Ashot Melkonyan: If the subject is renamed ‘History of Armenia’, we will leave out the glorious history of the kingdom of Cilicia

During the Soviet years, schools had the subject “History of the Armenian People”, which, of course, could no longer meet the requirements of independent Armenia, so that term had to be changed, Director of the NAS History Institute Ashot Melkonyan told Alpha News.

“During the Soviet years, the name of the subject ‘History of the Armenian People’, obviously, could no longer meet the requirements of the new, independent Armenia. The term had to be changed, especially since we had its traditional version, ‘Armenian History’, which comes from Movses Khorenatsi, Agathangelos, Faustus of Byzantium, Parpetsi to Michael Chamchian—18th century.

The debate in the early 1990s ended with the absolute majority of scholars coming to the conclusion that the correct version is the use of the traditional ‘Armenian History’ instead of the previous ‘History of the Armenian People’. Why? In the ‘History of the Armenian People’, the Soviet government tried to stress the place and role of the people in history and emphasized the state of the people, which was obviously unacceptable in the post-Soviet years. The honorable scientists of our time, academicians Vladimir Barkhudaryan, Hrant Avetisyan, and Gagik Sargsyan came to the conclusion that the correct version is ‘Armenian history’,” Melkonyan said.

According to Melkonyan, when the term “Armenian history” came into use, it did not mean the history of Armenians, as it is perceived today in the case of the Armenian language.

“Armenian language means the language of Armenians or the language of the Armenian people. However, in the 5th century, the term ‘Armenian’ meant the history of Armenian statehood, because historically, apart from the Kingdom of Greater Armenia (Mets Hayk), there was also Lesser Armenia (Poqr Hayk). And our historians were always interested in the history of those two Armenias (Hayks). In other words, Armenian history meant the history of these two Hayks,” our interlocutor said.

Ashot Melkonyan also noted that if today the name of the subject is changed to ‘History of Armenia’, it will not include the history of the Kingdom of Cilicia.

“‘Armenian History’ means the history of two Armenias, the history of two Hayks. And when writing the ‘History of Armenia’, we can no longer refer to Cilicia because Cilicia is outside the territories of the historical Greater and Lesser Armenias. It is true, we use the term Cilician Armenia, but in any case, Cilicia is not part of our Armenian highlands, and by writing the history of Armenia, we will leave out the glorious history of the Armenian statehood of the entire Cilicia,” Melkonyan noted with regret.