ANALYTICS

Russian Emperor Alexander III and Armenian nationalists - long vindictiveness

11.06.21 11:45


Lragir, a publication close to Nikol Pashinyan, has published an article dedicated to events that seem far from Armenia - the installation of a monument to the Russian Emperor Alexander III near St. Petersburg in Gatchina. However, even from the headline “Putin, like his beloved king, will also fail in Armenia” (https://www.lragir.am/ru/2021/06/07/207258/), it is clear that Armenian nationalists do not like Alexander III.

 

And the article about this truly outstanding Russian emperor, who went down in history as a "Peacemaker" (under him, the Russian Empire did not wage a single large-scale war, except for minor conflicts in Central Asia) is written exclusively in a negative way. Why the Armenian nationalists do not like Alexander III can be seen immediately from the second paragraph:

 

“Alexander III accidentally became an autocrat after his brother's untimely death who inherited the throne. After the coronation, he immediately abandoned liberal reforms and rejected the draft of Count Loris-Melikov, which was also called the Constitution, since it meant reforming the system of government on a democratic model..."

 

Here lragir has a deliberate distortion of facts. Alexander III became emperor, not after the death of his older brother in 1965, but 16 years after the murder of his father Alexander II by terrorists, and all this time he was preparing to inherit the throne. So there was little "accidental" here. Except, of course, the murder of his father, the reason for which was the patronage of terror by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian Mikhail Loris-Melikov. The very one whose project of liberal reforms (and in fact the collapse of the Russian Empire) was rejected by Alexander III.

 

Kavkaz Plus has already written about the tragic role played by Mikhail Loris-Melikov in the history of the Russian Empire in the materials “Fatal Armenians Loris-Melikov and Kalantarov or whether Putin will share the fate of Alexander II” (https://kavkazplus.com/news.php?id = 2242) and “Loris-Melikov almost ruined Russia” (https://kavkazplus.com/news.php?id=26203).

 

Apparently, Alexander III, with the help of the outstanding Russian patriot Konstantin Pobedonostsev, managed to realize that it was precisely the intrigues of Loris-Melikov, who in fact acted in the interests of Russia's enemies and caused the tragic death of his father, who “warmed the snake on his chest”. One way or another, but after taking the throne, Alexander III almost immediately refused the "services" of Loris-Melikov.

 

Meanwhile, it was Loris-Melkov, in addition to liberal "democratization" (and in fact the beginning of the process of the collapse of the Russian Empire through the "Constitution" containing time mines), who achieved that at the Berlin Congress, following the Russian-Turkish war, the Ottoman Empire was imposed Russia and the European powers "self-rule" in the regions where the Armenian population lived, which was the first step towards separatism. After the resignation of Loris-Melkov, Russia stopped interfering in Turkey's internal affairs on this issue. As a result, the plans carefully nurtured by the latter to create a “great Armenia” (contrary to Russia's interests) collapsed. Armenian nationalists still cannot forgive this to Alexander III.

 

Regarding Alexander III, lragir also reports that "In his time, Armenian schools were closed ..."

 

Lie again. Unfortunately, the hotbed of aggressive nationalism - Armenian schools under Alexander III did not close. His son Nicholas II will try to do this in 1903, but it will be too late. The consciousness of the Armenians will already be "washed out" by nationalist propaganda, and the rising wave of the Dashnak terror forced the tsarist government to "back down". That would also be a mistake that showed the "compliance" of the autocracy, which will ultimately lead to the Empire's collapse.

 

And Alexander III simply tried to control the education, which had clearly become extremist, in the Armenian schools organized by Echmiadzin. And, if possible, limit teaching in the Armenian nationalist and extremist spirit. Prince Alexander Dondukov-Korsakov (1882-1890) pointed out the danger of propaganda in such schools of nationalism and separatism:

 

“In recent years, not only in cities, but also in villages, mainly of the Transcaucasian region, a very significant, comparatively, number of Armenian schools have been founded, which, hiding behind the name of the spiritual and using the open support and patronage of the late Catholicos, have been completely removed from the control of the local educational authorities ....Many facts indicate that the aforementioned schools, founded and maintained by the aforementioned party of persons sympathizing with the separatist aspirations of their Turkish fellow tribesmen, inspire Armenian youth of both sexes with thoughts and beliefs that completely disagree with the views and designs of the government, and these schools become an instrument of propaganda unrealizable dreams among the Armenian rural population..."

 

The tragic history of the Armenian people will show what the "unrealizable dreams" of "great Armenia" lead to. But Alexander III decided to take control of the propaganda of these "dreams". On February 16, 1884, he approved the “Highest approved rules for parish schools of the Armenian-Gregorian faith”, according to which state supervision over these educational institutions was established. Clause 8 of the rules established that "church schools that leave the elementary school in their course and have more than two classes in composition ... are subject to the supervision of the school authorities on a common basis with private educational institutions."

 

That is, Armenian general education church schools were subject to state inspection. Also, it was the responsibility of the education department to supervise the teaching of all subjects in Armenian church schools, except for the Law of God.

 

Alas, even these measures failed to stop the process of nationalist propaganda and fooling young people in Armenian schools. But all the same, the state supervision established by Alexander III allowed at least to suspend the "almost official" education of young Armenians in a terrorist spirit in the schools of Echmiadzin.

 

Armenian nationalists still cannot forgive Alexander III for this. They do not care that the tsar did a lot for Russia, its prosperity and peace in the Empire - the main thing for them is that he removed the Armenian Loris-Melikov from power and “slowed down” the implementation of Armenian nationalist “dreams” of “great Armenia”.

 

 

KavkazPlus

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