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The Sardarapad fortress located in the Ararat plain, during the construction of which khan of Erivan used stone plates from the ancient Armenian capital Armavir, was the last boundary on the Russian army’s way to the Erivan fortress. Armenian journalist and researcher ArisGhazinyan writes about it in his book “Yerevan: with a cross or on the cross,” which is an attempt of setting and considering an extremely diverse range of processes directly or indirectly forming the character of the development of the territory in question and predetermining the inevitability of turning Yerevan into the main center of the Eastern Armenia, and later on into the capital of the recovered Armenian state.

“The morning of the next day started with a bombardment of the fortress. The canister destroyed everything, and the enemy’s retaliatory shots soon ceased. Through the thick leafage of trees only flashing groups of sarbazes, Persian infantrymen, could be seen, who were escaping and throwing themselves into the ditch,” Ghazinyan writes.

A white flag was waving over the fortress the next day after the start of the its siege. A truce envoy appeared in the Russian camp with a letter from Hasan who requested ceasefire for three days and permission for the garrison to recede with weapon. Paskevich warned the envoy that if the garrison did not capitulate unconditionally during twenty-four hours, “he would be on the bayonets of my grenadiers together with the khan.” Nevertheless, Hasankhanmanagedtoescape.

Already on September 20, Paskevich entered Sardarapad with his main forces welcomed by the Armenian clergy and population. Many Russian hostages were also released. “Sardarapad fell and the way into Yerevan was open,” Ghazinyan informs.

The Military council convoked on September 24, 1827, finally decided to attack the Erivan fortress.

“Thecannonadestartedin themorning. One of the first missiles hit the main mosque and broke through the dome made from blue glaze bricks; other broke into the wall of the sardar palace and even damaged the shah’s portrait. It left a bad impression on superstitious Persians: Hasan khan left the palace and moved to a small room of the fortress casemate,”Ghazinyan writes noting that the fortress was smashed with dozens of guns from two batteries for the next two days – on September 27 and 28.

The Armenian voluntary movement was actively involved in the liberation of its native city, which could preserve its national core despite the thousand-year-long religious oppressions and inclinations to apostasy.

“Nevertheless, crafty Hasan khan intended to build an Armenian defensive barrier, which would be the last one in the history of the Muslim period of Yerevan's development -- he drove the city's women, old people, and children into the fortress hoping for the Russian army’s generosity. However, onOctober 1, 1827, theErivanfortresssurrendered. Hasan khan was taken hostage,”Ghazinyan writes.

General Krasovsky took six khans hostage, Hasan among them, in the mosque where over three hundred Persians were sheltered.

Muhammadans’ inborn hatred for the Armenians was revealed for increasing the sufferings of the poor ErivanArmenians, the only crime of whom was that they were Christians.

The Erivan Armenians surpassed the Muhammadans with their subtle and flexible mind. “Time for revival came for them, and maybe after several centuries of a disturbing dream, a blossoming century of science and art wagain shine for the Armenians.Their ancient monuments dispersed through the Erivan region still amaze the observers,”Lachiov writes in his memoirs. 

The Russo-Persian war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, according to which, the Persian shah had to cede the Nakhijevan khanate and the Erivan khanate to the Russian Empire on both sides of Araks.

“Later, the Armenian Oblast would be founded on the territory of the two khanates,”Ghazinyan writes adding that later new times would come in the history of the ancient nation, times of new challenges, losses, and accomplishments.

We explored the history of Yerevan’s development in a period when the city was under the influence of different Muslim states. Throughout long centuries, the most subtle forms of oppressions, mockeries, and violations were used against the native population, the aim of which was either the inclination of the citizens to apostasy, or their final outflow. However, the city could withstand, it showed a striking inner immunity and a striking desire not to be merged in an alien ethno-linguistic and cultural environment, which absorbed the whole region.

Ghazinyan notes that the once great Byzantine Empire could not withstand before waves of alien tribal unions. The powerful Iranian civilization could not defend “its place under the Zoroastrian sun,” and the Iranian layer lost its administrative arms in the country for over an entire century. Armenia was also absorbed in a whirlpool of political, demographic, religious, and cultural shocks.

“However, the history wanted to give Yerevan special qualities – the city was called to become a local answer to regional questions,” the author writes noting that the chronological period described in the book is a time when the notion of “the Azerbaijani nation” did not even exist.

However, Baku’s extremely radical ideology oriented to a total Azerbaijanizationof the whole motley specter of the regional heritage and raised officially to the state policy level is apt to examine all the Turkic monarchies in the territory of Armenia and Iranin the light of separate milestones of the Azerbaijani history.

According to Ghazinyan, the contemporary international law unfortunately does not have a criminally punishableitemlike “profanation of the world history implemented with special cruelty and cynicism,” because the most radical results of the historical future were nurturedin that very hyper-ideologized womb of editing of the historical past.

This was how the Pan-Turkism and its monstrous child,Nazism, were cultivated: generations of zombies sure of the absolute trustworthiness of daily fostering versions are brought up through constant ideological injections of big doses of invented history and far-fetched plots about a national past in the public conscience.

“Even if we step over all the frameworks of scientific (in a broad sense) accurateness and admit the fairness of the official Baku’s postulate that black and white sheep are the essence of the modern Azerbaijanis, will that approach become a verification of the validity of pretensions to Yerevan?”Ghazinyan writes.

“Yerevan is the only Christian capital in the world, which managed to remain a Christian city during eight centuries of constant possession by various Muslim states. Yerevan’s striking immunity is its main peculiarity and provides a special status for it,”Ghazinyan highlights.

On the 185th anniversary of the city’s joining to the Russian Empire, the Azerbaijani propagandists could find nothing better than referring to a famous painting named “Capture of Erivan fortress” by Franz Roubaud, a celebrated painter of battle-pieces and panoramic scenes,with the aim to uncover the “the historicsignificanceof the presidential decree” (it cannot be in any other way in authoritarian societies) and to prove the fairness of pretensions to Yerevan.

The author notes that the Azerbaijani propaganda machine presents the fortress, which was reconstructed several times, as an obvious and comprehensive proof that “the city is Turkic” and “the Armenians are newcomers.”

It is emphasized in the book that thedecision on the city’s demolition was made after the emperor Nicholas I had got acquainted with it in October 1837. Examining the fortification, he concluded that it was outdated. “It is not a fortress, but a simple clay pot, and Paskevich should not have been namedgraph of Erivan for its capture,” he said.

ArisGhazinyan’s “Yerevan: with a cross or on the cross” is a book about the social and political history of Yerevan and Yerevan district (as a habitat) since the declaration of Christianity to the beginning of XIX century. In addition to demonstrating historical facts based on archive documents and sources, the book also considers the fundamental theses of the Azerbaijani historiography and Pan-Turkic ideology aimed at appropriating the historical, cultural, and spiritual heritage of the Armenians and other nations of the region by falsifying their history.