Читать книгу Armenia and Her People; or, The Story of Armenia by an Armenian - George H. Filian - Страница 8

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The author feels that it is due to both his Armenian readers and himself to explain why, in some points, he has deviated alike from the Armenian historians and his own conviction. It is because on these points, the Armenian records are in irreconcilable conflict with those of Rome or Persia, or both, and in a book mainly for Anglo-Saxon readers it is not possible to defy the general consensus of western scholarship, which, in my judgment, has not given proper weight to Armenian sources. I will specify only two or three items; if my Armenian friends notice other contradictions of their accepted history they will be safe in setting them down to the same cause.

It is a commonplace of Armenian history that St. Gregory, the Illuminator, the Christianizer of Armenia, was the son of Anag, the murderer of King Chosroes (see page 72) born about the time of the murder, and made himself the companion of Chosroes’ son, Tiridates, partly in order to atone for his father’s crime. I am very reluctant to omit this fact; but the birth of Gregory and the death of Ardashir will not fit according to western dates, though they are coherent from Armenian.

I have also given twenty years’ rule and a good character to King Artavasdes, who reigned three and was a coward.

Most unwillingly of all, I have changed a very full and eulogistic account of Moses Khorenatzi, the great national historian of Armenia, for a meager and depreciating one. That he lived in the fifth century and wrote as an eye and ear witness, instead of being a not wholly veracious compiler of two centuries later, and that his history is sound and consistent, is my firm belief. That his work is better known than all other Armenian works together, and is the one native book that has become a standard western classic, shows the powerful genius of the man.

GEORGE H. FILIAN.

MAP OF ARMENIA.