Armenia

Armenia is a country in the South Caucasus. It is landlocked between Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Turkey to the west and Iran to the south. The country, which has a population of nearly three million people, is largely inhabited by the Armenian people, an Indo-European people who follow their own branch of Christianity. Through it is a relatively small country today, Armenia has a rich history going back to ancient times when the Kingdom of Armenia was an important buffer state between the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire based out of Mesopotamia and Persia (modern-day Iraq and Iran). At the beginning of the fourth century the Kingdom of Armenia became the first polity to adopt Christianity as its state religion. For much of its history since then it has been dominated by a series of powerful neighbors, including the Byzantine Empire, the Seljuk Turks, the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union, only finally re-emerging as an independent nation state in 1991. Armenia’s modern history has been overshadowed by the Armenian Genocide that occurred during the First World War, while persecution over the centuries has resulted in a very large Armenian diaspora in places like the United States and Russia.^[1]

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The regions of ArmeniaThe regions of Armenia

Armenia is divided into eleven administrative regions known as marz or marzes, which are in turn divided into smaller municipal zones called hamaynkner. The capital city, Yerevan, is one of these and has a special administrative status. The other ten marz are as follows:

Aragatsotn
Ararat
Armavir
Gegharkunik
Kotayk
Lori
Shirak
Syunik
Tavush
Vayots Dzor^[2]

History of ArmeniaHistory of Armenia

Armenia is a country with a contrasting history. It was strong in ancient times, though has been dominated by its neighbors since. Its position in the South Caucasus along the main routes from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe southwards to the Middle East has ensured that many different groups passed through here over the millennia. The Armenian Highlands formed part of the Hittite Empire during the Bronze Age, while the Mitanni also controlled parts of the region in the middle centuries of the second millennium BCE.^[3] Thereafter in ancient Greek and Roman times an indigenous Kingdom of Armenia emerged, one which ruled over a very substantial realm that covered not just modern-day Armenia, but also much of the wider Caucasus and lands into what is now northern Iran and north-eastern Turkey. This Kingdom of Armenia was one of the only powers the Romans came into contact with which managed to avoid coming under Roman domination, in part by very regularly switching its allegiances between the Romans and the Parthians to the south in Mesopotamia and Persia.^[4]

If the era of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia was a golden age for the Armenian people, centuries of domination by foreign powers followed. In the Early Middle Ages it was absorbed into the Byzantine Empire. Then in the eleventh century the Seljuk Turks conquered Armenia, followed four centuries later by the Ottoman Turks. Ottoman rule ended during the First World War in tragedy when the Armenian Genocide led to the deaths of one and a half million people.^[5]

A sovereign Armenian state briefly emerged before it was amalgamated into the Soviet Union at the end of the Russian Civil War. Throughout this era hundreds of thousands of Armenians left the South Caucasus altogether. Most headed to Russia and the United States, though there are also hundreds of thousands of Armenians in France today and tens of thousands in countries like Germany, Brazil, Greece, Argentina and Canada. Armenia achieved independence in 1991 as the USSR collapsed at the end of the Cold War, though its modern history has not been easy either as it has clashed with neighboring Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.^[6]

Geography of ArmeniaGeography of Armenia

Armenia is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus region. Georgia lies to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Iran to the south and Turkey to the west. The country is just under 30,000 square kilometers in size. Lake Sevan is a very large lake in the east of the country. The country is quite elevated, with the Armenian Highlands in the east of the country forming one of the highest parts of West Asia. Although located in Turkey, Mount Ararat is visible towering over much of the country. Indeed, only two countries in the world, Switzerland and Nepal, have a higher average elevation, with most of the country being over 400 meters above sea level. Yerevan, which is located close to the center of the country, is the only major city, with over a million of Armenia’s population of just under three million people living here.^[7]

Researching family history in ArmeniaResearching family history in Armenia

There are numerous archives and research libraries both within Armenia and further afield that have collections relevant for the study of Armenian family history and genealogy. They are as follows:

MyHeritage provides access to over 1.3 million military records pertaining to the lands of the Russian Empire during the First World War, including parts of Armenia.
MyHeritage has over five million Armenia Voters Lists records and details of immigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States, including Armenian migrants.
The National Archives of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia – Founded in 1923 as a repository for Armenia’s official national records, there are originals or copies of censuses and a wide range of other demographic records here.^[8]
The National Library of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia – Armenia’s national library dates back to 1832 when it was established in Yerevan under Ottoman ruler. It is a major repository of culture in Armenia.^[9]
The Armenian Institute Library, London, United Kingdom – Though only founded in 2001, the Institute is one of the biggest libraries and archival collections for the study of Armenian history, culture and literature outside of Armenia itself.^[10]
The AGBU Nubar Bibliotheque, Paris, France – This library was founded in Paris by Boghos Nubar, an Armenian politician who retired to the French capital in the 1920s and founded the library as a repository of information on the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian diaspora in 1928.^[11]
Armenian Museum Library, Watertown, Massachusetts, United States – A research institute in New England with over 30,000 titles on Armenian culture and history.^[12]

Armenian surnamesArmenian surnames

Some of the most common surnames in Armenia include the following:

The ‘yan’ suffix at the end means ‘son of’. Hence, most of these are patronymic surnames indicating a patrilineal line of descent from a revered ancestor of some kind. For instance, Grigoryan means ‘son of Grigor’, Grigor being the regional equivalent of Gregory, while Petrosyan means ‘son of Petros’ or ‘son of Peter’, Simonyan means ‘son of Simon’ and so forth.^[13]

Explore more about ArmeniaExplore more about Armenia

Former Russian Empire, World War I Casualties records collection on MyHeritage
Russian Immigration to the United States records collection on MyHeritage
Armenia, Voters List 2019 records collection on MyHeritage

References

[1] ttps://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/armenia/summaries/

[2] ttps://www.gov.am/en/regions/

[3] ttps://www.worldhistory.org/hittite/

[4] ttps://www.worldhistory.org/armenia/

[5] ttps://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview

[6] ttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict

[7] ttps://www.countryreports.org/country/Armenia/geography.htm

[8] ttps://armarchive.am/en/home/

[9] ttps://nla.am/en_US

[10] ttps://www.armenianinstitute.org.uk/library

[11] ttp://bnulibrary.org/index.php/en/a-propos-en/la-bibliotheque-nubar-en

[12] ttps://www.armenianmuseum.org/library

[13] ttps://surnam.es/armenia

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