Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic

Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
Армя́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика Հայկական Սովետական Սոցիալիստական Հանրապետություն
←   ← 1920–1922 1936–1991 →   →
Flag State emblem
Anthem Anthem of Armenian SSR
Location of the Armenian SSR (red) within the Soviet Union.
Capital		Yerevan
Languages		Armenian, Russian
Government		Soviet Socialist Republic
History
•	Established	2 December 1920
•	Admitted to the USSR	30 December 1922
•	Disestablished	21 September 1991
Area
•	1989	29,800 km² (11,506 sq mi)
Population
•	1989 est.	3,287,700
Density		110.3 /km²  (285.7 /sq mi)
Calling code		+7 885
Today part of		Armenia

History of Armenia
Etymology Timeline Traditional Urheimat
Prehistory Stone & Copper Age Shulaveri-Shomu culture c.6500–3400 BCE Areni-1 Cave Complex Kura–Araxes culture c.3400–2000 BCE Legend of Hayk (?) 2492 BCE Bronze & Iron Age Hayasa-Azzi c.1500–1290 BCE Arme-Shupria c.1300s–1190 BCE Ararat/Urartu Nairi Tribes 1114–860 BCE Kingdom of Van 860–590 BCE Scythian & Mede Invasions 6th Century BCE
Antiquity Achaemenid Period Satrapy of Armina 549–331 BCE Orontid Dynasty Ancient Armenia Kingdom of Armenia 321 BCE–428 CE Artaxiad Dynasty 189 BCE–12 CE Empire 84–34 BCE Arsacid Dynasty 52–428 CE Roman–Parthian War 58–63 CE Roman Province of Armenia 114–118 CE Christianization 301 CE Armenia Minor 331–72 BCE Kingdom of Sophene c.200–94 BCE Kingdom of Commagene 163 BCE–72 CE Marzpanate Period Byzantine Armenia 387–536 Persian Armenia 428–646 Mamikonian Dynasty Battle of Avarayr 451
Middle Ages Arabic Period Emirate of Armenia 653–884 Hamamshen 700s–1300s Amatuni Dynasty Medieval Armenia Bagratid Armenia 884–1045 Bagratid Dynasty 861–1118 Kingdom of Vaspurakan 908–1021 Artsruni Dynasty Sajid dynasty 889–929 Sallarid dynasty 919–1062 Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget 979–1118 Kingdom of Artsakh 1000–1261 House of Hasan-Jalalyan Battle of Manzikert 1071 Cilician & Turco-Mongol Period Seljuq rule 1071–1201 Georgian union 1201–1236 Ilkhanid rule 1236–1335 Principality of Khachen 1261–1750 Turkmen rule 1335–1508 Kingdom of Cilicia 1198–1375 Rubenid Dynasty 1000–1261 Hethumid Dynasty 1226–1373 Lusignan Dynasty 1341–1375
Early Modern Age Perso-Ottoman Period Safavid & Qajar rule 1508–1828 Five Melikdoms Nakhichevan deportation 1606 Ceding of Eastern Armenia 1828 Ottoman rule 1548–1915 Six Vilayets 1878 Hamidian massacres 1895–1896 Armenian Genocide 1909–1918 Russian Period Russian rule 1828–1918 Armenian Oblast 1828–1840 Western Armenia 1915–1918 National Liberation Movement Armenakan 1885 S.D. Hunchakian Party 1887 ARF (Dashnaktsutyun) 1890 Caucasus Campaign 1914–1918 Battle of Sardarapat 1918 Battle of Karakilisa 1918 Modern Armenia First Republic of Armenia 1918–1920 Treaty of Batum 1918 War with Azerbaijan 1918–1920 War with Georgia 1918 Treaty of Sèvres 1920 Wilsonian Armenia 1920 War with Turkey 1920 Treaty of Alexandropol 1920
Modern Age Soviet Period Armenian S.S.R. 1920–1991 February Uprising 1921 Republic of Mountainous Armenia 1921 Treaty of Moscow 1921 Treaty of Kars 1921 Territorial claims against Turkey 1945–1953 Independence Armenian Diaspora Hidden Armenians Republic of Armenia since 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War 1989–1994
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The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Armenian SSR; Armenian: Հայկական Սովետական Սոցիալիստական Հանրապետություն Haykakan Sovetakan Soc'ialistakan Hanrapetut'yun; Russian: Армя́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialističeskaya Respublika) was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union in December 1922. It was established in December 1920, when the Soviets took over control of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia and lasted until 1991. It is sometimes called the Second Republic of Armenia, following the First Republic of Armenia's demise.

As part of the Soviet Union, the Armenian SSR transformed from a largely agricultural hinterland to an important industrial production center, while its population almost quadrupled from around 880,000 in 1926 to 3.3 million in 1989 due to natural growth and large-scale influx of Armenian Genocide survivors and their descendants. On August 23, 1990, it was renamed the Republic of Armenia, but remained in the Soviet Union until its official proclamation of independence on 21 September 1991. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the state of the post-Union Republic of Armenia existed until the adoption of the new constitution in 1995.

History

Sovietization

Armenians crowding around the building in Yerevan where the 1920 plenum officially declared Armenia a Soviet republic

From 1828 with the

Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991) Principal  Armenian SSR  Azerbaijan SSR  Byelorussian SSR Georgian SSR  Kazakh SSR  Kirghiz SSR  Russian SFSR  Tajik SSR  Turkmen SSR  Ukrainian SSR  Uzbek SSR Post-World War II  Estonian SSR  Latvian SSR  Lithuanian SSR  Moldavian SSR Short-lived  Karelo-Finnish SSR (1940–1956)  Transcaucasian SFSR (1922–1936) Not union republics SSR Abkhazia (1921–1931) Bukharan SSR (1920–1925) Khorezm SSR (1920–1925) Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR (1990–1991)

• Armenia: big strides in an ancient land by Anton Kochinyan
• Melkonian, Eduard: "Repressions in 1930s Soviet Armenia" in the Caucasus Analytical digest No. 22

External links

• (Armenian) Aghayan, Tsatur., et al. (eds.), Հայ Ժողովրդի Պատմություն [History of the Armenian People], vols. 7 and 8. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1967, 1970.
• (Armenian) Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1974–1987, 12 volumes.
• Aslanyan, A. A. et al. Soviet Armenia. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971.
• (Armenian) Geghamyan, Gurgen M. Սոցիալ-տնտեսական փոփոխությունները Հայաստանում ՆԵՊ-ի տարիներին (1921-1936) [Socio-Economic Changes in the Armenia during the NEP Years, (1921-1936)]. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1978.
• Matossian, Mary Kilbourne. The Impact of Soviet Policies in Armenia. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962.
• Miller, Donald E. and Lorna Touryan Miller, Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
• Shaginian [Shahinyan], Marietta S. Journey through Soviet Armenia. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954.
• Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Soviet Armenia," in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
• (Armenian) Virabyan, Amatuni. Հայաստանը Ստալինից մինչև Խրուշչով: Հասարակական-քաղաքական կյանքը 1945-1957 թթ. [Armenia from Stalin to Khrushchev: Social-political life, 1945-1957] Yerevan: Gitutyun Publishing, 2001.
• Walker, Christopher J. Armenia: The Survival of a Nation. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
• Yeghenian, Aghavnic Y. The Red Flag at Ararat. New York: The Womans Press, 1932.

Further reading

Notes

Like all the other republics of the Soviet Union, Armenia had its own flag and coat of arms. According to Nikita Khrushchev, the latter became a source of dispute between the Soviet Union and the Republic of Turkey in the 1950s, when Turkey objected to the inclusion of Mount Ararat, which holds a deep symbolic importance for Armenians but is located on Turkish territory, in the coat of arms. Turkey felt that the presence of such an image implied Soviet designs on Turkish territory. Khrushchev retorted by asking, "Why do you have a moon depicted on your flag? After all, the moon doesn't belong to Turkey, not even half the moon ... Do you want to take over the whole universe?"^[42] Turkey dropped the issue after this.^[43]

At first, Armenia was not impacted significantly by the policies set forth by Lenin's government. Prior to his debilitating illness, Lenin encouraged the policy of Korenizatsiya or "nativization" in the republics which essentially called for the different nationalities of the Soviet Union to "administer their republics", establishing native-language schools, newspapers, and theaters.^[40] In Armenia, the Soviet government ruled that all illiterate citizens up to the age of fifty to attend school and learn to read Armenian, which became the official language of the republic. The number of Armenian-language newspapers (Sovetakan Hayastan), magazines (Garun), and journals (Sovetakan Grakanutyun, Patma-Banasirakan Handes) grew. An institute for culture and history was created in 1921 in Echmiatsin, the Yerevan Opera Theater and a dramatic theater in Yerevan were built and established in the 1920s and 1930s, the Matenadaran, a facility to house ancient and medieval manuscripts was erected in 1959, important historical studies were prepared by a new cadre of Soviet-trained scholars, and popular works in the fields of art and literature were produced by such luminaries as Martiros Saryan, Avetik Isahakian and Yeghishe Charents, who all adhered to the socialist dictum of creating works "national in form, socialist in content." The first Armenian film studio, Armenkino, released the first fiction film, Namus (Honor) in 1925 and the first sound film Pepo, both directed by Hamo Bek-Nazarov.^[41]

With the establishment of the Republic, Soviet authorities worked tenaciously to eliminate certain elements in society, in whole or in part, such as nationalism and religion, to strengthen the cohesiveness of the Union. In the eyes of early Soviet policymakers, Armenians, along with ^[38] The Caucasus and particularly Armenia were recognized by academic scholars and in Soviet textbooks as the "oldest civilisation on the territory" of the Soviet Union.^[39]

The History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan.

Culture and life

Under the Soviet system, the centralized economy of the republic banned private ownership of income producing property. Beginning in the late 1920s, privately owned farms in Armenia were collectivized and placed under the directive of the state, although this was often met with active resistance by the peasantry. During the same time (1929–1936), the government also began the process of industrialization in Armenia. By 1935, the gross product of agriculture was 132% of that of 1928 and the gross product of industry was 650% to that of 1928. The economic revolution of the 1930s, however, came at a great cost: it broke up the traditional peasant family and village institution and forced many living in the rural countryside to settle in urban areas. Private enterprise came to a virtual end as it was effectively brought under government control.^[37]

Economy

The structure of government in the Armenian SSR was identical to that of the other Soviet republics. The highest political body of the republic was the Armenian Supreme Soviet, which included the highest judicial branch of the republic, the supreme court. Members of the Supreme Soviet served for a term of five years, whereas regional deputies served for two and a half years. All officials holding office were mandated to be members of the Communist Party and sessions were convened in the Supreme Soviet building in Yerevan.

Government

On July 5, 1995, the new constitution of the Republic of Armenia was adopted.

On September 21, 1991, Armenia declared its independence. Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan continued to escalate, ultimately leading to the outbreak of the Iran and is a strategic ally of Russia.

On March 17, 1991, Armenia, along with the Baltics, Georgia and Moldova, boycotted a union-wide referendum in which 78% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form.^[36] On August 23, 1991, Armenia became one of the first republics to declare independence from the Soviet Union. Armenia's desire to break away from the Soviet Union largely stemmed from Moscow's intransigence on Karabakh, mishandling of the earthquake relief effort, and the shortcomings of the Soviet economy.

Tension between central and local government heightened in the final years of the Soviet Union's existence. On May 5, 1990, the New Armenian Army (NAA), a defense force envisioned to serve as a separate entity from the Soviet Union's military, was created. A celebration was planned for May 28, the anniversary of the creation of the first Armenian republic. However, on May 27 hostilities broke out between the NAA and the MVD troops based in Yerevan, resulting in the deaths of five Armenians in a shootout at the railway station. Witnesses claimed that the MVD had used an excessive amount of force in the firefight and insisted that it had instigated the fighting.^[34] Further firefights between Armenian militiamen and the MVD in nearby Sovetashen (now Nubarashen) resulted in the deaths of twenty-seven people and an indefinite cancellation of the May 28 celebration.^[35]

Independence

Armenians in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was promised to Armenia by the Bolsheviks but transferred to the Azerbaijan SSR by Stalin, began a movement to unite the area with Armenia. The majority Armenian population expressed concern about the forced "Azerification" of the region.^[31] On February 20, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to unify with Armenia.^[32] Demonstrations took place in Yerevan showing support for the Karabakh Armenians. Azerbaijani authories encouraged counter demonstrations. However, these soon broke down into violence against Armenians in the city of Sumgait. Soon, ethnic rioting broke out between Armenians and Azeris, preventing a solid unification from taking place. A formal petition written to Gorbachev and senior leaders in Moscow asked for the unification of the enclave with Armenia, but the claim was rejected in the spring of 1988. Until then, the Soviet leader had been viewed favorably by Armenians, but following his refusal to alter his stance on the issue, Gorbachev's standing among Armenians deteriorated sharply.^[33]

Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of the policies of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s also fueled Armenian visions of a better life under Soviet rule. The Hamshenis who were deported by Stalin to Kazakhstan began petitioning for the government to move them to the Armenian SSR. This move was denied by the Soviet government because of fears that the Muslim Hamshenis might spark ethnic conflicts with their Christian Armenian cousins.^[15] However, another event that occurred during this time made an ethnic clash between Christian Armenians and Muslims inevitable.

Armenians demonstrating for the unification of the republic with Nagorno-Karabkh at Opera Square in Yerevan in the summer of 1988.

The Gorbachev era

Though the Soviet state remained ever wary of the resurgence of Armenian nationalism, it did not impose the sort of restrictions as were seen during Stalin's time. On April 24, 1965, stele symbolizes the national rebirth of the Armenians. Twelve slabs are positioned in a circle, representing twelve lost provinces in present day Turkey. In the center of the circle, in depth of 1.5 meters, there is an eternal flame. A 100-meter wall around the memorial's park contains the names of towns and villages where massacres are known to have taken place. Monuments in honor of other important events in Armenian history, such as that commemorating the battles of Sardarapat and Bash Abaran, were also permitted to be erected, as was the sculpting of the statues of popular Armenian figures like the fifth-century military commander Vardan Mamikonian and the folk hero Sasuntsi David.

After Leonid Brezhnev assumed power in 1964, much of Khrushchev's reforms were reversed. The Brezhnev era began a new state of stagnation, and saw a decline in both the quality and quantity of products in the Soviet Union. Armenia was severely affected by these policies, as was to be demonstrated several years later in the catastrophic earthquake that hit Spitak. Material allocated to the building of new homes, such as cement and concrete, was diverted for other uses. Bribery and a lack of oversight saw the construction of shoddily built and weakly supported apartment buildings. When the earthquake hit on the morning of December 7, 1988, the houses and apartments least able to resist collapse were those built during the Brezhnev years. Ironically, the older the dwellings, the better they withstood the quake.^[29]

A stamp issued in 1968, commemorating the 2,750 anniversary of the founding of Yerevan, and with the image of the statue of the popular folk figure Sasuntsi David.

Brezhnev

Many Armenians rose to prominence during this era, including one of Khrushchev's friends, Mikoyan, who was the older brother of the designer and co-founder of the Soviet MiG fighter jet company, Artem Mikoyan. Other famed Soviet Armenians included composer Aram Khachaturyan, who wrote the ballets Spartacus and Gayane that featured the well known "Sabre Dance," the noted astrophysicist and astronomer Viktor Hambardzumyan, and popular literary figures Paruyr Sevak, Sero Khanzadyan, Hovhannes Shiraz, and Silva Kaputikyan.

Following the power struggle after Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the country's new leader.^[26] In a secret speech he gave in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his domestic policies largely loosened the government's grip over the country. Khrushchev put more resources into the production of consumer goods and housing. Almost immediately, Armenia underwent a cultural and economic rebirth. Religious freedom, to a limited degree, was granted to Armenia when Catholicos Vazgen I assumed the duties of his office in 1955. One of Khrushchev's advisers and close friends, Armenian Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, urged Armenians to reaffirm their national identity. In 1954, he gave a speech in Yerevan where he encouraged them to republish the works of writers such as Raffi and Charents.^[27] The massive statue of Stalin that towered over Yerevan was pulled down from its pedestal by troops literally overnight and replaced in 1962 with that of Mother Armenia.^[28] Contacts between Armenia and the Diaspora were revived, and Armenians from abroad began to visit the republic more frequently.

With the republic suffering heavy losses after the war, Stalin allowed an open immigration policy in Armenia; the diaspora were invited to repatriate to Armenia (nergaght) and revitalize the country's population and bolster its workforce. Armenians living in countries such as Cyprus, France, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria were primarily the survivors or the descendants of the genocide. They were offered the option of having their expenses paid by the Soviet government for their trip back to their homeland. An estimated 150,000 Armenians immigrated to Soviet Armenia between 1946 and 1948 and settled in Yerevan, Leninakan, Kirovakan and other towns.^[23][24]

Monument to the 50th anniversary of Soviet Armenia

Armenian immigration

Turkey itself was in no condition to fight against the Soviet Union, which had emerged as a superpower after the war. By the autumn of 1945, Soviet troops in the Caucasus and Soviet-occupied Iran were already assembling for an invasion of Turkey. However, as the hostility between the East and West developed into the Cold War, especially after the issuing of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, Turkey strengthened its ties with the West. The Soviet Union relinquished its claims over the lost territories, understanding that the newly formed NATO would intervene on Turkey's side in the event of a conflict.^[22]

At the end of the war, after Germany's capitulation, many Armenians in both the Republic, including Armenian Communist Party First Secretary Grigor Harutyunyan (Arutyunov), and the diaspora lobbied Stalin to reconsider the issue of taking back the provinces of Kars, Iğdır, and Ardahan, which Armenia had lost to Turkey in the Treaty of Kars.^[21] In September, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that it would annul the Soviet-Turkish treaty of friendship that was signed in 1925. Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov presented the claims put forth by the Armenians to the other Allied heads.

Some Armenians who were captured by the Germans as POWs opted to serve in German battalions rather than risk life-threatening conditions in POW camps. As with many Soviet soldiers who surrendered to German forces during fighting, Armenians were punished by Stalin and sent to work at labor camps located in Siberia.

Armenia was spared the devastation and destruction that wrought most of the western Soviet Union during the Gevork VI. He was subsequently allowed to reside in Echmiatsin.^[20]

Tankers and mechanized infantry from the 119th "Sasuntsi-Davit" Tank Regiment, a unit composed primarily of Soviet Armenians, stand next to their T-34/85 tanks. The name of the regiment can be seen inscribed in the Armenian script on the turrets of the tanks.

World War II

As with various other ethnic minorities who lived in the Soviet Union under Stalin, tens of thousands of Armenians were executed or deported. In 1936, Beria and Stalin worked to deport Armenians to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Further deportations of Armenians from the coastal region occurred in 1948, when 58,000 alleged supporters of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Greeks were forced to move to Kazakhstan.^[15]

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated against members of the Communist Party, writers and intellectuals, peasants and ordinary citizens. In September 1937 Stalin dispatched Lavrentiy Beria, with a list of 300 names to Yerevan to oversee the liquidation of the Communist Party of Armenia (CPA), which was largely made up of Old Bolsheviks. Armenian communist leaders such as Vagharshak Ter-Vahanyan and Aghasi Khanjian fell victim to the purge, the former being a defendant at the first of the Moscow Show Trials. Mikoyan tried, but failed, to save one from being executed during his trip to Armenia. That person was arrested during one of his speeches to the CPA by Beria. Over a thousand people were arrested and seven of nine members of the Armenian Politburo were sacked from office.^[12] According to one study, 4,530 people were executed by firing squad in the years 1937-38 alone, the majority of them having been accused of anti-Soviet or "counter-revolutionary" activities, for belonging to the nationalist Dashnak party, or Trotskyism.^[13][14]

After the death of Russification policies of the Russian Empire.^[8] In the 1920s, the private property of the church was confiscated and priests were harassed. Soviet assaults against the Armenian Church accelerated under Stalin, beginning in 1929, but momentarily eased in the following years to improve the country's relations with the Armenian diaspora.^[9] In 1932, Khoren Muradpekyan became known as Khoren I and assumed the title of His Holiness the Catholicos. However, in the late 1930s, the Soviets renewed their attacks against the Church.^[10] This culminated in the murder of Khoren in 1938 as part of the Great Purge, and the closing of the Catholicosate of Echmiatsin on August 4, 1938. The Church, however, managed to survive underground and in the diaspora.^[11]

First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party Aghasi Khanjian, a native of Van and a devoted communist, is widely believed to have been executed in 1936 by Lavrentiy Beria.

Stalin's reign

Convinced that these heavy-handed tactics were the source of the alienation of the native population to Soviet rule, in 1921 Moscow appointed an experienced administrator, Alexander Miasnikian, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian sensibilities. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability. Life under the Soviet rule proved to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire.^[6] The Armenians received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from the central government and extensive literacy reforms were carried out.^[7] The situation was difficult for the Armenian Apostolic Church, however, which became a regular target of criticism in educational books and in the media and struggled greatly under Communism.

[5] Such was the degree and scale of the requisitioning and terror imposed by the local

From March 12, 1922 to December 5, 1936, Armenia was a part of the Azerbaijan SSR. The policies of the first Soviet Armenian government, the Revolutionary Committee (Revkom), headed by young, inexperienced, and militant communists such as Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanyan, were implemented in a highhanded manner and did not take into consideration the poor conditions of the republic and the general weariness of the people after years of conflict and civil strife.^[3] As the Soviet Armenian historian Bagrat Borian, who was to later perish during Stalin's purges, wrote in 1929:

A number of Armenians joined the advancing Kars, Iğdır, and Ardahan. The medieval Armenian capital of Ani, as well as the cultural icon of the Armenian people Mount Ararat, were located in the ceded area. Additionally, Joseph Stalin, then acting Commissar for Nationalities, granted the areas of Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh (both of which were promised to Armenia by the Bolsheviks in 1920) to Azerbaijan.^[2]

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