The Press and the Sword: Armenian Journalism Since 1512

*The Armenians have set up in the world's four quarters perhaps more journals per capita than any other people. Their press network numbers in the thousands and extends from the Far East to North and South America and from Europe and the Near East to Africa and Oceania. It has been operating for 459 years. Mysterious Armenia-land of the Tigris and Euphrates, Mount Ararat and Lakes Van, Seven and Urmia, the biblical Eden-is the only country which helped create both Near Eastern civilization and the U.S.S.R. The Armenians were international pioneers of journalism wirh a strong desire for freedom: they fought 2,000 wars, one for every two years of their domestically recorded history, and outlasted 30 empires including those of the Pharaohs, Babylonians, Assyrians,

Persians, Alexander and Caesar, the Byzantines and Arabians, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and the Turks and Tsars. They founded printing and journalism in the Near East, influenced Soviet journalism, and quite possibly were the first to use the printing press as a purely nationalistic vehicle.
Though the Armenoid Sumerians in 3500 B.C. invented writing, the earliest school, and the cylinder seal which might rank as the initial form of printing, the Armenians adopted these 1500 years later at a time when other Armenoid relatives (Subarians, Elamites, Minoans, Kassites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Hittites, Phrygians, Lycians, Lydians, Etruscans) had either begun writing or were about to. Distinct stages of Armenian protojournalism led t o the dawn of the Armenian printing age.
The Beverugir, or cuneiform recording era (2000-6OO B.C.) , systematized recording and education and created an alliance between scribes and empire.
The Hinagir, or old alphabet recording era (600 B.C.-A.D. 396) perpetuated the alliance, heightened nationalism, and saw the emergence of the Armenian Apostolic Church, earliest in Christendom. The Noragir, or new alphabet recording era (396-1 5 12), witnessed advanced literacy and an alliance between recording and church.
The Armenians entered the press era in 1512 when they founded the first printing press of any Near Eastern nationality and introduced presses to the Ottoman Empire in 1567, Persia in 1639, Asia Minor in 1676, and Armenia Bolshe-Gautahai centers especially since early vik journalism in the Caucasus through Christian times when Armenian dysuch revolutionaries as Stepan Shau-nasties (~~~~~l i~~, ~~~~ M~~~ mian, S u m SPandarian, Kame der donian) ruled the Byzantine Empire Bedrossian and Anastas Mikoyan* for centuries, and Armenian soldiers, Stalin, a fellow Caucasian, himself artisans and traders settled the Empire a disciple of Shaumian and Spandarian, in great numbers. and the Caucasian mountaineering The father of Armenian printing and thereby the father of Near Eastern background they shared ruled Communism for decades.
printing was the Gautahai merchant of Since the late 18th century, Armen-Venice Hakop Meghabardian who printed, 1512-1513, five Armenian ian journalism has been mainly revolutionary. It survived the genocide policy books illustrated in black and red: of the Turks who massacred almost Barzadumar (Calendar), 1 18 pages; the entire nation in World War I. In Badarak (Mass Ritual)

Gautahai Presses
also printed in Venice, 1564-1565, two called Haik (Armenian) and form the An engraver named Hotorian became majority of the world's seven million father of Ottoman or Turkish printing Armenians, but there is a tradition of when he set up an Armenian press in migration as forced exiles, missionaries 1567 in Constantinople, 56 years before and adventurers. These latter are termed the Greeks. But the Turks, fearing an Gautahai, literally Outside Armenians, Armenian revival, soon shut it down or colonists. They have played a key for its emphasis on f r e e d~m .~ Italy's role in journalism since, with the fall greater hospitality encouraged HOVof the Crusading Kingdom of Lesser hanes Derzenian to set up Armenian Armenia on the Mediterranean in 1375, presses in 1584 in Venice and Rome.4 the country's independence ceased However the daring Tokatian, who had until 1918. Often  But Gautahai pioneering proved most significant in the Near East. The first press in the history of Persia (Iran) was established in 1639 in the Armenian language by the priest Khatchadurian in Nor Jougha (New Julfa) , the city founded near Ispahan by forced Armenian exiles. Khatchadurian thereby became the father of Persian or Iranian printing.ll Further west in Smyrna (Izmir) , Ottoman Empire, Armenians set up in 1676 the first press in Asia Minor or Anatolia,12 and in 1677 another Armenian press was born in Con~tantinople.1~

I8th Century Presses
The 13 Gautahai printing presses of this period were set up in Italy, England, India, Austria, Russia and Persia. Purchase of San Lazaro island in Venice in 1717 by the Armenian religious Mekhitarian Brotherhood set off a printing chain reaction. Presses saw light there in 1717 and 1788 and upon establishment of another Mekhitarian branch in Vienna, Armenian Q U A R T E R L Y presses were born in the Austrian capital in 1774 and two years later in Trieste, then under Austria.14 When Lord Byron in 1816 decided to learn the Armenian language, then considered by fundamentalists to have been the tongue of Adam, he studied under the Mekhitarians on their Venetian island.15 Today the artistic qualities of the Mekhitarian presses are among the finest in Venice and Vienna. They are also the third largest of the Armenian religious presses of the world, ranking after the Armenian Apostolic Throne of Ejmiadzin in Armenia and the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Jerusalem.lG England's first Armenian press was established in London in 1736 as a Gautahai conduit but proved insignificant since the Teutonic countries seldom attracted the people of Ararat.17 However in 1772 wealthy Hakop Shahamirian founded an Armenian press in British-ruled Madras, India, where Gautahai had lived since the 8th century. Shahamirian, who blamed much of Armenia's historic woes on its selfish monarchies, published works calling for creation of a democratic Armenian republic centered first in East Armenia, then gradually emancipating West Armenia from Turkish rule "because there is nothing sweeter among the sayings of men than the word freedom."ls A second Armenian press was set up in the Indian city in 6 Ibid. 7 Zbid.  1789 by the priest Harutyun Shmavonian whose fame later rested on founding the first Armenian newspaper;19 a less important Gautahai press was born in Calcutta in 1796.20 Archbishop Prince Hovsep Arghutian, scion of the royal Zakarian dynasty and primate of all Armenians in Russia, established the first Armenian press in that land, 1783, in St. Petersburg (Leningrad). In 1784 he also set up a Gautahai press in Nor Nakhichevan (Rostov-on-Don) on the Russian sea of Azov, a city he founded for the thousands of Armenians who lived in the Crimea as exiles from Turkish oppression; it received another press in 1787.21 Astrakhan, Armenian Apostolic diocesan headquarters in Russia, obtained an Armenian press in 1796. Prince Arghutian, decorated by Catherine the Great for war services against the Turkish invaders of Armenia, printed patriotic and Apostolic works and negotiated for re-creation of an Armenian royal state, centered in East Armenia. Its flag would be red, green and blue with a coat of arms consisting of an Armenian eagle flanked by two lions, but the plan evaporated upon Russian involvement in European affairs.Z2 Birth of a second Armenian press in 1787 in Nor Jougha, Persia, completed the century's Gautahai printing network.23

The Haik Press
Armenia, lagging behind the Gautahai in printing, received its first press 259 years after Meghabardian's pioneering achievement in Venice in 1512. 17th and 18th centuries was a warravaged battleground put to the sword by the Turks and Persians. Second, it did not exist as an independent political country, hence lacked city, provincial and national backing for presses. Third, Armenia was under the rule of alien Turkish Moslems whose religion barred the new art of printing, especially when drawings were reproduced, since Islam maintains stipulations against human representation in art. Fourth, the Turkish rulers sensed that printing would heighten Haik nationalism at a time when the sultan wanted to assimilate the Armenian Christians. Fifth, printing was linked to urbanization and the invading Turks, finding the large technological cities of imperial and medieval Armenia incompatible with their nomadic way of life, denuded the forests and essentially converted the cities into ghost towns and grazing lands through destruction. While the West experienced economic and scientific advances, Armenia under the Turks was pushed back into a retrogressive feudalism which sapped urban vitality. Under such conditions the first press in Armenia was founded in Ejmiadzin in 1771, by Simyon I, Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, who thereby became father of the press in Armenia and the Caucasus. Lacking support from any Christian country and partitioned by the two Moslem empires of Turkey and Persia, Armenia, he reasoned, must seek reassurance from within and a Haik printing press could help. Since deliveries of paper from Europe to Armenia were often confiscated by the Turks, Simyon called upon the Gautahai of India and Persia to aid the Haik in building a paper factory in Armenia. The project began on June 28, 1775, and by 1777 Armenia had its first paper factory. Shortly after Simyon's death in 1780, however, Moslem hordes destroyed both the printing press and the paper factory and the Haik again had to re-linquish the printing baton to the GautahaLZ4

1512-1796
This 284-year period saw 37 Armenian presses established in 22 cities in 12 countries at the rate of one every eight years as cultural-nationalism vehicles. Conditions in the homeland proved so inhospitable that the Gautahai set up 36 printing presses whereas the Haik could establish only one. (See Table 1).
Each succeeding century saw Armenian presses distributed further east and west of Armenia. The widest geographical extent of presses was from Italy to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century when six presses were set up, France to Persia in the 17th century when 17 presses were founded (the most prolific century), and England to India in the 18th century when 14 presses were established.
As missionaries of the press to the Near East, the Armenians provided a link between East and West, and this early golden age saw such a firm base laid for the modern Armenian international press network that a 20th century historian could write: Subsequently, all great cities of the world have come to have their printing establishments equipped with Armenian Q U A R T E R L Y type, and there is hardly a country today where a book in that language could not be turned out." Gautahai Journalism, 1794-18.58 Suffering in Armenia again forced the Gautahai to outdistance the Haik in journals as had been done in printing presses, and 46 newspapers were rapidly established in 13 cities in India, Italy, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Georgia, Austria, Malaya and France at the rate of one every 16 months. Average lifespan during this 64-year period was 11 years, ranging in longevity from one year to 128. Their generally short existence was due to political oppression, lack of funds, and in the case of some poorly geared newspapers lack of readership. Nonetheless several stand out.
On October 16, 1794, Harutyun Shmavonian, the priest who inspired the 1789 Madras press, printed in the same city the first newspaper in Armenian history, the monthly Azdarar (Intelligencer) . As this was also the first newspaper of a Near Eastern people, Shmavonian is considered the father of Armenian and of Near Eastern Journalism. It featured news from Armenia and the freedom movement; births, baptisms, marriages and deaths of Gautahai; items on the French Revolution; and commodity prices. It even took an editorial stand supporting

1
George Washington and the American experiment.26 The Mekhitarian publications of Venice also set trends: Daregrutyun (Year's Writing) became the first annual in 179ga7 and the erudite 1843 monthly Bazmaveb (Polyhistor) remains the oldest continuously published periodical in Armenian history and the era's sole survivor.** The significance of another Venice monthly, Didak Buzandian (Byzantine Telescope) lies in its founding in 1808 by an ungerutyun or comraderie, a fraternal organization that became characteristic of some Gautahai journalism. These cultural clubs, drawn from prominent and nationalistic Gautahai, entered the newspaper field as sponsors of publications, sometimes becoming parties of revolutionary activity. It became the first bi-monthly in 1814, the first biweekly in 1815. and the first journal to be written in vernacular as opposed to classical Armenian.28 In 18  Turkey, Persia, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Italy and India. When he died in 1887 at the hands of the Turks the paper fell with him.31 But it contributed to the Armenian reader's interest in foreign affairs.
Another innovator was the republicminded Banaser (Philologist), born in Madras in 1848 as the first tri-m0nthly.~2 The first migratory journal, a peculiarity of Armenian journalism, was the 1855 monthly Masyatz Aghavni (Dove of Great Ararat), established in Paris, then moved to Feodosia on the Crimean shores of the Black Sea.53 The migration or moving of the editorial offices of such journals from one city or country to another resulted from oppression or nostalgia. The provocative 1858 monthly Huyisapail (Northern Gleam) of Moscow was printed by the Lazarian Academy and inspired a generation of progressives. Its leading writers, Stepanos Nazarian who felt Armenia's future lay in capitalism, and Mikayel Nalbandian who preferred revolutionary socialism, both advocated anti-feudalism and a revamping of church conservatism, but their ideological differences caused a split and the subsequent demise of this 64-80 page newspaper.34 Gautahai Analysis, 1794-1 858 Using 1794 as the base year, it required five years for the Gautahai to launch the first annual, 20 for the first bi-monthly, 21 for the first bi-weekly and weekly, 46 for the first daily, and 54 years for the first tri-monthly. Frequencies of four of the 46 newspapers remain unknown as they were suppressed by authorities. There were 15 weeklies, 13 monthlies, eight bi-monthties, four annuals, one daily and one tri-monthly. The Gautahai had once again become the first journalistic missionaries among the Near Eastern peoples. (Table 2 ) .
Conditions for some newspapermen were so severe that the city and frequency of the 1830 Gautahai journal

Non-Communist Journalism
Despite genocide and destruction, the Haik in their journalistic passion established 126 newspapers in this category in 21 Armenian cities during the period at the rate of one every six months. Average life was three years.
Mkrdich Khrimian became the father of journalism in Armenia when in 1858 he moved his migratory monthly Ardzvi Vaspurakan (Eagle of Vaspurakan) , founded in Constantinople in 1855, to the ancient Armenian city of his birth, Van.38 Its pages announced his beliefs: Has there ever been a kingdom or nation on earth which has gained an easy medal for victory without a revolution, without the willingness to give up lives, without progressing forward." Khrimian, eventual Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, founded in similar vein the 1863 monthly Ardzvik Darono (Eaglet of Daron) in ancient Moush and entrusted its editorship to his former pupil Garekin Servan tzdian.40 Thereafter newspapers sprouted throughout the country. Typical of the bloody history of Haik journals was the 1909 Van bi-monthly Van-Dosp which ceased publication in 1917 when the Turks massacred the Van Armenians. A year later it was resuscitated in Tiflis with the announcement: The aim of Van-Dosp is to resurrect the tragic and suffering voices from under the ashes of the fatherland and to bring them to the hearts and minds of the living Armenians and their friends. Van-Dosp was born in the reality of Turkish Armenia and as a true inheritor of the tradition of the newspaper, which was the voice of Turkish Armenians, it will always mirror and echo their tragedy and sufferings." War forced it to move again in 1919 to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, where it died in the year of its final migration, a victim of renewed warfare.42 The massacres, wars and ensuing famine of the era proved so detrimental to Haik journalism that 62 of the 126 newspapers survived only one year, seven were migratory journals, and the frequencies of 39 are unknown. Fortyeight newspapers were party organs. Only the 1920 monthly Ejmiadzin still exists. Exactly two-thirds of the knownfrequency newspapers, numbering 86, fell into the weekly, bi-weekly and daily categories, an indication that ambitious editors tried to satisfy an audience seeking to read as many journals as conditions allowed. Distribution among cities was widespread, both in East Armenia and West Armenia.

Pre-Soviet Communist Journalism
Communism was introduced to Armenia and the Near East by Stepan Shaumian in 1902 when he founded the Armenian Communist Party and established in Tiflis that year the newspaper Broleduriad (Proletariat). This was the first in the Near East. Shaumian, most powerful figure in 20th century Armenian journalism, also founded Bolshevism in the Caucasus. He was chief of the Georgian Party and creator of the Azerbaijan Party, a member of Lenin's ruling central committee, Extraordinary Commissar of the Caucasus, and created and ruled in 1918 the Baku Soviet or Baku Commune, first Communist government in Caucasian and Near Eastern history.
Later that year he died in battle.43 As Lenin's advisor on the Caucasus, Shaumian joined the Bolshevik faction at its birth in 1903 and organized Armenian and Georgian revolutionary publishing committees. In antiquity Georgia had been Armenia's northernmost province and therefore the two peoples were closely related.  Gumri, and one in Shushi and Haghbat. Georgia had 13 Armenian Communist (Struggle) had on its staff another Party newspapers, Armenia had seven Armenian revolutionary journalist, and Azerbiajan three.

Journalism in the Armenian S.S.R.
Anastas Mikoyan, who assisted Shaurnian.5z Mikoyan helped to establish the Armenian S.S.R. and the Azerbaijan The Transcaucasian Federation con-S.S.R., and became architect of Soviet sisting of East Armenia, Georgia and trade, a Politburo member, and even-Azerbaijan was established on Septemtually President of the U.S.S.R. His ber 20, 1917, by anti-Communists, and brother Artem Mikoyan, once a jour-on May 28, 1918, the Haik segment of nalist also, designs the MIG fighter it declared itself the independent Replanzs which bear his name. In 1917 public of Armenia, largely ruled by the Shaumian and Anastas Mikoyan right-wing Dashnak party. During the founded the Baku Armenian daily ensuing civil war the Armenian COm-Sotzial Demograd (Social Democrat) .53 munists defeated the Dashnaks and on Characteristically those Caucasians November 29, 1920, established the who played major leadership roles in Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic the Soviet Union (Shaumian, Span-which eventually became part of the darian, Kamo, Stalin, Mikoyan, Beria, U.S.S-R. Ordzhonikidze) had been molded by a Recognizing the importance of jourunique journalism. Caucasian history nalism in the spread of Communist with its suffering and violence, its ideology, the Armenian Party leader simultaneous antiquity and modernity, produced a breed of activist revolutionary journalists, warriors in the literal sense.    Aleksan Miasnigian in September 1921 signed a government decree making it mandatory that illiteracy be wiped out. Initially every man and woman between the ages 16-50 had to learn to read and write Armenian. Later this was expanded to include children, and the literacy drive became so intense that by 1940 Armenia achieved 100% literacy. The Communists claim that Georgia, largely because of its huge Armenian urban population, and Armenia lead the world in higher education with 38 and 32 college graduates respectively per 1,000 p o p~l a t i o n .~~ Armenia has 2,500,000 population and its capital Yerevan, 800,000.