- Project Runeberg -  Armenia and the Near East /
280

(1928) [MARC] Author: Fridtjof Nansen - Tema: Russia
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XI
ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES
In the Nineteenth Century.
All misfortunes and all maltreatment notwithstanding, the
soul of Armenia’s people could not be crushed, and the
dream of liberty revived whenever any gleam of hope reached
them from outside. In course of time they began to nourish
a fresh hope of deliverance from Islam with the aid of Christian
Russia, which was pressing on from the north. But appeals
to the tsar in Moscow had brought nothing save disappoint
ments in earlier centuries ; even Peter the Great’s wars against
Persia had only involved Armenia in new disasters. In the
hope of winning Russian support there were several risings
in Persian Armenia during the eighteenth century, but Russia’s
aid was not forthcoming, and they were quenched in blood.
Then, in the early part of last century, Russia intervened in
earnest. The Armenian Archbishop Nerses Ashtarok mobil
ized his people in the Arax Valley, equipped an Armenian
force of volunteers, established stores of corn, and made
other preparations. A joint Armeno-Georgian army under
the Armenian leader Madatov defeated the Persians, Nerses
himself riding at the head of the troops with cross and sword.
The " impregnable " fortress of Erivan was tåken by the
Russians in 1827 (cf. p. 132), the Persians had to make peace,
and the Armenian territory north of the Arax was united to
Russia.
But the Armenian delight at once more coming under
Christian government was of short duration. The Russian
promises of home rule were broken, as is the way of the world
when once victory has been attained. A national movement
for Armenian freedom on the new frontier of the empire did
not win favour with the rulers in Russia, and the " stiff-necked
and heretical" Armenian Church was a peculiarly irritating
thorn in the flesh for the Orthodox Russian Church. Before

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