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Վարդապէտ

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Անանիա Շիրակացի Anania Shirakatsi

Armenian mathmetician, astronomer and geographer born 610 AD in Shirakavan, Armenia.

Ashkharatsuyts often translated as Geography in English sources, an early Armenian book by Ananias of Shirak. is about the geography of Armenia, Iberia, Caucasian Albania, Persia, Mesopotamia and several other regions. 

Withouth  the Medieval Armenian illustrated book Ashkharatsuyts which is described as a a work of outstanding artistry, skill, and workmanship. The knowledge regarding the political and natural geography of those regions would never be known in the great detail as it is today. Anania also in his historical atlas gives general information on the earth, its surface, climatic belts, and seas. 

Anania was born 610 AD in the city of Shirakavan, Some sources claim he was born in the city of Ani. He was the son of John of Shirak and his mother was possibly of noble birth. He recieved his primary education at the school of Dprevank and it’s there he found his love for mathematics. He left Armenia and traveled abroad for a period of eleven years in search for different scholars. Listening to the recommendation of several of his Armenian friends who were studying in Constantinople, Ananias decided to seek out the renowned Greek Scholar Tychicus living in Trebizond who also happened to speak Armenian. Ananias greatly profited in the eight years he spent he spent learning mathematics from his Greek mentor.

He left Byzantium and returned to his homeland in 651 AD. determined to spread his knowledge among his fellow Armenians, opened a school where he taught and wrote textbooks to educate his students.

Anania authored Cosmography and the Calendar, a 48 chapter work that discusses astronomy, meteorology, and physical geography. He described the world as “being like an egg with a spherical yolk (the globe) surrounded by a layer of white (the atmosphere) and covered with a hard shell (the sky).” He also believed “that the Milky Way is a mass of dense but faintly luminous stars and that the moon was a dark body by nature whose only light was that which it reflected from the sun.

The education center Anania established was greatly  welcomed by the Armenian society and church. After teaching for only several years, he had gained a famous reputation all throughout Armenia, Rome and Persia. One of his most significant accomplishments came in 667 when the Armenian Apostolic Church invited him to Dvin and asked him to modify the Armenian calendar from a movable to fixed system. Taking into account the incompatibilities of the seven-day week, the lunar month, and the solar year, he worked for two years and devised a system that was based on cycle of 532 years. Anania’s solution, though, was strangely never adopted by the Church.

For centuries, his works were used at schools in Armenia as textbooks. His work is renowned as outstanding and unique, and Ananias is regarded as one of the masterminds of his time. The Anania Shirakatsi Medal is an Armenian State Award for scientists in the economics and natural sciences, engineers and inventors. In 2005, the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia issued an Anania Shirakatsi commemorative coin.

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Mountains

Մարտիրոս Սարյան Martiros Saryan

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This is how you sign the word “snake” in Armenian sign language. Interested in learning Armenian sign language? There are hundreds more here. http://www.deaf.am/hy/dictionary

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Համեցեք մեր տուն :)

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New Post has been published on http://massispost.com/2015/03/gevork-vartanian-the-spy-who-saved-churchills-life/

Gevork Vartanian: the Spy Who Saved Churchill’s Life

Granddaughter thanked Armenian spy for saving her grandfather

Celia Sandys, the granddaughter of the former Prime Minister of the UK Winston Churchill, expressed her gratitude to the Soviet­Armenian intelligence agent Gevork Vartanian for saving her grandfather’s life during the Tehran conference in 1943. Gohar Vartanian, the widow of the celebrated spy stated in a recent interview to RIA Novosti: “It actually happened in 2007. Celia Sandys paid a visit to Moscow and applied to the Press Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service to have a meeting with the Soviet intelligence agent. The meeting actually took place. After Gevork told her the full story, she burst out in tears and said: ‘I’m very grateful to You for saving my grandfather’.”

Gevork Vartanian worked for Soviet, and briefly Russian, intelligence for the best part of half a century. But his most celebrated work as a spy came at the tender age of 19, when he helped thwart a Nazi plot to assassinate Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill on the occasion of the first meeting of the “Big Three” allied leaders at the Teheran conference of November 1943.

The mission, dubbed “Operation Long Jump”, was hastily put together a few weeks earlier by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of SS Security, after the Nazis, thanks to breaking a US Navy code, had learnt the place and date of the summit. It was entrusted to the regime’s top special agent, Obersturmbannfuehrer Otto Skorzeny, who on 12 September 1943 had led the spectacular rescue of the deposed Benito Mussolini, then a prisoner of the new Italian government.

But the scheme fell apart when Vartanian and other Soviet agents based in Iran located and captured a team of Nazi commandos who had landed on the Caspian shore. As he recounted in a 2007 interview with the RIA Novosti news agency, they were six radio operators who “were travelling by camel and loaded with weapons.” After arresting them, Vartanian and his collegeaues ordered the Nazi infiltrators to contact their superiors: “we deliberately gave a radio operator an opportunity to report the failure of the mission.”

In fact, discovery of the plot yielded a double dividend for the Soviets. Informed by Stalin of what had happened, and persuaded that travelling back and forth from the US mission in the Iranian capital could be a security risk, Roosevelt agreed to stay in a building in the grounds of the Soviet Embassy, where the conference was held. The premises were naturally bugged, and Stalin presumably gained advance knowledge of US thinking at a summit which not only decided 1944’s second front against Germany but also effectively conceded Poland and parts of Eastern Europe to postwar Soviet domination.

Stalin Roosevelt and Churchill at Tehran Conference 1943

Born into an Iranian­Armenian family in the southern Russian city of Rostov­on­Don, Gevork Vartanian was not even 16 when he followed his father into the intelligence business. Under the cover of a businessman, Andrei Vartanian had been a Soviet agent in Iran since 1930.

In 1940 the son signed on, too, under the codename of “Amir”, with the job of rooting out British and German spies.

If the SVR, the modern Russian intelligence service, is to be believed, he was a colossal success. Not only did “Amir” and his network expose 400 German agents in Iran between 1940 and 1941, he also managed to get himself enrolled at a course run by British intelligence in Teheran, training Russian­speakers as spies in Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus. Vartanian got his training – and also duly passed on every detail about his fellow students (and future British agents) to his masters in Moscow.

Details of his subsequent career are sketchy. According to the ITAR­Tass news agency, he graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages in Yerevan in Soviet Armenia in 1955. Thereafter Vartanian worked in a variety of countries, including Iran, Italy, France and Greece, together with his wife Gohar, before returning to the Soviet Union in 1986. Reportedly, the couple were married and remarried several times in different places, as part of their cover.

Vartanian finally retired from the SVR, successor to the KGB, in 1992, though he continued to help train future agents. His identity was not officially revealed until 2000. “We were lucky, we never met a single traitor,” he told RIA Novosti. “For us, underground agents, betrayal is the worst evil. If an agent observes all the security rules and behaves properly in society, no counter­intelligence will spot him or her. But like sappers, underground agents err only once.”

Gevork Vartanian died at the age of 87 at Botkin hospital in Moscow on 10 January 2012.

Vladimir Putin attended the funeral and paid his respects to Vartanian’s widow Gohar.

Armenpress

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Illustration: Ancient Armenian spirit – Grogh or also known as Tir, courtesy of armenian-history.com.

Grogh translates from Armenian as “writer” or “scribe” (sometimes identified with Armenian deity of literature Tir) was a spirit in ancient Armenian mythology. Grogh was the most punctual writer. As soon as a human was born, Grogh would write the newborn into the book of life, and on the forehead he imprinted the newborn’s faith – chakatagir, predetermining the given lifespan. He keenly observed everyone and entered all the sins and good deeds into his special folio, to read them during the final judgment.

If the agony of dying lasted a long time and the soul could not part with the body easily, it was common to take the pillow from beneath the head of the dying person and open wide all the windows and doors, so Grogh could enter freely into the home and take the soul into his bosom and leave.

Just as the Russians curse ‘k chorty’ meaning ‘to the devil’ and English ‘to hell with you’, Armenians curse by sending to Grogh: “Grogh kez tani!” (meaning “scribe take you!”) or “Groghu tsots” (“in embrace of the scribe”). Many centuries past and the word “Grogh” became to simply mean ‘writer’.

Sources: - Armen Meryzhanyan - http://noev-kovcheg.ru/mag/2011-13/2688.html - PeopleOfAr. (2013, October 10). Ancient Armenian spirit – Grogh. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/q37pdvd

#Armenia #ancient #deity #history #pagan #God #Tir #Grogh

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Վեր կաց, եղբայր իմ, երգս կիսեմ քեզ հետ, Վեր կաց, եղբայր իմ, ցավը կիսենք մեկտեղ, Սառած մարմնիդ ես հուր կտամ, Իսկ երգերին թևեր կտամ:

Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր սարերով, Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր լեռներով, Ցույց տամ երկինքը մեր, Մասիսը ալեհեր, Ու տունը, հայրենի մեր տունը:

Վեր կաց, եղբայր իմ, նոր օրն է արթնացել, Վեր կաց, եղբայր իմ, նոր կյանքն է շունչ առել, Կապույտ երկնի անմար արքան, Անտառների կանաչ հսկան:

Իսկ ես տանեմ քեզ սարերով, Իսկ ես տանեմ քեզ լեռներով, Ցույց տամ երկինքը մեր, Մասիսը ալեհեր, Ու տունը, հայրենի մեր տունը:

Բարձրացրու գլուխդ, զինվոր, Բաց արա հոգնած կոպերդ, Քո սխրանքն անմահ է, Քո անունը` մեր սրտերում:

Վեր կաց եղբայր իմ, զանգերը չեն լռել, Վեր կաց եղբայր իմ, մեր երգը չենք գրել, Կիսատ երգիդ նոր տող թելեմ, Կիսատ զարկիդ նոր զարկ ձուլեմ:

Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր սարերով, Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր լեռներով, Ցույց տամ երկինքը մեր, Մասիսը ալեհեր, Ու տունը, հայրենի մեր տունը:

Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր սարերով, Ու քեզ տանեմ մեր լեռներով, Ցույց տամ երկինքը մեր, Մասիսը ալեհեր, Ու տունը, հայրենի մեր տունը:

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Armenian parchment dated from 1342.

In the brief description it is known that the manuscript was rescued from a fire. Chaknotz bolorgir is the name of the writing style. It was copied by Nerses Keghentz at the monastery of Houlayivank by the request of Arakel.

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Armenian soldier playing an abandoned piano in the Artsakh Liberation War, 1992.

Photograph by Hakob Poghosyan.

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Photo: General Hannibal (c. 247 BCE–c. 183 BCE) counting the signet rings of Roman nobles killed during the battle, statue by Sébastien Slodtz, 1704, Louvre.

Hannibal was known for leading the Carthaginian army and a team of elephants across southern Europe and the Alps Mountains against Rome in the Second Punic War.

During the rule of Ardashes I, the great Hannibal of Carthaginia, found refuge in Armenia and helped and encouraged Ardashes I by his wisdom and counsel. He helped build the city of Artaxata on the banks of the River Eraskh. Artaxata became the capital of Armenia in 189 B.C.

Hannibal, general of the Carthaginian army, lived in the second and 3rd century B.C. He was born into a Carthaginian military family and made to swear hostility toward Rome. During the Second Punic War, Hannibal swept across southern Europe and through the Alps, consistently defeating the Roman army, but never taking the city itself. Rome counterattacked and he was forced to return to Carthage where he was defeated. He worked for a time as a statesman before he was forced into exile by Rome. To avoid capture by the Romans, he eventually took his own life.

Hannibal Barca was born in Carthage (present-day Tunisia) in approximately 247 B.C. He was the son of Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (Barca meaning “thunderbolt”). After Carthage’s defeat by the Romans in the First Punic War in 241 B.C, Hamilcar devoted himself to improving both his and Carthage’s fortunes. At an early age, he took Hannibal to Spain and made him swear eternal hostility toward the Roman Empire.

At age 26, Hannibal was given command of an army and immediately set out to consolidate Carthaginian control of Iberia. He married Imilce, an Iberian princess, and conquered or allied with numerous Iberian tribes. He made the seaport of Qart Hadasht (“New City,” now Cartagena) his home base. In 219 B.C., Hannibal attacked the town of Saguntum (Sagunto, Spain), raising the ire of Rome and starting the Second Punic War.

Sources: biography.com

#Hannibal #Tunesia #Carthaginian #history #ancient #Rome #Artashes #read #NorthAfrica

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Exquisitely crafted door in Yerevan.

These doors are a part of Armenian tradition and can be found all across Armenia.

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Կոմիտաս. Վերջին գիշեր (1956)

կտավ, յուղաներկ 157x200 սմ

Komitas. Last night (1956)

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Armenian alphabet, the letter when red, has the sound at the bottom for pronunciation

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me @ my future hayastanci husband