nation
History textbooks are uniquely powerful tools in the hands of state elites for shaping people’s perceptions of their own past and, therefore, attitudes toward the present state of affairs.
As Marc Ferro, a renowned historian and seminal author of history textbooks states, “Our images of other people, or of ourselves for that matter, reflect the history we are taught as children.”[i]
National histories are narratives of the past with an aim to provide ready-made patterns proscribed by the elite to the mass of people, constituting the nation. What is within the narrative is equally and sometimes even more important than what is excluded from it. “Histories […] are based on memories organized into narratives. Whatever actually happened is far less important than how it is remembered. What is remembered, what has been forgotten or repressed, provides the template through which the world is understood,” writes R. G. Suny.[ii]
Armenian national historiography of the past several decades was dotted with memory gaps, because, among other reasons, the production of historical texts was in the tight grip of the Soviet state ideology. After Armenia’s independence, some topics previously repressed were revived and researched and found their way into the textbooks. However, there are still topics currently left out of national history textbooks for reasons to be discussed here.
Although Armenian history textbooks have become a topic of study only recently, a considerable amount of research has been done. So far, little attention however has been paid to what is missing or what is forgotten in them.
Forgetting for a Nation’s Sake
Forgetting is part of the memory of an individual and the same applies to human societies and nations in particular. French historian and philosopher Ernest Renan, in his much-celebrated speech titled, “What is a Nation?” (Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?), delivered in the Sorbonne in 1882, stated that a nation is a collective entity whose members share not only common memories but also common oblivion. “The essence of a nation is that all of its individual members have a great deal in common and also that they have forgotten many things,” he notes.[iii]
Armenian history is no exception. Having been part of the Soviet state for a long time, its past was colonized by the Soviet system, which, among other things, underlined the “special mission” of the Russian nation, which saved a number of nations from “servitude” and gave them a chance for national emancipation in a new socialist homeland.
It must be noted that gaps in Armenian history were not only for reasons stemming uniquely from Soviet ideological control. The history of marginal/minority religious, ethnic and other groups residing in Armenia were excluded from Armenian history because the very concept from long before Soviet times was centered around the nation, including the Armenian Apostolic Church. Some research on those groups, such as Catholic Armenians’ religious and educational activities in late medieval and early modern period, indicate a lack of inclusion in Soviet or post-Soviet history textbooks.
Paradoxes of Soviet and Armenian Post-Soviet Historiography
The official narrative of history in the Soviet Union underlined the missionary role of the Russian nation. However, it was not that simple. The Soviet state created a curious blend of both nationalist and colonial discourses, which suggested, on one hand, that the constituent non-Russian nations were doomed to be assimilated and merged into bigger empires (or, in the case of Armenians, even physically annihilated), and, at the same time admitting wrongdoings by “tsarism,” a euphemism used for “Russian colonialism.” The Russian people were invariably portrayed as “brotherly,” and this description sometimes extended to certain individuals and even high-ranking officials from the very “tsarist” regime.
Remembering Brotherhood, Forgetting Masterhood
The history of Armenian-Russian political interaction starts in the beginning of the 18th century when Peter the Great had plans to conquer the South Caucasus from the weakening Safavid Iran. However, Russia was unable to fulfill those plans single handedly as another powerful empire, the Ottoman, required their share of the booty.
Russia, based on its state interest and political realities of the time, on the one hand, activated pro-Russian sentiment among Armenians and Georgians under Iranian rule, while on the other, reached a compromise with the Ottomans, leaving fellow Christians under a new Muslim ruler and keeping the Caspian shore under its domination.
Forgetting the “Others”
While Armenian textbooks are not full of genuinely hostile rhetoric against foreign invaders or neighbors, they contain obvious gaps in their narratives on the presence of “others,” who could include non-Apostolic Armenians and non-Armenians.
In some historical periods, there was a significant presence of Muslim populations and rulers in different Armenian localities.
All standard Armenian history textbooks mention that ethnic Armenians were less than half of the population of Eastern Armenia, particularly of the Yerevan Khanate, on the eve of its occupation by Russia (1828).
All these facts are tackled superficially. The presence of the Muslim population in Eastern Armenia is currently used by the modern state-controlled Azerbaijani historiography to justify claims to Karabakh and other Eastern Armenian territories. By discarding that part of Armenia’s history, Armenian historiography would agree with the theory that the Muslim people residing in Armenia had any Azerbaijani identity, but this fact makes Armenians’ right to their own territory weaker.
This tendency is also projected to the Muslim entities in Armenia of earlier periods. The Muslim/Arab political entities (emirates) starting from the Arab rule in Armenia and existing during the Bagratid Dynasty are hardly mentioned in the textbooks, and there’s no mention of emirate in Khlat in the 12th and early 13th centuries in most of the textbooks. It was known and established by Armenian academic historiography that the title Sharamen (Shah-i-Arman), or “king of the Armenians,” was an official title of the Khlat emirate, and that it probably had predominantly Armenian ethnic composition, including some Armenian semi-dependent principalities (they are mentioned but independent from their lords) and that even some of their rulers were Armenian converts to Islam.
We find little interest in non-Armenians in the Cilician kingdom, though it is known that Armenians were the predominant ethnic element in the kingdom throughout its existence. Yet non-Armenians (ethnic minorities if we use the term in its much later context) constituted a significant part of the population.
Ethnic Brethren, Religious Others
Another important void in Armenian history textbooks is the flagrant absence of non-Gregorian Armenians, with some notable exceptions. Catholic Armenians, for instance, were mentioned in exceptional cases (their exile from Constantinople or when tackling the Mkhitarist Congregation) but not as a community. The Armenian Catholic cultural and educational activities in late medieval period (15-17th centuries and later), Armenian Catholic principalities in northwest Iran are completely out of the scope of history.