Armenia

The Armenian highlands — the highest of the plateaus of West Asia, ringed by the Caucasus, the Anatolian plateau and the Iranian world — hold one of humanity's oldest records of settled life. In the early 1st millennium BCE the kingdom of Urartu, centred on Lake Van, rose to considerable power in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, building fortress-cities and elaborate irrigation works. The fortress of Erebuni, on the site of modern Yerevan, was founded in 782 BCE. Mentioned in Assyrian sources, Urartu was succeeded in the region by the Armenians by the 6th century BCE.

Under the Orontid and then the Artaxiad dynasties, an Armenian kingdom emerged as a buffer and a prize between the great empires of the age. Its zenith came under Tigranes II, called 'the Great', who ruled from 95 to 55 BCE. Taking the ancient title 'king of kings', Tigranes expanded his realm until it briefly reached from the Caspian Sea toward the Mediterranean, making Armenia for a short time the strongest state in the Roman East. He founded a new royal city, Tigranocerta, before Roman armies under Lucullus and Pompey checked his ambitions.

After Tigranes, Armenia was repeatedly contested between Rome and Parthian (later Sasanian) Persia, often ruled by client kings of the Arsacid line and frequently partitioned between the two powers. This pattern — a distinct Armenian polity caught between larger empires — would recur for two thousand years. The Arsacid kingdom of Armenia endured until 428 CE, when the Sasanians abolished the monarchy and governed Armenia through appointed officials, ending the era of an independent ancient kingdom.

Turning points

1. 782 BCEFormation

   Founding of Erebuni

   The Urartian king Argishti I founded the fortress of Erebuni on the site of present-day Yerevan, one of the oldest continuously inhabited city sites in the world.

   [1] [4]

2. 8th century BCEPolitics & Power

   Urartu at its height

   In the 9th and 8th centuries BCE the kingdom of Urartu, centred on Lake Van, became a major power of the Middle East before being succeeded in the region by the Armenians.

   [1]

3. 95–55 BCEPolitics & Power

   Reign of Tigranes the Great

   Tigranes II expanded Armenia until it briefly stretched from the Caspian toward the Mediterranean, taking the title 'king of kings' and making Armenia the strongest state in the Roman East before Roman armies forced his retreat.

   [2] [3]

4. 428 CEPolitics & Power

   End of the Armenian monarchy

   The Sasanian Persians abolished the Arsacid kingdom of Armenia and ruled the territory through appointed officials, ending the ancient Armenian monarchy.

   [15]

Figures of the era

Around 301 CE, King Tiridates III — converted, by tradition, after being healed by Gregory the Illuminator — proclaimed Christianity the religion of his kingdom, making Armenia the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion, a decade before Constantine's Edict of Milan. The Mother Cathedral of Echmiatsin, traditionally built in 301–303 by Tiridates and Gregory, became the spiritual centre of the Armenian Apostolic Church and remains its seat. Gregory the Illuminator was consecrated as the first head, or catholicos, of the Armenian Church.

A second foundation of national identity followed around 405, when the monk and scholar Mesrop Mashtots, with the support of the catholicos Sahak (Isaac) the Great, devised the Armenian alphabet of 36 letters. The new script allowed the Bible and liturgy to be rendered in Armenian for the first time, deepening the hold of Christianity and launching a golden age of translation and original writing in the 5th century. The alphabet, still in use today, became the durable vessel of Armenian culture through centuries without statehood.

Christianity and the written language sustained Armenian identity as the homeland was fought over by the Byzantine Empire and Sasanian Persia, and later overrun by the Arab caliphate from the 7th century. Through this long period of foreign domination, the Church and a distinctive architecture of domed stone churches — preserved at sites such as Echmiatsin and the ruins of Zvartnots, together inscribed by UNESCO in 2000 — kept a sense of nationhood alive even as political power passed to outside empires.

Turning points

1. c. 301 CEReligion

   Armenia adopts Christianity

   King Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity the religion of his kingdom after his conversion by Gregory the Illuminator, making Armenia the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion.

   [6] [7] [5]

2. 301–303 CEReligion

   Mother Cathedral of Echmiatsin

   The earliest of Armenia's great domed churches, the Mother Cathedral of Echmiatsin, was traditionally built by Tiridates III and Gregory the Illuminator; it remains the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

   [7]

3. c. 405 CECulture & Ideas

   Mesrop Mashtots creates the Armenian alphabet

   The scholar Mesrop Mashtots devised the 36-letter Armenian alphabet, enabling Scripture and literature in Armenian and launching a 5th-century golden age of writing and translation.

   [8] [9]

Figures of the era

Armenian statehood revived in 885, when Ashot I of the Bagratuni (Bagratid) family was recognised as king by both the Abbasid caliph and the Byzantine emperor. Under the Bagratids the city of Ani, made the capital by Ashot III around 961, became a great medieval centre, renowned as the 'city of a thousand churches' and praised for cathedral and palace architecture that ranks among the finest of the Armenian Middle Ages. In this era the monastic complexes of Haghpat and Sanahin in northern Armenia became leading centres of learning, their churches representing the highest flowering of Armenian religious architecture.

The Bagratid kingdom fell to Byzantine annexation in 1045 and then to the Seljuk Turks, whose advance after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) pushed many Armenians westward. Ani was sacked, struck by a devastating earthquake in 1319, and slid into ruin as trade routes shifted. The political centre of Armenian life moved south, away from the highland heartland that would remain under Turkic and Persian rule for centuries.

On the Mediterranean coast, Armenian refugees and princes built a new realm in Cilicia. Founded as a principality around 1080 under the Rubenid dynasty, it became the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia when Leo II was crowned king Leo I on 6 January 1198. Allied at times with the Crusader states and a hub of Mediterranean trade, Cilician Armenia endured nearly three centuries until it fell to the Mamluks of Egypt in 1375, ending the last medieval Armenian kingdom.

Turning points

1. 885Formation

   Bagratid kingdom restored

   Ashot I of the Bagratuni dynasty was recognised as king of Armenia by both the caliph and the Byzantine emperor, reviving an independent Armenian monarchy.

   [10] [11]

2. c. 961Culture & Ideas

   Ani becomes the Bagratid capital

   King Ashot III moved the capital to Ani, which flourished as a major medieval city known as the 'city of a thousand churches' for its cathedral and monastic architecture.

   [11] [13]

3. 6 January 1198Formation

   Kingdom of Cilician Armenia

   Leo II was crowned king Leo I, raising the Armenian principality in Cilicia to a kingdom that, allied with the Crusaders, lasted until its conquest by the Mamluks in 1375.

   [12]

4. 1375War & Rupture

   Fall of Cilician Armenia

   The Mamluks of Egypt conquered the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, extinguishing the last independent medieval Armenian state.

   ↗See the data

   [12]

Figures of the era

After the fall of Cilicia, the Armenian homeland was divided among rival empires. By the 16th and 17th centuries it lay split between Ottoman Turkey in the west and Safavid Persia in the east, with populations repeatedly uprooted by war. From 1813 and especially 1828, Russia annexed eastern (Persian) Armenia, so that by the 19th century Armenians lived as subject communities under three imperial regimes — Ottoman, Russian and, by then residually, Persian — without a state of their own.

Within the Ottoman Empire, Armenian demands for reform and rising nationalism met with violent repression, culminating in catastrophe during the First World War. Beginning on 24 April 1915 with the arrest of Armenian leaders and intellectuals in Constantinople, the ruling Young Turk government (the Committee of Union and Progress) carried out the systematic deportation and mass killing of the empire's Armenians, driving them on death marches toward the Syrian desert amid massacre, starvation and exposure. The Armenian Genocide is widely recognised as the first genocide of the 20th century; estimates of the dead generally range from around 600,000 to as many as 1.5 million, and 24 April is commemorated by Armenians worldwide.

Out of the empires' wartime collapse came a brief independence. As the Russian Empire disintegrated, the Armenians of the Caucasus declared the Republic of Armenia on 28 May 1918, the First Republic, with its capital at Yerevan. Beset by war, refugees, famine and conflict with neighbours, the fragile state survived only two years. In late 1920 it was overwhelmed between advancing Turkish nationalist forces and the Soviet Red Army, and on 2 December 1920 it was Sovietised, ending the First Republic.

Turning points

1. 1828War & Rupture

   Russia annexes eastern Armenia

   Following war with Persia, Russia annexed the eastern (Persian) Armenian lands, dividing the Armenian homeland between the Russian and Ottoman empires.

   ↗See the data

   [15]

2. 1915–1916Catastrophe

   The Armenian Genocide

   From 24 April 1915 the Ottoman Young Turk government deported and massacred the empire's Armenian population in death marches toward the Syrian desert; widely recognised as the first genocide of the 20th century, with deaths estimated from roughly 600,000 to as many as 1.5 million.

   ↗See the data

   [16] [17]

3. 28 May 1918Independence

   First Republic of Armenia

   As the Russian Empire collapsed, Armenians of the Caucasus declared an independent Republic of Armenia with its capital at Yerevan, the first modern Armenian state.

   ↗See the data

   [15]

4. 2 December 1920Politics & Power

   Sovietisation of Armenia

   Squeezed between Turkish nationalist forces and the advancing Red Army, the First Republic fell and Armenia was Sovietised, ending its short-lived independence.

   [15]

Figures of the era

In March 1922 Soviet Armenia was joined with Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, which became part of the U.S.S.R. that December. In 1936, under Stalin, the federation was dissolved and Armenia became a separate union republic, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Under Soviet rule the largely rural country was rapidly industrialised and urbanised; Yerevan grew into a modern capital, and a diaspora scattered by the genocide maintained ties to the homeland.

Soviet Armenians lived under the constraints of one-party rule and periodic repression, yet the Armenian Apostolic Church survived and national memory endured. In 1965, on the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide, mass demonstrations in Yerevan pressed for its commemoration, and a memorial, Tsitsernakaberd, was built on a hill above the city. The republic also suffered natural catastrophe: in December 1988 a powerful earthquake around Spitak and Leninakan (Gyumri) killed tens of thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

As Soviet control loosened under Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, long-suppressed tensions surfaced. In 1988 the regional council of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan, voted to join Armenia, igniting a dispute that would harden into war. Amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia moved swiftly toward independence, holding a referendum in September 1991 in which voters chose to secede.

Turning points

1. 1936Politics & Power

   Armenian SSR established

   The Transcaucasian federation was dissolved and Armenia became a separate union republic of the U.S.S.R., the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

   [15]

2. 1988Politics & Power

   Nagorno-Karabakh dispute erupts

   The regional legislature of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan, voted to join Armenia, triggering a conflict that escalated into open war.

   [18]

3. 7 December 1988Catastrophe

   Spitak earthquake

   A catastrophic earthquake struck northern Armenia around Spitak and Gyumri, killing tens of thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless in the final Soviet years.

   ↗See the data

   [15]

On 21 September 1991 Armenians voted overwhelmingly for independence, and the Supreme Council declared secession from the U.S.S.R.; Levon Ter-Petrosyan became the new republic's first president, and the United States extended recognition on 25 December 1991. The young state faced an immediate war: the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh exploded into full-scale fighting after 1991, leaving roughly 30,000 dead and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees before a Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994 left Armenian forces in control of the enclave and surrounding districts.

The frozen conflict reshaped Armenia's politics and economy, which struggled with blockade by Turkey and Azerbaijan even as the country built democratic institutions. In 2018 a peaceful mass protest movement, the 'Velvet Revolution', brought down the entrenched governing elite and made the journalist-turned-politician Nikol Pashinyan prime minister. The Nagorno-Karabakh question, treated very differently by the two sides, remained the defining issue of national life.

In the autumn of 2020 a 44-day war saw Azerbaijan, with Turkish and Israeli weaponry, retake much of the territory around Nagorno-Karabakh; a Russian-brokered ceasefire on 9 November 2020 ended the fighting. In September 2023 an Azerbaijani offensive brought the enclave fully under Azerbaijani control, and within roughly a week well over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia. The self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh authorities were dissolved at the start of 2024. By 2025 Armenia and Azerbaijan were negotiating toward a peace settlement, as a small, landlocked but ancient nation worked to define its future after the loss of Karabakh.

Turning points

1. 21 September 1991Independence

   Independence from the Soviet Union

   Armenians approved independence by referendum and the Supreme Council declared secession from the U.S.S.R.; the United States recognised Armenia on 25 December 1991.

   ↗See the data

   [19] [15]

2. 1994War & Rupture

   First Nagorno-Karabakh War ceasefire

   After fighting that left roughly 30,000 dead (estimate) and hundreds of thousands displaced, a 1994 ceasefire left Armenian forces in de facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent districts.

   ↗See the data

   [18]

3. April–May 2018Politics & Power

   The Velvet Revolution

   A peaceful protest movement led by Nikol Pashinyan brought down the governing elite and installed a new reform government, with Pashinyan elected prime minister.

   [15]

4. Sept–Nov 2020War & Rupture

   Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

   In a 44-day war Azerbaijan retook much of the territory around Nagorno-Karabakh; a Russian-brokered ceasefire on 9 November 2020 ended the fighting, with heavy casualties on both sides (estimates).

   ↗See the data

   [18]

5. September 2023Peoples & Migration

   Azerbaijani offensive and the Karabakh exodus

   An Azerbaijani offensive brought Nagorno-Karabakh fully under its control; within about a week well over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia, and the enclave's authorities were dissolved by 1 January 2024.

   ↗See the data

   [18]

Figures of the era