As always, the first article in the 49th issue of our journal is “Facts and Comments”. This article covers the period of November 2023-June 2024 of the internal developments in Armenia, the international relations of Armenia, the ongoing process of signing the Peace Agreement with Azerbaijan, and the bilateral relations with Türkiye considering the process of normalization of their relations. With a view to overcoming past bigoted concepts, the initiatives encouraged or condoned by Armenia’s Nikol Pashinyan administration to make changes or amends in various aspects of Armenia’s political and legal framework have led to reactions. Internal reactions have come from partisans of the former government, extreme nationalists and most importantly the Armenian Church, while external reactions have come from the militant organizations of the Armenian Diaspora who perceive their survival and livelihood in provoking radical and militant nationalism, and other countries wishing to use this as a vehicle to put political pressure on Türkiye. Following the termination of Karabakh’s occupation, the major obstacle to achieving a lasting peace with Azerbaijan has been removed, limiting the issues for negotiations to border demarcation and transport connections and facilities. Distancing itself from Russia to align with the West, Armenia has come to realize the necessity to normalize its relations with Türkiye, the neighbor to provide its connections with the West. Türkiye had been sincerely supporting the process of normalization of relations from early on. However, Türkiye has considered this in a regional perspective, to coincide with the normalization of Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan, within the regional stability with Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
In his article titled “Armenian Parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Zamość in the 16th-18th Century”, Marcin Łukasz Majewski delves into the details and history of the Armenian church and its parish that existed in Zamość in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between the 16th and 18th centuries. Records indicate that the Armenians of this town, founded as a private enterprise and envisioned to be a center of trade with the East, originated from several places, among which were the cities of the Ottoman Empire. Majewski utilizes numerous official sources from said period to discuss the history, structure, and furnishings of the Armenian church in Zamość and the organization of its parish. The author discusses the religious and social conflict that was triggered by the unification process of this Armenian church with the Latin Church, the largest autonomous church within the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, the author narrates the gradual dissolution of the Armenian parish and the eventual demolition of their church building in the 19th century. The author argues that the research of the article presents new findings and verifies some of the mistakes in the historiography of the Armenian presence in Poland.
In his article titled “Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis of the Eighth Grade History Textbook Used in Armenia”, Ercan Cihan Ulupınar aims to examine the historical and political discourses in the textbook titled “History of Armenians” used in the 8th grade curriculum of Armenia. The article uses a corpus-based discourse analysis method and examines the most frequently used words and their synonyms, near-synonyms, and antonyms. The article also determines the most frequently used dates and their significances. Lastly, it analyzes the words that refer to peoples other than the Armenians. Ulupınar indicates that the book makes excessive references to war and struggle (contrary to the recommendations of international education institutions) and ideologically singles out Turks as the “others” of the Armenian people. He points that words related to “Turks” and “Turkish” are used systematically with word types that create negative images. Finally, Ulupınar determines that the book makes the most emphasis on historical events and years that are meant to reinforce the idea of Armenian statehood in the minds of students.
In her article titled “On the Level of Historical Truths: The ‘Armenian Question’ After The Potsdam Conference”, Hajar Verdiyeva discusses how the USSR, similar to the Russian Empire before it, used the Armenian Question as a foreign policy tool to make territorial claims against the territories of Türkiye. The discourses pushed by the Soviet authorities thus favored the “Greater Armenia” narrative of Armenian historiography in a way that would favor the foreign policy objectives of the USSR. This was evident in the stubborn Soviet attitude during the Potsdam Conference of 1945. When the Soviet (and Armenian stance) failed to yield results, a change of tactics took place, and issue of Karabakh was brought up to the detriment of Azerbaijani Turks. Through this, ethnic cleansing was carried out in Soviet Armenia between the years 1948 and 1953, and Azerbaijani Turks were deported from their historical lands. In the end, however, USSR was forced to give up its territorial claims against Türkiye, and the Armenian aspirations concerning the control over Karabakh failed to yield results during the USSR period.
Our 49th issue also contains a review by Ahmet Can Öktem concerning a book from 2006 titled “Bir Ermeni Teröristin İtirafları” (“The Confessions of an Armenian Terrorist”), which is ultimately the Turkish version of a book from 1976 titled “The Legacy: Memoirs of an Armenian Patriot” by Arshavir Shiragian. Shiragian was born in the Ottoman Empire and became a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) as a youngster and took part in the assassinations carried out as part of Operation Nemesis that primarily targeted Ottoman officials. Öktem indicates that Shiragian describes the numerous struggles and dangers he faced, the various phases of his terrorist activities, his radical beliefs, and his collaborations with various ARF members. Öktem provides explanations regarding ARF and Operation Nemesis, and comments on the numerous insults and accusations against Turks and the false and controversial statements contained in Shiragian’s book.
Have a nice reading and best regards,
Editor
