The Fate and The Present State of The Armenian Nobility
The history of the Armenian nobility is as dramatic as that of the Armenian people. Sometimes, during internal feuds, entire noble houses would be exterminated. Many Armenian aristocratic families perished during wars with foreign invaders, notably Arabs and Turks. The latter quickly realized that the Armenian state was based on the national aristocracy and thus adopted policies of annihilation of the Armenian nobility. For example, in 705 the ostikan (governor under the Arab caliphate) of Armenia deceitfully invited around 800 Armenian noblemen together with their guards to Nakhichevan as if for negotiations and massacred them all. Nevertheless, some Armenian noble houses lived through this tragedy and continued their efforts to liberate the country. Some descendants of the Armenian nobility achieved high-ranking positions at foreign royal courts. For example, the offspring of the Armenian noble house of Artzruni became influential grandees at the Georgian court. The Georgian branch of the Armenian noble family of Bagratuni was enthroned as Bagrationi and became the reigning house in Georgia. An entire line of noblemen of Armenian descent reigned in Byzantium. As a result of dynastic marriages, the descendants of the Armenian royal house of Lusignan (Lusinian), once ruling over Cilicia and Cyprus, merged with the representatives of the west European royal dynasty of Savoy reigning in parts of Italy. Some other offspring of naharar houses founded medieval Armenian aristocratic houses, such as the Cartozians, Proshians, Kyurikians, Orbelians, Artzrunis of Mahkanaberd, and the Tornikians, among others. These dynasties played a significant role in the struggle for the liberation of Armenia and the revival of Armenian statehood. In the 13th century particularly prominent were the Zakarian princes - brothers Zakare and Ivane - whose military strength and political influence in the united Armenian-Georgian state was so significant that they were de facto the fully-fledged rulers of the Armenian territories. The last strongholds of Armenian statehood were preserved by the semi-dependent princes (meliks) of Karabakh-Artsakh, also known as melikdoms of Khamsa (from Arabic word meaning "five principalities). These principalities preserved their status until the annexation of eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire. The Russian emperors either accepted the noble titles of the Armenian aristocracy or themselves elevated prominent representatives of Armenian origin in an effort to use the potential of the Armenian nobility. During this period the noble houses of Madatian (Madatov), Lazarian (Lazarev), Beybutian (Beybutov), Pirumyan (Pirumov), Loris-Melikian (Loris-Melikov) emerged.
The aristocratic tradition in Armenia suffered another blow during the Bolshevik regime, when the nobility was dissolved as a social class and the noblemen underwent systematic oppression. Many representatives of the Armenian aristocracy were repressed, sentenced to prisons and work camps, or simply executed. Those who survived against all odds were forced to hide their aristocratic origins by changing family names and obliterating their family histories. Only a very few managed to preserve their family traditions by leaving the Communist regime and moving to other countries.
Read more about this topic: Armenian Nobility
Famous quotes containing the words fate, present, state, armenian and/or nobility:
“The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“He was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass. Armenian refugees, Jewish refugees, refugees from Franco Spain. But a political leader or artistic figure is an exile. Thomas Mann yesterday, Theodorakis today. Exile is the noble and dignified term, while a refugee is more hapless.... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Something has ceased to come along with me.
Something like a person: something very like one.
And there was no nobility in it
Or anything like that.”
—Jon Silkin (b. 1930)