europe and America. Roberts’ College, in
Constantinople, had the largest number of Armenian students from its
beginning (1860). The native schools, in every town and city in the
provinces, were also very much improved; moreover, the Protestant
mission schools of all grades were also freely patronized by many.[82]
The Christian civilization and education brought out the metal and
character of the Armenians, and also created in the hearts of the
Mohammedan rulers the rankest kind of hatred against the former. So
they have decided to destroy both the Christian and Christianity in
their native home. Mohammedanism is a moral and religious photophobia;
it dreads the light of civilization and Christianity. So the
ministers, priests and teachers are slaughtered; the churches and
schools are burnt down by the followers of the false prophet.
A few samples of Armenian poems also might have been given but my
determination not to write a large book restrains me. The following
is a poem--one of many--written by Father Leo Alishan, a monk of the
Mukhetarist order of the convent at Venice, translated by Alice Stone
Blackwell: