Sayat Nova’s 300th Anniversary

Sayat-Nova, born as Harutyun Sayatyan on 14 June 1712 in Tiflis, was an Armenian poet, musician and ashugh who composed in a number of languages, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian and Turkish. His adopted name Sayat Nova meant “Master of Songs” in Persian. This year marks the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Sayat-Nova’s mother, Sara, was born in Tbilisi, and his father, Karapet, either in Aleppo or Adana. He himself was born in Tbilisi. Sayat Nova was skilled in writing poetry, singing, and playing the kamanchah, Chonguri, Tambur. He performed in the court of Erekle II of Georgia, where he also worked as a diplomat and, apparently, helped forge an alliance between Georgia, Armenia and Shirvan against the Persian Empire. He lost his position at the royal court when he fell in love with the king’s sister, and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant bard.

In 1759 he was ordained as a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church. His wife Marmar died in 1768, leaving behind four children. He served in various locations including Tbilisi and Haghpat Monastery. On November 22, 1795, at the age of 83, he was killed in the monastery by the invading army of Mohammad Khan Qajar, the Shah of Iran, for refusing to denounce Christianity and convert to Islam. He is buried at the Cathedral of Saint George, Tbilisi.

In Armenia, Sayat Nova is considered a great poet who made a considerable contribution to the Armenian poetry and music of his century. Although he lived his entire life in a deeply religious society, his works are mostly secular and full of romantic expressionism. About 220 songs have been attributed to Sayat-Nova, although he may have written thousands more.

Sayat-Nova is considered by many to be the greatest ashugh (folk singer-songwriter) that ever lived in the Caucasus. Composer Alexander Arutiunian wrote an opera called “Sayat Nova”. There is a street and a music school named after him in Yerevan, Armenia, as well as an Armenian-American dance ensemble in the United States, and a pond located in Mont Orford, Quebec, Canada. In Armenia, Sayat Nova is considered a poet who made a considerable contribution to the Armenian poetry of his century. Although he lived his entire life in a deeply religious society, his poems are mostly secular and full of Romantic expressionism. A book on his life and work by Charles Dowsett was published in 1997 titled Sayat’-nova: An 18th-century Troubadour: a Biographical and Literary Study. After the 18th c., the Armenian odes were first translated in France by Elisabeth Mouradian and the french poet Serge Venturini in 2006 ; the book was dedicated to Sergei Parajanov.

One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov’s “Color of the Pomegranate”, a biography of the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) reveals the poet’s life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events inSayat Nova’s life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die, but these incidents are depicted in the context of what are images from Sergei Parajanov’s imagination and Sayat Nova’s poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard.

The Armeno-Tat language

Armeno-Tats are a distinct group of Tat-speaking Armenians that historically populated eastern parts of the South Caucasus. Most scholars researching the Tat language, such as Boris Miller and Igrar Aliyev, agree that Armeno-Tats are ethnic Armenians who underwent a language shift and adopted Tat as their first language. This is explained on one hand by the self-identification of Armeno-Tats who stated during Miller’s research that they consider themselves Armenian as well as by some linguistic features of their dialect.

Adam Olearius travelled through the historical region of Shirvan (present-day central Azerbaijan) in 1637 and mentioned the existence of a community of Armenians in the city of Shamakhi, who “had its own language” but also “spoke Turkic, as did all people in Shirvan”. Archaeologist Vladimir Sysoyev, who visited Shamakhi in 1925 and described ruins of a mediaeval Armenian church, held interviews with local residents who dated the first settlement of Armenians in Shamakhi and its vicinities to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Historically mountainous Shirvan was an area of mixed Tat-Azeri settlement with the former slowly assimilating into the latter.

Olearius, Bakikhanov and Miller noted a high rate of assimilation among Shirvan Armenians, with some adopting Muslim faith and diffusing in the majority (which went on well into the eighteenth century) and others shifting to the Tat language, while remaining Christian. By the early twentieth century, there were only two villages where Tat-speaking Christian Armenians continued to live: Madrasa and Kilvar. With regard to the origin of Armeno-Tats, Miller quotes bishop Mesrop Smbatian in stating that at least some groups of them were eighteenth-century migrants from Karabakh. Armenians of Kilvar claimed descent from mediaeval migrants from Edessa (present-day Şanlıurfa, Turkey). Comparing southern Tat dialects and Armeno-Tat, Miller concluded that Armenians of Madrasa may have been early migrants from the Absheron Peninsula where the presence of a Christian community was historically attested. Interestingly, some Armeno-Tats who had earlier switched to Tat as their first language, such as residents of Garajally, went on to switch to Azeri by the end of the eighteenth century.

In 1796, after a Russian incursion into the South Caucasus, most residents of Kilvar and Talabi and some residents of Garajally, about 50 families altogether, chose to leave with the troops and founded the village of Edissia (after the city of Edessa where they believed their ancestors had come from) in the present-day Stavropol Krai of Russia. In 1926, they still retained good knowledge of Tat and were referred to by the local population asmalakhantsy (from the Tat mal xan, i.e. “of the khan”, meaning they were subjects of the Quba Khanate). According to other sources, Armenians of Edissia, along with those living in the suburbs of Kizlyar, spoke a Turkic idiom they referred to as bizimja (“our talk”) which they adopted while still in Shirvan.

The remaining Armeno-Tats lived in Madrasa and Kilvar until the Nagorno-Karabakh War, when they were forced to leave for Armenia. Initially Armenians of Madrasa had planned to undergo a population exchange with the residents of the Azeri-populated village of Shidli in Armenia, but the Spitak earthquake in Armenia which destroyed the village made the plan unrealisable. In 1989, they collectively moved to the Aragatsotn Province of Armenia where they founded the village of Dprevank. There are 6,000 Armenians living in Edissia.

Armeno-Tats of Madrasa and Kilvar referred to their language as p’arseren (“Persian”), while Armeno-Tat migrants to the North Caucasus and Astrakhan called it keghetseren (“village talk”) and used it within their own community as an in-group language. Armenian researcher Armen Hakobian identifies the eighteenth century as the time when Tat was first mentioned as a mothertongue for some groups of Shirvan Armenians. Boris Miller likened their dialect to central varieties of Muslim Tat, which Armeno-Tat was mutually intelligible with, rather than to Judæo-Tat. Residents of the Absheron villages of Balakhany and Surakhany – considered speakers of southern Muslim Tat – also reported ease at understanding Armeno-Tat.

With the exception of Kohna Khachmaz and the extinct Armenian community of Garajally, where the Armenian population was Azeri-speaking, Armeno-Tats spoke and used Tat to communicate with residents of other Armeno-Tat villages. Armeno-Tats of Kilvar were often bilingual in Tat and Azeri and historically used the latter to communicate with Armenian-speaking Armenians as late as in 1912. The introduction of public education in the early twentieth century led to Armeno-Tats acquiring Armenian, which however they used only in communication with outsider Armenians or as a written language. This process intensified in the Soviet times, leading to Armeno-Tats’ almost complete shift from Tat to Armenian by the late 1980s.

The Christian dialect of Tat displays typical Tat rhotacism (mutation of Persian /d/ into /r/), but differs from other Tat dialects in lacking pharyngeal consonants /ʕ/ and /ħ/.

Today the Armeno-Tat dialect is considered nearly extinct, with most Armeno-Tats having switched to Armenian and Russian. In 2002, only 36 Armenians in Russia spoke Tat either as a first or second language. There is an unknown number of speakers in Armenia, all of whom, however, are over 50.

Armenian Army Before Christ

AZAT KARDAKA : The Armenian infantry was not of a nomad culture. Great cities were established in a mountaineous land, providing a mix of infantry and heavy cavalry. This infantry was partially inspired by the ancient model of the Persian Empire, but Armenian Sovereign soon admired the new Hellenistic model of the conquerors and created Hellenized eastern infantry such as the kentronakan and the nakahararakan (originally dismounted bodyguards of the royal palace). These were foot soldiers, a battleline unit, using the phalanx formation. In 300 BC Armenia was a former satrapy of the Persian Empire, now an Alexandrian satrapy, under the rule of Neoptolemos, and in 301 bc, an independant kingdom under the old Orontid dynasty, and Orontes II. It was under the sphere of influence of the Seleucid empire, and a Hellenized court. This infantry was a cross between the Persian kardaka, hoplite-like heavy bodyguards, and traditionnal greek hoplites. Their clothes were those of the kardaka, and their greek-style linen armor was reinforced with bronze scales. They bear also a short sword and a 75 cm to 1-meter wide aspis, made with wood and reinforced with bronze. They also bear an Urartian cone helmet. In a battle, they usually stay with the king but could fight alongside the spearmen and were more agile than most.

DISMOUNTED NAKAHAR : This elite infantry was in fact not a regular one, composed of dismounted cataphract nobles, to act as a heavy infantry when needed on rough terrain, as an assault support or an elite assault infantry. Although slow and not particularly agile, they were highly protected and fought with heavy mace and javelins.

AZAKU MARDIG (late romanized heavy infantry) : Between 180 and 150 BC, the Romans victories against the Hellenic phalanx had a tremendous impact on the warfare doctrine in the east and southern Hellenic kingdoms. Under Tigranes II, dismounted nobles or wealthy warriors were chosen to form specially trained units, with a strong legionary influence. Although having some Hellenistic equipment such as the thureos shield, greaves, scaled linothorax, several javelins instead of heavy pila, and a long eastern sword instead of a gladius, they were used in small sized homogeneous units for better tactical flexibiliy. As an elite, they were few, but by far the best foot infantry of Tigranes II which discarded some of his former phalanx units. These units were part of the Armenian “Imperial” new army that conquered roughly the western part of the former Persian Empire. During his reign, Tigranes saw himself as the successor of the Hellenist culture after Pontus failed to defeat the Romans. Although a match for the Roman legions, these azat warriors were only a small part of the whole Armenian infantry, mostly still made up of old-style light spearmen and mountaineer axemen and archers. They saw some success against Lucullus in 68 bc, they failed eventually to prevent the surrender while facing the Pompeian armies.

HAI NIZAKAMARTIK (armenian thureophoroi) : Elite skirmish free men (azat), with heavier equipment than the usual javelinmen, they could stand their ground against all kind of infantry. Historically, this was a relatively late unit, created under Hellenic influence. They were lighter than the later legions and even but highly skilled.

GUND I PATLA (Local tribesmen levy peltasts) : local caucasian javelinmen, raised from remote villages and fought with light equipment. They were better for guerrilla warfare.

THANVAR HAYASDAN (levy tribesmen archers) : Armenian free archers, they used their light composite bow with great efficiency, not with spectacular range but quick rate of fire.

THANVAR AZADAN (Elite archers) ; Certainly amongst the best archers in Asia, they stood their ground fiercly, with powerful long-range composite bows and specially-shaped arrows. They were also highly skilled in longsword close-range battle.

SHIVATIR (Mounted archers) : The backbone of the light cavalry, these levied horsemen were famous for their skills, speed, rate of fire, and accuracy. They were a nightmare for heavy troops on march, lightely protected infantrymen, and were used to harass enemy lines. At close fight they fought with light axes, daggers or short swords.

SKUDAN SHIVATIR (Scythian horse archers) : Although the Armenians never expand north beyond the Caucasian barrier, many scythian fled to avoid slavery or the constant threat of the Sarmatians. From Pontus, many scythian horse-archers traveled the black sea to serve as mercenaries, due to their ancient and widespread fame as horse-archers. The late Tigranes Empire, controlling the Silk Road and many Black Sea eastern ports, was rich and could enlist mercenaries en masse, including many Scythian horse-archers.

ASPET HETSELAZOR : These were lesser noble cavalry, petty nobles earning small properties, lightly but well protected, and using short kontos. They formed the bigger part of the lancer cavalry, mounted on medium sized horses that were known for their speed. Perfect to counter most cavalry units, they were good at protecting the flanks and chasing off light infantry or added their weight to the charge of the nobles.

ZRAHAKIR NETADZIK : These noble horse archers were well equipped and highly skilled, trained as horsemen for war and hunting from their youth. Disciplined, sturdy and hardened, they formed the “long arm” of the fast-moving Armenian cavalry. Horses were powerful niseans, but only partial cataphracts in order to be faster. After a rain of arrows, these nobles fought melee with heavy maces, swords, and kontos that their retinue carried.

KAPPATUKA AZAT : This famous heavy cavalry from near Cappadocia were part of the gigantic Armenian army during the reign of Tigranes II, after the fall of Pontus. They were a breed that was a cross between the local and nisean breeds, producing strong and tall mounts.  Famous in the Persian army, they retained their fame and quality until the fall of Pontus and Armenia under Roman sphere, most of them recruited to form the first clibinarii units to fight the Parthians and Sassanians.

NAKAHARARAKAN ASPET (Early bodyguard cavalry) : These high nobles were retained in the royal guard as cataphract lancers. They were kept in reserve and launched when necessary, delivering an unexpected shock to the enemy forces. After the blow of their heavy cladded nisean horses and the long kontos lances, melee combat was common using maces and longswords. If the first blow was not sufficient to disrupt the enemy line, lighter cavalry then charged to turn the tide of battle.

HYE SPARAPET (Late bodyguard royal cataphracts) : These heavy cavalry were modelled partly on the heavy Parthian cavalry. These were nobles of noble lineage which formed a very powerful and impressive unit of cataphracts with only one goal : Crushing enemy infantry lines, including the heaviest and well-armed. They were slow, but their tremendous charge was like a hammerhead. After the shock of their long and heavy lances, they fought in the melee with heavy maces, ready to crush helmets and shields.

source: http://www.ancient-battles.com/catw/armenia.htm

Armenian Army Before Christ 1

source: Rome- Total War website

Far in the east, beyond the Taurus mountains, an old and proud people still lives out in the great cataclysm of political changes.

The Armenian Kingdom was in 612 BC controlled by Medes and later by Persia. During the conquest battles against Alexander the Great, the Armenian heavy cavalry, known for its valor, fought and died front-line. After Darius fled and the whole Persian empire had was placed under Macedonian control, Armenia was maintained in the Alexander Empire, but found her independence after his death, surviving between the Pontic Kingdom, the Seleucid Empire and the Parthians. In 300 BC, Armenia was under tutelary presence of the Seleucids, with a semi-autonomy provided by a special satrapal regime of favor. Armenia was ruled by her own kings of ancient Urartian descent, but was theoretically under Seleucid suzerainty.

In 190 BC, the Armenian territories were reunified and under the new Artashesian dynasty, a new capital, Artashat, was built – as the Romans wrote it – by the refugee Hannibal Barca himself. Soon, the reign of Tigranes II began in 95bc, alongside another great king, Mithridates of Pontus. Under his reign, the Armenian Kingdom expanded to include new territories, from the Caspian to Egypt and Palestine. The Armenian army is an interesting one. It is a good mix of the classic eastern horse-archers and a foot infantry army. The introduction of the phalanx was recent, from the pontic and seleucid influence, but the whole infantry was more a bunch of hand-to-hand combat infantry and mixt archers heritated from the persian warfare. This was a good mix, well used against the Roman legions.

NIZAM GUND (Levy spearmen) : Unlike the ancient “true” sparabara which were better trained and efficient, the Nizam Gund were eastern spearmen of the most basic type. As “modern sparabara”, they were ony “spara-bearers”, their common equipment was a rectangular wicker shield and a spear. They wore a tunic, often brightly colored, but no armour at all, even a linen soft cap. These were levies, poor commoners, thrown to the battle with little training and simple orders. They were not intended to make complicated tactical moves, but only offer a large-scale spear “buffer”. Their number was intimidating enough for every cavalry unit. Their short spears were also easy to manage, but more useful against infantry than cavalry. They were the suicide group and as such had very low morale. But their main advantage was in their large number, quick recruitment and cheap price of equipment and training. To protect archers, they were always useful.

NIZAGAMARTIK (Spearmen) : Nizagamartik were armenian spearmen from the plains, citizens and peasants, not levies, as they were well-trained to fight in the battlefront and act as soldiers. They were however poorely equipped, with only a large wicker shield as protection, which could be compared to the Persian spara. Some were armed with an additionnal dagger. They had longer spears than militia and their main duty was to stop cavalry charges. Recruited amongst the frontiersmen, they were cunning people, usually fightining for their lives against the fierce mountaineers and other raiding nomads. As ancient Urartian spearmen, and in the sparabara tradition, they were trained to hold the line and operate some simple tactic moves. This was a more valuable unit than the sparabara, and the simple militias. Their great number was a match for every enemy cavalry. They were physically and mentally stronger and could sustain an assaut with any foot infantry, to protect themselves and hold the line with their large shield under an heavy rain of arrows, where others would have fled.

SAGARAMARTIK (light assaut infantry) : The armenian lands are made from fertile valleys and cold and savage mountains. There, in their rocky nests, some citadels and fortified villages were the home of local warrior lords, who organized raid parties against the valley peoples. The Arsacid, which inherited the ancient land of their ancestors, the Urartian empire, had to deal for centuries against these fierce mountaineers. Finally, they found it more useful to draw these rude men into the army with generous wages. More than mercenaries, these former brigands were integrated in the armenian army as auxiliaries, playing roughly the same attack duty as the Persian takabara. They were armed by the heavy war-axes of the Scythians, the sagaris, and had a wicker shield to protect against arrows, though they would be ineffective against sword or spear blows. They would have been posted to the front of the phalanx` used to break and tire the enemy, or at the wings` to be thrown at the weakest point of the enemy defenses and break his line, allowing the better armed and protected sooseramartik to exploit the breach.

KENTRONAKAN (Heavy spearmen): Although the nizagamartik formed the bulk force of the infantry in a battle line, they were backed themselves by elite spearmen, the Kentronakan. They were veterans, chosen and trained to form a phalanx-like formation, although it was not really a true phalanx in a Macedonian sense, but rather in the Persian sense, as they still used their cumbersome spara shields. They were mostly used to hold the line, as they had a longer spear, reinforced shield (which need to be strapped on the forearm) and the spear needing both arms to prove useful. They were slow, but very sturdy and fearless, with high morale and training. They were very well equipped with a large rectangular shaped, iron faced shields, and carried a long sword of high quality as secondary weapon. If needed, they could act as an elite infantry unit, but their large shield was meant for defence first and foremost. They could act as an anchor in the middle of levies and light spearmen. These were one of the best on-foot troops the Armenians could offer.

AZAD SPARABARA (Royal sparabara) : This Elite infantry was an early one, derived from the ancient Persian royal sparabara, and just as well-equipped with a bronze plumed helmet, quilted or scaled armor, and the famous counterweight “apple-spear” or “melophoroi”. They were extremely well trained and protected behind their large shield. It was a royal unit maintained by the local Armenian king, acting as a satrap for the Persian army. In 300 BC they were still a part of the Armenian army, but quickly faded in favor to newly trained hellenized spearmen fighting in phalanx. This old-fashioned unit fought with their spear over their high spara, and trained to advance slowly in thight formation, just as the old sumerian phalanx. They were also equipped with daggers and small sagaris axes for close-combat, when their cohesion was broken.

SOOSERAMARTIK (heavy swordsmen) The Armenian army was influenced by the nearby Hellenistic superpowers, even though its core was very Persian based. The professional infantry was usually divided between the defensive spearmen, archers behind, and attack troops. In the beginning, there were the cheaper, prolific mountaineer axemen but were found to be too undisciplined and difficult to control. Later, a new heavy greek-style skirmisher was intoduced and a new medium infantry which were mainly swordsmen. The very first sooseramartik were in fact local sword bearers. It was a veteran infantry, chosen from the regular spearmen units with physically stronger and skilled men, raised by their officers as a promotion. They were given good quality armor, a long sword of high standard, and two heavy javelins to back their assault. This infantry was also used by Pontus, and became more romanized in the time of Tigranes II, using the chainmail and gladius.

ARMENIAN PHALANX : This late heavy infantry was modelled after the Hellenistic phalanx. This was no doubt a very sturdy infantry, made of chosen veterans from the regular heavy spear units -like the famous kentrokanan. They were heavily armoured, combining scale and mail armor, and trained to make a Macedonian-style phalanx.