User:Yerevantsi/sandbox/Hayer

Armenians (հայեր, hayer ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands. Their number is estimated at around 8 million, of which over 3 million live in the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, while the rest are scattered around the world forming the Armenian diaspora.

Armenians were formed as a distinct group by the sixth century BC as a result of various demographic processes that took place since the second millennium BC. The ancient Kingdom of Armenia reached its greatest extent under Tigranes the Great in the first century BC. In 301 AD, Armenia became the first country in the world to officially adopt Christianity as its national religion, thus becoming "the first Christian nation." The last Armenian kingdom, Cilician Armenia, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea fell in the 14th century. By the 19th century, the Armenian homeland was divided between the Ottoman and Russian empires. During World War I, the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian presence in a large part of their homeland thus largely terminated.

The Armenian language is a separate branch of the Indo-European languages. It is written in the Armenian alphabet, invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD to prevent the assimilation of the Armenian people. The modern Armenian language has two standardized forms: Eastern Armenian, which is the official language of the Republic of Armenia and the Western Armenia, spoken in Western Armenia (eastern Turkey) prior to the genocide of 1915 and today mostly in the diaspora. Most Armenians today are adherents of the independent Monophysite Oriental Orthodox Armenian Apostolic Church (simply called the "Armenian Church"). Since the 18th century, small number of Armenians have been followers of Armenian Catholic and Armenian Evangelical churches. Armenians are often considered an ethnoreligious group as adherence of the Armenian Apostolic Church has historically been equated to being Armenian. Their uniqueness in religion and language are important basis of the Armenian collective self-identity.

Etymology


The name Armenia is first mentioned in the Behistun Inscription of Darius I (c. 518 BC). Its etymology of the word Armenia is disputed.


 * The most convincing explanation of the Armenians name for themselves, Hayk, is that it derives linguistically from Urartian Khatini, meaning Hittite. Its use perhaps reflects the mingling of Armenians and Urartians, by whom the Armenians were outnumbered. Hittite was used by both the Assyrians and the Urartians for the several Syro-Hittite states which succeeded the Hittite empire.

History


described by Anthony D. Smith as an "archetypal diaspora people".



Myth of origin
The Armenian origin myth is closely related to the Biblical flood narrative. Genesis 8:4 describes the landing of Noah's Ark on "the mountains of Ararat" in Armenia. In his History of Armenia, the father of Armenian history Movses Khorenatsi writes that Armenians are direct descendants of Noah. According to the story, Hayk, the legendary founding father and the name giver of the Armenian people is the son of Torgom, the great-grandson of Japheth, one of Noah's sons.

In the story, Hayk is portrayed as a "righteous man" who revolted against the "evil" Assyrian king Bel and later fled from Babylon to the area around Mount Ararat with his clan. When Bel chased him down to Armenia, Hayk defeated and killed him. Hayk founded the Armenian nation around Mount Ararat. According to Mikayel Chamchian, the battle between Hayk and Bel, which is considered the formation date of the Armenian nation, took place in 2492 BC.


 * http://lraber.asj-oa.am/4115/

Ethnogenesis


In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the Armenian Highlands, including the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power), Mitanni (South-Western historical Armenia), and Hayasa-Azzi (1600-1200 BC). Soon after Hayasa-Azzi were Nairi (1400-1000 BC) and the Kingdom of Urartu (900-600 BC), who successively established their sovereignty over the region. Each of these nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. The proto-Armenian speaking people of probable Thraco-Phrygian origin appeared in the Armenian Highlands in the 12th century BC. There, the small numbered proto-Armenians and the dominant Hurrian elements mixed. Through intermarriage and other means the "long period of bilingualism" ended and they "merged into one Indo-European speaking, Armenian nation." It is widely believed that Armenians were formed as a distinct group by the 6th century BC. Many aspects of the processes that led to the formation of the Armenian people remain uncertain and a matter of dispute by historians.

In the 1980s, historians Tamaz Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov proposed a minority view that the Indo-European homeland may have been located in the Armenian Highlands.

Antiquity


Herodotus

The political establishment of the Armenian people stem from the kingdom of Urartu.

Strabo 11.14.5 http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/strabo11d.htm

Armenia became a client state of Rome until mid-1st century AD, when the Arsacid dynasty came to power.

301 or 314

Armenia was partitioned between the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire in 387.



"Tigran the Great is the only king to have his image imprinted on an Armenian banknote."

Modern
During and following the Armenian Genocide, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam or forced into slavery and raised as Turks and Kurds. See Crypto-Armenians

Different ethnic groups were consigned, de facto if not de jure, positions within the Soviet Union. Hierarchy, Russians other Slavs. After them came people with whom the Russians had an ambiguous relationship - Christian Caucasian peoples such as Georgians and Armenians. Jews also fitted into this category. These three groups were well represented in the St. Petersburg and Moscow intelegentsias, playing an active part in many, if not all, parts of Soviet life. They were also in part mistrusted. Not only did all three possess cultures older than Russia's, they also enjoyed a tradition of trade, and therefore freedom, lacking in the culture of both the Russian empire and the Soviet Union.
 * Soviet era

Homeland
The Armenian Highlands is the traditional homeland of the Armenian people. Armenians made up its main ethnic group until the early modern period (16-17th centuries). As a result of the Armenian Genocide, no Armenians live in the western parts of the highlands, which are now part of the Turkish Republic.

Today, Armenians form the majority of the population of the Republic of Armenia (around 3 million), Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (approximately 140,000) and Samtskhe-Javakheti province of neighboring Georgia (over 100,000). Up to 1930s, Armenians used to be the second largest ethnic group in Nakhichevan, however, most Armenians in Nakhichevan were massacred or expelled from their homes during the Ottoman and Azerbaijani control of the area in 1918-1920.

Armenians living in the Republic of Armenia are informally known as hayastantsi/-ci (հայաստանցի). It is also used for Armenian-born Armenians (temporarily) living abroad. Furthermore, there are names for people from locations such as provinces or cities: loretsi (լոռեցի) for Lori Province, kyavartsi (քյավառցի) for Gavar, yerevantsi (երևանցի) for Yerevan, etc. Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh are known as gharabaghtsi (ղարաբաղցի) or artsakhtsi (արցախցի) and Armenians of Javakheti region of Georgia are called javakhk'tsi (ջավախքցի). Today, these three groups of Armenians are considered to be living in their ancestral homeland.

Officially, there are no Armenians living in eastern parts of Turkey, however, two groups of Armenian origin still reside there: Crypto-Armenians and Hemshin peoples.

Diaspora
Small Armenian trading communities have existed outside of Armenia for centuries. For example, a community has existed for over a millennium in the Holy Land, and one of the four quarters of the walled Old City of Jerusalem has been called the Armenian Quarter. There are also remnants of formerly populous communities in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

However, most Armenians have scattered throughout the world as a direct consequence of the genocide of 1915, constituting the Armenian diaspora. Armenian communities in and around the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi, in Syria and in Iran existed since antiquity.

Within the diasporan Armenian community, there is an unofficial classification of the different kinds of Armenians. For example, Armenians who originate from Iran are referred to as Parskahay (պարսկահայ), while Armenians from Lebanon are usually referred to as Lipananahay (լիբանանահայ). Armenians of the Diaspora are the primary speakers of the Western dialect of the Armenian language. This dialect has considerable differences with Eastern Armenian, but speakers of either of the two variations can usually understand each other. Eastern Armenian in the diaspora is primarily spoken in Iran and European countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. In diverse communities (such as in Canada and the U.S.) where many different kinds of Armenians live together, there is a tendency for the different groups to cluster together.


 * "In consequence of the Genocide the Armenian communities were established in the Middle and Near East countries – Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, etc. The groups of Armenians who managed to escape from the Genocide also settled in the European countries – Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, France, and other European countries, as well as in the United States, Canada, etc. As a result, however, the migration of the Armenians from the Middle and Near East countries towards the West – Europe, U.S., Canada and other developed western European countries had been observed. This is proved by the continuous shrinkage of the number of the people in the Armenian communities in the Middle and Near East countries against the background of the continuous growth of the Armenian communities in the western countries."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ufv6bB36o1YC&pg=PA24&dq=armenian+inner+diaspora++russia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dncNUbLgH8LJ0QG864CoDg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=armenian%20inner%20diaspora%20%20russia&f=false
 * diaspora types

Culture

 * "Until the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity, with its Byzantine and Syrian cultural and political links, Armenia was to remain in the Iranian cultural orbit almost exclusively."


 * Armenians worldwide have achieved success in fields such as sports (especially chess, wrestling and boxing), the arts, business, science, politics and military.

Identity

 * http://en.aravot.am/2013/10/15/162025/

Language



 * influenced by Iranian languages

Music

 * "Music is very important to Armenians."

Architecture



 * Pomegranate


 * Grape

Religion


ethnoreligious



Science

 * inventors
 * Luther George Simjian - ATM (contributor), invented: self-focusing camera, a flight speed indicator for airplanes, an automatic postage metering machine, teleprompter, Range Estimation Trainer
 * Michel Ter-Pogossian one of the two main developers of Positron emission tomography
 * Stephen Stepanian - Concrete mixer
 * Gabriel Kazanjian patented the first blow dryer in America in 1911
 * Emik Avakian- Many of his inventions were geared towards the improvement of disabled peoples lives and he won many awards recognizing these efforts.


 * find sources/check
 * Oscar H. Banker (born Asatour Sarafian)
 * Artem Mikoyan - MiG
 * Alex Manoogian - redesign of the Delta faucet, a watershed event that helped change the plumbing industry
 * Hovannes Adamian one of the pioneers of color television
 * Jirayr Tezel hair transplant
 * Varaztad Kazanjian - transformed emerging field of plastic surgery into a highly respected surging speciality
 * Roger Altounyan
 * Raymond Vahan Damadian - Magnetic resonance imaging

Symbols

 * State symbols of Armenia

Costumes
http://tarazupar.am/armenian-male-costumes/

Society
The Armenian society is mainly monoethnic. It "tends to be a collective society with strong traditions", in which "relational aspects of family are very important." "A history replete with war, invasion, massacre, genocide, and natural disaster shaped the Armenian family into a basic unit for viability and self-preservation."

According to Simon Payaslian, the Armenian society is "dominated by notions of family honor [known as namus] and social shame, and where one does not 'air dirty laundry in public'." The Armenian society has been compared to that of Japan due to its monoethnicity, low rate of mixed marriages and "powerful social pressure towards conformity". In addition, "understanding and accepting diversity is still a great challenge" for the Armenian society.

According to the Heinrich Böll Foundation, "the conservatism [of the Armenian society] results not only from the legacy of the Soviet Union. Even more significant [is that the] Armenian society perceives a sense of permanent threat to its own language, religion, culture and ethnos, as they existed during centuries of foreign rule. In addition plays the ubiquitous and continually revived trauma" of the Armenian Genocide. Overall, the genocide is seen as a "one of the most important factors determining Armenian society today." Historian and political scientist Armen Ayvazyan identifies the impact of the genocide as "indelible" and an event "which hampered the natural development" of the Armenian people.

The Armenian society is usually described as a pessimistic one. Payaslian suggests that the Armenian worldview is "essentially pessimistic." The pessimism is also demonstrated in Armenian proverbs. Furthermore, the political turmoil and economic hardships of the late 1980s and the 1990s caused widespread depression, pessimism, cynicism and apathy that have dominated the social and political climate in Armenia since. Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan suggests that apathy and nihilism dominate the Armenian society. A 2013 survey by Gallup found that only 55% of Armenians reported positive emotions, one of the lowest in the world, though comparable to its neighbors and former Eastern Bloc countries. In a 2013 press conference, President Serzh Sargsyan famously stated that Armenia's "greatest problem is the lukewarm attitude [that exists in the Armenian society]." Beginning in 2007 and expanding in the early 2010s, civil activism emerged in Armenia. The 2008 Armenian presidential election protests that resulted in the death of 10 people especially contributed to this phenomenon.

The World Values Survey describes the Armenian society as having

http://crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com/2012/12/comparing-societal-values-in-south.html


 * The majority of Armenians believe that government should be "like a parent" as opposed to being "like an employee" (77% vs 23%), and that state ownership of business should be increased as opposed to the increase of private ownership of business (60% vs 14%).


 * A recent study have shown that the Armenian youth "appear to be moving toward a bi-cultural identity, not abandoning traditions, but also embracing Western popular culture and values to a greater or lesser degree."


 * "Men's premarital sexual life was always common and acceptable in Armenia."

http://www.academia.edu/2316999/RED_APPLE_TRADITION_CONTEMPORARY_INTERPRETATIONS_AND_OBSERVANCE


 * For females, premarital sex is widely considered a taboo. "In post-Soviet comparison, Armenia constitutes an intermediate case between countries with liberal sexual practices, such as Russia, and Central Asian societies, where traditional norms of sexual behavior and community control are still in force." However, the findings of a 2009 study indicate "either on trend to gradual removal of social taboo on female premarital sexual relationships or on speaking more openly about sexuality-related issues."


 * There is a high level of importance given to religion in daily activities (56% in 2011), but 88% of respondents never fasted. This, combined with their low level of church attendance show that in fact Armenian society has a low level of religiousness.

Physical appearance
Physically the Armenians are middle-sized, with a swarthy, yellowish complexion, less yellow, however, than that of the Persians [...] black straight hair, a forehead rather wide than high, and a large nose. The women are often handsome, with an erect carriage, regular features, and fine dark eyes.

Timeline
Some key historical events have also been included for context, but ''this timeline is not intended to cover history not related to migrations.