Battle of Avarayr
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 10:01PMEver heard of this one? You probably have if you are Armenian. If not, its pretty interesting, stay tuned in...
Today, February 16th commemorates this battle of Avarayr which took place in 451 A.D. on the Avarayr plain in the region of
Van.
Back in the days... The Persians wanted the Armenians, Albanians and a few other regional countries to convert to their religion or they were going to "make" them convert. I guess you could call this the Persian "Crusades". Unfortunately the Armenian nobility was split up and some were backing the Persians and were led by a fellow named Vasak Swini. The nobility that was against the Persians were led by Vartan Mamikonian and of course he was backed by the church. Vartan also got backing by the Huns in the North and went into battle with a faction The Vasak's men, but when it came down to the battle, the Vasak faction retreated and the Huns decided to split as well. So Vartan was left to fight against overwhelming odds and was wiped out. The Persians had sent the "Immortals", warriors on elephants. Even though the odds were fierce against him, Vartan took many of the Persians with him to the grave. And for the next 2-3 decades the descendents of Vartan and his men fought a guerrilla war with the Persians until they gave in and decided to "allow" the Armenians to practice their own religion.
The day is also commemorated as "Vartanantz"
Reader Comments (1)
Keri Jon, from a spelling geek, change the "its" in the third sentence to "it's" (short for it is)