Armenia And The Armenians. From The Earliest Times Until The Great War (1914)

Class Book ,/\ 7 Copyright ]N?___ COFÏRIGKT DEPOSrr. 5 ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIANS ft&&fe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK • • MACMILLAN & LONDON • CO., Limited BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE • CO. OF TORONTO THE MACMILLAN CANADA, Ltd. ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIANS FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES UNTIL THE GREAT WAR (1914) BY KEVORK ASLAN TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY PIERRE CRABITÈS WITH A PREFACE ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE ARMENIAN QUESTION BY THE TRANSLATOR lOeto gotb THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved s &iM s Copyright, 1920 BT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. JAN 21 Published January, 1920. IS J V) ©CI.A561543 TO BOGHOS PASHA NUBAR, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL DELEGATION, WHOSE TACTFUL LEADERSHIP AND UNREMITTING DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE OF HIS RACE HAS MADE EVERY LOVER OF FREEDOM HIS DEBTOR, THIS DEDICATED WORK IS PREFATORY NOTE In 1908 the author published at Paris, in the French language, an octavo volume of some 500 pages entitled " Etudes Historiques sur le Peuple Arménien," covering the history of Armenia from This the earliest times to the eleventh century. Subsequently there was edition is now out of print. also published in French a condensed edition of the same work, carrying the story, however, from the The first earliest times down to the present day. edition of this smaller volume having been exhausted a new and revised edition has been prepared for publication in French and it has been thought appropriate to issue contemporaneously therewith an English translation. The author ventures to express the hope that the English edition of his work will meet with the same favor that has been accorded the original French text. In issuing this English edition it has been deemed necessary, in quite a number of instances, to depart from the French transliteration of Armenian, PerThe phonetic value sian and other foreign names. of certain English letters differs somewhat from the sound which the French associate with the same character and this difference has made it necessary to modify the transliteration of the Oriental original. it has been found that a well-estab- In other cases vii PREFATORY NOTE viii lished English custom has consecrated, as it were, a certain spelling which, from a scientific point of view, is absolutely indefensible and clearly shows that a Greek corruption of the Armenian or Persian form In has found its way into English nomenclature. such instances it has been considered better to fol- low established usages. Then again as Armenia and the other territory referred to in this volume have been overrun at various times by many different races it has come about that many places are known under different names. Here it has been thought best to adopt what is felt to be more common designation and to add a footnote indicating some of the other forms. In order to accentuate the manifold difficulties inherent in a work of the instant character it is now pointed out that there are two ways of pronouncing several Armenian lette