Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - X. Chapters in the history of Armenia
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ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
272
grated to Poland (100,000), Galicia, Moldavia, Bukovina,
Transylvania, Italy, etc. Mass emigrations took place after
the Seljuk-Turk invasion in the eleventh century and after
the Mongolian invasion at a later date.
These numerous and extensive emigrations reduced the
Armenian population at home, so that whole regions of fertile
country were nearly depopulated or greatly impoverished,
while Kurdish nomads occupied the mountains and Turks,
Tatars, and Kurds settled in the valleys and on the plains.
Where the Armenians had previously been the sole occupants,
or greatly in the majority, the population now became extremely
mixed.
Although constant intercourse with foreigners in the
caravan trade may have had an intellectually stimulating effect,
Armenia was not very promising soil for the growth of a high
standard of general culture. The country was divided up
into small centres of culture with an inadequate system of
communication. The population consisted mainly of peasants
—who can never serve directly as emissaries of high intellec
tual progress. The development of the arts presupposes a
class of people in easier circumstances who have more leisure,
and are not always tied to the plough ; and it requires towns
as smaller or larger centres of culture, where intellectual life
is more vigorous, and where there is an easier interchange
of thoughts and ideas, with, as a rule, more demand for them.
Armenia was lacking in town centres of this description ; the
large monasteries formed for the most part the foci of intellec
tual life. Moreover, the country was cut off from the sea
and had no ports. Naturally, therefore, many of the more
gifted spirits went abroad to larger centres of culture with
better opportunities, such as Byzantium and other towns of
the West, and probably also the chief cities of the Persian
empire. Here their intellectual abilities could develop more
freely and benefit others, but unfortunately they were lost
to their own country.
But, on the other hand, the isolation of the Armenian high
lands gradually fostered in the people a more distinctive
national culture and a stubborn, often fanatical, adherence to
what was their own. This found expression not least in their
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