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ASHOT MELKONYAN COUNTERS HURRIYET'S PUBLICATION: "URARTU IS ARMENIAN"
August 16 2013
According to Hurriyet, presently activities are carried out in Turkey
to receive 3D designs of Van kings gravestones through laser and
the latest technologies; the work was taken up by the Department of
History and Archaeology of the University in Istanbul. According to
the same source, the Turks consider the gravestones the most important
monuments of Urartu period. Naturally, all of this is attributed to
the Turks. Aravot.am asked Dr. Ashot Melkonyan, director of the ANAS
Institute of History, Doctor of Historical Sciences, to give assessment
to all that: "I'm not surprised, Turks have started to appropriate the
history of Urartu long ago, and we certainly have a share of guilt
in this. Unfortunately, there are directions in our historiography,
which do not see Urartu as an integral part of Armenian statehood and
consider an anti-Armenian state. In the result of this approach to
the history, our neighbors master the history of Urartu. The Turkish
Historical Society, which was created in the 1930â~@²s by Mustafa
Kemal instruction, faced just a similar problem, to show just from
the beginning the presence of Turks in this region, particularly,
in Van kingdom. And, now they consider this issue "resolved" at the
state level, they consider Urartu to be the first Turkish state in
this region. I think that our historiography needs to finally give up
the rotten concept of historiography, and fully presents Urartu as a
unified Armenian state with its ethnic composition, like we tried to
do it in high school textbooks, the same is now done in 6-9th grades
textbook. Generally, in the issue of history of Urartu, not only Turks
but Azeris, and partly Georgians have become claimants, in which our
previous generation have their share of guilt,"-says Mr. Melkonyan. And
what disturbs to counter the Turkish falsification on a state
level? "I repeat, there is a scientific point of view, according to
which Urartu is not Armenian in reality, it is pre-Armenia, whose
language was not Armenian, as if there was such a language, Urartian,
which had nothing in common with Armenian language, and as if the
kings of Urartu were not Armenian descent. Under these conditions,
of course, there cannot be a state approach, when, unfortunately,
there is no single approach in historical sciences. Anyway, the
opinion of the Institute of History is unambiguously: Urartu is our
kingdom of Ararat, the first unified Armenian state formation in
the Armenian Highland, before which, still in the third millennium
there were other state formations, as Araattan, Etiunin, Hayasa Azi
and more. In other words, the history of Armenian statehood at least
begins from the third millennium before Christ,"-assures the scientist.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/08/16/156044/
August 16 2013
According to Hurriyet, presently activities are carried out in Turkey
to receive 3D designs of Van kings gravestones through laser and
the latest technologies; the work was taken up by the Department of
History and Archaeology of the University in Istanbul. According to
the same source, the Turks consider the gravestones the most important
monuments of Urartu period. Naturally, all of this is attributed to
the Turks. Aravot.am asked Dr. Ashot Melkonyan, director of the ANAS
Institute of History, Doctor of Historical Sciences, to give assessment
to all that: "I'm not surprised, Turks have started to appropriate the
history of Urartu long ago, and we certainly have a share of guilt
in this. Unfortunately, there are directions in our historiography,
which do not see Urartu as an integral part of Armenian statehood and
consider an anti-Armenian state. In the result of this approach to
the history, our neighbors master the history of Urartu. The Turkish
Historical Society, which was created in the 1930â~@²s by Mustafa
Kemal instruction, faced just a similar problem, to show just from
the beginning the presence of Turks in this region, particularly,
in Van kingdom. And, now they consider this issue "resolved" at the
state level, they consider Urartu to be the first Turkish state in
this region. I think that our historiography needs to finally give up
the rotten concept of historiography, and fully presents Urartu as a
unified Armenian state with its ethnic composition, like we tried to
do it in high school textbooks, the same is now done in 6-9th grades
textbook. Generally, in the issue of history of Urartu, not only Turks
but Azeris, and partly Georgians have become claimants, in which our
previous generation have their share of guilt,"-says Mr. Melkonyan. And
what disturbs to counter the Turkish falsification on a state
level? "I repeat, there is a scientific point of view, according to
which Urartu is not Armenian in reality, it is pre-Armenia, whose
language was not Armenian, as if there was such a language, Urartian,
which had nothing in common with Armenian language, and as if the
kings of Urartu were not Armenian descent. Under these conditions,
of course, there cannot be a state approach, when, unfortunately,
there is no single approach in historical sciences. Anyway, the
opinion of the Institute of History is unambiguously: Urartu is our
kingdom of Ararat, the first unified Armenian state formation in
the Armenian Highland, before which, still in the third millennium
there were other state formations, as Araattan, Etiunin, Hayasa Azi
and more. In other words, the history of Armenian statehood at least
begins from the third millennium before Christ,"-assures the scientist.
Gohar HAKOBYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/08/16/156044/