The Symbolic Significance of the Yerevan Blue Mosque: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Armenian-Iranian Relationship

Item Type text; Electronic Thesis

Authors Brackett, Robin

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 08/10/2021 15:35:25

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/642093

THE SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE YEREVAN BLUE MOSQUE: AN

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO THE ARMENIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONSHIP

by

Robin Brackett

______Copyright © Robin Brackett 2020

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

DEPARTMENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2020

2

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Master’s Committee, we certify that we have read the thesis prepared by Robin Brackett, titled The Symbolic Significance of the Yerevan Blue Mosque: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Armenian-Iranian Relationship and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Master’s Degree.

Jun 10, 2020 ______Date: ______Dr. Anne H. Betteridge

Jun 10, 2020 ______Date: ______Dr. Julia Clancy-Smith

Jun 10, 2020 ______Date: ______Dr. Kamran Talattof

Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the thesis to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this thesis prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the Master’s requirement.

Jun 10, 2020 ______Date: ______Dr. Anne H. Betteridge Master’s Thesis Committee Chair School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies

3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An acknowledgement of the Tohono O'odham people on whose land the University of ​ Arizona sits.

I thank my esteemed thesis committee members for their time and support in the completion of my Master’s degree. I am thankful to Dr. Betteridge for her detail-oriented and knowledgeable guidance. I am thankful to Dr. Clancy-Smith for her encouragement and faith in my abilities. I am thankful to Dr. Talattof for his willingness to make time for me and for showing me new ways to think about problems. I also thank the School of Middle Eastern and

North African Studies and the Raphael and Jolene Gruener Research Travel Award, without whose help this thesis would not have been possible. Thanks also to Julie Ellison-Speight, the

FLAS Fellowship and the U.S. Department of Education for the opportunity to be a FLAS fellow and my greatly improved Persian language skills. I also thank Anousha Sedighi, Shahram

Parastesh, Bahar Jalehmahmoudi and Narges Nematollahi for their contributions to my Persian language abilities. Thanks also to Sergio Cañez and Dr. Austin O’Malley for their help in keeping me on track in the MA program.

Next I thank a list of people in Armenia who helped me conduct a successful research trip: A. Akhavian, M. Ghavalyan, Z. Molaie, Q. Sargsyan, A. Ullatil, each of whom is integral to the success of my Master’s thesis.

I also thank those who helped me with translations and the execution of my thesis: K.

Amani, A. Aroushian, R. Ehsani. L. Knotter and S. Namei. I appreciate your time and expertise.

Finally, I would like to thank the many people who cannot be named here for their love, inspiration and support along the way.

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 5

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 6 Theoretical Frameworks 9 Methodology 12

CHAPTER TWO: HISTORY OF LATE 19TH, EARLY 20TH CENTURY 15 Safavid history of Julfa, New Julfa and Shah Abbas I 15 The Khanate of Yerevan 16 Armenians in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution 19 Realism, Yeprem Khan and the Dashnak Party 22 Identity and Nation Building 25 Armenian Genocide 32

CHAPTER THREE: SOVIET ARMENIA & POST WWII IRAN 35 Preservation of the Yerevan Blue Mosque Through Literature 35 Mktrich Armen 37 Elise Charents 40 Iranian-Azeri Secessionist Movement 42

CHAPTER FOUR: POST-SOVIET ARMENIA 44 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan 44 Turkey: Pan-Turkism 48 Israel: Business and Security 49 Russia: Consolidating Power 50 1992 Iranian mediation - Soft Power Initiatives 51 1994 Ceasefire 53 Formalized Relationship Between Armenia and Iran 54

CHAPTER FIVE: POST-1995 YEREVAN 55 Trade, Energy and Infrastructure Projects 55 Renovations of an Iranian Mosque in Christian Armenia 56 Iranian Shia National Identity 62

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION 65

APPENDIX A 68

APPENDIX B 71

APPENDIX C 78

REFERENCES 81 ​

5

ABSTRACT

In what ways has the centuries-long friendly relationship between Armenians and

Iranians been monumentalized in the Yerevan Blue Mosque located in Yerevan, Armenia? I argue that through each of its iterations, the Yerevan Blue Mosque, completed in 1765, has served as a locus for shared identities, nationalisms and ideological reinventions. The mosque has remained a symbol of historical friendship and religious tolerance between Armenians and

Iranians and provides a site of interreligious, interethnic and international relations. This thesis investigates the mosque through the lenses of constructed memories, nationalisms and shifting identities over time. I examine the life of the mosque in four parts using government and literary sources, art historical features and information gathered at the mosque. The first time period examined here is 1600 through 1911, with a focus on Armenian participation in the Iranian

Constitutional Revolutions. Next, I examine how the mosque survived the secular Soviet period as a meeting place for writers of the emerging socialist nationalist literature and as two museums.

Third, I analyze the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1988-1994)—a yet unresolved dispute over the mountainous Karabakh territory located in Azerbaijan but populated by Armenians—using theories of social movement and realism to understand how the conflict served to strengthen the

Armenian-Iranian relationship in the post-Soviet years. Finally, and with greater focus and detail,

I examine the mosque complex from 1995 to 2019 and its place in modern Iranian-Armenian relations. I explore the complex's location in the city of Yerevan as well as its significance for tourists, various sects of Islam and the interests of the Islamic Republic.

6

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Two meters below the busy Mashtots avenue (formerly Lenin Street) in Yerevan,

Armenia sits an 18th century Iranian mosque. Among the dried fruit shops, clothing stores and currency exchanges one is suddenly confronted with a monumental grid of multicolored tiles

(Appendix B, Fig. 1). I found the mosque quite by accident and debated entering on that day because I was not wearing the modest outfit I had planned for visiting the mosque. Curiosity and two unveiled Russian women convinced me to descend the stairs in my attire chosen for ninety-degree weather. Once inside the mosque complex, the noise of the busy street above faded away and I was surrounded on four sides by brick, tile and plaster work. A garden with 105 year old trees, some struggling rose bushes and a defunct fountain filled the center courtyard of the complex. A few curious tourists tentatively milled about the complex, sat on the garden benches and viewed the Persian handicrafts on display in one of the open air galleries.

As I explored the complex over the next two weeks, my curiosity about the place only increased. I had many initial questions about the architecture, about the library, about the

1 religious services. I also began to form deeper and more pressing questions. What is an Iranian mosque doing in Christian Armenia? How did this complex survive the secular Soviet era? What does the leasing of the mosque to Iran by the Armenian government say about the friendly relations between Armenia and Iran? What accounts for this enduring and friendly relationship?

Through my investigations at the mosque and through use of secondary sources I attempt to answer these questions by looking at significant episodes in the intertwined histories of Armenia

1 In this case Iranian refers to lessees of the land, the maintainers of the building and the style of architecture of the mosque.

7 and Iran. The temporal focus of this thesis is the post-Soviet era, understanding of which is informed by the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, Armenian literary traditions of the early

Soviet era, an Azeri secessionist movement in Northern Iran and an Armenian secessionist movement in the mountainous region of Karabakh located on Iran’s northern border.

Historically, the area now known as the Republic of Armenia was a convergence point for the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires. In order to provide historical context I discuss the historical roots of Armenian-Iranian interaction, a significant episode from the Safavid era

1501-1736 that led to a large community of Armenians being brought into Iran. I also draw attention to the Khanate of Yerevan under Qajar rule, as this is the era in which the Yerevan Blue

Mosque was constructed and that leads up to the fateful treaty of Turkemnchay. In more depth, the roles of identity, nationalism and allegiance formation of Armenians fighting for the Iranian

Constitutional Revolution. The activities of this time period are significant to the question of what accounts for the enduring friendly relations between Armenia and Iran. The Iranian

Constitutional Revolution was well supported by Armenians, particularly the Dashnaks, led by

Yeprem Khan (1868-1912) and the Hunchakian led by Sattar Khan (1866-1914). The military and literary contributions of Armenians in the fight for the creation of constitutional rights in

Iran helped pave the path of continued friendly relations. In this section I attempt to demonstrate how the motivations, strategies and outcomes of this chapter of history pertain to the ongoing friendly relations between the two nations.

I next turn to the early Soviet era, in which secular policies were at their strongest.

However, during this period the efforts of Armenian literary circles managed to spare the

Yerevan Blue Mosque from destruction. Communist ideologies and interest in city planning of

8 the Armenian literary circles preserved the mosque structure. According to a myriad of sources, the poet Charents is credited for saving the mosque from destruction through his purposeful effort to preserve the mosque by repurposing it as a literary salon as well as a natural history museum and military museum. For this analysis I have translated the novella Zubeida by Mkrtich ​ ​ 2 Armen from Armenian to English. The story is partially set in the Blue Mosque and was published in 1928. I also briefly discuss the Azeri irredentist movement in Iran in the 1940’s.

These literary and irredentist movements are significant in illustrating the symbolic nature of the

Yerevan Blue Mosque and provide information on an episode of Iran-Azerbaijan relations essential to understanding the Iranian position in the Karabakh conflict that is the centerpiece of the next time period: the post-Soviet era.

The years leading up to, and the decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, were formative in the current friendly relationship between Armenia and Iran. This outcome was due to the historical cooperation between the groups but also was caused by a new wave of nationalism. At the time, former republics formed new national identities and realist self-interests were at play in emerging geopolitical realities. This wave of change affected all former-Soviet states and their neighbors while producing unlikely alliances. This section highlights some of the interest groups involved in the Karabakh conflict, specifically: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Armenia,

Iran, Israel, Russia and Turkey. I delve into the reasons that cooperation was in the strategic interests of Armenia and Iran, why Iran did not make decisions along ideological lines regarding support for Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict and how Israel became a player in the pursuit of

2 Though I do not speak or read the Armenian language I was able to use online tools to produce a rough translation of Zubeida and had the pertinent passages checked by native Armenians for accuracy. ​ ​

9 influence in the south Caucasus. This period and Iran’s generous but not unending support were highly influential in the decades following Armenia’s 1991 independence.

This thesis builds upon the work of Markus Ritter and Tsypylma Darieva who each did fieldwork at the site during reconstruction of the mosque complex between 2009-2012. While

Ritter approaches the mosque complex from a more art historical perspective, Darieva looks at the complex in the context of the city of Yerevan and its function in civic life. Both authors’ works comprise the bulk of the little scholarship in English existing on the mosque complex. The purpose of this paper is to expand knowledge of the mosque beyond its art historical features and role in Yerevan’s civic life to include the mosque’s diachronic developments since its foundation in 1765. How has its purpose changed and evolved over time? At the same time, I look at the mosque as a container of meaning in the broader context of Armenian-Iranian relations.

Additionally, this paper attempts to contribute knowledge on two topics: the mosque beyond the time period when Ritter and Darieva were doing fieldwork and how the mosque has served as a symbol of the understudied contemporary relations of Iran and Armenia.

Theoretical Frameworks

In addition to the above-mentioned authors’ field work at the mosque complex, several theoretical frameworks are employed to better understand and analyze the ongoing friendly relations between Armenia and Iran. I argue that the mosque has served as a locus for shared identities, and ideological reinventions. To illustrate and provide evidence for this argument, I explore how theories of nationalism, realism and memory intersect to create the unique and enduring relationship symbolized by the Yerevan Blue Mosque. I also employ other theories,

10 like social movement theory and choice of allegiance with reference to specific historical events; the theories are elaborated on within the analysis of those events.

Beginning with memory, I employ the works of three authors who each provide unique thoughts on memory. The first is Ahenk Yilmaz’s theoretical work on the art of memory in which Yilmaz takes ancient memorization techniques and creates a methodology. I use Ahenk

Yilmaz’s methodology for analyzing architectural monuments to examine how historical memory is embedded in the mosque to smoothly fold the past into the present and future creating a new reality of the Armenian-Iranian relationship. Before applying this framework, it is useful to have a bit of background information on the rhetorical practice of the art of memory. At a dinner party in ancient Greece a guest, Simonides of Ceos, leaves the room to receive a message when the building catastrophically collapses, killing all who remained inside. The bodies were so badly damaged, identification was not possible. Simonides was able to reconstruct the identities of the victims based on their location in the room and around the table. This event laid the foundation for what classical philosopher, Cicero, titled the Art of Memory (Yilmaz, 268). The art of memory, also known as Method of Loci, is a mnemonic strategy with a long history of improving serial recall. Traditionally, this method is executed by an imagined navigation of a familiar environment and deliberately placing what are to-be-remembered ideas in specific places. To retain these memories, the rememberer walks through the space visiting the placed memories to complete the body of what is to be remembered (Legge, 380). Yilmaz uses the memorization techniques where images are mentally constructed into locus that the orator can mentally journey through, to analyze architectural monuments (Yilmaz, 268).

11

This framework determines an image or symbol and shows how this image is methodically embodied in physical space in order to increase the memory retention of the rememberer. In this case, I argue that the mosque serves not only as a method of memory retention to memorialize the historical ties between the two nations, but also to consolidate political power and re-territorialize Iranian nationalism in Armenia. Memorialization has been achieved diachronically and in a variety of ways. Each historical episode analyzed here shows how the mosque was memorialized over time. Consolidation is achieved by manifesting the image of political partnership in the physical space of the mosque complex. Visitors, politicians and worshippers, walking past through the photo galleries of the mosque’s history, experience the stages and episodes of the mosque's existence leading to a cohesive reality of friendship between Iranians and Armenians. Third, territorialization is executed by using the images of nationalism and social service to symbolically and non-violently re-demarcate historical Iranian territory in contemporary Armenia. Visitors to the mosque are guided through each of these stops, reinforcing the notion of historical connectedness, good will and Iranian influence. This guidance serves to persuade the collective memory of a continuity in the relationship that serves the current interests of both nations.

Next it is useful to explore how memory is involved in the political relationship between

Iran and Armenia. In the book Remapping Memory: The Politics of SpaceTime (1994), Jonathan ​ ​ Boyarin questions whether memory can constitute politics, or if memory is a rhetorical tool employed for political purposes (Boyarin 2). Boyarin also calls into question the model of time being a linear factor realized within a three-dimensional state. Changing experiences of our sense of space and time through new technologies of transportation and communication, the

12 legitimising of a nation state’s interests in memory and dimensionality and how “the body” informs the relationship between dimensionality and identity all affect memory (Boyarin 3).

Boyarin calls into question the genealogical connections to Cartesian coordinates of the sovereign state and how borders delineate inclusion and exclusion (Boyarin 4).

Historian Susan Crane also writes on the subject of memory. Crane’s article ‘Writing the

Individual Back into Collective Memory’(1997) investigates how the historical profession created different types of memory: historical memory and collective memory (Crane 1372). The argument supposes historical memory represents the past and narratives of the past in relation to the present and that collective memory is an articulation of a past that continues into the present

(Crane 1373). Crane attempts to understand how memory and forgetting relate to the Jewish

Holocaust and differentiates between the people who have lived experience from those who have a learned historical experience (Crane 1378). Crane’s work is relevant to the topic of this thesis as both Armenian and Jewish communities suffered calamity and diaspora and there are useful comparisons in the ways each community has constructed collective memory.

Methodology

I first learned about the Yerevan Blue Mosque through a Persian language program being offered in Armenia in the summer of 2019. Part of the program included visits to cultural sites around Yerevan relevant to Armenian and Iranian history. Although I did not participate in the program, I was fortunate to have secured travel funds to travel to Armenia on a research trip

August 4-16 2019. On this trip, the mosque became a primary source in and of itself. I spent several hours there, almost every day, speaking with the docent, and recording the gallery

13 images, fence pickets, visitor traffic, and my own observations. The docent who is also the librarian, was a valuable resource on the history and inner workings of the mosque complex. He answered questions, shared the history of the mosque and anecdotes and even had some rooms, usually locked to the public, made available for me to see.

With special permission from the Imam, I was allowed to observe the Friday prayer service on the men’s side of the north prayer hall. The timing of my trip coincided with Eid-e ​ Ghorban, the feast of the near sacrifice of Abraham’s son Issak. I observed these festivities from ​ the women’s side where my presence was conspicuous but less of a spectacle than on the male side during the previous Friday’s service.

In addition to my time at the mosque, I also had opportunities to visit the Armenian

National Archives, Armenian National Library, Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient

Manuscripts, The Yerevan Military Museum located under the skyline dominating Mother of

Armenia Monument, the Armenian Genocide Museum, the Temple of Mithra and the Arc of

Charents as well as numerous other Yerevan sites like the Cascade, the Sergei Parajanov

Museum and Republic Square. Some of these sites are more closely linked to Iran than others but

I was able to find connections to Iran and Iranians at a surprising number of these places. For example, the welcome sign at the Yerevan Military Museum, commemorating the Karabakh war ongoing military conflict fought mostly between 1988-1995, includes a welcome in Persian language (Appendix B, Fig. 2). The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts has an entire floor dedicated to Persian manuscripts and offers signage and tours in Persian language. At the Armenian Genocide Museum, the author Sayed Muhammad Ali Jamalzadeh was prominently

14 featured in the gallery of orphans for his work with Armenian orphans (Appendix B, Fig. 3).

There were also entries in Persian in the guest book available at the museum on the day I visited.

Since returning stateside, I have translated a chapter from Armenian Dashnak

3 Commander Yeprem Khan’s book From Anzali to Tehran (1928) from Persian to English . Other ​ ​ sources I have translated from Persian to English include the placards from the mosque galleries, signage from around the mosque and the fence pickets surrounding the inner courtyard of the mosque complex. I have also translated the novella Zubeida (1928) by Mrtich Amren from ​ ​ Armenian to English with a lot of assistance from contacts I made while in Armenia.

My approach is interdisciplinary, combining anthropology, art analysis, ethnography, history, politics and textual analysis together to show how the Yerevan Blue Mosque is a container of meaning that symbolizes the relationship between Armenia and Iran. Much of the data I collected in Yerevan is anthropological, ethnographic as well as art historical. These disciplines provide a tangible account of the mosque in 2019 that cannot be found through the studies of politics, history or through textual analysis. The latter disciplines provide a framework of the historical and political climates that occurred in the episodes expounded upon in this thesis. This framework combined with tangible descriptions of mosque life are blended together to produce new information that is grounded in existing work on Armenia-Iran relations.

This thesis employs a large number of secondary sources from a variety of disciplines.

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this thesis and the small number of sources dedicated to the topic, a formal literature review is not included. Rather, depending on the relevant theory and

3 Quotes of my own translations appear in italics

15 topic related to each section, a brief literature review introducing previous works on the topics is included in each section.

CHAPTER TWO: HISTORY OF LATE 19TH, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Safavid history of Julfa, New Julfa and Shah Abbas I

The histories of Armenians and Iranians are extensive and ancient. Iran is the origin point of the world’s first monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism, and the Armenian Apostolic Church is known as the world’s oldest Christian community. My relation with this history begins in the

1600s when the Persian Safavid king Shah Abbas I facilitated a mass importation of tens of thousands of Armenians from Julfa, in present day Azerbaijan, to the Safavid capital of Isfahan

(Appendix A, Map 1). In 1615 Shah Abbas gave land belonging to the royal court near the

Zayendeh river outside of Isfahan to the Armenians, who coined the new district New Julfa

(Hakhnazaryan 9). This resettlement is significant to modern and contemporary relations as the

Armenian community traces its roots in Iran to these forced migrations from Julfa located in the frontier zone between the Ottoman (Turkish) and Safavid (Iranian) empires to the new capital in the central city of Isfahan (Berberian 2008: 266). The forced relocation and subsequent razing of

Julfa are the reasons Armenians Christians still enjoy special status in Shia Iran to this day.

Because of the importation and Armenians’ contributions in the building of Isfahan, Shah Abbas

I granted the community religious freedom, the right to public assembly and permission to ring church bells as well as land ownership rights and a judicial system of their own (Berberian 2001:

36). By the time of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, the Iranian-Armenian community had

16 been living, assimilating and maintaining their Safavid era rights in Iranian society for three hundred years.

The Khanate of Yerevan

The Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, following the second Russo-Persian war, is essential to understanding the social and political landscape of the Constitutional Revolution as it pertains to Armenian participation (Appendix A, Map 2). This two-year war was a sequel to the first Russo-Persian war which was concluded with the Treaty of Golestan in which Persians ceded territory to the Russians (Bournoutian 24). Although Persian forces led by the Qajar Abbas

Mirza were successful at regaining some territories in battle, the second war ended in the heavy losses of the khanates of Yerevan and Nakhichevan through Russian pressure to sign the Treaty of Turkmenchay (Bournoutian 26). The signing of this treaty was significant to Armenians because it signaled weakness on behalf of the Qajar dynasty and increased vulnerability of

Armenian Christians living in the khanates that comprise much of the territory of the present-day

Republic of Armenia. It also foreshadowed the eventual Sovietization of Armenia after the first world war. The Treaty of Turkmenchay was a major turning point for Armenian, Iranian and

Russian relations and solidified Russia as a common enemy of both Armenians and Persians.

The Yerevan Blue Mosque is also known by a number of other names including “Gök ​ Jāmi' in Turkish, Golubaya mečet' in Russian, Kapuyt mzkit in Armenian and in Persian, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Masjid-i Jum'a or Jāmi'-i Shahr (Ritter 252). I have chosen to refer to the mosque by Yerevan ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Blue Mosque in order to preserve the word blue as it appears in the name in other languages and to include Yerevan in order to distinguish it from other mosques in Turkey and Iran by the same

17 name. The Yerevan Blue Mosque was constructed sixty-three years before the Treaty of

Turkmenchay was signed, and built under the rule of Husayn Ali Khan, the local governor from

1762-1783. Husayn Ali Khan is buried in the mosque complex. The stone marking his grave is located in the classroom where the Iran-Armenia Friendship Association holds Persian language classes. Interestingly, the room is called the Saint Mariam room (Darieva 302). Many of the students who attend these language classes are a part of the Oriental Studies program at Yerevan

State University or have an interest in Persian poetry. This blending of gravesite, classroom and dedication to a Christian saint inside a Shia mosque complex is exemplary of the ways in which this complex exemplifies the long-held relationship between cultures and the layering of historical memory.

Several architectural features that link the mosque to Timurid, Safavid and Qajar architecture are the continuous roofline, facades with double arcades and large ayvan or main ​ ​ portico that reaches above the surrounding facade height (Ritter 253) (Appendix B, Fig. 4). The style of the architectural form and of the decoration is most notably linked to late Qajar architectural traditions in Iran (Ritter 261). Considering the tumultuous political environment in which the mosque was being renovated, it is not far-fetched to assume that visual continuity is a codification of memory linking this mosque to its Persian past (Ritter 262). A redecoration with

Iranian tiles in 1888 suggests a significant Muslim community in Yerevan even after the Russian conquest (Ritter 252). Another renovation under the supervision of Husayn Qoli Khan and partial reconstruction was executed in 1910 while Iranians and Armenians were fighting for

Constitutional rights in Iran (yerevanmasjid.ir).

The coalescing of a tradition often corresponds to the settlement and organization of a society within definable geographical boundaries, for which the writing down of traditions acts like a set of intellectual fenceposts. ... The hold of the past is not

18

only legal and cultural. It is also spatial. It is expressed in land and people, who are geographically placed, and may think they are divinely ordained, to mirror a particular tradition (Boyarin 16).

This quote by Jonathan Boyarin is very applicable to Shias in Armenia during the time of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911). As previously mentioned, borders and territories were in great flux at this time and evidence still exists of Shias making visits and patronizing the Yerevan Blue mosque in 1910. This evidence is seen in the form of inscriptions of mosque benefactors’ names on the fence pickets surrounding the main garden space. (See

Appendix B) There are 30 wrought iron pickets with inscriptions of the benefactors’ name and the year. Today, the inscriptions are yellow and the surrounding picket is painted green to highlight the inscription. Despite the effort to make these historical inscriptions more visible, neither of the art historians I have communicated with regarding this feature were aware of these picket inscriptions. Each inscription begins, in Persian script, with “charitable contribution of” followed by the benefactor’s name and the Islamic Hijri calendar year of 1328/1910.

These fence pickets, in relation to Boyarin’s quote, demarcate the geographical boundaries of Shia tradition and provide a valuable insight into the religious traditions, territorial

4 traversing and cultural exchange that were occurring between Armenians and Persian Shia. The

Muslim community in Yerevan at the time was an important component of the city’s linguistic and religious diversity that characterized the South Caucasus during this time (Darieva 293). The minaret and domes of the Yerevan Blue Mosque, along with those of the mosques that did not survive, were fully integrated parts of Yerevan’s visual culture. The fence pickets constitute

4 It is possible not all of the benefactors were Persian. Some might have been Azeri. I have made the assumption that the benefactors were Persian based on Iran being the seat of Shia authority and the fact that none of the mosques associated with the Ottoman empire remain in Armenia.

19 subtle traces of Shia religious figures in Yerevan at the time of the Constitutional Revolution.

The Islamic names and titles of the benefactors perpetuated their memory over generations.

As Darieva points out, the identities of a place are shaped not just by top-down nation-state narratives but also by legends that are kept alive in their local setting (Darieva 300).

Also included in the fencing surrounding the central garden is a stone fence post said to have powers of fertility for women. This is an example of local legend being woven into the narrative of the mosque complex. According to the mosque docent, women facing fertility problems used to sleep next to the stone in the hopes of becoming pregnant (Appendix B. Fig. 5). These days the mosque closes at six in the evening, so the myth is not testable. Regardless of the veracity of the legend, the juxtaposition of male donors' names in the same fencing system as a female fertility stone within a Shia mosque complex is intriguing.

Armenians in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This quote from Arthashastra, an ancient Sanskrit ​ ​ treatise on statecraft, is an oft quoted phrase when unlikely alliances are made. In the case of

Armenians and Iranians, although not necessarily unlikely, both groups definitely had enemies in common. In this section I will outline the history of Russian interactions in the region and the threat of the Ottomans and the waning Qajar dynasty in relation to Armenian participation in the

Constitutional Revolution. Against this background, it is possible to see how political realism was at play and how this theory applies to the case of Armenians in the early twentieth century.

To better understand the theory of realism I turn to the Oxford Handbook of International

Relations. “Realism provides a foil against which many other schools of thought define

20 themselves and their contributions'' (Wohlforth 133). It is a spectrum of ideas, rather than a solid theory with which to understand statecraft and political motivations. Despite the various definitions of realism one might employ (classical realism, neoclassical realism and neorealism), there is a framework that each school has in common. It is this framework I utilize in the case of

Armenians in the Constitutional Revolution. The first feature of realism is groupism, the ​ ​ necessity of cohesion for survival. Cohesive bodies are referred to as ‘states’ and can be nations but can also take the form of interest groups (Wohlforth 134). The Armenian-Iranian community, which often supported the constitutional movement, can be viewed as an “interest group” collaborating with other interest groups, specifically Muslim Iranians and Caucasian constitutionalists to enact social and political transformation (Berberian 2005: 293).

The second aspect of realism is egoism, the inherent drive to act in service of one’s self ​ ​ interest. This applies to individuals, interest groups and states making choices that will generate the greatest perceived benefit for themselves (Wohlforth 134). For Armenians, who were under threat by Russian, Ottomans and Qajars, it was most beneficial to join forces with the Iranians who were facing the same threats. According to a letter published in the organ of the moderate pro-constitutionalist Hnchak (bell), in the face of the Ottoman threat, Armenian-Iranian felt their ​ ​ ​ ​ own existence, survival, and success was closely tied with that of the Iranian population

(Berberian 2005: 287). Although both groups faced the same threats, they do not comprise a homogenous interest group outside of the revolutionary cause. Both groups had multiple and varied alliances. For example, Armenians had a Christian allegiance while Iranians may have had Islamic allegiances. Different groups may have different economic or social allegiances that

21 differ from those with whom they are working. In these cases, Armenians faced a choice of allegiance in the midst of a war, compounding the urgency and difficulty.

According to Orlando Patterson, the choice of allegiance theory posits: People with multiple allegiances tend to emphasize an identity that produces the most material gain and/or the least security risk (Berberian 2005: 289). The choice of allegiance is another way to look at identity through the realist lenses of groupism and egoism. The third feature of realism is anarchy and its inevitability in relations with others. As with egoism, this type of relationship ​ ranges from interpersonal to global-political. There is no shortage of examples to provide for the existence of anarchy on the world stage in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Wars and revolutions were occurring frequently, creating the extremely chaotic and turbulent environment in which the Constitutional Revolution occurred.

To illustrate the chaotic environment, I will draw upon the confounding example of the

1905 clashes between Caucasian Armenians and Muslims and the 1906 Armenian participation in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. In 1905, arms, fighters and revolutionary literature were leaving Iran for Russia controlled Baku, while Russia was in the midst of its own constitutional movement. Iranian Muslims were in Baku and were fighting against Caucasian Armenians

(Berberian 2005: 282). The next year, major Armenian political parties were in northern Iran

5 fighting the Qajars for constitutional rights in Persia . This example shows how quickly situations, allegiances and governments were changing at the time and illustrates the chaos promised by realist theory.

5 Persia was changed to Iran during the reign of Reza Shah (1925-1941). References to Persia indicate events occurring before 1935.

22

The fourth feature of realism is the culmination of groupism, egoism and chaos resulting in power politics (Wohlforth 134). Power politics acknowledges the precariousness of power and ​ ​ describes how power and resources are amassed to attempt to keep the balance of power in one’s own favor despite inevitable chaos and dissension within groups. To illustrate this final facet of realism, I turn to Yeprem Khan, leader of the Revolutionary Armenian Dashnak Party and powerful player in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. In order to flesh out this example, a brief history of the Dashnak party is necessary.

Realism, Yeprem Khan and the Dashnak Party

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) was founded in 1890 with the purposes of Armenian liberation and was active until the establishment of the Armenian

Republic in 1918 (Dasnabedian 9). The party is also known as the Armenian Revolutionary

Federation or ARF, for the purposes of this paper I will refer to the group as the Dashnak party or Dashnak. The Armenian liberation movement’s main goal was to achieve human rights and democratic freedoms for Armenians by attempting to reform the Turkish state (Dasnabedian 15).

The party was founded by Kristopher Mikaelin, Simon Zavarian, and Rostam (Stephan Zorian) in Tbilisi, Georgia (Tarzian, 37). The most famous leader of the Dashnak is Yeprem Khan who started his participation as an Armenian revolutionary as a youth. Because of his early work with the Dashnak party in the Caucasus he was arrested and spent several years in prison and in exile in Siberia. As other threats emerged, Dashnak organized fighters in tactical areas around the

Ottoman empire, Russian territory and in northwestern Iran to which Yeprem Khan escaped in

1896 (Arkun). One of the strategic strongholds in the area was the decaying Menavor monastery

23 located in the long-ruined city of Julfa. Although Shah Abbas I razed the city after evacuating its

Armenian inhabitants in 1606, remnants of the monastery remained (Berberian 2001: 50). The monastery was advantageously located on the border of Russian and Persian territory and was a base for many of the fighters who would later push for Constitutionalism. The monastery not only served the strategic interests of the fighters, it also connected Armenian fighters with their

Safavid ties and strengthened their religious identity.

Religious identity was a platform on which the Dashnak party gained adherents. The cause of pressuring Russia to return Armenian church property seized by Tsar Nicholas II was notable success for the group’s interests and popularity (Berberian 2001: 53). This victory shows how groupism and egoism triumphed over chaos, if only temporarily, to reap a harvest of power that made the Dashnak party known as capable and victorious fighters and attractive allies for the

Persians.

While fighting a civil war in Azerbaijan, Caucasian Dashnakists were meeting with the leader of the Tabriz resistance, Sattar Khan, resulting in cooperation and exchange of ideas on commanding troops and weaponry (Berberian 2005: 283). In addition to the Tabriz resistance,

Armenian Hnchakists and especially Dashnakists under the command of Yeprem Khan also helped carry out operations like the takeovers of Rasht, Qazvin and Tehran, and the battles against anti-constitutionalist forces including those of Muhammad Ali Shah (Berberian 2005:

284). Yeprem Khan is given great credit for his leadership of the Armenian fighters. According to writer Hovsep Hovhannisian, had it not been for Yeprem Khan’s aid in deflecting the blows of the royalists and Russians, and for his constitutional spirit, “no doubt Iran would have remained

... dark and ignorant and turned into a Russian state” (Berberian 2008, 282). He even goes so far

24 as to say “ ... it is possible to come to the conclusion that the Persian constitutional movement with all its expressions, would have been doomed to failure had not the Armenians, the expert fighters, that is the Dashnak warriors, brought their participation” (Berberian 2008: 281). These laudatory comments regarding Yeprem Khan and the Dashnak are further evidence of groupism and egoism with an intended result of power accumulation amidst the chaos of the time. The comments situate the Dashnak party as the central actor and with Yeprem Khan in the position of leader. They also align the interests of constitutionalists against the enemy of the Central

Government.

No doubt, Yeprem Khan is a hugely successful and well-known player in the Iranian constitutional movement. He is not, however, without detractors or criticisms. Much of the negativity regarding Yeprem Khan stems from his appointment as the chief of police in Tehran in 1908, his disarmament activities and his culpability in the shooting of Sattar Khan. According to the Hnchakist, Yeprem Khan and his disarmament campaign betrayed the Iranian national commander Sattar Khan and the Social Democratic Party (Berberian 2005: 286). The Dashnakist newspaper Aravot supported Yeprem Khan’s disarmament and referred to the Iranian mojahedin, with whom they had recently worked so closely, as rebels and threats (Berberian 2005: 286).

Yeprem Khan also had some choice words in regard to Sattar Khan’s committee in his personal memoir From Anzali to Tehran. ​ The Sattar Committee, which dubbed itself the Social-Democrat Society, which Mehri had established as such, considered the Lightning Committee its own branch. When the Lightning Committee learned of the matter and received a letter from the Sattar Committee, it refused to comply with the Committee's decision and left it alone and started operating separately. As a result, there was a dispute between the two committees that is still ongoing (Yeprem Khan 24). ​

25

His appointment to the position of police chief was a turning point at which Yeprem

Khan has amassed enough power to enter into the realist activity of power politics.

Identity and Nation Building

In the pursuit of understanding Armenian participation in the Constitutional Revolution, it is necessary to examine how linguistic, religious and ethnic identity affected Christian

Armenians in the fight for constitutional rights in Iranian Shia society. As previously mentioned,

Armenians enjoyed a centuries-long tradition of acceptance in Iran. Although religion and language set Armenians apart from the larger Persian speaking Shia majority. Armenians were also well assimilated into society. In this section I use the theories of Frederik Barth on minority identity formation and Benedict Anderson on nation formation to see how and for what purposes

Armenian minorities negotiated the shifting political, social and literary landscapes of the early

1900s.

By now we are familiar with the Dashnaks, the Armenian political party given great credit for the successes of the revolutionary movement. This party is famously headed by

Yeprem Khan who joined forces with various ethnic and tribal groups to demand constitutional rights from the Qajar dynasty. In addition to the Russian and Ottoman threats, the catalyst for

Dashnak activism was the banning of their party organ Aravot (morning or dawn). This act of ​ ​ censorship caused the Dashnak as well as the more moderate Hnchakists to conspire to oust

Muhammad Ali Shah and install a constitutional parliament in Tehran (Berberian 2001: 68). By participating in the Constitutional Revolution, politically active Iranian-Armenians began to

26 contribute to Iranian nationalism that encompassed Iranian citizens of different ethnicities, religions, and languages (Berberian 2005: 291).

As Benedict Anderson argues in his oft-cited Imagined Communities, presses were ​ ​ essential for the dissemination of information that formed national identities during this tumultuous time. In this section I examine how Barth’s theories of minority assimilation coincide with Benedict Anderson’s ideas on the formation of national identity. I draw upon E.G.

Browne’s book on The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia (1914) to illustrate the Armenian ​ ​ presence and influence in Revolutionary media (Table 1). By comparing the Armenian language and Armenian-influenced newspapers a variety of viewpoints emerge, although the majority of the publications were more or less pro-constitutionalist (Appendix A, Table 1).

Through this table it is possible to see several iterations of different newspapers based on intervals of government suppression of the presses. Three such examples include Fikr which was ​ ​ banned and reopened under the title Mitq. Both papers had the same editor and contributors, ​ ​ notably the Pro-Russian Armenian Alexander Dir Wartaniyans who was also a teacher in the

Armenian College in Tabriz (Browne 123). The second example is Iran-i-Now which was started ​ ​ in 1909 but ceased publication in 1910 when Basil the Armenian could no longer provide financial support. The paper reopened under the recognizable names of Iran-i-Nawin and ​ ​ Rahbar-i-Iran-i-Now in 1911. Neither of the later versions was able to publish more than a ​ couple of issues before being suppressed (Browne 53). The third example is Sharq, a ​ ​ revolutionary newspaper that was suppressed in 1909 and replaced by Barq in 1910. In Yeprem ​ ​ Khan’s From Anzali to Tehran the famous Armenian commander and police chief wrote ​ ​ accounts of his missions and specifically references Barq. ​ ​

27

Since it was observed that the Sattar Committee was in fact doing nothing and avoiding serious action, I went to Anzali where I formed a committee called the “lightning” Committee. The committee also consists of seven members, three of whom are Armenians and four others are Muslims. The major difference between the "lightning" Committee and the "Star" Committee is that the lightning Committee is in practice following the "revolutionary socialist" agenda (Yeprem Khan 24).

This quotation shows a divergence of ideology between the Socialist Democratic Party of

Sattar Khan and what Yeprem calls the Revolutionary Socialist Agenda of the Dashnak. Yeprem

Khan’s references to committees by their organ names shows how significant the products of the press were. This significance is echoed by E.G. Browne who wrote “... the most important effect of the Press in every country is the awakening of political and literary opinion amongst the people,...” (Browne 154). It is worth noting the use of the word “awakening” in E.G, Browne’s quote, as well as the time of its publishing (1914). Themes of new life, dawn and light fill the titles of the newspapers printed at the time (Appendix A, Table 1). This idea of awakening lends itself well to Benedict Anderson’s theory on print-languages as foundational in the emergence of national consciousness. Anderson posits that this foundation is created in three distinct ways; first, “print languages create unified fields of exchange and communication”, second, print-capitalism gave “fixity” to language that gave emerging nations their heritage and pedigree, and third, print-capitalism established “languages-of-power” (Anderson 45).

Again, referring to Table 1, it is useful to note the number of Armenian language newspapers printed in Iran. However, for the scope and confines of this paper it is not prudent to list the vast majority of newspapers printed in Persian, which far outweighs those in Armenian.

In fact, many of the Armenian language newspapers were also translated into Persian including the Hunchakian party program that was translated from Armenian to Persian by a delegate in the

28

Iranian assembly and founding member of the Hunchakian party, Kay Ostovan (Berberian 2008:

270). Kay Ostovan’s translation and place in the national assembly illustrates how the

Hnchakians wanted their platform to communicate to a wider audience, how Persian language was the dominant language and how, through linguistic skills, Ostovan was able to further solidify Persian as a language-of-power and himself as a realist power player.

To further illustrate how various identities were acknowledged and included revolutionary literature, I turn to poetry that emphasizes different identities coalescing to form a revolutionary public and printed in Nasim-i-Shimal (Breeze of the North) February 1909 to ​ ​ inspire participation in the July deposition of Muhammad Ali Shah through deeds not words

(Browne 204). This poem is exemplary because of the number of times it references aspects of

Muslim and Christian identity, language and symbolism to unite many under the banner of constitutional rights. Below is E.G. Browne’s English translation with key words highlighted to emphasize references to identity and unity under a shared God.

Sovereignty endureth nor for cruel and tyrannical kings : to lay down life for the amelioration of one’s country is meet and Proper. ​ ​ So long as thou makest no effort, no one will open the door before thee : he is a man who shuts his lips and stretches out his arm!

The Prophets have included in their utterances discourses on ​ ​ ​ ​ Justice : all the Saints have celebrated the praises of Justice: ​ ​ All the learned have enshrined in their writings traditions of ​ ​ ​ ​ Justice : unseemly to-day is vain talk about Injustice : He is a man who shuts his lips and stretches out his arm!.

“Strive” (jahidu) saith God both in the Gospels and in the ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Qur’an: arise, then, and like a “striver” (mujahid) lay down ​ ​ ​ thy life for thy country’s sake! Dagger, arrow and javelin are as the rose, narcissus and the basil : it is the roar of cannons and guns which will dissipate ​ our sorrows! He is a man who shuts his lips and stretches out his arm! (Browne 205).

29

This poem demonstrates the ways in which religious identity was visible in revolutionary rhetoric and how varying identities were united under the constitutional cause and a shared belief in the same God. This literary example of the blending of Christianity and Islam is an early example of how the two religions can co-exist much in the same way there is a co-mingling of the two religions in the Yerevan Blue Mosque.

Now that the linguistic climate of the Constitutional Revolution has been compared with

Benedict Anderson’s theory on print languages and nation has been explored, I turn to ethnic identity and its place in the context of the constitutional movement. To begin, a definition provided by Barth for an ethnic group is as follows. An ethnic group continues through biological reproduction, shares cultural values and forms, comprises a field of communication and interaction and has self-identifying membership distinguishable from other categories (Barth

11). This is a viable definition only if ethnic groups live within a vacuum. Since they do not, another framework is needed to explain the situational fluidity of minority identities in contact with a majority society. According to Houri Berberian’s interpretation of Barth on the subject, minorities may try to pass, may accept minority status and/or may try to emphasize ethnic identity (Berberian 2005: 289). Furthermore, depending on which strategy is chosen, different outcomes will correlate. If an individual or group chooses to “pass” or assimilate, they will be culturally conservative and have a lower rank in the larger society. When individuals or groups accept their minority status, they will assimilate over time and those who chose to emphasize their ethnic identity will pass into nativist movements (Berberian 2005: 289). Although the framework is reasonable, it is also rather limited in its ability to consider the situationality of identity. That being said, the Armenians of New Julfa are a good example of the second strategy

30 where the minority group accepts their minority status and eventually assimilates. This community had been in Isfahan for three hundred years at the time of the Constitutional

Revolution and, although they remained a distinct minority group, they were also assimilated into life in Isfahan. Yeprem Khan is a good example of an individual who may have started out in a semi-nativist movement but ended up in the “passing” category when he became Tehran’s chief of police. The following quote from a book of his writings, From Anzali to Tehran (1912), ​ ​ shows Yeprem Khan’s nativism is not aligned with his ethnic, religious or linguistic identities but rather an imagined nation of a ‘revolutionary public’.

According to the aforementioned declaration, after outlining the main purpose of the revolution, we have reminded the revolutionary public that it is time to start serious action against the government. And it has to end its exploits. We have also noted to the government that the flame of the revolution has not been extinguished, but is still flaring and that the nation is, for the reason of freedom, ready to bring war (Yeprem Khan 23). ​

Ethnic, religious and linguistic identity all play a part in a minority group’s place in the larger societies within which they live. As the final component of my argument I will take some of what has already been discussed in terms of realism, print languages and strategies of assimilation and add to them the idea of allegiances as put forth by Orlando Patterson in his contribution “Context and Choice in Ethnic Allegiance: a Theoretical Framework and Caribbean

Case Study” in Theory and Experience (1975). Patterson creates a structure called the Choice of ​ ​ ​ Allegiance. The choice of allegiance lays out three ways people navigate multiple allegiances ​ including identity. First, those with multiple identities will identify most strongly with the identity that produces the least conflict or is most harmonizing. Second, when multiple identities cannot be reconciled, individuals will align with those that will bring the most material gain

31 and/or the least security risk, and third, class interests tend to take precedence over other social strata categories, for instance religion (Patterson 311). Patterson’s choice of allegiance theory ties in well with realism in that they both make the assumption that individuals, groups and nations are looking out for their perceived interests and trying to amass power.

I argue the Dashnak and Yeprem Khan were able to amass power because they presented an allegiance that offered ethnic and religious minorities security from Russian and Ottoman threats. Their identities prevented them from being able to ally with their aggressors, so they found belonging in the Dashnak and transcended the identities that were otherwise a liability.

The following excerpts from Yeprem Khan’s From Anzali to Tehran (1912) show the ethnic ​ ​ makeup of his forces, the level of attention given to these groups and Yeprem Khan’s own concepts of power and violence.

Mujahideen equipped with my command consisted of: 20 Georgians and 10 Armenians and 3 Muslims. The equipment was as follows: Armenians with 2 numbers. The equipment was as follows: Armenians had 4 "mazers," and the Iranians gave the “mazers” to the Georgians. Twelve were armed with old system rifles. Government forces consisted of five soldiers, two Kazakhs, and three mounted along with Amir Sultan and a number of police officers whose numbers were unknown (Yeprem Khan 26). ​

This quote shows how fighters may be identifiable by their regional identities or ethnicity but there is a sense of cooperation and unity among them as Mujahideen. This excerpt also shows how a variety of people came together with what they had, and how Yeprem Khan took inventory of them and distributed the munitions among the fighters. The variety of fighters also demonstrates how allegiance with the Dashnak was a tool of survival that brought security to vulnerable groups in the region at the time.

Our casualties were one Armenian (called Nagorno-Karabakhi) one Georgian

32

and one Muslim - 25 more were injured. Sixty-seven were killed and eight were injured. I captured and shot the famous conqueror. This man was one of those who fired the ball in the National Assembly in the year 1908. (Yeprem Khan 33) ​

This somber quote is another inventory of Yeprem Khan’s assets. With three casualties among his troops and sixty-seven among the anti-revolutionaries, it is striking that he would have an accounting of who among his troops were killed in battle but is not specific about the ethnic variations of the deceased anti-revolutionaries. Another quote regarding loss of life during the battle sheds light onto the ethnicity of the sixty-seven killed in the battle against the famous conqueror who bombed the national assembly earlier in 1908.

After four hours of war the state forces began to withdraw. Their casualties were two dead and one injured. There were also some peasants in the same village. Some women and children were also killed during the clashes. The killing of women was deliberate because they carried guns under their chadors, and men sometimes escaped with their chadors. But the killing of the children was not intentional and they were killed by accidental bullets. (Yeprem Khan 31) ​

This quote, more sobering than the previous one, gives the idea that the anti-constitutionalist they were fighting were Iranians because the women were wearing chadors.

Although the Dashnak also fought against Ottoman and Russian aggression, as the title of the book suggests, this battle was fought in Persian territory against pro-royalist forces.

Armenian Genocide

...Who, after all, speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?

Adolf Hitler

33

A thesis regarding such a wide span of Armenian history would not be complete without providing information on the Armenian Genocide. Here, I give a brief history of the events and outcomes of the Genocide that killed or displaced 150,000 Armenians in one year (Suny 114).

The topic of the Genocide is relevant not only as a historical event but also the ways in which its memory informs Armenian foreign policy and identity. It is also relevant because Iran’s largest and most powerful religious minority are Armenian Christians. The beginning of the Genocide is memorialized as April 24, 1915. This was the day Turkish Ottomans expelled Armenians from

Constantinople. Men were forced into labor camps, while women and children were sent on death marches into the Syrian desert (Suny 113). Although many communities were affected by the great war, there were no more numerous victims than the Armenians. They were viewed as a strategic threat by Turkish Ottomans who used this threat as a justification for violence (Fortna

166). Thousands of children were orphaned and the Armenian community was scattered in the diaspora. After the Ottoman defeat, Armenian refugees tried to establish new lives, causing a mixture of guilt and contempt for those who remembered supporting Young Turk policies during the war (Fortna 238).

Collective memory thrives in specific groups within specific times and places and is the place where an individual can voice their personal memories (Crane 1376). Because of the diaspora, the collective memory was scattered and now the discreet places and times in which the collective reunites the Armenian community stretches from Isfahan to Yerevan to Los Angeles.

The unjust death of ancestors is given action in the present, testing the idea that historical time cannot be reversed or bent (Boyarin 11). The lived and learned memories perpetuate the past into the future, bending time upon itself.

34

Tsitsernakaberd, or the Armenian Genocide Memorial, was constructed in Yerevan in

1967. A sharp spire and a ring of imposing concrete columns looms over an eternal flame at its center space (Appendix B, Fig. 6). The memorial includes a subterranean museum with art works and exhibits that range from postage stamps, to relief efforts to a gallery dedicated to the orphans of the Genocide. Along the wall of a staircase that descends to more exhibit rooms is the striking quote by Adolf Hitler that introduces this section, linking the Armenian Genocide with the

Jewish Holocaust creating continuity between both horrific episodes in history. The poignancy of the quote highlights a difference in the way the Armenian Genocide is remembered in comparison to the Jewish Holocaust. As Susan Crane points out, historical memory represents past(s) and narratives that represent pasts (Crane 1373). That fact that Turks only belatedly ​ ​ recognize or take responsibility for the violence imposed on Armenians in World War I illustrates the plurality of pasts that are constructed by historical memory. The fact that Germany, on the other hand shows concern for its role in the Holocaust encourages Holocaust remembrance tourism (Boyarin 13). Of course, this concern serves multiple functions, besides being moral, a realist interpretation would hold that taking responsibility boosts the reputation of

Germans which permits them to have better standing when negotiating their interests.

Ahenk Yilmaz’s work on monuments using the art of memory is particularly well suited to the study of Jewish and Armenian Holocaust memorials. There are a number of ways a visitor to Tsitsernakaberd is guided through placed memories and symbols of remembrance, one of which is the arboretum that shares the mountaintop location with the memorial and museum. A fir tree is planted by each delegation who comes to the memorial to pay their respects to the victims. Because Genocide recognition is stated as one of Armenia’s top foreign policy

35 objectives, a tree for each benefactor constructs not only a cohesive memory of the events of

1915 but also serves as a marker of political cohesiveness (mfa.am/en/genocide). This arboretum also known as ‘Memory Alley’ is full of trees that symbolize official remembering of nation states, international organizations and individuals that is tied to the political interests of the

Armenian government (genocide-museum.am). I found tree markers from Pope John Paul from

2009 and from Arizona state senators Paul Boyer and Otoniel Navarrete freshly planted on July

30, 2019 (Appendix B, Fig. 7 & 8). Curiously, after methodically combing the arboretum for a sign bearing the name of an Iranian delegation, I came up short. In fact, even after checking websites like armenian-genocide.org and even Armenia’s own foreign ministry, I have been

6 unable to find evidence of Iran’s official recognition of the Genocide . The best form of evidence to support my findings that the Armenian Genocide has not been officially recognized by the

Iranian government is from 2015 when two Armenian Consultative Assembly (parliament) members, Karen Khanlaryan and Robert Beglaryan, presented a motion to the Assembly ​ ​ condemning the Armenian Genocide (fides.org). This shows that at least by 2015, no official condemnation had been issued by the Iranian government which is paradoxical to the relationship between Armenia and Iran and the stated goals of the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

This lack of de jure recognition does not mean there is no discourse or a de facto recognition of ​ ​ ​ ​ the Genocide among Iranians.

6 It is worth noting that in 2009, the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad very publicly denied the Jewish Holocaust in a UN speech. This speech may have affected any official statements on Genocide due to the sensitivity of the topic and widespread backlash caused by the speech.

36

CHAPTER THREE: SOVIET ARMENIA & POST WWII IRAN

Preservation of the Yerevan Blue Mosque Through Literature

In keeping with the literary themes and the roles literature plays in nation building, I turn to the Armenian poets and writers of the early Soviet period. Institutionalized Soviet secularism and urbanization marginalized tradition in pursuit of a socialist transformation (Darieva 293).

This period was especially tenuous for the mosque. The literary circles that redefined its purpose placed the Yerevan Blue Mosque in a multi-layered history that worked across changing political regimes by being flexible not with its form but with its function (Darieva 296). According to

Heghnar Watenpaugh, who writes about more portable survivor objects, looting, breaking or uprooting an object affects the way the object exists in the world and the significance of the object to those who encounter it (Watenpaugh 753). Watenpaugh’s work focuses on the fragmentation of the Zeytun Gospels, their significance to the Armenian diaspora and the ethics surrounding museum collection of looted objects. But what happens if the object cannot be uprooted? Is the changing of the function of the mosque a form of uprooting? I argue

Watenpaugh’s assertion also applies to immovable objects, like buildings, as changing the function of the mosque altered the significance of the mosque to those who encountered it. To illustrate the mosque's transition from sacred space to a secular social space, I focus on two authors: Mkrtich Armen (1906-1972) and the prolific Elise Charents (1897-1937). These authors stand out for their contributions to the present day existence of the Blue Mosque and their participation in the Association of Proletarian Writers of Armenia (Bardakjian 223). Charents and his literary career are directly credited for saving the mosque complex from destruction.

37

Although lesser known, Mkrtich Armen penned the novella Zubeida (1928), which is partially ​ ​ set in the Yerevan Blue Mosque and provides descriptions of not only the physical appearance of the complex within Yerevan but also the ways in which it was used during the Soviet era. Both authors, for at least portions of their writing careers, contributed to Armenian literature in a way that was approved of by Moscow and therefore were allowed to influence the city planning efforts.

Mktrich Armen

Mktrich Armen (1906) was born in Gyumri, Armenia, formerly known as Alexandropol and Leninakan. His writing focused on technology, rising socio-political realities and his hopes for the architectural future of Yerevan (Bardakjian 222). Armen was a founder of the Union of

Writers in Gyumri called Hoktember (October) and his writing career spanned from his first ​ ​ volume of poetry ‘Sirkanal’ published in 1925 to his final novel titled Zirayr published in 1967 ​ ​ (Bardakjian 289). Like many of his contemporary Armenian writers, Armen was exiled to

Siberia for his writing; he was however, one of few to live to write about his experiences

(Bardakjian 222). Although it is not among his most acclaimed works, parts of Armen’s novella,

Zubeida (1928) will be analysed here for several reasons. First, it contains a number of ​ references and descriptions of the Yerevan Blue Mosque. Second, it provides a glimpse into the ways in which the mosque was used during the Soviet era, a time period in which little information on the mosque exists. The third reason is the novella’s connection to

Soviet-Armenian nationalism and national remembering. Throughout the Soviet era the sacred places of non-Armenian communities were marginalized, silenced and forgotten (Darieva 294).

38

Although the mosque structure survived this period of marginalization and silencing, its survival was made possible by obscuring its religious purpose.

In his 1928 Book Zubeida, Mktrich Armen describes the city of Yerevan and the Yerevan ​ ​ Blue Mosque through a lens of reimagination.

It is easy enough to climb any high place and look downwards towards that labyrinth to see its simplicity and misery, with one stroke you can solve its secret. In those back districts you can find the bathhouses. They are built underground with their diamond-shaped rooftops just above the ground, they are public baths, Iranian bathhouses. In those back districts there are churches and mosques, the churches have wide alleys and the church is located in the center of those alleys. The mosques on the contrary standing with their high walls and behind the walls, inside the building, the alleys are located. In one of those back-end districts next to the bazaar there are the chaikhanes. They are like shops and have shutters from the street side. The chaikhanes contain one room but there are chaikhanes that, in their deep corners, have either a wooden or stone ladder which leads upstairs to a room which contains couches and dirty beds. It is a place to spend the night (Armen 10). ​

This quote is a survey of Yerevan. Specific architectural features are emphasized. The diamond shaped roof of the bathhouses, the inner alleyways of the walled mosques and the chaikhanes (teahouses) shuttered off from the street all give a sense of secrecy that can be ​ uncovered if one is high enough. The concept of the memory palace was previously mentioned in the context of Cicero and analyzing monuments. Armen’s descriptions of Yerevan are like a memory palace. Armen has fixed Yerevan monuments into an imaginary socialist future and guides the reader through a spatialized memory (Boyarin 12). The next quote speaks to the change in purpose of the mosque complex. The replacement of pilgrims with workers is particularly illustrative of the secularization of the space, time and memory of the mosque.

The southern part of the courtyard is the main mosque, the prayer-hall, and opposite it the north part, the other-prayer-hall. On the east and west walls there

39

are twenty-twenty-four small doors that look like each other. These are the cell doors, in the cells where pilgrims once sat. Now, pilgrims no longer come, and there are Persian and Turkish artisans and laborers in the cells (Armen 27). ​

Four years before Zubeida was published, famous Soviet architect Alexander Tamanyan ​ ​ designed his master plan for Yerevan. Although not implemented until the 1930s and 1940s,

Tamayan’s plans would drastically change the views described by Armen as well as the stature of the Yerevan Blue Mosque. Tamayan’s plan included wide, paved avenues and the raising of the city’s ground level by two meters (Darieva 297). This socialist modernization effort is the reason one must descend a staircase to enter the mosque complex today. The raising of the streets sunk religious buildings into the ground and minimized their presence and purpose in

Yerevan’s urban setting (Darieva 297). This minimization of the mosque's presence is similar to the Zeytun Gospels in that the perceived identity of the object is reconstructed in a new social paradigm (Watenpaugh 754). Rather than being scattered throughout the world, the mosques’ function was rewritten. During the same years these modernization and secularization efforts were taking place, Mktrich Armen was writing Zubeida. Although the previous passage was ​ ​ from a high vantage point the following passage is from a more terrestrial standpoint. This passage describes a chaikhane in Yerevan, which was one of the mosque’s functions during the early twentieth century. I argue that Armen’s focus on the workers and the labor within the chaikhane is what links it to the socialist ideology dominant in Yerevan at the time.

Most of the gathered people were farmers, Iranian and Armenian farmers, there were craftsmen and workers also in the gathering. What was the reason behind this gathering in (alakber's) chaikhane not just inside but also outside near the doors? The reason was that an (Ashugh) (storyteller) came from a far place to tell a story in (alakber's) chaikhane the storytelling began two hours ago and the (Ashugh) was seating on a table and drinking tea. A little bit later he would continue the story (Armen 12). ​

40

This section is significant in that it illustrates types of work, the everyday life of workers and the forms of entertainment enjoyed by men in Yerevan in the early years of Soviet rule.

Armen’s descriptions link Iranian with Armenian urban life in the absence of religious gatherings. The next section focuses on the everyday life of workers but also the flow of commerce between Iran and Armenia and indicates that it was not just workers but also businessmen spending time in the chaikhanes.

The (Ashugh) (Hafiz-Zadeh) was a vigorous old man in his 50s tall and patient. He had a thin mustache, no beard at all and was wearing a beautiful Bukharian hat that was sitting solidly on his bald head. He put his saz (instrument) next to him on the bench, he was drinking tea and talking to the businessman sitting at the next table. (HAFIZ-ZADEH) came from a far place and he knew valuable information. For example, he knew how much the figs cost in Kermanshah, 7 raisins in Tabriz and the dried fruits in (Ordubad ). The businessmen were listening to him carefully and making some notes in their notebooks. At other tables sat some Iranian and Armenian peasants, some men were Iranian and Armenian craftsmen. They were sipping their tea and thinking about the end of the story (Armen 12). ​

Elise Charents

Elise Charents was born in Kars, a city inside present day Turkey, in 1897. In 1915, he joined Armenian volunteers in the Russian war effort against the Ottomans then fought again with the Red Army in 1918 finally settling in Yerevan in 1920 (Bardakjian 311). Charents’ military career set the stage for him to gain approval from Soviet leadership. His early writing career benefited from this approval and Charents, along with two other Armenian authors, issued the “Declaration of Three'' denouncing the old Armenian literary tradition in favor of Russian

7 Ordubad is a city located in the present day non-contiguous Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan

41 futurism (Bardakjian 208). Charents was involved in a number of controversial activities such as a morphine addiction and the shooting and wounding of a woman who turned down his advances

(Bardakjian 311, Charents et al. 267). Despite these controversies, Charents’ reputation was revitalized in the 1950’s. There are streets and cities named after the author and his image even appears on the Armenian 1000 dram banknote (Appendix B. Fig. 9). Similar to, but more prolific than Armen, Charents was interested in constructing the future of not only Armenian literature but also city planning and architecture. While in Armenia, I visited the Arc of Charents.

According to the tour guide who explained each site on our tour in Armenian, Russian, and

English, the Arc was dedicated to Charents because of his frequent visits to the site to see its beautiful view of Mt. Ararat which is located on the other side of the nearby Turkish border. The arc is decorated with his poems about the mountain chiseled into the stone in Armenian script.

(Appendix B, Fig. 10).

The Arc of Charents was not the only monument frequented by the poet. As mentioned previously, he is widely credited as saving the Yerevan Blue Mosque from destruction during

Soviet secularization by reassigning the function of the site between 1935 and 1991. According to Susan Crane, collective memory is located in individuals rather than objects or sites and it is an individual's reading of the object that places it within the context of collective memory (Crane

1382). Charents’ offer to turn the mosque into a museum is an example of how, as an individual writer, he assigned a new reading, transforming a taboo physical memory into a container of communist rather than religious ideology. The mosque complex was eventually divided into a museum of Yerevan’s history and a Museum of Natural History that promoted Darwinism and repurposed the main prayer hall as a planetarium (Darieva 298). The secularization of the

42 religious space can hardly be more overt. Another way of thinking about Charents’s role in preserving the mosque is through legend. Legends are narratives that formed from the identities of a site rather than historical time or a specific political regime (Darieva 300). In the case of both Armen and Charents, their writing and participation in promoting communism preserved the memory of the mosque to be excavated after Soviet power waned.

In 2015 the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran organized an event in the courtyard of the restored mosque to commemorate the legacy of Charents. Advisor to the Embassy of the ​ Islamic Republic of Iran in Culture, Seyyed Mohammad Reza Heydar, said the event was meant to show the love a respect for Charents, appreciation for his role in saving the mosque and that a selections of his works have been translated into Persian (yerkirmedia.am). This contemporary ​ ​ celebration of Charents is another way that memory, literary nationalism and international relations come together in the Yerevan Blue Mosque grounding its symbolic representation of the Armenian-Iranian relationship.

Iranian-Azeri Secessionist Movement

The Azeri secessionist movement of the 1940s was a noteworthy occurrence as it pertains to Iran, the Soviet era and future repercussions on the Karabakh conflict. This movement is tied to communism and contributes to future Iranian worries regarding territorial integrity and their sizable Azeri population. Historically, the area was a convergence point for the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires. The shifting power structures and affinities play a significant role in the

Karabakh conflict. Because of these shifting affinities and historical convergence, most modern nations in and around the southern Caucasus region are not homogenous and, in fact, converge

43 with a number of populations by the establishment of national borders. Beginning in 1918 a small Azeri autonomous movement led by Sheykh Muhammad Khiabani attempted to reunite

Soviet Azeris with Iranian Azeris in a new territory called Azadistan (land of the free) (Cornell ​ ​ 53). According to a 1958 CIA report, this movement was short-lived due to the assassination of

Khabani by the Central Government (CIA 5-2). On the heels of the Iranian Constitutional

Revolution, the Armenian Genocide and the conclusion of World War I, another attempt for

Azadistan was led by Lakhuti Khan but was also quashed by Central Government forces (CIA

5-2). By the end of World War II Reza Shah was in exile, Russia and the British were retreating from Iran, and the conditions were suitable for an Azeri autonomous movement within Iran leading to the administrative division of Iranian Azerbaijan into two (Cornell 54). This time, the movement had Soviet support and communist ideology. The movement was led by Jafar

Pishevari, the head of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP) and childhood schoolmate of

Josef Stalin (CIA 5-2). This movement provides historical context and reasoning to Iran’s reluctance to side with Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict both because of communist ideology and because it threatened the borders of the still fledgling Islamic Republic of Iran. The threat of losing territory was unpalatable, especially in the latter years of the (1980-1988) Iran-Iraq war.

The emergence of an independent Azerbaijan on the border of the Iranian province of the same name brought back fears of Soviet intervention from 1946. Iranian fears were exacerbated by the fact that the issue of reunification occupied a prominent role in Azerbaijan’s post-independence framing (Mirzoyan 116).

Interestingly, the 1979 fall of the Shah and the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran did not exacerbate Azeri attempts for autonomy or succession. This can be explained by Azeris

44 sharing the Shia religion and also the new constitution’s provisions for minority rights in Iran.

Paradoxically though, Iran was also not extremely driven to bring Shia Azerbaijan into its circle of influence. Despite its attempts in Lebanon and Iraq to bolster Shia identity and prominence,

Iran was cautious about aligning with its Shia neighbor to the north. This was because of the historical events described above but also for realist reasonings regarding security and influence and geopolitical chess games with other actors. In the face of the chaos, Iran made choices based on its own perceived self-interest rather than along ideological partisanship.

CHAPTER FOUR: POST-SOVIET ARMENIA

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan

The conflict over the Karabakh region began in 1921 when Stalin, in an attempt to appease Turkey and Azerbaijani leaders, backtracked on his decision to attach the predominantly

Armenian-populated mountainous region to Azerbaijan instead of Armenia (Mirzoyan 11). Due to the Soviet Union’s heavy-handed leadership, the consequences of this decision were put on ice until the late 1980s. In 1988 old tensions were exacerbated by Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). This opening of the Soviet Union to liberal ​ ​ ​ markets and restructuring of the economic system fueled ethnic tensions between Azeris and

Armenians. As Soviet states were preparing for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the

Karabakh region became a major point of contention. The Karabakh region, although within the boundaries of Azerbaijan, was largely populated by Armenians. In September 1991 the region declared independence from the Soviet Union and called itself the Republic of Artsakh. The

Republic of Artsakh is governed in the capital of Stepanakert by a presidential democracy that is

45 closely linked to Armenia. Because of the growing independence movement, Azerbaijan revoked the region’s autonomous oblast status conferred to it by the Leninist Soviet Union (Ajemian

388). Simultaneous to this occurrence the Soviet Union was disintegrating and ethnic violence broke out in the Karabakh mountainous region. A number of pogroms and massacres ensued, further destabilizing the region. The anti-Armenian sentiment coming from Moscow and Baku were the driving forces behind the remobilization of the Karabakh committee led by Levon

Ter-Petrosyan and the declaration of the Republic of Artsakh to secede Azerbaijan (Mirzoyan

12). Problems for the secessionist movement were compounded on December 7, 1988, when a devastating earthquake shook the northern part of Armenia and a blockade by Azerbaijan and

Turkey prevented aid and supplies from arriving in the affected areas.

The fall of the Soviet Union marked a new paradigm of statecraft and social relations around the globe. In the Caucasus and surrounding states, upheaval, mobilization and shifting power structures occurred. In order to better understand how the Iran-Armenia relationship moved into this new paradigm, it is important to look at the interests of the various states, their methods for achieving their interests and the ways in which civil society participated in the establishment of new state dynamics. To do this, two social and political theories are employed, the first of which is realism. For the most part classical-realism will be applied as it pertains to both state and social structures. However, as the structure of the Soviet Union crumbled, new state and power structures emerged, and for this reason neo-realist analysis also sheds light on the ways in which these emerging structures were formed.

It is this framework I utilize in the case of Iran and Armenia’s post-Soviet relationship.

The first feature of realism is groupism, the necessity of cohesion for survival. Cohesive bodies ​ ​

46 can include states, nations and interest groups (Wohlforth 134). In the case of the Karabakh conflict several interest groups emerged and collaborated with other interest groups. Major interest groups to emerge from this conflict were notably the Dashnak Army, the Pan Armenian

National Movement, Russia and the Azerbaijani OMON (Special Forces Mobilization

Movement). The second aspect of realism is egoism, the inherent drive to act in service of one’s ​ ​ self interest. This applies to individuals, interest groups and states making choices that will generate the greatest perceived benefit for themselves (Wohlforth 134). For the various actors in this conflict, territory and power were driving forces of violence. None wanted to cede territory and none wanted to forfeit power. For example, Iran was supportive of Karabakh secession but did not hesitate to withdraw support for Armenians if violent outbreaks threatened Iran’s own territorial integrity. This situation was detailed in former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s

1993 memoir. I have translated the following quote from Persian to English.

To this end, Dr. Velayati called the Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia and conveyed my message to the President of Armenia, saying that in our previous phone call, the Armenians were not to make progress beyond the current limits, and that the operation of the last few days was a violation. We threatened in a calm tone (azariha.org).

A main area of concentration of Iran’s policy in the Southern Caucasus became border stability through mediation and close monitoring of regional conflicts, particularly

Nagorno-Karabakh (Mirzoyan 115). This is an example of its egoism in relation to the steadiness of their support for Armenians. The third feature of realism is anarchy and its inevitability in ​ ​ relations with others. As with egoism, this type of relationship ranges from interpersonal to global-political. There is no shortage of examples to argue for the existence of anarchy on the world stage after the fall of the Soviet Union. Violence and secessionism took place frequently,

47 creating the extremely chaotic and turbulent environment in which the Karabakh conflict occurred. To illustrate the chaotic environment, I draw upon the example of mother nature feeding chaos in the form of the devastating 1988 earthquake. Actors used this chaos to their advantage by blockading supplies destined for Armenia. This example shows just how chaotic world affairs can become. The subsequent blockade of aid from Armenia was a power play by

Azerbaijan and Turkey to take advantage of the situation and turn it to their favor. Power politics ​ is the culmination of groupism, egoism and chaos (Wohlforth 134). Power politics acknowledges the precariousness of power and describes how power and resources are amassed to attempt to keep the balance of power in one’s own favor, despite inevitable chaos and dissension within groups. In the late 1980s many elements of cohesion among groups in Armenia disappeared into ethnic hostilities and the economic challenges that came with the end of socialism (Darieva 294).

Another example from Rafsanjani’s memoir that is an example of Iranian power politics is how some in Rafsanjani’s circle advocated for Iran to attempt to absorb Azerbaijan and the

Nakhchivan region. This quote shows that Iran’s support for Armenia was not unanimous and that Iran’s concern at the time was to increase their power and to thwart Russian advances.

One of his important and repetitive words was that Iran should use this opportunity to fight the Armenians and increase its presence in Azerbaijan, and sometimes interpreted that it belonged to Iran, and that we should now defend and manage it. In Nakhchivan, he said the same thing and analyzed that if you take Azerbaijan under your power, Russia's sovereignty in the entireCaucasus will be shaken (azariha.org). ​

Realism helps to answer the question of how the Karabakh conflict served to strengthen ​ ​ the alliance between Iran and Armenia, despite different ideological and political approaches to governance and security by showing how the strategic interests of various actors involved in the

48 conflict emerged. Looking at other regional players provides context for the political and strategic positions that lead to the Armenia-Iran alliance and eventually the the restoration of the

Yerevan Blue Mosque.The following sections are brief overviews of other actors' participation in the conflict, what structures were in place, how they intersected at various levels of structure and what kinds of framing were used to popularize support for their pursuit of strategic interest.

Turkey: Pan-Turkism

Turkish interests in the Karabakh conflict were significant for several reasons, chief among them, border issues. Turkey wanted distance from Russia, increased power over Tehran and energy gains from Azerbaijan. Cultural framing to encourage solidarity with Azerbaijan was based on the historical past and, at least at first, the shared Turkish language. Turkey’s early pan-Turkic efforts within the post-Soviet republic gave way to more economic and security ​ ​ dimensions, with Turkey wanting to assert a benevolent power in regard to Azerbaijan. Turkey’s closure of its border with Armenia following the Armenian occupation of Azeri territory took a toll on Turkey’s diplomatic reputation and precluded it from playing a part in mediation efforts

(Kouhi 39). Turkey was also interested in preventing Iran from asserting its influence in Muslim

Republics and used the pan-Turkic strategy to appeal to the West as a potential EU member

(Kouhi 39). The structures at play here are the Turkish state and Azerbaijan, but they overlap with the dynamics between Turkey, Russia and Iran. They also involve appealing to the

European Union. Overlapping these interest groups are their interests. Turkey’s involvement in the conflict was quite adversarial to Armenians, drawing on historical animosity and a continued lack of relationship between the neighbors. Turkey’s desire for increased control over Iran and

49 animosity with Armenians are two factors that created the isolation of Armenia and Iran, bringing the two countries closer together and paving the way for the diplomatic efforts that resulted in the leasing of the Yerevan Blue Mosque to Iran in 1995.

Israel: Business and Security

Israel is perhaps an unlikely interest group to include in an analysis of a territorial dispute in the Southern Caucasus. However, Israel’s involvement in Azerbaijan highlights two of my arguments. First, the isolation of both Armenia and Iran after the cold war and second, that unusual alliances were made because of the emerging geopolitical circumstances. In 1991, the ​ Madrid conference was held in Spain to attempt to reconcile the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just when Tehran thought its time had come to be accepted as a regional power, it was shocked to not receive an invitation to the conference (Parsi 152). After this disappointment and the failure of ​ the Madrid conference, hopes rose in the Rafsanjani camp that it would become apparent that change in the region could not take place without Tehran’s cooperation (Parsi 156). I argue that since Iran was slighted in the regional peace talks in Madrid, it wanted to be a player in the

Karabakh conflict leading to its mediation efforts in 1992. Tel Aviv’s backing of Azerbaijan also played a role in Iran’s turn towards Armenia. With its regional rival now in its backyard and increased isolation on the world stage, Iran needed an ally and found that ally in its similarly isolated neighbor, Armenia.

The unusual aspect of this constellation of alliances has a religious component but demonstrates realism rather than ideological reasoning. For example, it is surprising that Iran, instead of overtly promoting the shared Shia identity between Azeri and Iranians, focused on

50 building a relationship with Chirstian Armenia. Another reason this is a surprising alliance is that

Armenians and Jews have the commonality of being religious populations who suffered through

Genocides in the twenty first century. It is not illogical to think this shared experience would draw the two nations together.

As with the other alliances presented here, reasons for the unexpected alliance are rooted in the global economic and security issues that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The main drivers of Israeli support for Baku were that it created a bulwark against Iran’s Shia expansionism, provided access to Azerbaijan’s energy sector and offered the pursuit of legitimacy in the new international atmosphere. Israel was able to provide military leverage against Iran and Armenia while gaining the benefits of a strategic intelligence post and access to

Baku’s energy resources and markets (Bourtman 2). Despite the de facto cooperation between

Azerbaijan and Israel, there was a notable lack of formal agreements between the two states, even on less controversial matters like cultural exchange or tourism (Bourtman 7). This lack of formal diplomacy shows a reluctance to be real allies and shows how the Azerbaijan-Israel alliance was brought out of strategic necessity rather than actual investment into an ongoing relationship.

Russia: Consolidating Power

While Russia, like Turkey and Israel, was interested in gaining power, its interests were less focused on territory and instead were intent on economic dominance. Moscow was particularly successful in Armenia, where many state-owned assets were conceded to Russia in exchange for debt relief (Kouhi 38). This strategy called into question Armenia’s sovereignty but

51 also strengthened its hand in regard to the Karabakh dispute. However, Moscow’s interests were amassing power, not necessarily peace. This led Russia to object to international peacekeepers and attempts to influence the Minsk group, the group within the Organization for Security and

Cooperation in Europe created to broker peace, to its favor (Kouhi 37). After mediation by a number of interest groups, in 1994 Russia was successful in brokering a cease-fire that remains in place today. Russia played both sides of the dispute, participating in both mediations and support for Armenia and Azerbaijan. A first mediation attempt was made in 1991 when

Armenian, Azerbaijani, Kazakhstan and Russian leaders signed the Zheleznovodsk

Communiqué. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, this communique was an early framework and proclamation of goodwill in which future talks would occur (nkr.am/en/zheleznovodsk-process). As would become a pattern in future Karabakh conflict mediation processes, cease-fires were quickly broken with atrocious violence. In the case of the Zheleznovodsk Communiqué, the resulting violence culminated in the downing of a peace-keeping helicopter and Azerbaijani massacres in two Armenian villages in Karabakh

(Eichensehr, 55).

1992 Iranian mediation - Soft Power Initiatives

In February 1992, as a result of the negotiations between the Deputy Minister of Foreign

Affairs of Iran, Mahmoud Vaezi, the Armenian Presidential Advisor, Vahan Papazian and the

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Albert Salamov, a 14-point draft statement was crafted but left unsigned due to Azerbaijan’s objections (nkr.am/en/iran-mediation). In

March, Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan met with Azerbaijani President Yagub

52

Mamidov and Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Tehran to discuss the Karabakh violence. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmood Vaezi offered an Azerbaijan approved ceasefire proposal to Ter-Petrosyan. Iran was seen as a credible broker by both parties and the

Trilateral Tehran Communique, negotiating a week-long cease-fire, was signed on May 7, 1992

(Mirzoyan 117). According to Iran’s chief negotiator, Mahmoud Vaezi, one of the main reasons for Iran’s mediation was to balance the power between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Having neither an exceptionally strong Christian Armenia nor a powerful Azerbaijan that could support irredentism in Iran’s northern provinces were in the interests of Tehran (Kouhi 109). However, just two days later, the Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh captured the strategic city of

Shushi on May 9, delivering a major blow to Azerbaijani military positions (Mirzoyan 117).

Because of the Armenian capture of Shushi, the Iranian Foreign Ministry mediation efforts were criticized within Iran, calling into question the government's framing efforts in regard to Iranian mediation efforts (Mirzoyan 118). Despite this setback, the strategic partnership between Iran and Armenia was ‘surprisingly close,’ allowing Armenia to receive help from Iran during their economic hardship and energy crisis (Darieva 294).

In June, Azerbaijan elected Abulfaz Elchibey as president. Because Elchibey refused to negotiate with Iran, his election marked the end of Iran’s mediation initiatives as well as hope for a future of significant influence in Azerbaijan (MFARA - Iran Mediation). Azerbaijan’s president Elchibey found Iran to be a force working against the interests of Azerbaijan, both in terms of secularism and economic support. According to Bourtman, Iran was engaging in arms support for Armenian separatists, who were training Azeri clerics to fight against secularism and were threatening Azerbaijan’s claims to energy deposits in the Caspian Sea (Bourtman 7).

53

Bourtman brings up a topic worth exploring. Was Iran training clerics to fight against secularism in Azerbaijan? It seems, the answer is yes but not for the reasons insinuated by

Bourtman. Rather, the reason for cross-border training was a matter of religious authority.

Although territorial boundaries were in place, religious activities did not necessarily abide by borders (Jodicke 534). The territorial state differs from non-state actors in permeability. The territorial state does not hold society within it, nor does it hold absolute authority over activity that occurs within its territory (Jodicke 535). Because of this permeability, Iran did have influence in religious matters in Azerbaijan. Similar to the Yerevan Blue Mosque, Iran opened a cultural center in Baku for the purpose of meeting the religious needs of Iranians in the capital city (Jodicke 539). In southern Azerbaijan, Iran was particularly influential and distributed religious materials that promoted Iran as a Shia authority (Jodicke 540). Iran also financed citizens from Azerbaijan to study at the seminary in Qom and promoted the Oriental Studies

Department at Baku State University (Jodicke 541). In the early years of post-Soviet Azerbaijan, policies regarding religious teaching were relaxed. Iranian clergy sought to strengthen the Shia identity of Azeri Shias by promoting Iranian authority through education and financing (Jodicke

546). In 1996, Azerbaijani lawmakers passed laws forbidding foreign Imams and missionaries from preaching (Jodicke 543). While Iran did seek to have influence in post-Soviet Azerbaijan, its main goal seemed to be promoting religious authority rather than political cache. The matter of Iranian religious authority is perceived very differently between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I argue the difference is the conflict of interests that exists in a Shia state do not occur in the same way in a Christian nation. In Christian Armenia, Shiism does not pose the same threat as it does in Shia Azerbaijan.

54

1994 Ceasefire

Later in 1992 the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe formed the Minsk group in Helsinki for the purposes of managing the outbreaks of conflicts in former Soviet states.

It is this group that brokered the 1994 ceasefire still held in effect today. The Minsk group initiatives are as recent as 2009 and although the ceasefire has greatly reduced violence in

Karabakh, it should not be confused with a resolution in this case as the conflict remains unresolved (MFARA - OSCE Minsk). This conflict is frustratingly difficult to resolve because of the historical ethnic tensions between the actors, their security interests and the race for dominance in the post-Soviet era. Armenia’s interests are tied to nationalism that reaches into its past to define its present even when it is compromising to their security and economic interests

(Mirzoyan 13). Iran’s foreign policy came from its historical, geographical, mineral and territorial reality. Iran’s desire for regional power was bound by its stance towards the West and the changing strategic positions created by the power vacuum left by the failed Soviet Union

(Mirzoyan 115). Iran’s foreign policy focused on border stability, minimizing Western influence, and the transportation networks, particularly pertaining to energy (Mirzoyan 115).

Formalized Relationship Between Armenia and Iran

Iran’s soft power approach to Armenia during the Karabakh conflict paved the way for increased cooperation between the countries. Three months after Armenia declared its independence, the Soviet Union fell and Iran formally recognized the Republic of Armenia on

December 25 1991. As previously mentioned, the Iranian Embassy in Yerevan opened on April

30 1992. The Armenian embassy in Tehran opened in December of the same year. Since then

55

Armenian-Iranian bilateral relations have focused on the transmission of gas, electricity and transportation infrastructure (mfa.am/bi-lateral). According to the statistics on the Armenian

Foreign Ministry’s website, Iran is Armenia’s number six trading partner. Armenia imports mainly gas, oil products, polymers, fertilizers and building materials from Iran, while Iran imports electricity, meat, wood and metal waste from Armenia. The trade numbers show a general trend of year over year growth with declines in growth corresponding with political unrest in Iran (Appendix A, Table 2). For example, the lowest number of imports occurred in

2009, the same year many Iranians were protesting the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sparking what is known as the Green Movement. Another dip occurred in 2013 the year

President Rouhani was elected and the year when Iran was under great pressure regarding its nuclear activities. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or Iran Nuclear Deal was adopted in

October of 2015, the imports graph clearly shows the most growth in the period from the signing of the JCPOA to 2017 when the United States pulled out of their commitment to the deal. Since

1995, 180 documents regarding Iran-Armenia relations have been signed (mfa.am/bi-lateral).

CHAPTER FIVE: POST-1995 YEREVAN

Trade, Energy and Infrastructure Projects

In this section, I discuss the outcomes, in terms of the Karabakh conflict, for the

Armenia-Iran relationship. Although the outcomes are certainly numerous, for the purposes of this paper I highlight trade, cultural exchange and infrastructure projects. Iranian foreign policy towards Armenia was pragmatic and was not predicated on mutual suspicions, leading Iran to

56 recognize the Republic of Armenia in December of 1991 and to open the Iranian Embassy in

Yerevan (Mirzoyan 114). On February 9 1992, the same day as the opening of the Iranian

Embassy ''The Declaration on Principles and Aims of Relations between the Republic of

Armenia and the Islamic Republic of Iran'' was signed to assure the parties' intention to establish friendly relations (MFAARM-Bilateral Relations). Accompanying the declaration, Armenian

Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati also signed several economic agreements regarding natural gas pipelines and a bridge connecting the two countries that are separated by the Arax river (Mirzoyan 113). The 192 meter-long bridge connects the two countries and is a vital link to the outside for Armenia. For Iran, the bridge has meant significantly more trading power with Armenia as a disruption in the flow of goods over the bridge would spell disaster for Armenia’s supply chain (Jamestown Monitor). This reality ​ ​ also explains Armenia’s willingness to continue trade relations with Iran despite the threat of sanctions for doing business with the economically isolated country. Armenia is indeed engaged in a balancing act between Iran, their anti-Western material link to the outside and the West which plays a major role in hindering the strategic partnership. Despite this hindrance, friendly relations with Iran persist and, in fact, is one topic on which Armenian forces are galvanized

(Mirzoyan 109).

Renovations of an Iranian Mosque in Christian Armenia

1995 was a busy year in the relationship between Iran and Armenia. Violence in

Karabakh decreased after the 1994 ceasefire and the two nations turned their focus to economic and cultural relations. In October of 1995 the Armenian government leased the Yerevan Blue

57

Mosque complex to Iran for renovations and it became a focal point for the regional connectedness between the two countries (Darieva 294). This year had an effect on the remembering of the past for these two communities. Jonathan Boyarin asks if new technologies merely compress space and time or if they are just bent in unexpected ways (Boyarin 13).

Through the mosque renovations and repurposing of its functions, one can see how space and time are compressed and the boundaries of the modern nation state are bent. By resuming the function of a mosque, the contemporary period is rejoined with its eighteenth century beginnings. Similarly, the boundaries of the Iranian state re-extend into its former khanate territory. What is unexpected about this is that it is done without force or enmity but rather is a phenomenon produced by soft-power efforts and a mutual willingness to cooperate. Part of this willingness comes from a shared cultural interconnectedness, as well as a vernacular and religious hybridity in the local lore of the complex (Darieva 299). For example, the third photo gallery at the mosque is dedicated to both the Christian and Islamic history of Iranians and

Armenians. There are pictures of Vank Cathedral in Isfahan (1606), the St. Sarkis Cathedral in

Tehran (1970), a monument to the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide outside the cathedral of St. Mesrop in Rasht as well as depictions of Jesus and Mary. An interesting note is that the placards for the photographs in this room include English, while the other two galleries’ placards are in Persian and Armenian only.

According to Darieva’s fieldwork at the mosque during renovations, narratives from

Christian architectural features were incorporated in the renovation plans. For example, an

Armenian field assistant shared that the twelve windows are associated with the twelve apostles from the Bible and the three mihrabs in the prayer hall represent the holy trinity (Darieva 299). ​ ​

58

While these features do suit Christian narratives, I have my doubts about the veracity of the claims. Since the structure is a Shia mosque renovated by Twelver Shias, the twelve windows could just as easily represent the twelve imams of Shia Islam. In fact, the mosque’s own website states the twelve windows are for air circulation and to remind Shias of the spirit of the twelve imams (yerevanmasjed.ir).

The claim that the three mihrabs represent the holy trinity clashes with the Islamic tenet of shahada or profession that there is no God but God. Another explanation for the three mihrabs ​ ​ is that they represent the historical-religious landscape in Yerevan, each mihrab symbolizing one of the religious groups: Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and Armenian Christians (Darieva 300).

The decorative motifs on the mihrabs do not support this theory as each one is decorated with

Quranic verses using Arabic and Persian scripts (Appendix B, Fig. 11). The central mihrab differs from the outer two as it has an inscription commemorating Sardar Huseyn Ali Khan’s governorship at the time of the mosque’s original construction (Darieva 300). The mixture of politics, patronage and religion, once again, links the mosque’s origins with its current modes of usage, folding time to create a continuous narrative. The three mihrabs actually serve different parts of the mosque community in practice. The main mihrab is used primarily by Shia men and is the backdrop for the Imam’s delivery of Friday prayer. From my observation of the men’s prayer service, the majority of the worshippers oriented towards this mihrab. The men who prayed toward the left mihrab prayed in the Sunni fashion. Most of these Sunni worshippers on the day of my observation looked like they were from South Asia, but according to the docent it is usually a mix of Arab and Indian worshippers. The mihrab to the right of the central mihrab is located in the section partitioned off for women. There is a television mounted on the right side

59 of the wall so that women can see the Imam. While the trinity narrative is a standard Christian interpretation, I argue that the existence of the three mihrabs and the twelve windows in the drum of the dome is more for practical and aesthetic reasons than for inter-religious unity.

A possible reason for these Christian narratives for the mosque’s reconstruction could be the de-emphasis of Islam. Obviously, as a mosque, the building would be steeped in Islam, but with the Armenians’ past regarding Islam it is understandable there would be some de-emphasis.

The current emphasis is on the cultural center usage of the complex. Although the complex is in a madrasa style, pupils do not come to study with an Imam on a regular basis. Rather, an Imam is appointed, by Iran, to the mosque in Yerevan and is available for questions by appointment. This feature of the agreement, between Iran and Armenia, on the usage of the space helps to quell fears that Iran’s activities in Armenia are a part of a project of Shia expansionism, rather than a neighborly approach to economic, security and cultural cooperation.

The placements of several tiled inscriptions at the mosque both complicated and exemplify the multi-functional nature of the mosque. I briefly describe two tiled inscriptions found at the mosque. After further investigation of the inscriptions I found them to be meaningful to both Shia tradition and Iranian Shia identity in Armenia. The most interesting aspect of these inscriptions, however, is their placements in relation to the mosque’s setting in

Yerevan. As discussed previously, the post 1995 usage of the mosque was intended to be primarily a cultural center. The inscription above the entrance to the prayer hall verifies this purpose (Appendix B. Fig. 12). The inscription also decorated with a stylized floral motif reads:

Husayniyah building based on the original design of Mazkur that only the right side of inside the husayniyah and part of the left side outer wall were repaired in association with Iranian coworkers and the embassy of the Islamic Republic in the years 1384-85 solar hijri.

60

By itself, this is not the most enlightening inscription. It is its placement inside the mosque courtyard in relation to the next inscription that make it noteworthy. The next inscription is located high up on the ornately tiled wall along Mashtots avenue (Appendix B Fig. 13):

O God Masjid-e Kabud-e Yerevan Anna Madinah Al-Alam and Ali Babha Restoration and reconstruction of the mosque by the Foundation for the Underprivileged and Veterans of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in the years of 1375-1399 shamsi

The first three lines of this inscription are in kufic script formed by square tiles. They

8 acknowledge God, state the name of the mosque and, in yellow, is an Arabic hadith that says

Mohammed is the city of knowledge and Ali is the gate to that city. The rest of the inscription in calligraphic script states the financing for the renovation project is from the bonyad (foundation) ​ ​ established by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Now that both inscriptions have been described it is important to understand their placement in the mosque complex in relation to the city of Yerevan and the usage of the mosque complex. When reading the translations of these inscriptions, I was surprised to find the overtly

Shia and Iranian inscriptions on the exterior street side of the mosque while the interior inscription is decidedly more secular in nature. Because of the agreement with the Armenian government that the space be used primarily as a cultural center, one might conclude that the street facing inscriptions might be more civic oriented while those on the interior would be more religiously oriented9. Something to note is the inscription crediting the Foundation for the

8 The name of the mosque according to this inscription includes the color kabud which in Persian is a ​ ​ color of dark blue similar to lapis lazuli or the blue of the tile in the background of the inscription. It is not the color of blue featured on the dome and minaret of the mosque which are closer to turquoise than pigment ultramarine which was historically produced by grinding lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan. 9 This distinction is subtle in its Armenian context as the inscriptions are in Persian script and most Armenians do not read Persian.

61

Underprivileged and Veterans of the Islamic Revolution of Iran is very high up on the tiled wall.

One cannot read or photograph this inscription well without standing in the middle of the busy

Mashtots avenue. The brass plaques in Armenian, English and Persian that commemorate the

Iran-Armenia Friendship Association (Appendix B. Fig. 14) do serve as a more eye-level statement to the agreed upon purpose of the mosque complex.

Some activities noted in Darieva’s observations in 2011-2012 were still in practice during my time there in 2019. For instance, the northern mihrab, the area partitioned off for the women, was also being used as what Darieva termed a profane place where vacuum cleaners and technical equipment were stored (Darieva 300). I noticed, while observing Eid-e Ghorban in this section, that there was a large buck hoist or construction elevator dominating one corner of the space. The exhibition rooms, computer access, police office and bathrooms were all still present during my visit (Darieva 302). Because my visit was during the summer, I was not able to observe one of the language classes, nor was I able to access the classroom. I was, however, able to visit the north prayer hall which was being used as a testing room for the students (Appendix

B, Fig. 15).

While observing the Eid-e Ghorban services on the women’s side, I felt more comfortable. It was my third attempt at wearing the borrowed light blue floral chador and I was becoming more dexterous while remaining modest. The women were friendly and interested in chatting with me. The number of women on this side was small, seven women and one girl who looked to be about 6 years old. The women all wore headscarves and chatted unabashedly during the Imam’s service. Although it was not clear to me that the prayer portion of the service had begun, the women all seamlessly donned chadors to perform the prayers. The six-year old had a

62 child-sized chador with her, but spent the time during the service wearing a pink unicorn shirt and wandering around the women's section swinging a plastic bag that contained a bottle of orange soda. An older woman sat against some poshti pillows next to me in the back. We chatted ​ ​ in Persian and she was excited to share that information with the other women during the meal after the service. In other accounts of Eid-e Ghorban services held at the mosque, large meals are prepared and many worshippers come for the festivities. Compared to these descriptions, the services I attended were more modest. The librarian prepared omelette and chai for those gathered. I was surprised to see near the end of the service, the groundskeeper, who had been spraying the prayer hall windows with a pressure washer the previous Friday’s service, enter the women’s area and start speaking with the ladies. Again, the women seamlessly knew what to do and made fast work of rolling out plastic sheeting to protect the carpets, set out cups and plastic cutlery, and welcome everyone to have omelette, barbari bread and chai. I and a Russian tourist who happened to wander through were ushered into the ring of kind women, some of whom lived in Yerevan but most of whom were visitors from Iran in Yerevan for vacation or visa matters.

Iranian Shia National Identity

In this section I focus on the Iranian nationalist characteristics of the Yerevan Blue

Mosque, I have found that the complex is an outpost of Iranian nationalism founded without coercion or force. Until the 1920s, the mosque provided a mostly Azeri speaking population a place to worship for Friday prayers (Darieva 296). The mosque complex is one of the Iranian

Embassy in Armenia’s institutions of public relations and is linked with the political activities of

63 the Iranian expatriate community of approximately 2000 in Yerevan (Darieva 299). The evidence for my assertion can be found in the visual culture of the mosque, the ways in which religious services are conducted and in the types of people who are associated with the mosque.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the library at the Yerevan Blue Mosque complex were the number of Iranian flags, the second, were the portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and

Ayatollah Khamenei hanging high under a vaulted ceiling (Appendix B, Fig. 16). There were a few booths with computers available for those who need internet access. Most days when I visited the library, the same two men were quietly sitting at these booths, sometimes eating. The library has a sizable collection of books on subjects ranging from art and poetry to politics and religion. According to the librarian, few people come to the library and even fewer actually read if they do visit. In addition to the young man and older fellow always at the computers, two other men, I presumed college students, would sometimes sit at one of the long tables to read and chat quietly. All of the computer equipment and books had asset tags linking them to databases in

Iran (Appendix B, Fig. 17). The library periodically receives crates of books selected by the

Iranian Ministry of Cultural Guidance and may also request books for their collection.

Apart from the flags, photos and facilities infrastructure in the library, other signs of

Iranian nationalism are found on the site. For example, outside of the first photo gallery is a plaster bust in a brick niche protected by plexiglass. When given the opportunity to guess the figure of the bust, I was incorrect in guessing Sa’adi and Ferdowsi before finally being informed with a friendly laugh that it was a bust of Khomeini (Appendix B, Fig. 18). Inside the prayer hall there is a minbar that is not used and a podium with the same stylized Allah that appears in the

64 center of the Iranian flag in brass affixed to the front. This symbol being central to the flag of the theocratic state is significant both religiously and nationally.

The symbolic appearance of the abstract Allah from the Iranian flag is not the only way

Iranian identity is present in the religious services held at the mosque. Those who come to the mosque on Thursday evening and holy days are usually visitors, students or expatriates from

Iran. On these days it is possible to see cars with diplomatic plates making stops on Mashtots

Avenue in front of the mosque (Darieva 301). The Friday prayer services are first delivered in

Persian and then in English. The Iranian community in Yerevan is mainly composed of diplomats, high-level business people involved in the economic and energy sectors, ethnic Azeri merchants from Northern Iran and university students (Darieva 301).

The day I attended Friday prayer about thirty men were present. Some ten of them performed their prayers at the mihrab to the left of the center mihrab. The groundskeeper was pressure washing the windows during the service while men came and went. I was surprised at the timing of the power-washing as the water hitting the large glass windows made it difficult to hear the Imam’s voice. Some of the other twenty men praying at the center mihrab were Iranian.

I had seen them at the mosque previously speaking in Persian with the librarian or other men at the mosque. The demographics for mosque attendees described in Darieva’s account seem applicable to the types of men I saw at Friday prayer. I did not speak with any of them, but based on their clothing, was able to spot some students and professionals.

The call to prayer or azan is another example of religious practices being tied to the ​ ​ Iranian state. Due to an agreement between Iran and Armenia, the call to prayer is not broadcast through a loudspeaker by a muezzin in the minaret in Yerevan (Darieva 303). There are several ​ ​

65 reasons for this. For one, the minaret on the south east corner of the complex is visibly, almost precariously, leaning (Appendix B, Fig. 19). The structure is likely not safe for a person to ascend with frequency. A news article recounted interviewing a longtime neighbor of the mosque called Grandma Lusine, who played at the mosque when it was still being used for religious purposes remembers the dark stairs of the minaret. She remembered the ceiling was so low, that even as children they had to ascend bent over (armeniasputnik.am). The second reason is that the ​ ​ Mosque is surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings like the one where Grandma Lusine lives. The sound of the azan five times a day, particularly at dawn may not be well received by ​ ​ the neighbors which would conflict with the interests of the Iran-Armenia Friendships

Association’s goals and the goals of the larger governments. Instead, Iranians can register at the

Iranian Embassy to receive SMS-azan via text (Darieva 303). I was in the mosque complex a ​ ​ number of times when the azan was called. It was a strange effect to hear the call coming out of ​ ​ people’s pockets, then hear it get louder as those mingling in the courtyard simultaneously address their wailing phones. As Jonathan Boyarin points out we have perceptions of our physical world and new technologies like airplanes, telephones and computers change the way we experience space and time, proximity and simultaneity (Boyarin 13). The SMS call to prayer in the pockets of Muslims in Christian Armenia link Islamic practices with traditions from the past and the larger Muslim community existing outside of Armenia. Most important of these links is the one with Iran. Technological innovations have extended Iran's reach and allows the exercise of influence to extend beyond its borders in what could be considered extraterritorial sovereignty (Boyarin 14)

66

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION

One goal of this thesis is to present a counter example dispelling the misconception that

Iran is an irrational actor, that it is motivated only ideologically and that it does not operate peacefully in the region. The close cooperation of Armenia and Iran across religious and cultural lines challenges this misconception. Evidence of this occurs in the Karabakh conflict where Iran, more religiously aligned with Azerbaijan, lent its support to Christian Armenia. The continued trade relationship between Armenia and Iran and their persistent cooperation regarding the

Yerevan Blue Mosque and cultural center are further proof that these governments are not making choices based on ideology but rather on their understanding of their strategic interests.

In Armenia, there is no wholesale support for Iran’s interests in Armenia as evidenced by the fact that the Yerevan Blue Mosque serves primarily as a cultural center and by the restrictions Armenia puts on the operations of the mosque. Through my research at the mosque, throughout the city of Yerevan and through secondary sources, I have identified a trend in the relationship between Armenians and Iranians. At different stages in world affairs between

1765-2019, the two communities have worked together on the same types of projects; territorial security, economic security and cultural exchange. These have been among the common goals for Armenians and Iranians across generations. Military figures, trade merchants and writers continue to help mark the path of the friendly relationship. Revolutions, a globalizing marketplace and literature have all made their marks on the Yerevan Blue Mosque and made it a symbol of this friendship.

67

Through the lens of memory I have analyzed the mosque and found a number of ways in which the diachronic elements of the complex have been flattened to construct a continuous narrative regarding the mosque. One of the main themes is the repurposing of the space to suit the ideological fashion of the time. The mosque was originally built as a religious space. After the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the space was still used for religious purposes. It also represented

Persian influence in Persians’ ceded territory, as evidenced by the fence pickets that acknowledge religious endowments to the mosque. Armenian participation in the Constitutional

Revolution and the activities of Iranian religious benefactors in Yerevan further blurred territorial boundaries while also demonstrating Armenians and Iranians’ interconnectedness. The

Soviet era caused a secular repurposing of the mosque space. The structure of the mosque, preserved by Soviet futurist literary figures in the 1920-30s, was later used as a natural history museum. The dome in the center of the main prayer hall was repurposed as a planetarium in the

1950’s. In the post-Soviet years, the mosque again became a subject of interest to the Iranian government and received several restorations. Here too, repurposing closed the gap between the structure’s past and contemporary narratives regarding the mosque. The mosque is differentiated by its Iranian and Shia character. Shiism is a far more palatable form of Islam to Armenians than

Sunni Islam practiced in Turkey, though, Azeris who are largely Shia also participated in the oppression of the Armenians. The long-term lease of the mosque to Iran connects the space with its pre-Turkmenchay past. The photo galleries located in the mosque complex commemorate the history of the site, fortifying the goodwill between Iranian Shias and Christian Armenians.

In the time of this writing (2020) the mosque serves multiple purposes. It is utilized as a place of worship and a cultural center, a language school, and a tourist attraction. Embedded into

68 the structure, memory and purpose of the Yerevan Blue Mosque are answers to the question posed at the beginning of this thesis. The mosque complex monumentalizes the centuries-long friendship between Armenia and Iran by containing the layers of their combined histories. Time is consolidated into the site, making it possible for one to walk through and have a lived experience of Armenia and Iran’s amicable relationship among the carefully placed memories.

APPENDIX A MAPS AND CHARTS

69

Map 1. Distance between Julfa and Isfahan. With modern infrastructure it would take 221 hours to walk from Julfa to Isfahan in central Iran

Map 2. Caucasus separation from Iran during the Iran-Russia wars

Areas that were separated in [from] Iran (١) due to Golestan.

Areas separated by the Turkmenchay (٢) Treaty in Iran.

70

Newspaper Translation Dates Language Type City Notes Politics 1909- Aravot Morning 1912 Armenian Weekly Tabriz Dashnak Revolutionary Astgh The Star of the Arevelean East 1893 Armenian Weekly Tehran - - Azd-arar The Advertiser - Armenian Weekly Tabriz - - Replaced Barq* Lightning 1910 Persian Daily Tehran Sharq Revolutionary Chawik The Little Path 1911 Armenian - Tehran - - Armenian Editor Fikr Thought 1912 Persian Weekly Tabriz Wartaniyans Pro-Russian Basil the Iran-i-Now New Persia 1909 Persian Daily Tehran Armenian Democratic Replaced Iran-i-Nawin* Newest Persia 1911 Persian Daily Tehran Iran-i-Now - Jughayi The Julfa Editor Lraber Intelligencer - Armenian - Isfahan Tazaryans - Mitq* Thought 1912 Armenian Weekly Tabriz Replaced Fikr Pro-Russian Sharq The East 1909 Persian Daily Tehran Tabatabai Revolutionary Table 1 List of Newspapers with Armenian Ties during the Constitutional Era Source: Browne, et al. The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia; Partly Based on the Manuscript ​ ​ Work of Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí Khán "Tarbivat" of Tabríz. University Press, 1914.

71

Table 2. Year over year Armenian spending in dollars on Iranian goods. https://www.mfa.am/en/bilateral-relations/ir

APPENDIX B PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ARMENIA

72

Fig. 1. View of the mosque exterior from the sidewalk on Mashtots avenue, Yerevan

Fig. 2. Welcome banner at the Karabakh War memorial located under the Mother of Armenia statue, Yerevan.

73

Fig .3. Photograph of Sayed Mohammed Ali Jamalzadeh at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Museum, Yerevan

Fig. 4. Ayvan of the former main entrance to ​ ​ the mosque complex

Fig. 5. Fertility stone located in the courtyard of the mosque complex

74

Fig. 6. Armenian Genocide Memorial

Fig. 7. Tree planting placard by Pope John Paul II in the “Memory Alley” arboretum located in the site of the Armenian Genocide Memeorial

Fig. 8. Tree planting placard by two Arizona state senators in the “Memory Alley” arboretum located in the site of the Armenian Genocide Memorial

75

Fig. 9. 1000 Dram banknote featuring Elise Charents

Fig. 10. Arc of Charents

Fig. 11. Central mihrab

76

Fig. 12. Interior inscription

Fig. 13. Exterior inscription

Fig. 14. Iran-Armenia Friendship Association Plaque in Persian, Armenian and English

Fig. 15. Testing room in former winter prayer hall

77

Fig. 16. Library with portraits of Khomeini and Khamenei over the flags of Iran and the Iran-Armenia Friendship Association.

Fig. 17. Library Asset Tag

Fig. 18. Bust of Khomeini outside one of the complex’s photo galleries.

78

Fig. 19. Leaning minaret of Yerevan

79

APPENDIX C FENCE PICKET INSCRIPTIONS

Careful attention has been given to photographing and translating each picket. Due to lack of clarity in some of the script, not all names can be discerned accurately. Indiscernible text is replaced with three ellipses (...)

1. Charitable 2. Charitable 3. Charitable 4. Charitable 5. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of ... Contribution of Contribution of Haji Bagher Haji … Lotfali … zadeh Mir Ismael Mir Morid Akbar Karbalayi Abbas Ghassemi 1328/1910 Heydarzadeh Karbalayi Ali … 1328/1910 1328/1910 Askarzadeh 1328/1910 1328/1910

7. Charitable Contribution of Mashdi ... Mohamadzadeh 1328/1910

6. Charitable 8. Charitable 9. Charitable 10. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Mashadi Yusef Mashadi Raisi Mashdi Mir Ismail Mashdi Ibrahim Hassan Baradarash Mashadi Mir Jaabarzadeh Karbalayi … 1328/1910 Mohammad 1328/1910 Mohammad Alizadeh Alizadeh 1328/1910 1328/1910

80

11. Charitable 12. Charitable 13. Charitable 14. Charitable 15. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Mashadi Bagher Mashadi Sayyed Mashdi Abbas Karbalayi Reza Karbalayi Jalil Haji Ebrahimzadeh Akbar Mohamad Hajji Nasrzadeh Hajji Jabarzadeh Jabarzadeh 1328/1910 Qassemzadeh 1328/1910 1328/1910 1328/1910 1328/1910

16. Charitable 17. Charitable 18. Charitable 19. Charitable 20. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Karbalayi Ali Karbalayi Hossein Hajji Abdul Hajji Hossein Hajji Ismail Hajji Mashadi ... Hossein Agha Hajji Mashadi Abrzadeh Ghaffarzadeh Mohammadzadeh 1328/1910 Mohamad 1328/1910 1328/1910 1328/1910 ...adeh 1328/1910

81

21. Charitable 22. Charitable 23. Charitable 24. Charitable 25. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Hajji Mir … Mir Hajji Mohamed Ali Hajji Mohamad Ali Haji Ibrahim Khalil Mashadi Mir ...zadeh Hakim 1328/1910 Hakim 1328/1910 … Ibrahim Mir ... 1328/1910 1328/1910 zadeh 1328/1910

26. Charitable 27. Charitable 28. Charitable 29. Charitable 30. Charitable Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Contribution of Mir Ismail Mir Haji Ghaffar Haji Ismail Zeynalzadeh Haji Ali Akbar Agha Mir Hamid Heydarzadeh Mohammad Jaafar 1328/1910 Agha Bazaz Haj 1328/1910 1328/1910 1328/1910 1328/1910

82

REFERENCES

Ajemian, Michael. “Territorial Stalemate: Independence of Nagorno-Karabakh Following the

Dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Its Lingering Effects Decades Later.” Suffolk

Transnational Law Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 2011, p. 375.

Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of ​ Nationalism. London: Verso Editions/NLB, 1983. Print. ​ Arkun, Aram “Eprem Khan” Encyclopedia Iranica. 1998.

Armen, M. Zubeida, Yerevan, 1928. ​ ​ Armeniasputnik.am/armenia/20151210/1360081.html ​ Azariha.org ​ Bardakjian, Kevork B. A Reference Guide to Modern Armenian Literature, 1500-1920 : with an

Introductory History. Wayne State University Press, 2000.

Barth, Fredrik. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. ​ Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1969.

Berberian, Houri. "History, Memory and Iranian-Armenian Memoirs of the Iranian

Constitutional Revolution." Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 17.3 (2008):

261-92. Web.

Berberian, Houri. "Traversing Boundaries and Selves: Iranian-Armenian Identities during the

Iranian Constitutional Revolution." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the

Middle East 25.2 (2005).

Berberian, Houri. Armenians and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 : "The ​ Love for Freedom Has No Fatherland". Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2001. Print. ​

83

Bournoutian, George A. The Khanate of Erevan under Qajar Rule, 1795-1828. Mazda ​ ​ Publishers, in Association with Bibliotheca Persica, 1992.

Bourtman, Ilya. “Israel and Azerbaijan's Furtive Embrace.” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3,

2006, pp. 47–57.

Boyarin, et al. Remapping Memory: The Politics of TimeSpace. University of Minnesota Press, ​ ​ 1994.

Browne, et al. The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia; Partly Based on the Manuscript Work of ​ Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí Khán "Tarbivat" of Tabríz. University Press, 1914. Print. ​ Chʻarentsʻ, Der Hovanessian, Margossian, and Margossian, Marzbed. Land of Fire : Selected ​ Poems. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986. Print. ​ Cornell, Svante E. Small Nations and Great Powers: a Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the ​ Caucasus. Curzon, 2001. ​ Crane, Susan A. “Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory.” The American

Historical Review, vol. 102, no. 5, 1997, pp. 1372–1385.

Darieva, Tsypylma. “Prayer House or Cultural Centre? Restoring a Mosque in Post-Socialist

Armenia.” Central Asian Survey, vol. 35, no. 2, 2016, pp. 292–308.

Dasnabedian, Hrachʻ. History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun, ​ 1890-1924. 1st ed., Oemme Edizioni 1990. ​ Eichensehr, et al. Stopping Wars and Making Peace : Studies in International Intervention. 2009. ​ ​ Fides.org/en/news/37427-ASIA_IRAN_Iranian_MPs_are_preparing_to_commemorate_t ​ he_Armenian_Genocide#.VYoz-_ntmko

84

Fortna, Benjamin C.. The Circassian: A Life of Esref Bey, Late Ottoman Insurgent and Special ​ Agent, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central. ​ Genocide-museum.am/eng/MemoryAlley.php ​ Hakhnazaryan, et al. Nor/Djulfa. Documenti Di Architettura Armena ; 21. Venezia: OEMME, ​ ​ 1991.

Jamestown Monitor. “Armenia Inaugurates Vital Bridge to Iran”. Publication: Monitor Volume:

1 Issue: 163 December 28, 1995

https://jamestown.org/program/armenia-inaugurates-vital-bridge-to-iran/

Jödicke, Ansgar. “Shia Groups and Iranian Religious Influence in Azerbaijan: the Impact of

Trans-Boundary Religious Ties on National Religious Policy.” Eurasian Geography and

Economics: Reconfigurations of Political Space in the Caucasus, vol. 58, no. 5, 2017, pp.

533–556.

Kouhi-Esfahani, Marzieh. Iran's Foreign Policy in the South Caucasus : Relations with ​ Azerbaijan and Armenia. 2019. ​ Legge, Eric, et al. “Building a Memory Palace in Minutes: Equivalent Memory Performance

Using Virtual versus Conventional Environments with the Method of Loci.” Acta

Psychologica, vol. 141, no. 3, 2012, pp. 380–390.

Mirzoyan, A. Armenia, the Regional Powers, and the West Between History and Geopolitics. 1st

ed., 2010. mfa.am/en/bilateral-relations/ir

mfa.am/en/genocide nkr.am/en/iran-mediation

85 nkr.am/en/zheleznovodsk-process

Parsi, Trita. Treacherous Alliances: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. ​ ​ New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, 2007. ProQuest ebrary.

Patterson, Orlando, “Context and Choice in Ethnic Allegiance: A Theoretical Framework and

Caribbean Case Study,” in Ethnicity: Theory and Experience, ed. Nathan Glazer and

Daniel P. Moynihan. Harvard University Press 1975. Web.

Ritter, Markus. “The Lost Mosque(s) in the Citadel of Qajar Yerevan: Architecture and Identity,

Iranian and Local Traditions in the Early 19th Century.” Iran and the Caucasus, vol. 13,

no. 2, 2009, pp. 239–280.

Suny, Ronald Grigor. Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University

Press, 1993.

Tarzian, Mary Mangigian. The Armenian Minority Problem, 1914-1934: A Nation's Struggle for ​ Security. Scholars Press, 1992. ​ United States Central, Intelligence A. Iran -- Supplement VI Communism [Report on Tudeh

Party Background, Party Organization, Role in Political Life, Infiltration of Labor,

Political and Agrarian Movements, and Personalities]., 1958. ProQuest, Web.

Watenpaugh, Heghnar. “Survivor Objects: Cultural Heritage in and out of the Middle East.”

International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 49, no. 4, 2017, pp. 752–756.

Wohlforth, William C. “Realism.” The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, 2008, pp. ​ ​ The Oxford Handbook of International Relations.

Yerevanmasjed.ir yerkirmedia.am/culture/charents-kapuyr-mzkit/

86

Yilmaz, Ahenk. “Memorialization as the Art of Memory: a Method to Analyse Memorials/Bellek

Sanati Olarak Anitlastirma: Anitlari Analiz Etmek Icin Bir Yontem.” METU Journal of

the Faculty of Architecture, vol. 27, no. 1, 2010, pp. 267–280.

Yiprim Khān. Az Anzalī Tā Tihrān., 1912/1977. Entesharat Babak. Print. ​ ​