Having said that then I would like to hear what is going on since Caucasus is an interesting area.
All I know is that Russia supports Armenia while Turkey supports Azerbaijan. Iran apparently supports Armenia despite the areas that border South Caucasus from the Iranian side are mainly inhabited by Azeri Iranians.
The diversity in terms of languages is quite amazing in Caucasus. From North to South and from West to East. There are so many small ethnic groups with totally distinct languages, cultures etc. It is as diverse in terms of languages as parts of Africa which is otherwise the by far most diverse area in the world. Often with a distinct warrior like culture. It reminds me of the mountainous areas of Hijaz and Yemen that are also inhabited by people of a similar culture of what I call "mountain warriors". Same can be said about many other people of the region and the world. Funny and interesting to observe those similarities.
I have always wondered how come many Caucasians show great affinity with the people of ME, often Semitic speaking (Arabs, Assyrians, Jews etc.) in terms of paternal lineage (Human Y-chromosme DNA haplogroup).
We actually have quite a few Armenians in the Arab world. Mainly in the Levant and especially in Lebanon.
Not sure about the accuracy of this short video. I am about to watch it.
This conflict is not much spoken about, Maybe gets 1/1000 of the coverage that the Israeli-Palestinain conflict gets. Really strange.
I hear that Armenians are really poor. There is quite a big community of Armenians in France and Paris and I met a few. Nice people overall. They have many funny sounding names but so do many Caucasians.
The Georgian alphabet is also something to behold. Very cool looking and totally different from others that I have seen.
You might find this interesting to read al-Hassani, it's about history of that region. But also for the other readers who might not know the ties of Iran and Armenia and blame Iran for being neutral or pro-Armenia, Armenian history is closely related to Iranian history.
From 1500BC to 1300BC an Indo-Iranian mitanni elite of hurrians ruled the area and the surrounding of what is known as Armenia Today.
Then from 600BC the Iranian medes rule armenia around 500BC the persians. From that time Urartu is called Armenia for the first time by the persians, written in the
Behistun inscription.
Meanwhile the orontid dynasty (most likely of Iranian origins) rules armenia as a satrap of Persian empire from 550 to 320 BC.
Then came the greeks, but from 190 BC to 1 AD artaxid dynasty of Iranian origins rules Armenia. The artaxids produced the greatest and most respected king of Armenia ever, Tigranes the great who also fought against the parthians (branch of Iranians who ruled Iran.
After that the Arsacid dynasty of Iranian origins takes over the rule in Armenia and rules from 40 to 430 , they were parthians related to the parthian kingdom of Iran. The statue of the fist Parthian tiridates 1 (tirdad in modern persian) is build in Armenia. He was both a king and a zoroastrian priest. Meanwhile the sassanids have defeated the parthians in Iran around 230. The sassanids also make zoroastrianism state religion of Iran.
The arsacid parthians of Armenia and sassanids of Iran start wars, both being zoroastrians, the kings and the peoples and armenia seeking help from Romans in this conflict. Probably sassanids considered Armenian zoroastrianism as a wrong version, being influence by the romans (statue cult etc).
Then
Saint Gregory the Enlightener, also of parthian-Iranian descent and related to Arsacids started to convert Armenia to christianity. So an Iranian made Armenia become Christian and baptized king Tiridates III in 301. In the beginning the common folk resisted the christianization of Armenia, their were revolts. Many of the pre-Christian (traditional Indo-European) festivals and celebrations such as Tyarndarach (Trndez, associated with fire worship) and
Vartavar (Vadarvar, associated with water worship), that dated back thousands of years, were preserved and continued in the form of Christian celebrations and chants.
Now the Romals also being christian and helping christian Parthian kings of Armenia against Sassanids, the conflict becomes religious. Some christian-zoroastrian clashes occured within the sassanid kingdom till the sassanids finally invaded armenia in 430 to rule Armenia until 640. Different times sassanids tried to reconvert the armenians to zoroastrianism without succes.
It's said that the later Bagratuni dynasty of Armenia and Georgia (the Georgian branch is still alive) is indirectly descended from parthian-arcasid dynasty which would make the oldest monarchy of the world. Not everyone accepts this theory, however it's possible. The main Armenian house went extinct by the 12th century, while the Georgian line, in its minor branch, continues to this day as the nominal
Royal House of Georgia. The root of the names
Bagrationi and
Bagratuni,
Bagrat-, derives from the
Old PersianBagadāta (god-given).
Another example:
The
Zakarids (
Armenian: Զաքարյաններ, Zak'aryanner), also known by their
Georgian language moniker as
Mkhargrdzeli (
Georgian: მხარგრძელი), were a noble Armenian
[1]–Georgian dynasty of
Kurdish[2][3][4][5][6] (possibly
Yazidi)
[7] origin. Their name in Georgian, Mkhargrdzeli, or in
Armenian: Երկայնաբազուկ, (
Yerkaynbazuk) meant long-armed. A family legend says that this name was a reference to their
Achaemenid ancestor
Artaxerxes II the "Longarmed" (404-358 BC).
[8] The family consisted of Zakare and Ivane of the Armenian Zakarian family, known in Georgian as the Mkhargrdzeli.
Pharnavaz I (
Georgian: ფარნავაზი) was the first
king of
Kartli, an ancient
Georgian kingdom known as
Iberia to the
Classical sources, who is credited by the medieval Georgian written tradition with founding the kingship of Kartli and the
Pharnabazid dynasty. The Nimrodids, in Georgian Nebrot'iani (ნებროთიანი), which means the "race of Nimrod", is not a dynastic name but the term applied by the medieval Georgian annalists to the ancient Iranians. Hence, the dynasty, although in the female line only, continues to be called by the chronicles as P’arnavaziani ("Second Pharnabazid" as suggested by Toumanoff). Parnavaz’s mother is claimed to have been an
Iranian. The entire story of Parnavaz, although written by a Christian chronicler, abounds in ancient Iranian-like imagery and mystic allusions, a reflection of the archaeologically confirmed cultural and presumably political ties between Iran and Kartli of that time. The name "Parnavaz" is also an illustrative example with its root
par- being based upon the
Persianfarnah, the divine radiance believed by the ancient Iranians to mark a legitimate dynast (
cf.khvarenah).
[3] The dynastic tag Parnavaziani ("of/from/named for Parnavaz") is also preserved in the early
Armenianhistories as P'arnawazean (
Faustus 5.15; fifth century) and P'arazean (
Primary History of Armenia 14; probably the early fifth century), an acknowledgment that a king named Parnavaz was understood to have been the founder of a Georgian dynasty
Based on the medieval evidence, most scholars locate Parnavaz’s rule in the 3rd century BC: 302–237 BC according to
Prince Vakhusht, 299–234 BC according to
Cyril Toumanoff and 284–219 BC according to
Pavle Ingoroqva.
[1]
About the Armenian alphabet: The principal events of this period are the invention of the Armenian alphabet, the revision of the liturgy, the creation of an ecclesiastical and national literature, and the readjustment of hierarchical relations. Three men are prominently associated with this work: Mesrop,
Patriarch Isaac parthev (Isaac the parthian), and King
Vramshapuh, who succeeded his brother Khosrov IV in 389. Patriarch isaac and king vramshapuh (bahram shapur in persian) were from Parthian nobles.
