THE NEWLY DISCOVERED PERSIAN INSCRIPTION OF THE XII CENTURY IN THE FORTRESS OF BJNI

In 2007 during its excavations within the citadel of Bjni fortress the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia discovered a stone with an inscription in Arabic characters. We have read this Persian inscription in five lines sculpted on a stone fragment showing missing parts from all sides. The first line is damaged and is unreadable, the second line mentions the name of some Isfahsalar Muhammad/Mohammad طوسي... Tusi محمد سلار] سفه ا ....[ The third line is also unclear, except for the guessable word ‘Islam’. The fourth line reads ‘May the God bless all’ in Persian. The fifth line communicates the date, which is ... [ئه [ما خمس و عين ...The date is incomplete, however it is definitely the 500th year of Hijra or the XII century AD. To define the decade we need to offer numbers ending with عين ..These are forty اربعين seventy سبعين or ninety تسعين . From these figures we prefer seventy سبعين because of a few considerations: if it is forty اربعين horizontal line of alif would be visible even if it is damaged; there is a dot over عين... even though ‘ba’s dot has been put over and not under the letter. سبعين or ninety also has no dots. So by choosing seventy, we can date the inscription to the period of 1175-1183. We can’t offer a more precise date as the first number before seventy is lost. We also believe that this inscription is not an epitaph as there are no Islamic formulas for the deceased put right before the name; also the sculpted characters are too big for a gravestone and in addition they are positioned perpendicularly to the stone unlike Armenia’s Muslim gravestones. Therefore, this must be a fragment of an inscription commemorating some construction or maybe a repair or strengthening of the Bjni fortress or citadel executed by the order of Isfahsalar Muhammad Tusi. Unfortunately the inscription does not communicate the dynasty to which it belongs. However, there is another Arabic inscription of 1174 by Shaddadids carved on a citadel of Nerkin Talin/Dashtadem (Aragatsotn region of Armenia). The newly discovered Persian inscription is evidence that Muslim military had some presence during the last decades of the XII century in the Armenian fortress of Bjni.

НАДПИСЬ НА АРМЯНСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ В ПЕРВОМ ГЕРБЕ ТУРКМЕНСКОЙ ССР

Поводом для написания данной статьи стало следу ющее сообщение в интернет-сайте «Гербы Туркменской ССР», где со ссылкой на соответству ющу ю литературу по интересу ющемуся нас вопросу говорится, что: «27 октября 1924 года образована Туркменская ССР, тогда же она вступила в СССР на правах союзной республики. Некоторое время после своего образования Туркменская ССР не имела государственных символов. 9 августа 1925 года Туркменский ЦИК сообщал в ЦИК Союза, что Туркмения пока пользуется гербом СССР. 26 мая 1926 года Туркменским ЦИК создана комиссия по разработке герба, а уже 18 августа 1926 года ЦИК ТССР постановил принять за основу герба республики рисунок художника Андрея Андреевича Карелина… На боковых перехватах ленты через виток располагалась надпись “Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!” (слева – на русском и армянском, справа - на туркменском и персидском языках)...

ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS FACTOR IN THE IRAN-TAJIKISTAN RELATIONS

During the last thirty years the ethnic and religious factor has had an important impact in the relations between two Iranian-speaking countries, for Iran and Tajikistan. Having cultural, linguistic and ethnic strong ties with Tajikistan, Iran attached great importance to the development of this Iranianspeaking country after the collapse of the USSR. During the civil war in Tajikistan in the 1990s, Tajikistan was particularly important for Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of those countries whose immediate efforts made peace approved in this country after several years of civil war. Heedless of the fact that after the collapse of the USSR relatively warm relationship was formed between Tehran and Dushanbe, thus after the civil war the relations between these two Iranian-speaking countries were developed in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust as a result of policy conducted both by Iran and Tajikistan. Even though in different periods Tehran and Dushanbe tried to build mutually beneficial relationships, the sides did not succeed in continuing such initiatives.

ON THE ETHNIC STRUCTURE OF MEDIA

The study of the history of Media is very significant for Armenia too, as the past of both countries is closely related to each other in different historical periods. In the following article the information about the Gelae, the Mardi, the Anariacae, the Derbices, kept in the primary source, is being discussed. Research shows that the given tribes belonged to the Iranian World without any exceptions. Some important and wrinkled issues on the historical geography of the 10th Satrapy were examined in the article, the elucidation of which has an important meaning for studying the history of the Achaemenid Empire and Ancient Iran.

THE KEMALIST MOVEMENT AND THE KURDISH QUESTION (1919-1922)

In 1919 General Mustafa Kemal, the future leader of the Turkish Milli (nationalist) movement, decided with his confederates to leave for Western Armenia, where more favorable military, strategic and political conditions existed to organize a resistance movement against the plans to partition Turkey. The Kemalists had accurate information about the Kurdish aspirations for the establishment of an independent state or at least autonomy. The Kemalists proposed the idea of “social unity” in order to neutralize the Kurds and to include them in their political sphere. They declared that “in Turkey the Kurdish people have rights equal to the Turks”. In June 1919, a conference of leaders of the Kurdish national movement was convened in Erzurum, and its resolutions were distinguished by their sympathy toward the Kemalist movement. In the resolutions and manifestos adopted at the Erzurum and Sivas congresses and in their current policies, the Kemalists categorically refused the principle of territorial or any other type of autonomy for national minorities

CHINA’S “ONE BELT, ONE ROAD” INITIATIVE AND ITS IMPACT IN CENTRAL ASIA

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, China has endeavored to build and strengthen its relations with the five Central Asian (CA) states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In January 1992, only one month after founding of the new CA countries, China signed a series of agreements to establish diplomatic relations with all of them

NARSEH SASSANID AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE REIGN IN PERSIA FROM 274 TO 293

In 274 after the death of Hormizd I, the Zoroastrian priesthood and the Iranian high nobility handed the Sasanid throne to Varahrān, the elder brother of Hormizd I, although the other brother Narseh, during the rule of Shāpūr I and Hormizd I, had a higher position in the state scale of ranks and was more appropriate for the title of King of Kings. In the following years the Sasanian nobility continued ignoring the rights of Narseh to the throne. After signing the peace treaty with the emperor Probus, in 276/277 Varahran I nominated Narseh, the king of Hindi, Saccas and Turan, the king of Armenia, the country which had lost its strategical meaning. With it Narseh was losing the opportunity of reaching the title of King of Kings in the legal way. Only after the leaders of Iranian opposition were removed, from 282 to 290, Nerseh began an evident struggle for the throne. After the victory in the civil war in 293 the Armenian king Narseh sat on the Sasanian throne.

ON SOME FEATURES OF THE MIAPHYSITE AND DIAPHYSITE CHRISTOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS

The problem of the relationship between divine and human natures in the person of Christ began to interest the Church as early as the 4th century, but Christological problems became particularly relevant in the next, 5th century due to the emergence of Nestorian and Arian heresies, which were rejected and condemned by the Church. The Council of Chalcedon had an essential role in the approval of Christological dogma and its decisions were not adopted by the majority of the Eastern Churches, and among them the Armenian Church. During the long struggle against Chalcedonian Christology, the Armenian Church developed its own Christological conception, which is distinguished by consistency and convincingness. According to this onception, Christ is the Logos, who adopted the perfect human nature. After incarnation, the divine and human natures in Christ formed unspeakable and unmixed unity, as a result of which all attempts to explain this great mystery of faith are doomed to failure, because the mind is unable to understand the inseparable unity of ontological opposites, each of which retains its qualitative definition. The Logos became incarnate of St. Virgin, whose nature the Holy Spirit had previously purified from original sin, so that the Son of God would be free from its consequences. The divine nature of the Logos was initially inextricably linked with the human nature of Jesus, so that the fact that St. Cyril of Alexandria called "the one nature of God the Word incarnate."

ÄLTER FRÜDYNASTISCHE GLYPTIK IN ZENTRALMESOPOTAMIEN

Als am Ende des neunzehnten und zu Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts die archäologische Forschung die großen Fundorte Südmesopotamiens und Elams, Tello (1877), Susa (1884), Nippur (1888), Fara (1902) und Kiš zu erschließen anfing, gelangten mit anderen archäologischen Funden auch Rollsiegel und Abrollungen des dritten Jahrtausends in nicht geringerer Anzahl in die europäischen und nordamerikanischen Museen und Sammlungen. Vorher, bedingtdurch den Verlauf der Erforschung Mesopotamiens, war hauptsächlich Glyptik des ersten vorchristlichen Jahrtausends bekannt geworden1. Die ernste wissenschaftliche Bearbeitung des gewonnenen Fundstoffs begann aber erst in den 30er Jahren des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Dies kam durch die Untersuchungsarbeiten von A. Moortgat2 und H. Frankfort3 zustande, die sich vor allem aber, wie es auch zu erwarten war, der Chronologischen Ordnung des Fundstoffs widmeten.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF ARMENIAN-IRANIAN LITERARY RELATIONS IN K. MELIK-OHANJANYAN’S SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE.

In his work, Academician K. Melik-Ohanjanyan classifies the Armenian-Iranian medieval literary connections. The methodological and innovative nature of his work demonstrates that he is one of the first to prove that the mutual influences of motives and images are socially and historically determined. Based on the empirical material of samples of Persian and Armenian medevial literature he demonstrates both genetic and typological community; moreover, these relations sometimes have synthesis character in the long historic timespan.