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ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES 281
long a policy of suppression was adopted, with a view to the
complete Russification of Armenia. Accordingly the decree
of 1836 closed the elementary schools, forbade all teaching in
the Armenian language at public institutions, and made it
compulsory for the Armenians to serve in the Russian forces.
The administration of the Church, too, suffered more and
more from Russian interference. To his dying day Nerses,
the champion of liberty, who became Katholikos (1843-18 5 7),
protested repeatedly against all these encroachments and
broken promises ; but it was in vain, things only went from
bad to worse.
It was true that Russia had liberated Armenia from the
oppression and misrule of the Muhammedans and from the
ravages of the robber Tatar khans ; peace and order, with
comparative justice and equality before the law, had been
established, so that the people could carry on their vocations
again under favourable conditions and regain a measure of
material prosperity. But the previous rulers had not inter
fered with the affairs of the Church or the religious and
intellectual lite of the people, which they did not understand.
Here the Russian rule wouncled the Armenian spirit of inde
pendence just where it was most sensitive, with the result
that the new administration was hated in spite of all its
obvious advantages.
Meanwhile the state of things in Turkish Armenia was far
worse. While the liberation of Greece, Montenegro, Serbia,
and other countries from the loathed but increasingly weakening
empire of Turkey continually raised the hopes of the enclosed
and oppressed Armenian population, the same events served
to increase the Turks’ hatred of the Christians, and there was
no limit to the extortion, pillaging, and cruelty that the
Armenians suffered at the hands of tyrannical and corrupt
Turkish ofiicials, and Kurdish chieftains and robber bands
egged on by the Turks .
When in due course better connections with Europe were
established, especially through foreign consuls and mission
aries, the world could no longer be kept in ignorance of what
was going on in the Armenian mountain valleys. In Europe
voices were raised with ever-increasing indignation against
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