Historic Background Of Armenia

Armenia is like the poor kid who is the favourite target of every bully in school. The country and its people have been shifted, shuffled and pushed around as part of empire building exercises by various kingpins. National boundaries both past and present are an undecided entity. Every variety of tension – political, ethnic, religious, military has had a stint here.

King Argistis – monarch of the Urartu Empire that was one of the first empires to rule over the country, built one of the fortresses at Yerevan. After this there was a long string of other kingdoms - The Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid, the Roman and the Byzantine. By the 11th century Armenia was part of the Byzantine Empire and close on their heels the Turks came in. A little more than a 100 years on and it was the turn of the Egyptian Mamluks and European crusaders to visit. Next the Persians and the Ottoman Turks fought over the region but the Ottoman’s held on to most of Armenia – for the next 400 years.

Armenian literature, the arts and religion did well under the Ottoman Empire and laid the foundations of the political movements of the future. Armenian nationalism stirred out of its slumber in the 18th century. However the hope of a nation built up over the next century died with World War I. Armenians were persecuted and decimated by the Turks in 1915. 1916 saw Armenia under Russian rule and then being handed back to the Ottoman Empire because of Russian Military limitations. Transcaucasia was born but one month and four days later it stood divided into Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. Turkey wrested away some territory which the Russians came and grabbed back in 1921. Unclear local borders kept tensions high and with the Soviet stronghold giving way at the end of the century, there was enough to fuel fresh violence.

Natural calamity also took its toll in 1988 – an earthquake destroyed 25,000 people, left half million homeless and wiped out 10% of the country’s already weak industrial capacity. A Political referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian Christian colony located in Muslim Azerbaijan voted for unification with Armenia. The region is disputed also because it has vast resources of oil and the Russians had placed it under Azerbaijan. This meant a fresh flare up, and renewed killings. To stop the killing of the Armenians in Baku – the Azerbaijani capital the Russian Army stepped in. Eventually in 1990, an Armenian nationalist president, Levon Ter Petrosian, secured control in Armenia.

In 1991 Armenia voted in favour of independence. In 1993, Armenia had control over a fifth of Azerbaijan, including most of Nagorno-Karabakh. A ceasefire signed in 1994 has been maintained, though only precariously. Though Nagorno-Karabakh is considered a part of Azerbaijan, it is accessible only from Armenia and is controlled by the Armenian army.