United Armenia (), also known as Greater Armenia or Great Armenia, is an Armenian ethno-nationalist irredentist concept referring to areas within the traditional Armenian homeland—the Armenian highlands—which are currently or have historically been mostly populated by Armenians. The idea of what Armenians see as unification of their historical lands was prevalent throughout the 20th century and has been advocated by individuals, various organizations and institutions, including the nationalist parties Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF or Dashnaktsutyun) and Heritage, the ASALA and others. The Republic of Armenia comprises 10%–15% of the Armenian homeland.
The ARF idea of "United Armenia" incorporates claims to Western Armenia (eastern Turkey), Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the landlocked exclave Nakhchivan (Nakhichevan) of Azerbaijan and the Javakheti (Javakhk) region of Georgia. Javakheti is overwhelmingly inhabited by Armenians. Western Armenia and Nakhchivan had significant Armenian populations until the early 20th century, and Nagorno-Karabakh until 2023, but no longer do. The Armenian population of Western Armenia was almost completely exterminated during the 1915 Armenian genocide, when the millennia-long Armenian presence in this region largely ended and Armenian cultural heritage was mainly destroyed by the Ottoman government. In 1919, the ARF-dominated government of the First Republic of Armenia declared the formal unification of Armenian lands.
The ARF bases its claims to Western Armenia, now controlled by Turkey, on the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which was effectively negated by subsequent historical events. These territorial claims are often seen as the ultimate goal of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and as part of Armenian genocide reparations.
The most recent Armenian irredentist movement, the Karabakh movement which began in 1988, sought to unify Nagorno-Karabakh with then-Soviet Armenia. As a result of the subsequent war with Azerbaijan, Armenian forces established effective control over most of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts, thus succeeding in the de facto unification of Armenia and Karabakh. Some Armenian nationalists consider Nagorno-Karabakh "the first stage of a United Armenia."
History of the claims
Origins
In its current meaning, the term "United Armenia" was coined during the Armenian national awakening in the second half of the 19th century. During this period, the Armenian-populated areas were divided between the Russian Empire (Eastern Armenia) and the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia). One of the earliest uses of the phrase "United Armenia" is by the English Society of Friends of Russian Freedom in an 1899 edition of Free Russia monthly. It quotes a confidential report of Grigory Golitsin (the Russian governor of the Caucasus) sent to Tsar Nicholas II "containing suggestions for a future policy." Golitsin writes of a nationalist movement which "aims at the restoration of the independent Armenia of the past", and that "their ideal is one great and united Armenia."Free Russia, the Organ of the English Society of Friends of Russian Freedom, Volumes 6–10, 1895–1899, p. 55
The idea of an independent and united Armenia was the main goal of the Armenian national liberation movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1890s, a low-intensity armed conflict developed between the three major Armenian parties—the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak), Hnchak and Armenakan— and the Ottoman government. Calls from the great powers for reforms in the Armenian provinces and Armenian aspirations to independence resulted in the Hamidian massacres between 1894 and 1896, during which up to 300,000 Armenian civilians were slaughtered by the order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, after whom the massacres were named. After the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, some Armenians felt that the situation would improve; however, a year later the Adana massacre took place and Turkish-Armenian relations deteriorated further. After the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, the Ottoman government was pressured to accept the Armenian reform package concerning the Armenian provinces in early 1914.
World War I and the Armenian genocide
The Armenians of eastern Ottoman Empire were exterminated by the Ottoman government in 1915 and the following years. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed, while the survivors found refuge in other countries. These events, which are known as the Armenian genocide, are officially denied by the Turkish state, which falsely claims the killings were a result of a "civil war." The Ottoman government successfully ended the over two thousand year Armenian presence in Western Armenia.
By 1916, most of Western Armenia was occupied by the Russian Empire as part of the Caucasian Campaign of World War I. In parts of the occupied areas, especially around Van, an Armenian autonomy was briefly set up. The Russian army left the region due to the Revolution of 1917. The Ottoman Empire quickly regained the territories from the small number of irregular Armenian units. In the Caucasus, the Special Transcaucasian Committee was set up after the February Revolution.
The Bolsheviks took power in Russia through the October Revolution and soon signed the Armistice of Erzincan to stop the combat in Turkish Armenia. Russian forces abandoned their positions and left the area under weak Armenian control. The Bolsheviks set up the Transcaucasian Commissariat in the Caucasus. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918 and the Ottoman army started to regain the lost territories, taking over Kars by 25 April. Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Ottoman Empire and by April 1918 the Transcaucasian Federation proclaimed its independence from Russia. This fragile federation of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan collapsed when the Turks invaded the Caucasus region. The Armenian units defeated the Turks at the Battle of Sardarabad, just 40 kilometers away from Armenia's future capital Yerevan, preventing the complete destruction of the Armenian nation.
A 1918 book by American scholars Lothrop Stoddard and Glenn Frank, titled Stakes of the War listed 8 solutions to the Armenian Question as proposed by different parties. The second proposal, titled "United Armenia", is described as follows:
First Republic of Armenia: 1918–1920
The Armenian National Council declared the independence of the Armenian provinces on 28 May 1918. It was recognized by the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Batum on 4 June 1918. After its defeat in World War I, the Ottoman Empire and the Allies signed the Armistice of Mudros by which the Turkish troops left the Caucasus and by 1919 the Republic of Armenia established control over the former Kars Oblast, the city of Iğdır and its surrounding territory, including Mount Ararat.
On 28 May 1919, on the first anniversary of the Republic of Armenia, the government of the newly founded country symbolically declared the union of Eastern and Western Armenia, the latter of which was still under the full control of the Turks. Alexander Khatisian, the Armenian Prime Minister, read the declaration:
Treaty of Sèvres
Almost two years after the Republic of Armenia was established, on 23 April 1920, the United States officially recognized it. Its frontiers were to be determined later. On 26 April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers in Paris (British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and Italian Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti) requested that the United States accept the mandate over Armenia and to make an Arbitral Decision to determine the boundaries of Armenia with what is now Turkey. President Woodrow Wilson agreed to act as arbitrator and draw a mutually acceptable border between the two nations. In July 1920, the US State Department founded the Committee upon the Arbitration of the Boundary between Turkey and Armenia, headed by William Westermann. The Treaty of Sèvres was signed on 10 August 1920 between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied Powers. On 28 September 1920, the Committee submitted a report that defined the border between the two countries. It guaranteed access to the Mediterranean sea for Armenia via Trebizond and proclaimed present-day Turkey's border regions demilitarization frontier line.
A territory of , formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, was given to Armenia. Based on the calculations the committee made, the ethnic structure of the 3,570,000 population would have been: 49% Muslims (Turks, Kurds, Tartar Azerbaijanis, and others), 40% Armenians, 5% Laz, 4% Greeks, and 1% others. It was expected that in the case Armenian refugees' return, they would make up to 50% of the population. Two months after the committee submitted the report to the State Department, President Woodrow Wilson received it on 12 November 1920. Ten days later, Wilson signed the report entitled "Decision of the President of the United States of America respecting the Frontier between Turkey and Armenia, Access for Armenia to the Sea, and the Demilitarization of Turkish Territory adjacent to the Armenian Frontier." The report was sent to the US ambassador in Paris Hugh Campbell Wallace on 24 November 1920. On 6 December 1920, Wallace delivered the documents to the secretary-general of the peace conference for submission to the Allied Supreme Council.
Treaty of Sèvres was later annulled following the successful Turkish War of Independence against Allied Powers and affiliated forces, which led to the abolition of the empire and founding of the modern Republic of Turkey with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
Fall of the First Republic In late September 1920, a war erupted between Armenia and the Mustafa Kemal-led Turkish nationalists (Government of the Grand National Assembly) led by Kâzım Karabekir took place. Turks captured Kars on 30 October 1920. With the Turkish army in Alexandropol, the Bolsheviks invaded the country from the north east, and on 29 November 1920, they proclaimed Armenia a Soviet state. On 2 December 1920, Armenia became a Soviet state according to a joint proclamation of Armenia's Defence Minister Dro and Soviet representative Boris Legran in Yerevan. Armenia was forced to sign the Treaty of Alexandropol with the Government of the Grand National Assembly on the night of 2–3 December 1920. The Treaty of Sèvres and Wilson's award remained "dead letters."
Just after the Soviet invasion of Armenia in November 1920, the Soviet Azerbaijani leader Nariman Narimanov declared that "the old borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan are declared null and void. Mountainous Karabagh, Zangezur, and Nakhichevan are recognized as integral parts of the Socialist Republic of Armenia." Despite these assurances, both Nakhichevan and Karabakh were kept under Azerbaijani control for another eight months. On 16 March 1921, Soviet Russia and the Government of the Grand National Assembly signed the Treaty of Moscow. By this treaty, Kars and Ardahan were ceded to Turkey, and Nakhichevan was put under "protectorate" of Azerbaijan. The Treaty of Kars was signed between the Grand National Assembly Government on one side and Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR and Azerbaijan SSR on the other, reaffirming the Treaty of Moscow.
Post-World War II: 1945–1953