3.1.12

Caucasus or Armenian Highland? Who are we trying to appease?

Arpi Beglaryan 
Translated by Vartan Matiossian
Many people have gotten wrong their conception of the Armenian Highland. In particular, almost everywhere, including Armenia, there are many amateurs who attach the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh, Nakhichevan and Djavakhk to the Caucasus, and call Armenians with the name of Caucasians.
However, there are many irrefutable proofs against this, of which the most important is that the homeland of the Armenian people is the Armenian Highland. The Armenian people was formed here, created its rich culture here, and continues to live and create here, in the Armenian Highland. 
The terms Little Caucasus and Transcaucasus were artificially created by the Soviet authorities (1). And they were created by the simple reson that they wanted to incorporate the historical Armenian territories to other states and deprive the Armenian party, in the future, from the chance of restoring historical justice.
The Soviet regime could not recognize Artsakh, Djavakhk, and Nakhichevan as part of the Armenian Highland and even the highest peak of Soviet Armenia, the Aragatz, was included in the Caucasus.
The borders of the Armenian Highland are comprised between the Pontic mountains and the Caucasus on the north; the Iranian Plateau on the east; Mesopotamia on the south, and the Anatolian Plateau on the west. By the way, the median altitude of the Armenian Highland is higher in comparison to the others.
The Armenian Highland is the central plateau of our entire area, and the term "Armenian Highland" is not used just because of the word "Armenian," for 80% of the Armenian Highland is within Turkey and the term "Armenian Highland" is not used precisely because of Turkey. The Soviet Union, to avoid "upsetting" the Turks, invented the artificial denomination "Little Caucasus." Such a denomination, actually, has never existed in any historical source.
If the falsification of historical evidence is understandable in everyone's case, it is at least incomprehensible and unacceptable in the Armenian case.

Emedia.am (November 18, 2011)
(1) Translator's Note: This statement is inaccurate. The term "Trans-Caucasus" already existed in pre-Soviet times and was used in the administration of the Russian Empire. It appeared, for instance, in a report sent to his government in 1894 by the British Consul of Batum on the agricultural condition of the area (see the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture, March 1895, p. 326). The geographical term "Little Caucasus" was recorded, for instance, in the American Journal of Science and Arts, November 1868, p. 217, as including the Great and Little Ararat, the Aragatz, and the Kaputdjugh.

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