Sovietization Prior to the Soviet era,
Eastern Armenia had been part of the
Russian Empire since the 1828
Treaty of Turkmenchay up until 1917, and partly confined to the borders of the
Erivan Governorate. After the
October Revolution, the
Bolshevik government led by
Vladimir Lenin announced that non-Russian nationalities could pursue a course of
self-determination, and in April 1918, the major national groups of
Russian Transcaucasia declared independence as the
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. By May 1918, this entity split into three independent states: the
Democratic Republic of Georgia, the
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the
First Republic of Armenia. The latter was governed by the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaksutiun) and suffered from major socioeconomic difficulties, including a large population of refugees from the
Armenian genocide. By April 1920, the
Red Army had gained the upper-hand in the
Russian Civil War and
overthrew the Azerbaijan Republic, thus establishing Soviet Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's Sovietization had a "strong ripple effect in Transcaucasia and emboldened the Bolsheviks of Armenia to unfurl the flag of revolt." Although a minority, the Armenian Bolsheviks were vocal and persuasively appealed to the severe socioeconomic situation in the country. In May 1920, they led an
uprising at
Alexandropol, the largest city in Eastern Armenia, demanding the establishment of a Soviet republic. The revolt was violently suppressed by the Armenian government, with its leaders executed or exiled. By September 1920, Turkish forces had
invaded Armenia and soon recaptured most of the historical Armenian territories that the Ottomans controlled before 1878. Concerned by the rapid advance of the Turkish nationalists, the Bolshevik government in Moscow approached Yerevan and offered to intervene on its behalf. However, "the Turks rejected any Russian interference." By the end of November, the
11th Red Army had
entered the Armenian republic and announced that "Armenia's salvation lay in becoming a Bolshevik state" and "cutting its ties to the West." Faced with a dire situation, the Yerevan government instructed
Alexander Khatisian to open talks with the Turks and to appoint a team headed by General
Drastamat Kanayan to transfer political power to the Bolsheviks. On 2 December, Yerevan signed a short-lived pact with Moscow, securing Armenian statehood as a Soviet republic. The Bolsheviks promised to "restore Armenia's pre-September 1920 borders" and to grant amnesty to Dashnak and non-Dashnak officials. A few days later, however, the Armenian Bolshevik
Revkom, led by
Sarkis Kasyan and
Avis Nurijanyan, arrived in Yerevan with the Red Army. Violating the agreement, they arrested several Dashnak leaders and "wreaked havoc for the next two months." The
war communism policies of the Armenian Revkom were implemented in a high-handed manner and failed to take into account the poor conditions of the republic and the general exhaustion of the population after years of conflict and civil strife. As the Soviet Armenian historian Bagrat Borian wrote in 1929, the Revkom engaged in "a series of indiscriminate seizures and confiscations, without regard to class, and without taking into account the general economic and psychological state of the peasantry." Such was the degree of the requisitioning and terror imposed by the local
Cheka that in February 1921 the Armenians, led by the former leaders of the First Republic,
rose up in revolt and briefly unseated the new Soviet government in Yerevan. The Red Army, which was
campaigning in Georgia at the time, had to return to suppress the revolt.
New Economic Policy ) Convinced that the heavy-handed tactics of the Revkom were the source of popular discontent in Armenia, in 1921, Lenin appointed
Alexander Miasnikian, an experienced administrator, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian national sensibilities. With the introduction of the
New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability in contrast to the turbulent years of the First Republic.
Alexander Tamanian began to realize his city plan for Yerevan, and the population received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from Moscow.
Garegin Nzhdeh's ongoing
anti-Soviet rebellion, centered on mountainous
Zangezur, was defeated and its leaders were driven out of Armenia, across the
Araks River into
Iran on 15 July 1921. From March 1922 to December 1936, Soviet Armenia formed part of the
Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR), together with Soviet Georgia and Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1921, one year before the founding of the TSFSR, Moscow had finalized negotiations with Turkey over the borders of Transcaucasia. In the
Treaty of Moscow and the
Treaty of Kars, Turkey renounced its claims on
Batumi to Georgia in exchange for the Armenian regions of
Kars,
Ardahan, and
Surmalu, all of which had been under Turkish military control since the Turkish invasion of Armenia in 1920. The treaties also granted the district of
Nakhichevan to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous republic. The territory ceded to Turkey included the medieval Armenian capital
Ani and
Mount Ararat, the national symbol of the Armenian people. During the Kars negotiations, the Soviet side "attempted to retain at least Ani and a concession on the salt-mining town of
Koghb, in Surmalu, for Soviet Armenia." However, Turkey rejected any border changes, "much to the disappointment of the Soviet side." Additionally, despite opposition from Miasnikian, the Soviet
Kavbiuro granted majority-Armenian
Nagorno-Karabakh to Soviet Azerbaijan in July 1921, as the Bolsheviks did not have direct control over the region at the time and were primarily concerned with restoring regional stability. In his speech at the First Congress of the Armenian Communist Party in January 1922, Miasnikian further divulged that "Baku had threatened to halt kerosene supplies to Armenia if Yerevan did not relinquish its claims to Mountainous Karabakh." 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. In Armenia, the Soviet government directed all illiterate citizens up to the age of 50 to attend school and learn to read
Armenian, which became the official language of the republic. The local government also implemented an
orthography reform to facilitate the growth of literacy. Throughout the Soviet era, the number of Armenian-language newspapers (
Sovetakan Hayastan), magazines (
Garun), and journals (
Sovetakan Grakanutyun,
Patma-Banasirakan Handes) grew significantly. A Kurdish newspaper,
Ria Taza (
The New Path), was established in Armenia in 1930. The NEP period saw a cultural revival in Armenia. An institute for culture and history was created in 1921 at
Ejmiatsin, and the
Yerevan Opera Theatre and a dramatic theater in Yerevan were built and established in the 1920s and 1930s. Popular works in the fields of art and literature were produced by
Martiros Saryan,
Yeghishe Charents,
Axel Bakunts,
Avetik Isahakyan, and
Shushanik Kurghinian, all of whom adhered to the Soviet dictum of creating works "national in form, socialist in content."
Armenkino released the first Armenian feature film,
Namus (
Honor) in 1925 and the first Kurdish film,
Zare, in 1926. Both were directed by
Hamo Beknazarian, who would later direct the first Armenian sound film
Pepo, released in 1935. The
Armenian diaspora was divided about the new Soviet government in Yerevan. Supporters of the Dashnaksutiun continued to oppose the Bolsheviks and refused to support Soviet Armenia. By contrast, supporters of the
Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) were more positive about the newly-founded Soviet republic.
Stalinism and the Great Purge , a native of
Van, was killed in 1936 by
Lavrentiy Beria The situation in Armenia and the USSR significantly changed after the
death of Lenin and the
rise of Joseph Stalin to the Soviet leadership. In the Caucasus, Stalin's ally in Georgia,
Lavrentiy Beria, sought to consolidate his control over the region, resulting in a political struggle with Armenian First Secretary
Aghasi Khanjian. The struggle culminated in Khanjian's assassination by Beria in
Tiflis (Tbilisi) on 9 July 1936, beginning the
Great Purge in Armenia. At first, Beria framed Khanjian's death as "suicide," but soon condemned him for abetting "rabid nationalist elements among the Armenian intelligentsia." After Khanjian's death, Beria promoted his loyalists in Armenia—
Amatuni Amatuni as Armenian First Secretary and Khachik Mughdusi as chief of the Armenian
NKVD. Under the command of Beria's allies, the campaign against "enemies" intensified. Expressions of "nationalism" were suspect, and many leading Armenian intellectuals were arrested, including Charents, Bakunts,
Vahan Totovents,
Zabel Yesayan, Nersik Stepanyan , and others. According to Amatuni in a June 1937 letter to Stalin, 1,365 people were arrested in the ten months after the death of Khanjian, among them 900 "Dashnak-
Trotskiites." The death of
Sahak Ter-Gabrielyan in August 1937 was a turning point in the repressions. While being interrogated by Mughdusi's men, Ter-Gabrielyan "either jumped or was pushed from the third-floor window" of the NKVD building in Yerevan. Stalin was angered that Mughdusi and Amatuni neglected to inform him about the incident. In response, in September 1937, he sent
Georgy Malenkov, Mikhail Litvin , and later
Anastas Mikoyan to oversee a purge of the
Communist Party of Armenia. During the trip, Mikoyan tried, but failed, to save one individual (
Danush Shahverdyan) from the repressions. More than a thousand people were arrested and seven of nine members of the Armenian Politburo were sacked from office. The trip also resulted in the appointment of a new Armenian Party leadership, headed by
Grigory Arutinov, who was approved by Beria. The
Armenian Apostolic Church was not spared from the repressions. Soviet attacks against the Church under Stalin were known since 1929, but momentarily eased to improve the Soviet Union's relations with the
Armenian diaspora. In 1932,
Khoren I became
Catholicos of All Armenians and assumed the leadership of the Church. However, in the late 1930s, the Armenian NKVD, led by Mughdusi and his successor Viktor Khvorostyan , renewed the attacks against the Church. These attacks culminated in the 1938 murder of Khoren and the closing of the Catholicate of Ejmiatsin, an act for which Beria is usually held responsible. However, the Church survived and was later revived when Stalin eased restrictions on religion at the end of
World War II.
Great Patriotic War memorial near
Kapan Armenia was spared the devastation and destruction that wrought most of the western Soviet Union during the
Great Patriotic War of World War II. The
Wehrmacht never reached the
South Caucasus, which they intended to do in order to capture the oil fields of
Baku. Still, Armenia played a valuable role in the war in providing food, manpower, and war material. An estimated 300–500,000 Armenians served in the war, almost half of whom did not return. Many attained the highest honor of
Hero of the Soviet Union. Over 60 Armenians were promoted to the rank of general, while one attained the rank of
Admiral (
Ivan Isakov) and three achieved the rank of
Marshal of the Soviet Union (
Ivan Bagramyan,
Hamazasp Babadzhanian, and
Sergei Khudyakov). Additionally, aircraft designer
Artem Mikoyan, the brother of Anastas, co-founded the Soviet
MiG fighter jet design bureau. In an effort to shore up popular support for the war effort, the Soviet government allowed certain expressions of nationalism with the publication of Armenian novels such as
Derenik Demirchian's
Vardanank, the production of films like
David Bek (1944), and the easing of restrictions placed against the Church. Stalin temporarily relaxed his attacks on religion during the war. This led to the election of bishop Gevorg in 1945 as Catholicos
Gevorg VI. He was subsequently allowed to reside at Ejmiatsin. At the end of the war, after the
capitulation of
Nazi Germany, the Soviet government attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars, allowing it to regain the provinces of Kars, Ardahan,
Artvin, and Surmalu. On 7 June 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister
Vyacheslav Molotov informed the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the disputed provinces should be returned to Soviet Union in the name of both the Armenian and Georgian Soviet Republics. Turkey was in no condition to fight a war with the Soviet Union, which had emerged as a superpower after the Second World War. The
Soviet territorial claims were supported by the Armenian Catholicos and by all shades of the Armenian diaspora, including the anti-Soviet Dashnaksutiun. However, with the onset of the
Cold War, especially the
Truman Doctrine in 1947, Turkey strengthened its ties with the West. The Soviet Union relinquished its claims over the lost territories, and Ankara
joined the anti-Soviet
NATO military alliance in 1952.
Armenian repatriation With the republic suffering heavy losses after the war, Stalin allowed an
open immigration policy in Armenia; the
diaspora were encouraged to
repatriate to Armenia (
nergaght) and revitalize the population and bolster the workforce. Armenians living in countries such as
Cyprus,
France,
Greece,
Iraq,
Lebanon, and
Syria were primarily the survivors or the descendants of the genocide. Offered an expenses paid return, an estimated 150,000 Armenians arrived in Soviet Armenia between 1946 and 1948, settling in Yerevan,
Leninakan,
Kirovakan, and other towns. Lured by numerous incentives such as food coupons, better housing and other benefits, they were received coldly by many Armenians living in the republic upon their arrival. The repatriates spoke the standardized
Western Armenian dialect, instead of the
Eastern Armenian prevalent in Soviet Armenia. They were often addressed as
aghbars ("brothers") by Armenians living in the republic, due to their different pronunciation of the word. Initially humorous in tone, its usage evolved and began to carry a more pejorative connotation. Thousands of Armenians were forcibly exiled to the
Altai Krai in 1949. Many were repatriated Armenians who had arrived from the Armenian diaspora but who were suspected of being Dashnak party members. Repatriates such as Lazare Indjeyan and
Armand Maloumian chronicled their experiences in, and eventual escapes from, the
Gulag. American-Armenian repatriate,
Tom Mooradian, published a memoir describing life in Soviet Armenia as a basketball player, and the challenges of adapting to life under Stalin. Other repatriates explored family memories of the genocide and resettlement in the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev Thaw called for the
rehabilitation of
Yeghishe Charents, beginning the
Khrushchev Thaw in Soviet Armenia. Armenia underwent significant social and cultural change in the aftermath of
Stalin's death in 1953 and the emergence of
Nikita Khrushchev as the new Soviet leader. One of Khrushchev's advisers and close friends, Armenian
Politburo member
Anastas Mikoyan, urged Armenians to reaffirm their national identity. On 11 March 1954, two years before Khrushchev denounced Stalin, Mikoyan gave a speech in Yerevan where he encouraged the
rehabilitation of Charents, the republication of the writers
Raphael Patkanian and
Raffi, and the revival of the memory of Miasnikian. Behind the scenes, he personally assisted Soviet Armenian leaders in the rehabilitation of former "enemies" in the republic, such as Khanjian and Shahverdyan. Another prominent Armenian figure,
Lev Shaumyan, the son of revolutionary
Stepan Shaumian, also played an important role in assisting Mikoyan and Khrushchev on rehabilitations. Khrushchev, in his "
Secret Speech" delivered before the
20th Party Congress in 1956, sharply denounced Stalin and his crimes. At the same congress, Armenia's new First Secretary,
Suren Tovmasyan, praised Charents and "recalled the poet's quote casting Moscow as the 'center of the world.'" During the unfolding
Khrushchev Thaw, the Soviet leadership loosened political restrictions and began a campaign of
de-Stalinization. Thousands of political prisoners were released from the Gulag and victims of the Great Purge, such as Charents, Bakunts, and Totovents, were posthumously rehabilitated.
Religious freedom, to a limited degree, was granted to Armenia when
Catholicos Vazgen I assumed office in 1955. In 1962, the massive statue of Stalin that towered over Yerevan was pulled down from its pedestal by troops and replaced in 1967 with that of
Mother Armenia. Khrushchev's union-wide economic reforms, emphasizing the consumer economy, positively impacted Armenia. Mikoyan frequently advised Armenian leaders on major economic projects in the republic, such as the Arpa–Sevan tunnel. Under Stalin, hydroelectric projects had resulted in the dramatic lowering of
Lake Sevan's water levels. During the Thaw, the government of Armenian First Secretary
Yakov Zarobyan, advised by Mikoyan, persuaded Khrushchev to support the construction of the Arpa–Sevan tunnel to save the lake. In 1959, the
Matenadaran was opened in Yerevan as an archive to house the nationalized monastic collections of Ejmiatsin, and to encourage preservation of the manuscripts and to promote historical research. Contacts between Armenia and the diaspora were revived, and Armenians from abroad were able to visit the republic more frequently. At the same time, the Armenians of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) became more vocal about their grievences with Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1962, Karabakh Armenian residents appealed to Khrushchev, "enumerating their grievances with official Baku and requesting the transfer of their territories from the jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan to that of either Soviet Armenia or the Russian SFSR."
Brezhnev era After
Leonid Brezhnev assumed power in 1964, Khrushchev's reforms were partly curtailed. However, although the Soviet state remained ever wary of the potential resurgence of
Armenian nationalism, it did not impose the sort of restrictions seen during Stalin's time. On 24 April 1965,
thousands of Armenians demonstrated in the streets of Yerevan during the 50th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In the aftermath of these demonstrations, the memorial in honor of the genocide victims was erected at the
Tsitsernakaberd hill above the
Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan in 1967. The government also permitted the construction of other monuments honoring important national events in
Armenian history, such as the battles of
Sardarapat and
Bash Abaran. The government likewise approved the creation of monuments dedicated to popular Armenian figures, like
Yervand Kochar's statues of the fifth-century military commander
Vardan Mamikonian and the folk hero
David of Sassoun. In sports, the era saw the victory of
FC Ararat Yerevan in the 1973
Top League and
Soviet Cup against
Dinamo Kiev. The
Brezhnev era saw the rise of corruption and
shadow economy. Materials allocated for the
building of new homes, such as cement and concrete, were diverted for other uses, and bribery and a lack of oversight produced shoddily built and weakly supported apartment buildings. The impact of this problem was later evidenced during the
1988 Armenian earthquake—when the earthquake hit, the Brezhnevka apartments were the most susceptible to collapse, while the older buildings better withstood the quake. When compared to other parts of the Soviet Union, the republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia had the highest levels of corruption. During the Brezhnev years, a new
intelligentsia emerged in Armenia that rejected the prevailing situation, and felt that "the corruption, emigration of talented individuals, pollution and general loss of ethics" had put the republic "on the road to disaster." This sentiment resulted in the removal of Armenian First Secretary
Anton Kochinyan and the promotion of
Karen Demirchyan, whose main prerogative was to "clean up the republic." Demirchyan's promises and activities raised the hopes of those Armenians who demanded concrete changes. His government undertook the battle with corruption and established major construction projects, such as the
Yerevan Metro, the
Karen Demirchyan Complex, and
Zvartnots International Airport. However, some Armenians believed that the Demirchyan government was delivering its promises too slowly. Under Brezhnev, the Armenians of the NKAO continued to unsuccessfully petition Moscow for unification with Soviet Armenia. In 1978, during the debate over a
new Soviet Constitution, Moscow considered removing a part of the constitution that guaranteed the use of native languages as the official languages of the republics, but the Armenians, alongside the Georgians, fervently protested and defeated this proposition. By the time of the
1979 Soviet census, over 99 percent of the people of Armenia (including
Kurds,
Assyrians, and
Azeris) "considered Armenian, rather than Russian, their national language," a much higher number compared to the other republics. However, only two thirds of the Armenians of the USSR lived in the Armenian republic, while the remaining one-third lived primarily in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Russia.
Glasnost and perestroika Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of the reforms of
glasnost and
perestroika in the 1980s fueled visions of a better life in the Soviet Union among Armenians. Taking advantage of the new political climate, the Armenians of the NKAO began a democratic movement to unite their region with Soviet Armenia, expressing concern about the forced "
Azerification" of their native region by Baku. On 20 February 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the NKAO offically voted to unify with Armenia. Demonstrations took place in Yerevan in support of the Karabakh Armenians and grew into what became known as the
Karabakh movement. By the beginning of 1988, nearly one million Armenians from several regions of the republic engaged in these demonstrations, centered on Yerevan's Theater Square (today
Freedom Square). However, in neighboring Azerbaijan,
violence against Armenians erupted in the city of
Sumgait. Ethnic rioting broke out between Armenians and Azeris, preventing any peaceful resolution from taking place. Armenians became increasingly disillusioned with the
Kremlin's response toward the issue. Gorbachev, who had until then been viewed favorably in Armenia, saw his standing among Armenians deteriorate significantly. Tension between the central government in Moscow and the local government in Yerevan heightened in the final years of the Soviet Union. The reasons largely stemmed from Moscow's perceived indecision on the Karabakh question, combined with ongoing difficulties in relief for the 1988 earthquake and general shortcomings in the Soviet economy. On 23 August 1990, the
Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR adopted the
Declaration of Independence of Armenia, declaring the Republic of Armenia to be a subject of
international law. On 17 March 1991, Armenia, along with the
Baltics, Georgia, and
Moldavia, boycotted the
union-wide referendum in which 78% of all voters voted for the retention of the Soviet Union in a reformed form. Armenia confirmed its independence
in a referendum on 21 September 1991 after the
unsuccessful coup attempt in Moscow by Kremlin hardliners. The republic's independence became official with the
Belovezha Accords and the formal
dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, making Armenia a sovereign, independent state. The constitution of 1978 remained in effect until July 1995, when a
new constitution was adopted. == Politics ==