Why couldn't Armenians....

[SoyElTurco]

Re: Why couldn't Armenians....

Wow, you have a big mouth. perhaps more impressive than your tongue is your ability to believe your rhetoric.

So are you saying the sophistication of the Armenians was responsible for their inefficiency?

and they were "fiercely independent - yet fiercely disunited" does that mean they were too selfish, miserly and narrow to share their sophisticated talents and intelligence?

You seem to be proud of these characteristics and at the same time you attribute the cause of your defeat, setback and failure as a nation to these characterisitcs. If you're so proud of these characteristics and that they were clearly responsible for your failure and demise, then why are you crying about things like genocide, land and reparations?

Shouldn't you accept these grievances and inequities done against you as proof of your highly civilized talents, intelligence, skills, freedoms and culture?

So why are you crying?

You're right about one thing, namely, that I am a slave. And I am proud of being one.
By being slaves, we accomplished the Blue Mosque, the Fatih Mosque, the Süleymaniye Mosque, and converted many Orthodox churches, including the Hagia Sofia and many in Eastern Anatolia, into mosques. In fact, we were an Empire of Slaves. Our system of Devşirme was a slave system. We enslaved the non-muslim children and let them eventually succeed to high offices and put all our trust into them, that they ran The Empire - we let slaves from christian families run our empire.

We are slaves. We are slaves to God, the Almighty. Therefore we serve one another. I am not ashamed of being a slave.

P.S. To answer your question, as long as the lands are in the hands of Muslims, I am fine with a Kurdish state instead of an Armenian state. Though as Muslims, we are ordered by God to be together.

Ermeni, dine gelsene - kardeş olalim.

[Armenian]

Re: Why couldn't Armenians....

Good question. Thank you for bringing this up. I would like Armenians to seriously think about this topic.

But before we go on, realize that Turks only managed to create their empire due to the political weaknesses of Byzantine, Armenian, Persian and Middle Eastern powers... Turkish power rose during a time when the natives of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus were exhausted from constant warfare that had lasted centuries, most of which was occurring within the Armenian Highlands... The natives of the region had more-or-less fought themselves to the point of utter exhaustion. Moreover, the relentless stream of barbarian Huns, Tatars, Seljuks, Turkmens, Mongols, Ottomans, etc., was simply too much for the region's highly cultured and civilized nations to check effectively.

It's no secret that barbarians fight better than highly cultured peoples. This has been one of the fundamental ailments of world history.

The first Turks in Asia Minor/Armenian Highlands were the Seljuks. The Seljuk leader, Alp Arslan, managed to invade Asia Minor in 1064 only because the Byzantines at the time had in effect dissolved the Armenian Bagratuni kingdom during the 1040s. During the historic battle by the Armenian town of Manzikert in 1084, when the Seljuks symbolically broke down the gates of Asia Minor, the Byzantine empire did not have the crucial/pivotal support of the region's Armenians as well as having serious internal issues amongst themselves... Actually, due to their hatred of the Byzantines a significant portion of the Armenian population at the time may have even supported the Seljuks. Had the Byzantines made an alliance with Armenia at the time instead of relentlessly conspiring to destroy it - there would not have been a Turkish presence in Asia Minor today.

To their credit, Turkic peoples, being uncivilized and uncultured at the time, were united enough, barbaric enough and hungry enough to persevere against their vastly more civilized but hopelessly disunited enemies. So, history has given you Turks the credit for being united and relentless - yet uncultured and barbaric...

But you are right, other than Tigran the Great's short lived empire, which was created during a political vacuum in Asia Minor, Armenia only managed to create various kingdoms and principalities of various degrees of effectiveness. From Urartu to Cilicia Armenians managed to create powerful yet 'limited' kingdoms. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many historians, the reasons for this are geography, politics, culture and genetics.

From the beginning of time, mountain dwelling Armenians living in what was essentially the crossroads of the world were always stuck between major empires. So, in a sense, we Armenians never really had long periods of political stability. Historically, mountain peoples also tend to be fiercely independent - yet fiercely disunited as well. Historically, empires have been created by lowlands peoples which have tended to be compliant/slavish and isolated peoples such islanders.

Genetically and culturally Armenians have been too ambitious, too cleaver, too talented, and more importantly - too 'individualistic' to be united under one banner, be it Armenian or any other. Unlike Europeans and Asians, Armenians have never made good followers/servants.

So, our both people's respective national characteristics have been one of your greatest weapons. But times are changing. I think we will again carve out a significant portion of Asia Minor under an Armenian banner. Like in the past, we wont be a great empire, but we will again be a major regional power.

Besides, empires live big but they die nasty.

PS: You Turks will eventually loose some of your eastern provinces to the majority Kurds there. Wouldn't you rather just give the territory in question to us Armenians instead? When a Kurdish nation rises wouldn't you Turks want a powerful Armenia as a counterbalance in the region? What kind of neighbors would you like to have to your east, Kurds or Armenians?

[SoyElTurco]

Why couldn't Armenians create a sustaining, lasting and large empire to this day?

Anatolia has been swapped between the Romans, Macedonians (Alexander the Great), Persians, Byzantines, Some Arabs, and finally the Turks. Since Armenians did inhabit most of eastern Anatolia for centuries, why weren't they effective enough to create their own empire that survived through into a nation state?

The only time Armenians managed to maintain empires were the interim periods between the other empires; Armenia only came around when the land was being switched hands amongst other empires.

It's just one of those things. You know, have been there first and around for a while but never got around to anything. Kind of like the native Americans in America - they had so many opportunities to stop the Europeans - but it just didn't happen.

Was it just bad luck?