STATISTICAL AND POLITICAL
The solid block of territory over which Russia now rules on the
tableland of Armenia is neither a new acquisition nor the fruit of a
single conquest. At the commencement of the last century she gained a
foothold upon it by the voluntary accession of the Georgian kingdom
and its constitution into a Russian province in 1802. This event,
the outcome of the folly of the Mussulman powers, who had driven
the Christians to despair, was followed by the rapid expansion of
the northern empire in these countries as the result of successful
war. Karabagh was taken from Persia in 1813, and the important khanate
of Erivan in 1828; from Turkey, the district of Akhaltsykh in 1829, and
the fortress and province of Kars in 1878. Appearing as a deliverer of
the Christian peoples and profiting by their aid, Russia has succeeded
in advancing her border beyond the Araxes and to the threshold of
Erzerum, and in establishing herself behind a well-rounded frontier
which comprises the venerated mountain of Armenia as well as the seat
of the supreme spiritual government to which the Armenians bow.
The Armenian provinces constitute a part of the great administrative
system of the Caucasus, which is presided over by a single
Governor-General. Formerly it was usual to appoint a Grand Duke to this
important post, who exercised, not without advantage to the country,
a very large measure of personal initiative. At the present day
it is occupied by a nobleman of high rank; but his administration
has become much more intimately connected with the bureaucratic
machine which is worked from St. Petersburg. He remains, however,
the principal civil and military authority in the Caucasus, which
consists of no less then twelve Governments, and is divided into
North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. North Caucasus is composed of the
Governments of Kuban, Terek and Stavropol; while the Governments of
Chernomorsk (a narrow strip of coast at the foot of the Caucasus range
between Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a point a little north of
Pitsunda), Kutais, Tiflis, Zakataly, Daghestan, Baku, Elizabetpol,
Erivan and Kars are embraced under the title of Transcaucasia. Five of
the Governments, namely Kuban, Terek, Daghestan, Zakataly and Kars,
are still in the military stage of administration. The territories
of North Caucasus lie quite outside the scope of the present work;
and the Government of Daghestan ought more properly to be classed
with the Northern Governments, lying as it does to the north of the
main ridge of the Caucasus range. To the same category belong certain
districts of the Government of Baku; but for statistical purposes it
is advisable to retain them under Transcaucasia, in order to preserve
the unity of the Government. On the other hand, the little Government
of Chernomorsk may either be left out of account, or be included under
North Caucasus. Transcaucasia will thus consist of seven Governments,
of which the names and population, according to the two last censuses
of 1886 and of 1897, are exhibited in the following table. I must
explain that the figures of 1897 have not yet been split up into the
different racial elements of which the populations of the various
Governments are composed.
TABLE I.--Population of Russian Transcaucasia (including Russian
Armenia)
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
|Government | Pop. 1886.| Armenian | Pop. 1897.|Square | Pop. per | Pop. per|
| | | Pop. 1886.| |Mileage. | sq. mile | sq. mile|
| | | | | | 1886. | 1897. |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
|Tiflis[430]| 875,429 | 211,743 | 958,775 |15,305.4 | 57.2 | 62.643 |
|Erivan | 670,405 | 375,700 | 804,757 |10,074.75| 66.54 | 79.878 |
|Kars[431] | 200,868 | 44,280 | 292,498 | 7,307.29| 27.489 | 40.028 |
|Kutais | 923,306 | 16,399 |1,075,861 |13,967.5 | 66.1 | 77.026 |
|Elizabetpol| 728,943 | 258,324 | 871,557 |16,720.5 | 43.6 | 52.125 |
|Baku | 712,703 | 55,459 | 789,659 |15,094.59| 47.216 | 52.314 |
|Zakatal | 74,449 | 521 | 82,168 | 1,542.04| 48.28 | 53.285 |
|-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
|Total | 4,186,103 | 962,426 |4,875,275 |80,012.07| 52.318 | 60.931 |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------+---------+
The admirable volume of statistics for Transcaucasia which we owe
to the labours of M. de Seidlitz, and which was published at Tiflis
by order of the civil government in 1893, supplies us with the most
detailed information concerning these Russian provinces--the numbers
of the different races and of the votaries of the various religious
sects, and how the inhabitants may be classed and labelled as nobles
or clergy, as tradesmen or as tillers of the soil. The figures are
derived from the census of 1886, and we are thus presented with a
fascinating statistical picture of the country towards the close
of the nineteenth century. I do not propose to spoil the effect of
his ingenious combinations by transferring them to my own pages in a
mangled form; or to forestall the pleasure which the perusal of his
serried columns is sure to bring to every well-regulated mind. But
their aid will be useful, and indeed indispensable, in fixing upon a
surer foundation those more general conceptions and conclusions which
are suggested by the experience of travel. The country immediately
on the north of the Armenian tableland--the plain of the Rion on the
north-west, and the wide trough of the Kur on the north--is inhabited
by various branches of the Georgian family and by settlers of Tartar
race; while the Caucasus itself, the northern boundary of the whole
geographical system, contains within its countless recesses an Homeric
catalogue of nations whose names it is difficult to pronounce and whose
languages are as mysterious as their names. Of a total population
in Transcaucasia of 4,186,000, the Armenians numbered upwards of
962,000 souls in 1886, or a proportion of nearly one quarter. But
the importance of the Armenian element must be measured not so much
by its numerical strength as by the solidarity of the Armenian people
when compared to the peoples among whom they live. The Armenians are
little divided by religious differences; the Roman Catholics are a
mere handful among the solid ranks of the Gregorians; and the Gregorian
Church is not only the symbol of national existence, but the stronghold
of national hopes. Two other races in Transcaucasia slightly exceed the
Armenians in number; the Tartars with 1,139,000, including Daghestan,
and the different divisions of the Georgian family who number over a
million souls. But the bitter religious antipathies of Sunni and Shiah
divide the Tartars, and the Georgians are in a period of transition
from their old feudal system to a new and more settled social order,
while the union of their Church with the Orthodox Church of Russia
has deprived them of the natural rallying point for that community of
sentiment which is based on a consciousness of race pride. Should the
Russians become possessed of the Armenian provinces of the Turkish
Empire, the most numerous as well as the most solid of the elements
of population in Transcaucasia will be furnished by the Armenian race.
The distribution of the Armenians within the present limits of Russian
Transcaucasia, but outside the area of the Armenian tableland, may
be presented in a concise manner as follows:--In the Government of
Elizabetpol, which includes Karabagh, they number 258,000; but only
in the Governmental divisions of Shusha and Zangezur, that is to
say in the tract of country between the Araxes on the east and the
south-eastern shore of Lake Sevan on the west, do they constitute the
numerically preponderating race; while in the other divisions and in
the whole Government they are largely outnumbered by the Tartars. The
Government of Tiflis contains nearly 212,000 Armenians, of whom I shall
include 99,000 in my estimate for the tableland itself; the remainder
are distributed over the other divisions of the Government, and in the
town of Tiflis, where they attain the imposing number of 55,000 among a
total population for the nineties of 145,000 souls. In the Government
of Baku, out of a total Armenian population of 55,000 there are over
24,000 in the town of Baku itself, where they are engaged in commerce
and in the oil works; they are also numerous in the town and district
of Shemakha, which lies to the west of Baku. In the Government of
Kutais they only number 16,000, and most of these reside in the towns.
The Armenians, being a commercial and industrial as well as an
agricultural people, have spread themselves outside the natural limits
of their country, attracted to the growing centres of industry upon
its confines. They contribute a valuable and increasing element to the
urban populations. But it is only when we have crossed the mountains
which separate their highlands from the rest of Transcaucasia that
we become conscious of treading upon Armenian soil. Throughout its
extension from Akhalkalaki and Alexandropol on the north-east to Egin
and Kharput on the south-west, that elevated stage of the Asiatic
tablelands which we may still call Armenia bears the imprint of the
individuality of the Armenian people to a greater degree than of any
other race. In the immense expanse of these Armenian landscapes--where
blue lakes lie lapped in treeless plains, swelling with ochreous
surface from hummock to hill, from hill to some long descending
mountain outline that sweeps from the summit of a snow-crowned
cone--the note which is uttered by man is lost. Yet there is scarcely
a remote valley or lonely island which does not attract a band of
pilgrims to worship in the beautiful monasteries which date from the
times of the kings of Armenia and keep alive the story of the past. The
fertile ground is for the most part tilled by an Armenian peasantry,
whose burrows, resembling large ant-hills, are scarcely perceptible
in the scene. All the machinery of whatever civilisation the land may
possess is furnished by Armenians. The language which you most often
hear is the somewhat harsh Armenian tongue; the legends and historical
memories which attach to the great works of Nature have for the most
part an Armenian origin. Over the area of the Armenian tableland,
as it is delimited in the present work, these people are found in
nearly double the numbers of any other race. In the preceding chapter
I have established the natural frontiers of the country within Russian
territory; and in the companion chapter of the second volume I shall
hope to perform the same task in respect of the Turkish area. Our
present concern is with the population of the Russian provinces of
the tableland, which I have endeavoured to exhibit according to its
various racial elements in the following tabular statement.
The little map, with which I accompany this table, will make plain
to my reader the statistical area with which we are dealing. He will
observe that it agrees in a general manner with the area enclosed
by the natural frontier. It would not be possible to adapt exactly
the statistical information at our disposal, based as it is upon
Governmental units, to the geographical boundaries represented by
the natural frontier; but those boundaries are so strongly marked
that they correspond pretty closely with those of the administrative
divisions. Only in two cases does the statistical area, as shown in
the map within Russian territory, diverge in a marked degree from the
geographical; and in both these cases it would have been easy to have
made them approximately coincide. The one occurs about south of Tiflis,
where I have preferred to include the ouezde of Borchali within the
statistical area. It comprises a transitional region between the
natural frontier and the valley of the Kur, presenting many of the
characteristics of the tableland, and inhabited in considerable numbers
by Armenians. The other is furnished by the administrative division of
Olti, belonging to the Government of Kars. My reason for retaining it
is principally because it corresponds on the east to the eastern limits
of the Turkish vilayet of Erzerum on the west. Both these Governments,
of Kars and of Erzerum, overlap into the Chorokh region; and in the
case of Erzerum I have not been able to determine the exact boundaries
of the overlapping administrative units. With these exceptions the
natural area of the Armenian provinces in Russia corresponds fairly
closely with the area comprised by the Governments of Erivan and Kars
together with the ouezdes of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki and Borchali,
belonging to the Government of Tiflis. Karabagh I have excluded both
from the geographical and from the statistical area, representing as
it does an Armenia in miniature on the side of the Caspian Sea.
TABLE II.--Population of the Armenian Tableland in Russia
(Census of 1886 and figures of 1891 for Kars)
+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
| | Govt. of Tiflis; | | | |
| Nationality.| ouezdes of | Govt. of | Govt. of | Totals. |
| | Akhalkalaki, | Erivan. | Kars. | |
| | Akhaltsykh and | | | |
| | Borchali. | | | |
+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
| | | | | |
| Armenians | 99,258 | 375,700 | 44,280 | 519,238 |
| Tartars | 55,253 | 251,057 | ... | 306,310 |
| Kurds | 2,127 | 36,478 | 30,259 | 68,864 |
| Greeks | 19,170 | 1,026 | 27,567 | 47,763 |
| Turks | 31 | ... | 46,954 | 46,985 |
| Georgians | 31,069 | 33 | ... | 31,102 |
| Russians | 12,879 | 4,152 | 11,813 | 28,844 |
| Karapapakhs | ... | ... | 27,247 | 27,247 |
| Turkomans | ... | ... | 10,174 | 10,174 |
| Others | 4,650 | 1,959 | 2,574 | 9,183[432] |
+ +------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
| Total | 224,437 | 670,405 | 200,868 | 1,095,710[433] |
| | | | | |
+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
| Sq. Miles. | 4,585.85 | 10,074.75 | 7,307.29 | 21,967.89[434] |
| | | | | |
+-------------+------------------+-----------+----------+----------------+
| Pop. per | 49.877 |
| Sq. Mile. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+----------------+
Further analysis of the figures which have just been presented would
show that the stronghold of the Armenians, the locality in which
they are most numerous, is the rich country through which the Arpa
Chai flows on its way to join the middle course of the Araxes. There
is situated the fortress and modern town of Alexandropol, which is
inhabited almost exclusively by Armenians; and there are placed,
a little further south, the remains of the ancient city of Ani, of
which the deserted site still testifies to the state and splendour
of their kings. The upland plains about Akhalkalaki on the north are
dotted with Armenian villages; while the valley of the Araxes on the
south, from Kagyzman to Erivan, and especially in the district of
Edgmiatsin, contains a considerable Armenian population. The town
and district of Novo-Bayazet, on the western shore of Lake Sevan,
is for the greater part Armenian. On the other hand, the eastern
portion of the Araxes valley, commencing from the town of Ordubad,
is held in large numbers by the Tartars, who run the Armenians
close in the extensive and important area which is covered by the
Government of Erivan. It must be remembered, in reference to the
Armenian population of the Russian provinces, that their numbers have
been considerably augmented by emigration from Turkey and Persia. It
is computed that not less than 10,000 families from the district of
Erzerum followed the Russian army out of Turkey in 1829; and numbers
of their countrymen--it is said not less than 40,000--had already
accompanied the same force from the frontier districts of Persia when
it retired from Tabriz at the Peace of Turkomanchai.
Next to the Armenians, the most numerous element in the population are
the Tartars, who extend from the Persian frontier up the valley of
the Araxes, and cover with their settlements the eastern districts
of the plateau region and the whole of Karabagh. The Tartars of
Transcaucasia represent a section of those warriors of Turkish race
who, from the time of the appearance of the Seljuks down to the end
of the eighteenth century, were driven to this country by political
conditions from the northern provinces of Persia--that is, from
Azerbaijan, and from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. Their
language is still the lingua franca of the districts between Caucasus
and the Armenian plateau. Within the area with which we are now dealing
they belong almost entirely to the Shiah sect, and, besides sharing
the religion of Persia, contain an admixture of Persian blood. It is
not so long ago that their seats in Armenia formed a Persian khanate,
and were administered by Persian sirdars; and the wealthy families
who flourished during that period are still the owners of extensive
gardens, and live on the proceeds of their land. In the humbler walks
of life they are distinguished by their skill in all those methods
of working mud which are practised in the East; they are plasterers,
wall-makers, skilled men in the construction of works of irrigation;
while most of the little tradesmen, the hucksters and fruit-sellers
are Tartars, and many of the gardeners and drivers of carts. In the
country they have passed from the nomadic stage, and are prosperous
settlers upon the land. In the town of Erivan, where their numbers
equal those of the Armenians, many of the largest gardens are owned
by Tartar families, and many of the most prosperous houses of business
are in Tartar hands. The degree of religious tolerance which they have
achieved in that town was a matter of extreme astonishment to me, when
I remembered how often I had in vain resented the bigotry of the Shiahs
while travelling within the dominions of the Shah. The Persians are
unable to enforce reciprocity in their country, and to repay us for
the pleasure and the profit which they may derive in inspecting the
great religious buildings of Europe by suppressing and impounding the
vicious fanatics who drive us from the doors of their mosques. It is a
pleasure to offer a well-deserved tribute to that sense of respect for
themselves and for their religion of which the Shiahs of Erivan give
so striking a proof by admitting the stranger, whatever his creed,
into the innermost courts of their spacious and beautiful mosque;
and it is not imprudent to hope and to expect that the narrow path
which they are still treading may widen as the years increase. On
the other hand, it is not without disappointment that we may note the
small progress they have hitherto made in availing themselves of the
opportunities of education which the Russian Government have placed
within their reach. I have drawn attention to this circumstance in
my notice of the schools of Erivan; and it is safe to prophesy that,
unless a radical change be soon effected, the Tartars will be edged
out by the Armenians and will diminish in numbers year by year.
The remaining peoples native to the country upon whom it is necessary
to bestow a passing glance are the Kurds, the Greeks, the Turks, the
Georgians and the Karapapakhs. The Kurds within Russian territory have
not yet abandoned their nomadic habits; they are found as far north
as the country about Batum, but their principal pasture-grounds
are on the Turkish frontier and in Karabagh. The Kurds in the
neighbourhood of Ararat pursue two main directions during their
summer wanderings; one body proceeds towards the north, through the
districts of Edgmiatsin and Alexandropol, and stations itself upon
the highlands about Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki; the other takes an
easterly course and enters the Government of Elizabetpol. The total
number of Kurds in Transcaucasia is given as 100,000, of whom the
larger part inhabit within the area with which we are concerned;
the rest are found in greatest number in Karabagh. The Greeks have
several villages, principally in the Government of Kars; those which
I saw were prosperous, and the gay dresses and trinkets of the women
betokened a somewhat higher stage of comfort than that which is usual
in the country as a whole. These Greeks speak Turkish and are learning
Russian; their versatile genius enables them to change nationality as
we take a change of air. They are excellent miners and road engineers;
the fine chaussée which has recently been completed up the valley
of the Toporovan river to Akhalkalaki was constructed by the skilled
labour of Greek workmen. The small number of Georgians who are included
in our area are found, as would be expected, in the valley of the
Kur. In many places the race has received such a large admixture of
Turkish blood that the inhabitants, although classed as Georgians,
would call themselves Turks, and are in religion Mussulman. In such
villages I found much discontent with the existing order, and the
evident outward signs of breaking up and decay. The Turks are found
almost exclusively in the Government of Kars, which is also the seat
of a hybrid tribe called Karapapakhs, or "Black Caps," from the black
lambskin caps which they wear. The origin of the German and of the
Russian settlers has already been described in the course of this
work (see Ch. VII.); the latter belong almost exclusively to the
Dukhobortsy and Molokan sects, expelled by the Russian Church-State
from the home provinces of the Russian Empire. The Dukhobortsy must
have diminished in numbers to an appreciable extent since the date
of these statistics, owing to the recent emigration of large numbers
into the bosom of the British Empire (p. 116).
When one reflects upon the social condition of the country, no
circumstance is perhaps more striking than the complete separation
of one race from another. Although living side by side, there
is an entire absence of natural fusion of the different elements
upon a common plane. Cases exist both in the Russian and in the
Turkish provinces of Armenia where, from a sense of advantage or
by compulsion, the people of a particular district have adopted
the Mussulman religion during periods of Mussulman persecution, and
have become, by intermarriage and closer intercourse, absorbed into
the dominant race. I may instance in Russian Armenia the Georgian
inhabitants of the valley of the Upper Kur, and across the Turkish
frontier the Armenians of the Tortum district and the Greeks of many
of the valleys of the peripheral region. But such examples have only
aggravated the differences to which separation is due. They have
converted the existing prejudices into animosities, and have retarded
rather than advanced any tendency towards fusion. When Russia appeared
on the scene, it might have been expected that at least in the case
of Christians of various professions and nationalities a disposition
to draw together might have made itself felt. As a matter of fact the
reverse has been the case. To the old religious breaches has been added
a new barrier--the hungry Russian Orthodox Church. Certainly in the
case of a marriage between a Russian sectary and an Armenian--and I
believe also in that of the other professions, should, for instance,
an Armenian of the Gregorian persuasion wed a Protestant of the same
nation--the children of such a mixed union are required by Russian law
to be brought up in the Russian Orthodox faith. It makes no difference
that neither of the parents professes that faith. The result has,
therefore, been that the old heterogeneous collection have been
increased by two more species of the Christian happy family--the
Molokans and Dukhobortsy. And upon both is riveted isolation from
their neighbours--or in the alternative the necessity of educating
their children in a creed and religious system which they abhor.
In such circumstances very little has been effected by the Russian
settlers towards raising the standards already prevailing in their
adopted country. Inasmuch as these sectaries belong to the flower of
the peasantry in Russia, one should, perhaps, regret the presence of
any artificial barriers. It is true that they do not stand as high in
the scale of peoples as their Armenian neighbours with their ancient
but deeply corroded culture and their natural aptitudes--these,
happily, unimpaired. But in moral force the Russians are easily
superior; and their methods of agriculture, if they were generally
followed in the country, would produce an economical revolution. Up
to the present time their example has been thrown away. Their neat
stone houses, spacious carts, ploughs and field implements have
not inspired the Armenians to forsake their ancestral habits--to
improve the means of cultivation, and to emerge from their unhealthy
burrows into the light and comfort of glass windows and solid walls
of stone. This barrenness of result is, no doubt, in part due to the
manner in which the Russian immigration took place. Expelled from their
native country, the peasants came in whole villages, with their women
and their children and their household goods. Their new settlements
were grouped together and rendered self-sufficient; and neither the
necessities nor the inducements of social intercourse drew them away
from their own circles. To the traveller as well as to the native they
are a piece of Russia laid down in Armenia; the curious stare and
pass on. As an outpost of the northern empire they can be of little
value owing to the religious opinions which they profess. It is well
known in the country that the Government are reserving vast tracts
of land in the hope that some day Russian colonists, these, it is
expected, of the Orthodox faith, may be attracted to these salubrious
uplands. The climate would suit them well. Should the Germans realise
their scheme of colonising Asia Minor, an ethnical redistribution
would be accomplished on a large scale. But the population of the
country is at present so scanty and its resources so vast, that the
Armenians have little to fear from such a development.
Let us now proceed to the political side of our subject, and endeavour
to measure the system of government under which these various peoples
live. It will be interesting to keep in view both their dispositions
towards it and the results, material and moral, which it may be
considered to have brought about.
The administration by Russia of the north-eastern half of Armenia has
been occupied with races whose more recent political history consists
in their passage from one domination to another; and the presence
of discontent in certain quarters may be regarded as the inevitable
outcome of the change. The Mussulman adherents of the old Turkish
dominion share with their neighbours of Turkish origin the humiliation
of a fallen state; and their Turkish sympathies and connections,
while they excite the suspicions of the Russian Government, dispose
them to yield to the lightest pressure, and to cross the border into
Turkish soil. [435] The Armenians, who have been a mainstay to Russia
both in her Persian and in her Turkish wars, whose lands were swept
by the tide of battle, and who can recall the memory of conflicts
which extended even to the walls of their sanctuary, the cloister
of Edgmiatsin, are inclined to temper their sentiments of gratitude
with the consciousness of the services which they rendered--services
which many among them may be disposed to consider have only resulted
in the imposition of a fresh and more burdensome yoke. North of the
tableland the Georgian races, whose kingdom, harassed by Mohammedan
peoples, was driven to seek assistance outside, have not yet forgotten
the disappointment of the hope which many among them had cherished,
that Russian intervention might assume the form of a protectorate
rather than of a complete absorption of the Georgian element into
the Russian State. But such regrets and disillusionments are but
the familiar sequel to the constitution of empire upon a new soil;
and human nature under such circumstances is more prone to count the
loss than to recognise the gain. Over twenty years have now elapsed
since Russia completed her subjugation of the Caucasus, whose peoples,
untamed for so long a period, menaced the base of her advance; order
and peace have been given to the country, and life and property are
safe. Georgian children are no longer sold into slavery, and a middle
class is forming amongst that people, whose traditional relation to
one another was that of noble and serf. An experienced traveller,
who visited the Armenian provinces in 1868, and passed through the
more fertile regions of the country between Kars and Kagyzman, has
left on record a striking picture of the misery of those Mussulman
times. He was crossing the district of Shuragel, the ancient Shirak
of the Armenians; and he speaks of deserted towns and villages, of
Armenian peasants who clung to their ruined homes with a pertinacity
of affection which neither poverty nor oppression could subdue, of
the dispossession of the Christians by the Turkish Beys, and of the
exactions and forays of the Kurds, which had curtailed agriculture
and stifled industry, and had reduced both to the extreme limit on
which human life is able to subsist. [436] If, at the present time,
the Armenian peasant gathers for himself the crops which he has sown,
and the restless Kurd consults his safety by a sober respect for the
law, it is to Russia that the people owe this deliverance from the
license and anarchy of former years.
Had the Russian Government confined its energies to the amiable and
disinterested task of establishing and maintaining public order as
the guardian of a distracted country and the knight-errant who clears
the land of thieves, it would have received the ungrudging gratitude
of the Armenians, until in the maturity of time they had learnt to
walk unaided and to cope alone with those lawless elements which
might still resist the yoke of law. When that happy state had been
accomplished it might only be natural to suppose that the progressive
tendencies of the Armenian would lead him to take counsel with his
neighbours and friends, to thank his protectors for past benefits,
and to submit that the continuance of foreign tutelage was no longer
necessary or desirable in the interests of a country to whose welfare
they had contributed so much. To the Russians such a possible,
but I think improbable, outcome of all their efforts was scarcely
calculated to present so rosy an appearance as their ingenuous
wards might have expected or hoped, and, if the advantages offered
by the Russian Empire were not sufficiently apparent by themselves,
it was necessary to reform and to educate a perversity which sooner
or later would yield. The Russians are not a commercial people, and
would be content to see the Armenians conduct the commerce of their
native country and develop its vast resources, could they but collect
the means; but only on one condition were they prepared to encourage
such activity: that their subjects should become Russians, and that
the province should be joined to the Russian Empire not only by the
slender thread of annexation, but by the abiding tie of a common
patriotism founded on a community of sentiment with themselves. But
just at this point the real difficulties of empire arise. Races who
stand on a low scale in Nature have become absorbed into the Russian
system by the exertion of little further energy than was required to
ingrain in them that wholesome respect for their northern conqueror
which the first sharp conflict had inspired; and the broad, expansive
Russian character has been able to assimilate them to itself. It is
different when, whatever the degree of degradation to which they may
have been reduced by Mussulman oppression, a people is conscious of
elements of vitality impelling them to higher ideals and standards
than those which guide the powerful protectors under whom they have
commenced to breathe. An empire which is confronted with such a
situation has few alternatives among which to choose. If it cannot
attract the subject people towards it--if it cannot accomplish that
task of self-change which is more difficult than any problem which
the exercise of empire may present--it will sooner or later be driven
to adopt the expedients of coercion and repression, and to lower the
plane of civilised life by arresting the race for progress in which
it was itself unfitted to compete.
Such a political situation can best be gauged and appreciated if we
approach it from several different points of view--the nature of the
Russian system, the attitude of Armenians in particular towards it,
the true significance of such struggles in the larger issues of the
outside world.... The kindness and hospitality of the Russian people,
the amiable disposition which, in spite of official exigencies,
makes them wish the traveller well, the real desire which a large and
increasing number among them cherish for social progress at home--are
features in the Russian character which the shortest acquaintance
will recognise with respect, and which make for the true advance of
Russia as a civilised nation among her peers. But the moment that the
elements of progress in Russia have asserted their right to rule,
the Russian system, as we know it, will die and disappear, and the
laws which govern its existence will be subject to new conditions,
which may make for closer national concentration rather than for
expansion abroad. Such reflections, although not new, are pertinent
in this place. The element of finality, always relative, may justly
appear in the eyes of many Armenians to be wanting to the political
system and to the Government under which they live; and the abhorrence
which that system inspires tempts them to convert the thought into a
wish. The ultimate outcome of any revolution in the affairs of Russia
is too uncertain, and the present evils of her Government are too
substantial and apparent to induce them willingly to cast in their
lot with the Russian people, and to abandon their hope of fulfilling
their destiny in their own manner and, if possible, by themselves.
A people whose commercial activity has brought them into contact with
the most progressive races of Europe, and whose natural instinct
renders them eager to assimilate Western thought, can scarcely be
blamed if they chafe under a system which assumes to establish the
opinions they shall hold and to select the books which they shall read,
and which subjects every action of their daily life to an inquisitorial
control. Such methods are only the manifestations of a settled and
uniform plan. The Armenian must sink his individuality and resign his
initiative into Russian hands. He must imbue himself with the ideas
which his rulers have prepared for him, and which may be opposed to
the tendencies and the capacities with which he has been endowed. In
such a prospect he recognises nothing to admire and much to fear. He
sees the more capable races either driven from the Russian Empire
or made the object of a constant jealousy and antipathy rather than
of increasing respect. He feels the grip of an organisation which is
founded on European methods, and commands all the resources which those
methods provide; but he distrusts the hands which wield these weapons,
and he is indifferent to the objects to which they are turned. Even
the material results of such a system leave him little to hope beyond
what he has attained. The resources of the country still lie dormant,
and the Government seems to lack the means or else the will to turn
them to account. He sees the rich forests of the peripheral region,
which might yield a considerable revenue in return for an outlay which
would be comparatively small, left unexploited and neglected, while
shiploads of wood are entering the ports to supply the requirements
of the oil industry. That industry itself he sees promoted by foreign
capital in Russian guise, while the jealousy of all foreign capital
has closed the door to its beneficent action in the provinces of
his home. Only a single military railway traverses the tableland,
and there is scarcely a road upon it except such as are rendered
necessary by the exigencies of the military arm. A few examples of the
economical condition of these provinces may emphasise and explain such
statements of a general kind. The two principal towns are Alexandropol
and Erivan; yet the road which joins them makes the colossal circuit
by the northern shore of Lake Sevan, where it meets the main avenue
of traffic between Tiflis and Erivan. From a point further west on
this roundabout line of communication a road has been cut with the
laudable object of shortening the distance; but the same contempt
for the smaller and more irksome duties of life to which we become
accustomed in purely Eastern countries has allowed it to fall into ruin
by neglect, and we are met by the sight, so familiar to the traveller
in the East, of yawning culverts and broken bridges and parallel tracks
which have diverged and avoided the perilous surface of the metalled
way. In Erivan itself, the chief town of a district where capital might
be turned to the greatest advantage, it is impossible or difficult to
find a foreign newspaper, while the industrial skill of the advanced
races of Europe is not represented by a single foreign enterprise, or,
so far as I know, by a single foreign man of business or industrial
employee. Persons who know the country well have told me that from
the point of view of irrigation, so important a requirement in a land
which suffers from want of rain, it has gone back since the times of
the Persians, who are experts in such arts. As a consequence of this
economical stagnation, the spectacle is often presented in a country
which enjoys security and repose of miserable villages, pinched by the
scantiest resources and in appearance not more prosperous than those on
Turkish soil. I cannot help thinking that many of these evils are due
to excessive centralisation in the Russian capital. When the Governor
of the Transcaucasian provinces was a Grand Duke residing at Tiflis,
he was able to gratify his personal interest in their welfare by the
exercise of a large measure of independent initiative and control; at
the present day the smallest projects are referred to St. Petersburg,
and are made subservient to the general economic policy which governs
the Empire as a whole. But such an explanation serves only to display
and emphasise the character of the Russian system itself: how small
are the prospects which it offers in return for the leaden yoke which
it brings.
Little by little, as all danger on the side of the Mussulman states
has gradually disappeared, the Russian Government have considered
it opportune to apply more drastic methods, and to impose upon the
newest of their adopted children a fuller measure of the disciplinary
régime. With what instruments they have worked, and how first the
Church and next the schools have been the objects of their relentless
embrace, has been already told in the foregoing chapters, notably
those on Erivan and Edgmiatsin. On their side the Armenians have
shown no disposition to adopt Russian ways of thought. The greater
has grown the pressure, the more they have writhed and twisted; at the
present moment they are lying still with broken wings. The situation
is cruel in the extreme. From the Turkish provinces they are beaten
up towards the Russian frontier by bands of long-beaked, predatory
Kurds. Should they reach their asylum, they are caught in the meshes
of a quite impervious network; they are sorted and sifted about by
a swarm of active little officials--the police of the districts, the
police of the towns, the political police. Camps are instituted where
the great majority will be detained at pleasure, to be returned on
the first opportunity to their rifled homes. The repetition of this
process is causing the decimation of the Armenian people in a surer
and much more efficacious manner than any massacres. It is true that
the amelioration if not the removal of such conditions lies to some
extent in their own hands. "Accept our system, follow the Georgians,
and seek spiritual and political salvation within the bosom of the
Russian Church-State." One cannot doubt that in that event the whole
weight of the great Russian Empire would be thrown into the scale
for the Armenians. What a tempting prospect for a people so sorely
tried! Will they not before very long subscribe this obvious solution,
for which there is so much to be said? I have put the question to all
the Armenians with whom I have enjoyed opportunities of intercourse,
and I have put it to those one or two European Consuls who have been in
Armenia and know the Armenians well. The answer has invariably been in
a negative sense. Many Armenians go so far as to openly profess their
preference for the Turkish Government. They state the matter neatly
in the form of an antithesis. It is a choice between two Oppressions,
one physical and spasmodic, the other moral and systematic. It is not
the first time in history that they have been offered the alternative
of slavery in body or slavery in mind. A remnant may be absorbed;
but the majority will follow their destiny, will wander out, and,
perhaps, disappear.
Such is the conclusion, so full of pathos, with such a vein of
unconscious satire, throwing curious side lights upon the gilded
figures of Christianity and Empire marching down purple steps with
arms entwined.... My reader who may know the Armenians from his
sad experience of an Armenian dragoman picked up in the Levant,
will not, perhaps, be disposed to view the ruin of that people with
feelings of keen regret. For myself, coming to the subject free
from any prepossessions, but with the lessons of extensive travel
in the countries west of India fresh imprinted on my mind, I must
freely confess to exactly contrary sentiments. We are living in a
time of startling changes in Asia; we are witnesses of one of those
great waves from Europe upon Asia of which the tide-marks have all
but vanished from the sands of the Present after many centuries of
repose and stagnation. Some diversion of the current, it is true, has
taken place towards Africa; but the reservoirs of Europe are being
filled in a much greater measure than they are depleted by issues
in that direction. A new and, to all appearances, a permanent factor
of immense potentiality in its reflex influence upon the economy and
diplomacy of Europe has arisen in the shape of the United States of
America. American competition is already obliging the industrial
states of Europe to compose those ancient quarrels which have so
often exhausted their great resources, and which have been so long
exploited with success by Oriental rulers. Day by day new inventions
are annihilating the old-world obstacles of distance and of time. Asia
is brought to our doors; and, when we lift the veil in which she has
so long slumbered, there is nothing beneath but her fair frame and
the flimsiest web of human littleness, yielding to the first and most
clumsy attempt to brush it aside.
Nepioi!--We are surely simpletons if through motives of adventure
and cupidity we fondly cherish the vision of this long-lost continent
parcelled out like virgin ground among ourselves. The Asiatic, with
all his debility, is not the African; he is our father, from whose
lips we received our first lessons, and his old age, become almost
child-like, contains the germs of rejuvenescence, like the gods of
ancient Greece. Tenderly and with affection should we approach these
old races whom Providence has conducted to our threshold. They will
repay us for our forbearance and solicitude. They worship strength;
but the display of power in a brutal and ruthless spirit betrays in
their eyes, who have seen the passage of so many despotisms, underlying
elements of present weakness and certain failure. In some condition,
one cannot help feeling, they are likely to survive us, the richer
or the poorer for the example and imprint which we may have bestowed.
In the Armenians we have a people who are peculiarly adapted to be the
intermediaries of the new dispensation. They profess our religion,
are familiar with some of our best ideals, and assimilate each new
product of European culture with an avidity and thoroughness which no
other race between India and the Mediterranean has given any evidence
of being able to rival. These capacities they have made manifest under
the greatest of disadvantages--as a subject race ministering to the
needs of Mussulman masters. They know well that with every advance
of true civilisation they are sure to rise, as they will certainly
fall at each relapse.
For nearly a thousand years they have been held in subjection; and
it would be folly to expect that they should not have suffered in
character by the menial pursuits which they have been constrained
to follow. They have been rayas, exploited by races most often their
inferiors in intellect; and I need not enlarge upon the results which
have followed from such a condition. One should rather wonder that
their defects are not more pronounced.
On the other hand, they are possessed of virtues with which they are
seldom credited. The fact that in Turkey they are rigorously precluded
from bearing arms has disposed superficial observers to regard them
as cowards. A different judgment might be meted out were they placed
on an equality in this respect with their enemies the Kurds. At all
events, when given the chance, they have not been slow to display
martial qualities both in the domain of the highest strategy and in
that of personal prowess. The victorious commander-in-chief for Russia
in her Asiatic campaign of 1877 was an Armenian from the district of
Lori--Loris Melikoff. In the same campaign the most brilliant general
of division in the Russian army was an Armenian--Tergukasoff. [437]
The gallant young staff-officer, Tarnaieff, who planned and led the
hair-brained attack on the Azizi fort in front of Erzerum, was an
Armenian, and paid for his daring with his life. At the present day
the frontier police, engaged in controlling the Kurds of the border,
are recruited from among Armenians. These examples may be sufficient
to nail to the counter an inveterate lie, from which the Armenians
have suffered, at least in British estimation, more, perhaps, than
from any other supposed defect.
If I were asked what characteristics distinguish the Armenians from
other Orientals, I should be disposed to lay most stress on a quality
known in popular speech as grit. It is this quality to which they owe
their preservation as a people, and they are not surpassed in this
respect by any European nation. Their intellectual capacities are
supported by a solid foundation of character, and, unlike the Greeks,
but like the Germans, their nature is averse to superficial methods;
they become absorbed in their tasks and plumb them deep. There is
no race in the Nearer East more quick of learning than the Persians;
yet should you be visited by a Persian gentleman accompanied by his
Armenian man of business, take a book down from your shelves, better
one with illustrations, and, the conversation turning upon some subject
treated by its author, hand it to them after a passing reference. The
Persian will look at the pictures, which he may praise. The Armenian
will devour the book, and at each pause in the conversation you
will see him poring over it with knitted brows. These tendencies
are naturally accompanied by forethought and balance; and they have
given the Armenian his pre-eminence in commercial affairs. He is
not less clever than the Greek; but he sees further, and, although
ingrained with the petty vices of all Oriental traders, the Armenian
merchant is quick to appreciate the advantages of fair dealing
when they are suggested by the conditions under which his vocation
is pursued. A friend with a large experience of the Balkans, with
their heterogeneous urban populations, has told me, as an interesting
fact, that in the statistics of bankruptcy for those countries the
proportion of Armenians implicated is comparatively low. Inasmuch as
such bankruptcies are usually more or less of a fraudulent nature,
the fact indicates not, perhaps, so much the greater integrity of
Armenians, as their power to resist an immediate temptation and their
promptitude in recognising the monetary value of commercial stability.
But in order to estimate this people at anything like their true
worth, one should study them not in the Levant, with its widespread
corruption, but in the Russian provinces of Armenia. Here they have
most successfully utilised the interval between the period when the
sword of Russia was the sword of the deliverer and that present-day
period when the principles which inspire her rulers are those of
Pan-orthodoxy and Panslavism. I was so much surprised by the results
achieved, and by the contrast which was offered between the sterling
progress of this newly-emancipated population and the stagnation and
progressive relapse of their neighbours of different nationality,
spread over the whole wide area of the Nearer Asia, that, without
any certain previous purpose, I resolved to pursue the study further
and to protract the journey into Turkish territory. For what was
it that I saw? In every trade and in every profession, in business
and in the Government services the Armenian was without a rival
and in full possession of the field. He equips the postal service
by which you travel, and if you are so fortunate as to find an inn
the landlord will be an Armenian. Most of the villages in which you
sojourn are inhabited by a brawny Armenian peasantry. In the towns,
if the local governor attaches to your service the head of the local
police, it will be a stalwart Armenian in Russian uniform who will
find you either a lodging or a shady garden in which to erect your
tents. If you remark on the way some well-built edifice which aspires
to architectural design, it will be the work of an Armenian builder
from Alexandropol. In that city itself, where the Armenians are most
numerous, the love of building, which was so marked a characteristic
of their forefathers, has blossomed again among kinder circumstances;
a spacious cathedral and several large churches stand among new
stone houses fronted with ambitious façades. In Erivan each richer
merchant has lodged himself in an agreeable villa, of which the
Italian architecture rises from the shade of poplars and willows and
fruit trees laden with fruit. The excellent wine which is found in
Erivan is made according to the newest methods by an Armenian who
has studied for two years in Germany the most modern appliances of
the industry in Europe. The monetary transactions of the country are
in the hands of Armenian bankers. The skilled workmen--jewellers,
watchmakers, carpenters--are Armenians. Even the ill-miened officer
of mounted frontier police, whose long association with the wilder
elements--Kurds and robbers of small and large degree--has lent him
the appearance of a chief of brigands, will bear, not much to its
honour, an Armenian name. The large majority of the people do not
speak Russian, or speak it very imperfectly. Indeed, were it not
for the fact that the governors and chief police officials of large
districts are Russians, and that Cossacks and Russian regular soldiers
may here and there be seen, the traveller would not suspect that he
was in a Russian province, and would go the way he listed with the
most serene composure until he was rudely awakened by some abrupt
collision with the Russian system and brought to his proper mind. As
it is, the Armenian has edged out the Russian, and, if Peace were
allowed her conquests unhindered, he would ultimately rule in the land.
Such a situation is suggestive; nor can we feel surprise if the
Armenian has exercised his Oriental imagination upon it in a manner
less prudent than may be calculated to appeal to the slower veined
races of the West. The idea of a modern Armenian kingdom has set the
spark to that national enthusiasm which the perusal of his historical
records has fed. The example of Eastern Europe has seemed to justify
his speculations. When I come to deal with the Turkish provinces,
I shall endeavour to show the falseness of such premisses; but I do
not believe that any such details have influenced his somewhat more
general conceptions, and they are not pertinent here. The vision of an
independent Armenian state, could it be realised in a remote future,
will not appeal to all minds alike. Many will see a real danger to
human progress in the creation of these small states. The national
sentiment they would place among those realised ideals upon which, as
our civilisation widens, it is necessary to build anew. The magnitude
of the conflict, should any of the greater nations enter the arena of
war, acts as a wholesome preventive to ambitions which the small state
is prone to indulge on the least pretence. The gratification of such
ambitions causes bad administration and ends in bankruptcy, while few
of the advantages which are offered by a great empire can the people of
a little country enjoy. Such considerations have great weight, and it
would probably be well if, whenever it were practicable, our political
actions were founded upon them; yet they scarcely indicate a solution
in the present case. The Armenian, who is a convert to such views,
might justly ask in what quarter he should look. The Turkish Empire
will not even protect him, and massacres its Armenian subjects; while,
should he turn his eyes to Russia, he sees no prospects of material
advantage which would enable him to rise above the economic stage to
which he has already attained, and surrender to Russian ideals could
only be effected in his opinion at the price of moral and intellectual
annihilation. Confronted with such an outlook, he seeks refuge within
himself; and, should he consult his more sober perceptions, he will
labour in silence and without ostentation to supply the requirements
which his race still needs; to raise the peasant from his present
degradation, to purify the Church, to promote the interest of his
richer neighbours in work for the common good. These are the more
legitimate ambitions which, however tedious, are certain of success,
and which will establish, whatever be the revolution of politics,
his right to influence the history of his country as one of the only
stable native elements of progress in the Nearer East.
If, before concluding these reflections, we turn to the broader issues
upon which such questions bear, and, having examined the comparative
failure of Russia in Armenia, consider its significance to the larger
world, we may find that the very strength of the Russian system as
a powerful factor in international life derives from the self-same
character which has denied her victory here. Had Russia through
a natural process of attraction been able to draw towards her the
higher races who stood on her path, she would have been a greater
nation, but perhaps a less formidable force. Round her she groups
the less cultivated peoples--the nomads of Asia, the wanderers of
the steppe--and arms them with the might of a European organisation
which the intellect of Europe, impressed into her service, perfects
as a weapon for her use. The dangers which such results threaten
can only imperil the improvident and those whose nervous powers are
unstrung; but the world has not yet advanced sufficiently to render
those dangers unreal. The indolence of mind which shrinks from facing
difficulties and leaves them to solve themselves is not the least
element of weakness in her European neighbours by which Russia profits
and through which she grows; but the victory will now as always be
given to those states which unite with a higher civilisation a spirit
of enterprise still healthy and powers still unimpaired.
END OF VOL. I
NOTES
[1] J. P. Fallmerayer, born in 1790, the son of humble parents,
whose flocks he tended on the mountain-sides as a boy. Died in 1861;
a great scholar, a great writer, whose work has not yet received all
the recognition which it deserves.
[2] Finlay, Mediæval Greece and the Empire of Trebizond, Oxford,
1877, p. 340.
[3] The dimensions of the interior are: length to head of apse,
33 feet; breadth, 21 feet 7 inches.
[4] The ornament is as follows: [Illustration].
The inscription is: [Illustration].
I notice that M. Gabriel Millet identifies this figure as a Saint
Michael (op. infra cit. p. 436).
[5] Bejeshkean (op. infra cit.) publishes the inscription of
Justinian on the face of the old gateway of Tabakhaneh, which has
now disappeared. It records the restoration of the public edifices
of the city by that emperor. See also Hamilton, op. infra cit.
[6] The population of Trebizond at the present day is estimated at
45,000 souls.
[7] Since writing this chapter two articles in the Bulletin
de Correspondance Hellénique (Paris) for 1895 have come to my
notice. They are: G. Millet, Les monastères et les églises de
Trébizonde, pp. 419-459; and J. Strzygowski, Les chapiteaux de Sainte
Sophie de Trébizonde, pp. 517-522.
[8] A railway, connecting the capital of Georgia, Tiflis, with
Alexandropol and Kars, has been completed since the date of this
journey. It winds its way up the valley of the Borchala.
[9] At 11.15 A.M. 83° F.
[10] Temperature 86° F.
[11] Temperature at 10 P.M. 72° F.; 6.30 A.M. 66° F.
[12] Radde (Reisen in Hoch Armenien, Petermann's Mitth., Gotha,
1875, p. 59) says: "It appears that at least in this district potato
culture is making considerable progress in recent times among the
Armenians." He attributes this to the example of the Molokans and
Dukhobortsy.
[13] By the road the distance, according to our coachman, would be
15 versts or 10 miles; by the track which we followed 10 versts or
6 1/2 miles.
[14] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris 1839-43,
vol. ii.
[15] Brosset, Voyage archéologique en Transcaucasie, St. Petersburg,
1849, 1re livraison, 2me rapport, pp. 119 seq., and atlas, plates
v. and vi.; Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 292 seq.
[16] Brosset, op. cit. p. 143.
[17] Population of Akhaltsykh:--
(1) According to nationality: Armenians, 10,417; Georgians,
2730; Jews, 2545; others (including 145 Russians and 110 Poles),
424--Total, 16,116.
(2) According to religion: Gregorian Armenians, 9678; Catholic
Armenians, 739; Roman Catholics, 2311; Jews, 2545; others
(including 777 Russian Orthodox, 9 Lutherans, and 57 Sunni
Mohammedans), 843. (Statistics concerning the populations of
Transcaucasia derived from the family lists of 1886. Published
by Government, Tiflis, 1893.)
[18] They were: Akhaltsykh, Atzkur, Aspinja, Khertvis, Akhalkalaki,
Ardahan (Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 284-85).
[19] The slave trade was carried on through Circassians, who kidnapped
the inhabitants of Georgia proper and fled with them across the
Turkish border to Akhaltsykh (Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 261-62;
Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, London, 1854, p. 100).
[20] Adrien Dupré in Gamba, Voyage dans la Russie méridionale, Paris,
1826, vol. i. p. 403.
[21] For the interesting siege and capture of Akhaltsykh by Paskevich
I may refer the reader to Monteith, Kars and Erzerum, London, 1856,
ch. vi. pp. 182 seq.; Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 258 seq., and
a note to Haxthausen, op. cit. p. 100. Eli Smith, who travelled in
the country in 1830-31, informs us that the siege of Akhaltsykh was
one of the two occasions upon which the Turks gave the Russians a
fair trial of their bravery. The other was at Baiburt (Missionary
Researches in Armenia, London, 1834, p. 82).
[22] Dubois saw it still standing in 1833. I cannot find when it
was cut down. Brosset (op. cit. p. 149) mentions the conversion of
the mosque.
[23] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 263.
[24] Eli Smith informs us that at the time of his journey (1830-31)
Akhaltsykh was the only place, coming within the range of his enquiry
in Turkish Armenia, that contained any Jews (Missionary Researches,
p. 100).
[25] Brosset, op. cit. p. 149.
[26] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 267.
[27] Brosset, op. cit. pp. 139, 149.
[28] Brosset speaks of the church and tower of Akhashen as being
remarkable both as an example of composite architecture and for
possessing a fine sculptured cross on the door and a figure of
St. Theodore on horseback (Voyage archéologique en Transcaucasie,
St. Petersburg, 1849, 1re livraison, 2me rapport, p. 150).
[29] Neither Dubois (Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris 1839-43,
vol. ii. p. 330) nor Brosset (Voy. arch. 2me rapport, p. 176) has
more than passing notices of Aspinja. But Dubois tells us that in his
time all the inhabitants spoke Georgian except the mollah, who had
recently arrived from Asia Minor. He adds that they were formerly
Georgian Christians, and their ancient church still existed in a
ruinous condition.
[30] I have not verified their statement, which was repeated in other
places, that according to a decree of 1890 they would be liable to
military service in ten years after the date of the decree.
[31] 229 houses, with 1360 inhabitants (Family lists of 1886).
[32] He gives a population of 800 souls (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 304).
[33] Dubois (op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 298, 299) informs us that the
Mussulmans of these districts are the old Georgian inhabitants
whom Safar Pasha compelled to embrace Islam in 1625. He adds that
the Armenians escaped this persecution, having been accorded by the
reigning Sultan liberty of conscience, like the Jews in France under
similar conditions.
The river Kur is essentially a Georgian river, even where it traverses
districts which belong geographically to the Armenian tableland. For
the history and character of the country about its upper course one
may usefully consult the works of Dubois and Brosset already cited
in this chapter, and Koch's Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846.
[34] Dubois (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 314) calls the Kur a torrent above
Khertvis, and says it only becomes a river after the junction with
the Toporovan river.
[35] I must refer the reader to Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 302 seq.,
and Brosset, Voy. arch. p. 152.
[36] So Abich explains the phenomena (Geologische Forschungen in den
kaukasischen Ländern, part iii. p. 31).
[37] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 308 seq.; Brosset, Voy. arch. 2me
rapport, p. 165, who gives an account of the adjacent church of Tsunda;
and Abich, op. cit. part iii. p. 34. I would refer my reader to the
last of these writers for an account of the geology of the gorge of
Zeda Tmogvi (part iii. pp. 35, 36).
[38] Brosset is not quite sure about it (Voy. arch. 2me rapport,
p. 165). The governor of Akhalkalaki had no doubt about the correctness
of the identification.
[39] Dubois, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 319; and see also Brosset, Atlas
(plate xii.) to the Voyage archéologique and text, pp. 163 seq. I
shall not attempt to reconcile the text of Brosset with his plan of
the church, his plan with that of Dubois, or the measurements of either
with my own. My own measurements at Vardzia and throughout the journey
were made by myself with a long tape-measure which I always carried
with me. The height of the church is given by Dubois as 40 feet.
[40] In taking leave of Vardzia may I refer the reader to the
excellent description of Dubois. He mentions the existence of a
third and smaller church, which he says is adorned with ancient
frescos, with inscriptions which are all in the Greek language. The
frescos are in the Byzantine style, and cannot be much later than the
middle of the eleventh century. Brosset, who also saw this chapel,
maintains, on the other hand, that all the inscriptions are in the
Georgian ecclesiastical character; he adds that there is a Greek
inscription disposed about the emblems of a Calvary in an adjoining
niche (Voy. arch. 2me rapport, p. 106).
[41] The published total of 59,496 is made up as follows:--Armenians,
42,301; Georgians, 9771; Russians, 6617; Kurds, 689; others, 118
(official statistics based on the lists of 1886, Tiflis 1893). It
is noticeable that the Governor's list places the Russians at 6300,
a diminution since 1886.
[42] The plain has a gulf-like extension or arm on the side of Lake
Tabizkhuro. Coming from the lake, Radde estimated that the plain
proper commences at the village of Kestano, which I take to be the
Bejano of the Russian map, and that this village lay some 1000 feet
lower than the level of the lake. The plain would therefore have an
altitude of 5650 feet at its north-eastern extremity. From Bejano to
the south-western shore of Lake Khozapin is a direct distance on the
map of thirty-six miles.
[43] Radde in Petermann's Mitth. 1876, p. 143.
[44] Radde is almost certainly in error in making the pass of Karakaya,
which is the shortest route, over 9500 feet high (Petermann's Mitth.,
1876, p. 141).
[45] Monteith (Kars and Erzeroum, pp. 85, 168, 173 seq.). Haxthausen
informs us that "not one Turk accepted his life--every man remained
dead upon the spot" (Transcaucasia, p. 100). He had received the
story in this truly Oriental form.
[46] Abich calls it "das am weitesten umfassende des armenischen
Hochlandes" with the exception of the view from Ararat (Geologische
Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna, 1887, part
iii. p. 39). But few have been or probably ever will be privileged
to reach the summit of the mother of the world under conditions
entirely favourable to such a panorama. And from such a height the
world appears very insignificant.
[47] According to Eli Smith (Missionary Researches in Armenia, London
1834, pp. 195 seq.), upon whom I have based this account, the whole
number of these German colonists was in 1830 about 2000 souls. Their
present number may be estimated from the published statistics of
1886. The following are the figures for the various colonies:--
Government of Tiflis: Town of Tiflis, 1117. Administrative
division (ouezde) of Tiflis: Alexandersdorf, 384; Marienfeld, 396;
Petersdorf, 195; Friedenthal, 83; Elizabeththal, 1148. Ouezde
of Borchali: Ekaterinenfeld, 1209; Alexandershilf, 366. Other
localities, 60. Total for Government of Tiflis, 4958.
Government of Elizabetpol: Helenendorf, 1457; Anenfeld, 437. Total,
1894.
Grand total, 6852 souls.
[48] Eli Smith, speaking of the Roman Catholic missions, is not ashamed
to make use of the following language:--"Unfortunately a missionary can
hardly set his foot upon any spot in that field (the Mediterranean)
without encountering some sentinel of the 'Mother of Harlots,' ready
to challenge him and shout the alarm" (op. cit. p. 210). In the course
of my reading I have incidentally collected parallel passages from
the works of other writers belonging to the cloth, and it is with pain
that I note that for foul thoughts, expressed through a foul mouth, it
would be difficult to find their equal in the writings of lay authors.
[49] The Armenian Lutherans of Baku were numbered at 350 souls in 1886
(Official Statistics, etc.). According to Sembat, there are also
communities at Shemakha, Erivan and its neighbourhood, Karakala,
near Kars, and Tiflis.
[50] Müller-Simonis, Du Caucase au Golfe Persique, Paris, 1892, p. 3.
[51] Letter of the Rev. Athelstan Riley to Daily Chronicle of London,
August 1897.
[52] Maksimoff, Transcaucasia, quoted by Radde in Petermann's Mitth.,
1896, p. 145.
[53] See Count Tolstoy in the Times, October 23, 1895. I would also
refer my reader to a book published since this chapter was written,
entitled Christian Martyrdom in Russia, edited by Vladimir Tchertkoff,
with a chapter and letter by Leo Tolstoy, London, 1897.
[54] Tolstoy (the Times, loc. cit.) puts their present number at
20,000, I know not upon what authority. The official figures based
on the lists of 1886 are:--Government of Tiflis (Akhalkalaki and
Borchali), 7263; Government of Elizabetpol, 2404; Government of Kars,
2766; Government of Erivan, 15. Total, 12,448.
[55] According to the statistics of 1886 it would contain 93 houses
and 839 inhabitants.
[56] Koch speaks of the surprise with which he saw rye being harvested
in the country north of Erzerum at an altitude of at least 7500 feet
(Reise im pontischen Gebirge, Weimar, 1846, p. 267). Telfer (Crimea
and Transcaucasia, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 278) quotes from reports
issued by the Tiflis Observatory which establish the following limits
for the Southern Caucasus:--Barley, 8100 feet; corn, 7906 feet; wheat,
7400 feet; vine, 3500 feet. Radde estimates that on the northern slopes
of Alagöz corn ripens at 8300 feet (Petermann's Mitth., 1876, p. 147).
[57] Lukeria Vasilievna Kalmakoff was given to me as her full name.
[58] Count Tolstoy's informant says: "To Christ, as to an historical
personage, the Dukhobortsy do not ascribe much importance" (The Times,
loc. cit.). He goes on to tell how, when the Quakers visited them in
1818 and heard their opinion about Jesus Christ (that he was a man),
these pious people exclaimed, "Darkness!" I cannot reconcile this
account with what I learnt at Gorelovka, except by the reflection
that the Christian world itself holds many opinions upon this subject.
[59] As a sequel to these events, the Dukhobortsy have emigrated in
large numbers from their seats beyond Caucasus. Once the flower of
the peasantry in Russia, and afterwards the special pride of Russian
Governors in their seats of exile, they have now lost their hardiest
spirits in a fresh exodus. And it is the British Empire which receives
them! Their choice was at first bestowed upon the island of Cyprus;
but the warm climate was unpropitious, and they lost some 100 souls in
about eight months. The bulk of the emigrants appear to have taken
ship from Cyprus for Canada and British North America during the
spring of 1899.
[60] The official statistics, based on the census of 1886, give
Alexandropol a population of 24,230 souls, of whom 22,920 are
Armenians. Only 200 of these are Armenian Catholic.
[61] Ritter (Erdkunde, vol. x. pp. 438-39) identifies the modern name
Shuragel with the country designated in Armenian literature as Shirak.
[62] Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, etc., London,
1821, vol. i. p. 168.
[63] Wilbraham, Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces, London,
1839, p. 277.
[64] For the explanation of this term see the chapter on Erivan.
[65] Fragments of the walls of this building alone survive.
[66] So the inscription on the south wall, as rendered by Brosset
(Voyage archéologique, 3me rapport, p. 86; and Ruines d'Ani, p. 64).
[67] Brosset, loc. cit.
[68] Radde in Petermann's Mitth., 1876, p. 147.
[69] "...contemplate the company of the stars by night, and them that
bring winter and summer to mortals, the radiant potentates conspicuous
in the heaven" (Æschylus, Agamemnon, ls. 4-7).
[70] Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 4th and revised edition, London,
1896, p. 312.
[71] At Aralykh the thermometer ranged between 60° and 70° Fahrenheit
between the hours of 6 A.M. and 9 A.M. on the several mornings. At
mid-day it rose to about 80°.
[72] The temperature at 6.30 P.M. was 50° Fahrenheit, but it sank
rapidly in the cold wind.
[73] Temperature 10.15 A.M., 72° Fahrenheit.
[74] It is alluded to by some travellers under the name of Tash Kilisa.
[75] Madame B. Chantre, À travers l'Arménie Russe, Paris, 1893, p. 219.
[76] Markoff, Ascension du Grand Ararat, in Bulletin de la
Soc. Roy. Belge de Géographie, Brussels, 1888, p. 579.
[77] Temperature at 8 P.M., 18° F., and next morning at 5.45 A.M.,
28° F.
[78] See the photograph of the summit region (Fig. 36, p. 180),
which clearly shows these various features.
[79] Yet it looks a mere streak in the illustration (Fig. 36). The
lower end of the snow slope was not well seen from the standpoint of
that photograph. Actually it resembles a magnificent river.
[80] Abich (Geologische Forschungen in den kaukasischen Ländern,
Vienna, 1882, part ii. p. 455) ascribes to it an elevation of 14,600
feet.
[81] The temperature of the air a few feet below the summit out of
the gale was 20° F. The height of the north-western elevation of
the south-eastern summit of Ararat is given by my Hicks mountain
aneroid as 17,493 feet. The reading is no doubt too high by several
hundred feet. The Carey aneroid gives a still higher figure, and the
Boylean-Mariotti mercurial barometer entirely refused to work.
[82] The readings on the prismatic compass were 310° and 105°
respectively.
[83] Sophocles, OEdipus at Colonus, l. 610 seq.
[84] Abich, Besteigung des Ararat, in Baer and Helmersen's
Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches, St. Petersburg,
1849, vol. xiii. p. 63. He supports this suggestion by the fact that
neither Parrot nor Spasky Avtonomoff mentions the existence of such
a fissure. But whether you may be able to see any trace of it or not
must depend upon the state of the snow.
[85] Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, Paris, 1717, vol. ii. pp. 357
seq. See also Ritter, Erdkunde, vol. x. p. 507.
[86] I refer my reader to the works of Tournefort (already cited),
Parrot (Reise zum Ararat, Berlin, 1834), and Dubois de Montpéreux
(Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-45, vol. iii.).
[87] The measurements are my own. Dubois speaks of Akhury as being
five leagues distant from the Kara Su.
[88] Parrot says the same thing, op. cit. p. 108.
[89] For a discussion of the name see Parrot, op. cit. p. 110. Ritter
(Erdkunde, x. 508) also refers to Brosset (Bulletin de l'Acad. de
Sc. de St. Pétersbourg, 1841, vol. viii. p. 43), but is in error
when he says that Brosset spells it Aghuri. He actually spells it
Acorhi, and throws doubt upon the popular derivation of the name. It
would appear that the old Armenian name for the place was Akuri or
Agguri, and that later Armenian writers turned the word into Ark-uri
in order to extract the signification which I have given in the
text. I have adopted the spelling of the Russian official map, which
practically reproduces the old word. Dr. Belck has made the ingenious
suggestion that the Adduri of the Assyrian inscription of Shalmaneser
II. (859-824 B.C.)--a name which is applied to the mountains whither
Arame, king of Urardhu or Ararat, fled before the armies of the
Assyrian monarch--may be represented by the Armenian Akuri or Agguri
(Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1893,
p. 71). That the ancient name of a district often survives in that
of a town in these countries is proved by the analogy of the town
of Van, which bears the name of the kingdom of which it was formerly
the capital, the Biaina of the Vannic texts.
[90] Wagner (op. infra cit. p. 166) says that at the time of the
catastrophe the Armenian inhabitants numbered nearly 1600 souls,
besides Kurdish labourers.
[91] Von Behagel (apud Parrot, op. cit. 2nd part, p. 183) says 1000
feet. I quote Parrot p. 147.
[92] Parrot, op. cit. p. 147. Von Behagel (loc. cit.) says that it was
3258 Paris feet, or 3472 English feet, above the plain of the Araxes.
[93] Parrot, op. cit. p. 135; Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 471. Most
travellers tell this story with amplifications and variations. It
is to be found in its earliest form in Faustus of Byzantium (book
iii. chap. x.).
[94] Parrot, op. cit. p. 205.
[95] Von Behagel, apud Parrot, loc. cit.
[96] Tournefort, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 368 seq.
[97] The testimony of these witnesses is given by Abich, Geognostiche
Reise zum Ararat, with two drawings of the chasm, in Monatsberichte der
Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, series 2, vol. iv. 1846-47. The
account is reproduced in his Geologische Forschungen in den
kaukasischen Ländern, Vienna, 1882, part ii. pp. 395 seq., and
illustrated by a fine geological view of the chasm in the Atlas,
plate vi. It can best be understood in the reprint. See also Wagner,
op. inf. cit., and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 507 seq.
[98] See the summary of this report in Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 509
seq.
[99] See Moriz Wagner (Reise nach dem Ararat und dem Hochland
Armenien, Stuttgart, 1848, contained in Widermann and Hauff, Reisen
und Landesbeschreibungen, Lieferung 35), and Abich in op. cit.
[100] Consult the argument in Wagner, op. cit. pp. 176 seq.
[101] See Ritter, Erdkunde, x. 510; and for former earthquakes
see Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 474; Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part
ii. pp. 390 seq. with map.
[102] "5 versts in a direct line" are Abich's words, op. cit. p. 413.
[103] Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 512, 513.
[104] Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part ii. p. 412.
[105] Abich, op. cit. pp. 413, 414. It is evident that he had Wagner's
objections in his mind.
[106] This was the reading of my Hicks mountain aneroid, which was
working well, and it agrees with Parrot who says that the shrine
stood about 1000 feet above the cloister, i.e. at about 7400 English
feet. I fear, therefore, that Madame Chantre is in error in ascribing
to the site of the cloister, much lower down, an elevation of 2250
metres or 7382 feet (L'Arménie Russe, p. 238). Monsieur Chantre, in
his monograph on Ararat, confuses the site of the shrine with that
of the cloister, an error which was also made by my Armenian guide
(Annales de Géographie, Paris, 1893-94, vol. iii. pp. 81-94).
[107] Abich, Geolog. Forsch. part ii. p. 412, and see for the glacier,
etc. pp. 397, 399, 400. The illustration is contained on Table VI. of
his atlas. Parrot appears to be silent on the subject of this glacier;
but Von Behagel, his companion, offers some remarks upon it (Parrot,
2nd part, p. 184). I may also refer my reader to Dr. Markoff's article
in the Bulletin de la société royale Belge de géographie, 1888, p. 589.
[108] Feodoroff, the companion of Parrot, measuring from the valley of
the Araxes, estimated the difference at 7 feet; Khodzko at 120 feet;
Bryce at "some 50 feet or so," all in favour of the more westerly
elevation. My reader will notice that in the photograph (Fig. 37) the
more easterly, viz. on the left hand, appears to be slightly higher;
but this circumstance is due to the fact that it stands out a little
in advance of its neighbour, when seen from the side of the country
between Erivan and Aralykh.
[109] In estimating the level of the zone of perpetual snow on Ararat
I am leaving out of account those smaller or greater collections of
snow which owe their subsistence all through the summer to special
circumstances, such as shelter from the sun.
Mr. D. W. Freshfield (Exploration of the Caucasus, London, 1896,
vol. i. p. 55) gives 10,000 feet as a fair figure for the snow-level
in the central chain of Caucasus.
[110] The account of an ascent in 1897 has quite recently come
into my hands. It is written by Herr A. Oswald, whose attempt
was crowned with complete success (Eine Besteigung des Ararat in
Jahrb. schweiz. Alpenclub, Berne, 1899-1900, vol. xxxv. pp. 157-183).
[111] For Artaxata, Dvin, Khor Virap, etc., see Ker Porter's Travels
(vol. ii. pp. 619 seq.); Morier (Second Journey, p. 316 and pp. 339
seq.); Dubois (op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 382 seq.); Smith and Dwight
(op. cit. pp. 273 seq.). Dubois mentions, but was unable to visit, the
grottoes of Okhtchapert on the direct road between Erivan and Garni,
p. 402. They are mentioned by Telfer (Crimea and Transcaucasia,
vol. i. p. 210), who passed by them on his way to Garni from
Erivan. Telfer's book should be consulted by English readers for an
account of these various antiquities. I would also recommend to the
archæologist who is desirous of investigating the question of the
site of Artaxata a reference to Dubois (vol. iii. p. 449).
[112] Op. cit. vol. iii. p. 480.
[113] According to the Jesuit, Père Monier, who wrote an account of
the mission at Erivan in the eighteenth century, there were only 4000
inhabitants of the town proper in his day. Of these only one-fourth
were Armenians (Lettres Édifiantes, Mémoires du Levant, Paris, 1780,
vol. iii. p. 25). In the thirties of last century the usual estimate
seems to have been 2500 families or at least 10,000 souls, of whom
some 700 to 1000 families were Armenian (Smith and Dwight, Missionary
Researches, p. 279; Sijalski, Aufenthalt in Erivan, Das Ausland,
Augsburg, 1839). The Armenians are rapidly turning the tables upon
the Tartars.
[114] Chardin, edit. Paris, 1811, vol. ii. p. 169.
[115] "Erivân, apparens, quia regio ista prima apparuit Noe cum
descenderet ex monte Ararat" (Villotte, Dict. Arm. p. 273, quoted by
Langlès ap. Chardin, loc. cit.).
[116] Moses of Khorene, vol. ii. p. 46.
[117] Lane Poole, Mohammedan Dynasties, London, 1894, p. 259.
[118] For the Mohammedan tradition see Travels of Evliya, translated by
Von Hammer, London, 1850, vol. ii. p. 150. "In the year 810 (A.D. 1407)
Khoja Khan Lejchani, a rich merchant of Timur's suite, settled here
(at Erivan) with all his family and servants, cultivating plantations
of rice, by which means a great Kent was soon formed. Five years later
Shah Ismail gave to Revan Kul, one of his khans, an order to build
a castle here, which, being finished in seven years, was named after
him Revan or Erivan." The five years of Evliya are incomprehensible
to me. Erivan is mentioned by John Katholikos, who wrote in the
eleventh century, as having been a considerable place in the seventh
(Saint-Martin's translation, Paris, 1841, p. 80).
[119] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839,
vol. iii. pp. 346 seq. When Morier, secretary to the British Embassy
to Persia, visited the sirdar or governor of Erivan in 1814, he was
told by his host with great gravity that "if three or four of the
kings of Fireng (Europe) were to unite to take this castle, they
might just take the trouble of going back again, for their labours
would be in vain" (Morier, Second Journey, London, 1818, p. 319). The
sirdar's view was not held by British officers, one of whom, in giving
an account of his visit in 1837, says, "I had expected to find the
castle almost impregnable from the honours which were heaped upon the
Marshal Paskevich for its capture, and was quite surprised to find
a mere Turkish fort, strong indeed by nature on one side, but on the
other three defended merely by a mud wall, and commanded from all the
adjoining hills" (Wilbraham, Travels in the Transcaucasian Provinces,
etc., London, 1839).
[120] "In dieser abermahligen Veränderung seynd auch alle Türkische
Moscheen der Stadt übern Hauffen geworffen ... also das etliche
dergleichen Tempel bis zum Fundament erniedriget und übel ärger von
Persianen verwüstet als jemahl die Kirchen der Christen von Türcken
zugerichtet worden seynd. So züchtiget Gott die Mahumetaner mit
Mahumetanern" (Schillinger, Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise
vom Jahr 1699 bis 1702, Nürnberg, 1707).
[121] Tavernier, edit. of Paris, 1679, vol. i. p. 37; Père Monier,
op. cit. vol. iii. p. 24.
[122] Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osm. Reiches, vol. vii. p. 321.
[123] Morier, Second Journey, p. 320.
[124] Dubois de Montpéreux, op. cit. vol. iii p. 452.
[125] Dubois, ibid. pp. 339 seq. and Atlas.
[126] Dubois, ibid. p. 346, and Morier, Hajji Baba.
[127] Chapter viii. of the Polojenye of 1836.
[128] I was informed by a competent authority that, including Tiflis
and the whole of Russian Transcaucasia, there were not less than 400
Armenian schools in existence at the time of my visit. About one-third
of the number would be schools for girls.
[129] Müller-Simonis (Du Caucase au Golfe Persique, Paris, 1892,
p. 62), speaking of the celebration of the ceremonies in honour of
Ali and Hoseyn at Erivan, says: "Le soir les fanatiques qui devront
représenter les martyres à la grande procession, font une promenade
aux flambeaux, armés de sabres et de gourdins. Ils agitent en mesure
leurs flambeaux et leurs armes, criant en même temps à tue-tête:
'Hussein, Ali, Hussein, Ali.' Les reflets rouges des torches, ici
découpant les blanches silhouettes des maisons, là plongeant en
lueurs étranges sous la verdure des arbres, puis éclairant en plein
les figures hideuses de ces dévots, forment un spectacle sauvage et
fantastique." The picture is true to life. I have little doubt that
such a procession may still be witnessed at Erivan.
[130] According to Dubois de Montpéreux the fortifications of
Edgmiatsin were restored by the Katholikos Simeon between 1763 and 1780
(Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-43, vol. iii. p. 360).
[131] The true inwardness of this policy did not escape the
notice of the French traveller Boré, who, writing in 1838, says:
"En s'avançant vers l'Asie Centrale la Russie cherchait à réaliser
une pensée politique habilement conçue, qui lui promet pour l'avenir
des résultats avantageux. Comme puissance chrétienne, elle se déclare
la protectrice de tous les chrétiens assujétis à la double puissance
Mahométane qu'elle combattait.... Voilà pourquoi l'on tenait beaucoup
encore à enclaver dans l'empire le monastère d'Echemiazin; attendu
qu'étant le siège du chef principal de la communion arménienne, on
devait tenir dans les liens de son pouvoir spirituel la majeure partie
des Arméniens répandus dans les royaumes limitrophes" (Correspondance
et Mémoires, Paris, 1840, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37).
[132] Monteith, Kars and Erzerum, London, 1856, p. 38. During
the campaigns against Persia the convent of Edgmiatsin obtained
declarations from both belligerents that their territory should be
considered neutral ground. The Russians, however, appear to have made
use of it as a base (ibid. p. 133). While at Edgmiatsin I was told
that in 1804 the Persians erected a battery upon the roof, which
naturally suffered, although I am not aware that the Russians came
to any harm from the battery.
[133] Morier's Second Journey, London, 1818, pp. 323 seq. According
to Von Haxthausen Russian influence had already become preponderant
in the election of a katholikos as early as 1768, when the Katholikos
Lukas sought and obtained the sanction of Russia upon his elevation
(Transcaucasia, English edition, London, 1854, p. 307). We learn
from another source that the Katholikos Ephraim (1809-31) was
accorded the special protection of the Tsar, and that he did not
assume his functions before receiving the imperial assurance at
St. Petersburg that the pontificate of Armenia would ever receive
such protection. This same Tsar, Alexander I., loaded the bishops and
priests who accompanied Ephraim with honours and presents (Avdall's
continuation of Chamchean's History, Calcutta, 1827, pp. 519-20).
[134] Melikoff is said to have had under his command a body of
2000 Armenian volunteers as well as some 400 officers of the same
nationality. See the Reminiscences of a Delegate to the Congress of
Berlin in the newspaper L'Arménie for 15th August 1892 (published
in London).
[135] Nine articles of the Polojenye deal with the election of a
katholikos. Upon a vacancy of the Chair it is the duty of the synod
to issue invitations to all Armenian dioceses, whether in Russia or
elsewhere, calling upon them each to name two deputies, one clerical
and one lay, who shall repair to Edgmiatsin after the lapse of a
year. These deputies, should they be unable to attend in person,
may signify their vote by letter. In addition to the deputies the
members of the synod and seven of the oldest bishops of Edgmiatsin
have votes ex officio. The election takes place in the church of the
Illuminator. Four candidates are chosen by vote in the first place. A
second ballot narrows the selection to two. The assembly then appoints
three delegates who repair to the Governor-General of the Caucasus
and officially communicate the result. The Governor-General transmits
the two names to the Emperor through the Minister of the Interior. The
Emperor confirms the katholikos and gives him the ukase. After he has
taken the oath of allegiance to the Russian throne he is consecrated
according to the rite of the Armenian Church.
In Russia there are at present only six dioceses of the Armenian
Church; they are specified in the Polojenye. They are:--1. New
Nakhichevan and Bessarabia; 2. Astrakhan; 3. Erivan; 4. Tiflis;
5. Karabagh; 6. Shirvan. Kars is at present a vicarate, dependent
upon Erivan. In Turkey there are, I am informed, usually no less
than fifty-two dioceses; but there are not always bishops to every
diocese. In Persia there are two, namely New Julfa and Tabriz. It
will thus be seen that the Armenians of Turkey have the preponderant
vote, and that the clergy have a small majority over the lay members,
to the extent of the synod and seven of the bishops of Edgmiatsin.
At the last election, which took place on the 17th of May 1892, there
were present in the church of St. Gregory 72 electors, including
the synod and the 7 bishops. The number might have been about
135. But several dioceses appointed the same delegate. The vote for
Mgr. Khrimean was unanimous, the second candidate being only nominal.
Other articles of the Polojenye to which I should like to call
attention are to the following effect:--The usual Russian provision
forbidding proselytising is inserted. The katholikos alone is permitted
to make the holy oil. The synod is to consist of four bishops and
four archimandrites, all resident at Edgmiatsin. It is to assemble
at least twice a week. The katholikos is ex officio a member of
synod and presides when he is present. It is not said whether the
procurator has a right to be present at the deliberations; but the
minutes and decisions must all be submitted to him. All monasteries
are to be regulated according to the rule of St. Basil, and to become
a monk it is necessary to obtain the sanction of the synod upon the
recommendation of a bishop. A married man may become a monk if he have
no children under age and if his wife agree to enter a convent. The
Church schools are recognised; but their rules and curricula must be
submitted to the synod. The synod must in turn submit them to the
Minister of the Interior. Finally it is stated that the Armenian
clergy are supported by the gifts of the Armenian people, and the
nature of these gifts is specified.
[136] According to Von Haxthausen (journey in 1843) the synod took the
place of the general council of the Church, which it was impossible
to assemble. He adds that in 1783 the Patriarch Lukas decreed that
it should not consist of fewer than seven members; in 1802 there were
nine members (Transcaucasia, English edition, p. 305).
[137] Captain Richard Wilbraham, Travels, etc., London, 1839, p. 98. At
the time of his visit in 1837 the procurator was actually an Armenian,
but quite Russianised.
[138] Transcaucasia, German edition, Leipzig, 1856, vol. i. pp. 256
seq.; English edition, pp. 284 seq. Von Haxthausen speaks of the
"Grobheit des Procurators." It is only just to add that the katholikos
was absent during his visit.
[139] I was shown the documents in the library. The method of the
election of the Katholikos Makar affords great sport to the Jesuit
Vernier. He hails with delight the constitution of Edgmiatsin into
a state prison "où l'élu de la nation demeure sous la garde d'un
gêolier Moscovite. Cet élu a fini par déplaire au despote couronné de
St. Pétersbourg; le czar vient de rejeter avec mépris l'oecuménique
qui avait réuni la majorité des suffrages, et de lui substituer
arbitrairement un Russe qui n'a d'Arménien que le nom. Dans quelques
années de par le knout, ce nom même disparaîtra, et quelque pape
cosaque remplacera l'Arménien russifié et occupera à Edgmiatsin le
trône de saint Grégoire. Terrible et juste vengeance de Dieu...." The
italics are mine (Histoire du Patriarcat Arménien Catholique, Paris,
1891, p. 285).
[140] Sophocles, OEdipus Tyrannus, 1. 58.
[141] The new catalogue, which has not yet been printed [September
1900], will contain some 3500 titles. So far as I have been able to
ascertain, there already exist two catalogues--(1) that published
by the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1840, and (2) that by
Caréniantz, Tiflis, 1863, 4o [in Armenian].