Part 2 — Chapter V Summary

Such are the festivals treated in the second and last part of this thesis. Is it true that they form a vehicle of expression for the national sentiment created by the large mass of social material of which the legends of Part One are a considerable and important portion? Again it will be necessary to remind ourselves of the chief sentiments included within Armenian national sentiment, i.e., the sentiment of loyalty to the church, the sentiment of reverence amounting almost to worship for the ancient glory of the nation, and the sentiment of love for the country. It would be ridiculous to suppose that every festival was designed to give expression to some one of these sentiments. But that these sentiments are given very clear, very real outward expression in the great majority of the celebrations described, should be so evident at this point as to make further exposition unnecessary. In the summer Festival of Vartavar, the spring Festival of Mihr, Vartan’s Day, and in the consecration of the Katholikos there is the proud and reverent looking back to the times when Armenia was an independent nation; the festival ceremonies of the third group, baptism, betrothal, marriage, and funeral, though they are not positive expressions of the sentiments of loyalty to the church, are yet so completely interwoven with the church and dependent upon it that one is compelled to regard the feeling as something to be taken for granted, while in most of the festivals of the second group, Christmas, Easter, Maundy Thursday, and the Blessing of the Grapes especially, the sentiment is given a more positive expression. As for the sentiment of love for the country, that is identified especially with Vartavar and Vartan’s Day. It is evident, therefore, that each of these festivals and festival-ceremonies forms a medium more or less evident as the case may be, for the expression of one or more or all of the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment. Some of them are not to be classified as readily as this, as for example, the festival of Ascension morning, or Fortune-Telling Day, in which the dominant sentiment is one of romantic love, or in the Blessing of the Water, where the desire for a gain in health or wealth is the main psychological fact.

Each one of these festivals, however, is a great deal more than the putting into activity of some of the above sentiments. In many of them the play-instinct is clearly evident, while in a few such as Vartavar, the whole self, with all its sentiments, instincts, tendencies, and emotions, is given the fullest and most unrestrained freedom. A festival, if it is anything, is a letting loose of the reins; there is nothing to hinder, nothing to keep back, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and the self reaches out in a higher consciousness of fullness and completeness of living. As such it would be the greatest of fallacies to suppose any one of the festivals to be restricted to a particular sentiment. Nevertheless, it is clear, that the festivals do constitute vehicles of expression for the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment.

Conclusions

The general conclusions to which this study unmistakably gives rise are in respect to the national traits of the Armenian people. These traits have been brought out both explicitly and implicitly in connection with the various legends and festivals considered, and it is my purpose, therefore, to summarize and substantiate them at this point. They include, first, the superstitiousness, second, the conservatism, third, the self-sufficiency, and lastly the familism of the people.

First of these qualities, superstitiousness, may be ascribed in large measure to geographical isolation. The country to be sure, is so situated as to form a highway from Europe to the Mesopotamian valley, and from Asiatic Russia to the Mediterranean, and although it has been overrun by Assyrians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Persians, Turks, Egyptians, and still others, yet we must speak of it as isolated, for the science that has brought remote countries into contact has not affected Armenia to any considerable degree. Subject to a backward nation, lacking all modern means of communication, the country is shut off and the plows of civilization have not yet furrowed the social soil of superstition. How general these superstitions are is brought out especially by the festivals described, many of which have given rise to a superstition or a group of superstitions. From Vartavar, there came the belief that the dust from the sacred altar served as a talisman for children learning their A B C’s; the spring fire festival gave rise to the practice of taking home a glowing brand for good luck; there is the belief that the blessed water will cure various diseases, and that the oil scraped from the anointed foot with a walnut given by the priest after washing the feet at the ceremony of Maundy Thursday, will keep a supply of butter throughout the year. And then there are the beliefs in the miraculous power of the holy oil, manufactured with due ceremony every four years at Sis; in the healing power of the various sacred relics kept at Etchmiadzin and other places, and ten thousand others. There are also beliefs not of a religious character as the above, such as the one in regard to the tetagush, the little locust-eating bird, which is supposed to be attracted by Ararat spring water. The same superstition obtains in other parts of the country with the difference that the inconvenience of obtaining Ararat spring water makes it necessary for the people to believe in the peculiar efficacy of other springs. These illustrations are sufficient, and although it could hardly be proved that Armenians are more innately superstitious than the Anglo-Saxon ancestors who believed only a few generations ago in the power of the malignant eye, and that an innocent person might pass through fire unharmed, yet their superstitious nature and beliefs are present-day facts explained most completely on the ground of comparative isolation from the rest of the world.

Second of the national characteristics of the people clearly brought out by this study is their conservatism. This may also be traced in large measure to their secluded condition, but in larger proportion is it due to the solidarity and national consciousness, which naturally consider innovations as foreign, and intrusions of foreign cultures, ideals, customs, and manners as hostile. That this is true is indicated conclusively by the fact that in Constantinople, where Armenian culture has naturally come in conflict with that of the Greek, the Turk, and the European, the Armenians have not at all given up their ways to imitate any of the three peoples mentioned. To be sure they have not adhered rigidly to the old beliefs and practices of the interior. Comparison has resulted in substitution, and conflict between the rational and irrational, the utile and the inutile, has meant displacement, but invariably by something distinctly different from the usages and practices current among Turk or European. That is, Armenians are themselves centers of imitation by fellow Armenians who, though they follow the lines suggested by their fellow countrymen, scorn to imitate even the European, whose superiority is generally recognized in Constantinople. The Armenian, recognizing no superior, has merely modified his own practices, usages, manners, and customs to suit his changed environment. And therefore I say that the characteristic Armenian conservatism is due rather to a strong feeling of nationality than to isolation.

The conservatism of the church has been an important element. Refusing to have anything to do with the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, the church became independent and has maintained a policy of the most rigid ultra-conservatism ever since. Says Ormanian:

That this same spirit is reflected in the social life of the people is something one would naturally expect, in view of the important influence of the church over the entire life of the people. As the father of the Alan princess replied when requested to give the hand of his daughter to Artasches, “From whence shall brave Artasches give thousands upon thousands and ten thousands upon tens of thousands unto the Alans in return for the maiden?” so to-day the first question that is asked when the hand of a young Armenian girl is requested in marriage is “What can he give for his bride?” The practice of wife purchase has only changed in that the required riches are given to the bride instead of to the father of the bride. Occasionally a young man is pressed to the point of mortgaging property in order to obtain the necessary funds, and it has been known that in many such cases the young bride found her treasure gone shortly after her marriage, her master having taken it to pay off his mortgage. So parents arrange for the marriage of their children, the young wife is delivered up to her husband as the obedient and submissive servant, children are baptized after they have scarcely opened their eyes, and church ceremonies are conducted much as they have been for generations.

The self-sufficiency of the Armenian people has been indicated in the repeated failures of missionary religions and foreign cultures to alter appreciably the native folkways and mores. In spite of political subordination to Islam, the Gregorian church has held tenaciously to its ideals and has successfully maintained its independence. The distinctive social tradition,—which includes the political and the religious traditions,—has remained intact in the face of recurrent invasion, vassalage, and persecution. The Armenian will not be assimilated. Death is preferable to the loss of those intangible realities that make the people a distinctive group. When Haic, the patriarchal progenitor of the race, was invited to “soften his hard pride,” and to return to the kingdom of the god Bel, the alternative, war, was chosen. In the year 450, when the Persian fire-worshippers invited the Armenians to change their faith, the answer again was war. The reply to the decision of Chalcedon illustrates the same spirit. Likewise through the centuries of the immediate past the ever recurring answer to the Turk has been war. Powerless to assimilate the Armenian people, the Turk has had to annihilate or be annihilated. The self-sufficiency of the people thus reveals itself in the will to maintain the distinctive social tradition, regardless of cost or sacrifice.

Any socially well-knit people possessing a distinctive social tradition, and characterized by a highly developed national consciousness, may make its contribution to the world’s work, if it is given the necessary freedom. As the period of the Arsacidae kings brought forth the golden age of Armenian literature, so greater achievements may follow the political independence that is hoped for, and for which Armenians have valiantly struggled. Lord Bryce writes of the Armenian race, “It is the only one of the native races of Western Asia that is capable of restoring productive industry and assured prosperity to the now desolate region that was the earliest home of civilization.” In the past, the energy of the people has been wasted in ceaseless conflict. Given a guarantee of territorial integrity, and participation in the affairs of government with the hope of future autonomy, the energies of strife will be diverted to the work of peace. Not until then can the high calling expressed in the words of Lord Bryce be realized.