Stereotype: Weren’t they all… like… genocided, or whatever?
Truth: No. NO! THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE! HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT? NO GENOCIDE! THERE WASN’T ANY NO NONE NO NEVER GENOCIDE. DON’T YOU EVER EVER SAY THAT AGAIN.
Previous Olympic History:
Armenia first participated as an independent country in the 1994 Olympic Games. They have since participated in the 1996, 2000, 2004 Summer Games, apparently after learning in 1994 that winter sports were not their particular forte.
In 1996 Armenia won its first two medals, both in wrestling. Armen Nazarian won a gold medal, and Armen Mkerchian won a silver. In 2000 Arsen Melikyan (not actually Armenian, but in fact from Arsenia) won a bronze in weightlifting. Later, Armen Arsenian and Arsen Armenian wrestled so hard they fused into one man: Arsenmen Armensenian. And he, of course, is now in fucking prison.
After winning the gold medal in 1996 for Armenia, Armen Nazarian switched his citizenship to Bulgaria, and wrestled for them in the 2000 and 2004 games, winning another gold, plus a bronze. He’s also a traitor, so, you know, hope you sleep well, Armen. With one eye open.
In the 2004 games Armenia sent 6 competitors. Only one came home alive. Wait, no, that’s not true. A couple did okay: Armen Martirosyan lost in round 1 of the Men's triple jump; Armen Nazaryan was defeated in the Men's Judo (60 kg) first round. It's worth noting that he is not related to Armen Nazarian (different last names, yo!), and that he has won four medals in the European championships in Judo - one every year from 2003 to 2006. He is the best bet for an Armenian winning a medal in the 2008 Olympic games.
Also note that Ara Abrahamian won a silver medal in 2004, but for Sweden (his country of residence). He would have competed for Armenia, but only people named “Armen” are permitted. Luckily, 94% of the population is named Armen.
2008 Olympic Prospects:
Pretty limited. The country is smaller than Maryland, you know. So let’s focus on Olympic gymnast Jordan Jovtchev, who is competing for Bulgaria (Bulgaria, Armenia - same ish). He’s a 35 year old ring and floor specialist (ooh, boy!) who has had a brilliant career so far. He won a silver and a bronze in 2004, and two bronzes in 2000. He has won four golds, four silvers, and four bronzes (the man is symmetric) in world championships, going as far back as 1995, up to as recent as 2007. If he wins one more bronze, he can trade all those in for a gold! And then he can waggle them in Armenia’s face and be like “Yeah, boyee! Bulgaria represent! WHAT!?” and then he’ll do a little dance.
He’s also that tough little guy from the Ninja Warrior specials. On that crazy Japanese game show that makes American Gladiators look like little kids’ stuff [DJM’s note: isn’t it kids’ stuff?], Jordan has made it to the final (fourth) stage one time, in the 8th competition, but rain hampered his performance (pussy). He therefore earned the moniker “the world’s toughest gymnast”. But he’s not Armenian. So, uh, it’s sort of off-topic. Shut up. You try finding stuff to write about a country the size of midtown.
Superman dat flo'!Armenian History:
In 301, Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official state religion. The Church rejected all other churches that came later, and Armenia Orthodox is independent of both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Persians took over not too long later. They tried to impose the Zoroastrian religion on Armenia (holla, Freddie Mercury), but the Armenians resisted. So thus came the Battle of Avarayr (451), a sequel to the Battle of Thermopylae (as depicted in "300"), in which 66,000 Armenian troops, lead by Saint Vartan, fought, and lost, to a 200,000 strong Persian Army lead by those Immortals and War Elephants (motto: "crushing Spartans and Vartans for over a hundred years").
The Byzantines beat the Persians in 591, and took over Armenia. The usual players in history have ruled over Armenia - Persians, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, and your mom.
Oh. Snap.
The Ottoman Empire took over in the 1400's. From 1915 -1923, when the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians (over 1.5 million died) “supposedly” took place. To avoid controversy, we’ll use the passage from Wikipedia: "The Ottoman Turks accused the (Christian) Armenians as liable to ally with Imperial Russia, and used it as a pretext to deal with the entire Armenian population as an enemy within their empire". The Turkish side of the story is that the death were caused by a civil war and famine. The famine part might have been related to the mass deportations of Armenians that took place - they were sent off into the desert to die. Okay, very touchy subject handled delicately and objectively.
Now the true story: GENOCIDE GENOCIDE GENOCIDE! What are you gonna do about it, Turkey? Cry?
The Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA) was established in 1918. Two years later they declared war on Turkey, which only had a population that was about 20 times larger. Four months later, Armenia had lost the war badly, and, per the treaty, had to disarm its military, and give up over 50% of its land. Rough stuff.
While the negotiations were taking place, the nearby Soviet Russian empire invaded (rolled three sixes to Armenia’s two fours. Ouch), via Azerbaijan, and took over Armenia. They kicked the Turks out, but then decided to make a deal with them. Russia would get Adjara (see our Georgia preview for more info on that mess), and the Turks would get the Kars territory. Though the Kars territory isn't that big in size, it contains some pretty important Armenian sites, including Mt. Ararat (the landing place of Noah's Ark), Mt. Rararat (the landing place of the Lusitania) and Mt. Ratatat (groovy synth music). And Armenia was now under the USSR's rule. Armenians are no doubt still a bit pissed about that genocide [IT WASN’T GENOCIDE! I’LL KILL YOU!] thing, as well as that “taking our holy mountain” thing, too. So yes, they don’t like Turkey very much. They only eat ham. Ba-dum-ching.
Armenia became independent of the USSR in 1991. There was some beef [hey-oh! OK, we’ll stop] prior to that, in 1988, when Armenia took a small chunk (Nagorno-Karabakh) with a large Armenian population (130,000 Armenians) out of neighboring satellite country Azerbaijan. Follow the Armenian victory against Azerbaijan's army, the countries of Azerbaijan and Turkey both imposed a blockade against Armenia. That remains to this day. As for Nagorno-Karabakh, it is considered a de facto independent republic that is part of Azerbaijan, but controlled independently, receiving protection from the Armenian army. Also, Armenia said “eff it”, and took over some extra Azeri land, too. For a small country, Armenia loves to go at it with the big guys in the neighborhood.
And, if you are keeping score at home - we have now covered five (5!) of the six "unrecognized republics" in the world. To recap those 5: Abkhazia (see our Georgia preview), Kosovo (as predicted in our Albania preview), South Ossetia (what up, Georgia?), Transnistria (Moldova), and now Nagorno-Karabakh. We'll save the 6th one for next week, as it gets its own Olympic Preview.
Pop Culture:
Most Armenians live in other countries, due to the diaspora that occurred during the genocide [IT WAS A FAMINE! A FAAAAMIIIINE!]. Armenia's population itself is only 3.2M, but Russia has 1.1M people of Armenian descent; the Ukraine has 100K; the US has 385K; France has 500K but they’re not allowed to say so; Iran has 40K but Ahmedinajad denies that they exist; Georgia has 250K; Syria, Jordan and Lebanon have about 400K combined. Even Argentina has 130K. Germany, Canada, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Greece, Turkmenistan, Hungary, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Iraq... you name it, and Armenians are there. There are over 5 million Armenians in the world outside of Armenia. Their last names always end in –ian, except for the occasional -yan.
Famous Armenians:
Kim Kardashian (daughter of OJ lawyer Robert Kardashian):
Our chances of getting linked to by The Big Lead just went up 400%.Atom Egoyan - the Canadian-Armenian director of The Sweet Hereafter and Afarat.
Michael Omartian - produced all those classic Donna Summer albums from the 70’s. My favorite Donna Summer song? This Time Its For Real just edges out that weird one about the cake melting in the San Francisco park.
Armen Keteyian - Sports Reporter, generic Armenia name.
Tim Kurkjian - ESPN analyst.
Cher (real name Cherilyn Sarkisian). The Armenian Donna Summer, but with an Oscar. Um, I could have posted a clip from If I Could Turn Back Time, but rather than to look at Cher's thong again, here's (nerd alert) the ending of the X-Files episode "Post-Modern Prometheus", one of the best episodes in X-Files history:
Athletes:
Andre Agassi, sort of. Agassi’s father was Iranian of Armenian descent, and represented Iran at the Olympics as a boxer in the 50's. He lost the “-ian” ending in Iran.
Argentine Tennis player David Nalbandian.
Garo Yepremian, former NFL kicker credited with “the worst pass attempt in NFL history” except for every one thrown by Ryan Leaf:
Garry Kasparov, chess champion (lost the -ian ending in Russia in a bet with Bobby Fischerian)
Jerry "the shark" Tarkanian (former coach of those great UNLV that maked the Suns look like the Spurs) and Steve Bedrosian, former pitcher.
Others:
Ross Bagdasarian, creator of Alvin & The Chipmunks
System of a Down.
Leon Redbone – not the singer of Come and Get Your Loving (that’s just “Redbone”). His real name might be Dickran Gobalian. No one knows for sure. Nothing is known about Leon, despite many appearances, dating back to the 70's. Most people thought he was Andy Kaufman, but that rumor died down when Kaufman died, yet Redbone lived on. Others think he's really the comedian who places Father Guido Sarducci.
Joe Strummer, drummer for The Clash. Favorite Clash song: have to say it’s a tough call… but here's a video for Straight To Hell:
Conclusion: SAY GENOCIDE JUST ONE MORE TIME AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS! WATCH!
Special Thanks to Canadian DJM for inserting humor and insight into this post. Always appreciated!
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21 Comments
Comments
With a little more effort, you would be as witty as a retarted person. Just keep trying. You're almost there.
What an idiot, who doesnt know anything about Armenian, or world history.
Nice work! 1 quibble: Joe Strummer was the singer/guitarist for the Clash. Drummer in this clip was probably Topper Headon.
-Fat
I am not an Armenian nor a Turk but I know little about the history. If you call Armenian Genocide (by Turks) as a Civil War, you might as well call Jewish Genocide (by Germans) a Civil War, too. No matter what the reason was or what type of the war it was, if it was targetted against a specific ethnic group (for destruction of that particular racial group), it is genocide. You must be a Turk, by the way.
eat a dick u haters, ARMENIAN PRIDE for life mutha fuckers
Simply said, it isnt right nor appropriate to speak about such a tragic event in such a derogatory manner. As someone earlier mentioned, if you were to conclude that the 1915 Genocide was merely a "supposed war" or what not, then you are also concluding that the Holocaust was only a war in which the Nazis were triumphant. There certainly and unfortunately was a GENOCIDE just as much as there was a HOLOCAUST, and if you dont want to take my word for it, then look up the many survivors from both events and ask them. My advice, make sure you dont tell them you look at the tragedies as "war".
FUCK YOU
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DID HAPPEN. Stupid blogs like this are full of shit. FUCK YOU, FUCK TURKY, and FUCK Azerbedickheads. STOP SPREADING PROPAGANDA.
FUCK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH turkey!!
i can´t understand why turkey lays !!!
he DID realy KILL ARMENIANS !!!
OMGGG i hate YOUUUUUU turkey !!!
ARMENIAN POWER NON STOP !!!!
Whoever wrote this is the most idiotic person ever. It's funny how you say it never happened but yet there are some turks that admit to it and one even wrote a book about it. Just grow some balls and tell the truth. Or you can just keep your rude remarks to your self.
THIS IS FOR THE AUTHOR of this article and I HOPE that you will read this and hope it will change at least by some margin, of who you are and your views:>>>
Whoever you are "Stop Mike Lupica", you need to understand that ignorance is not a human virtue it's a handicap brought on by society. It's still us who choose to open our minds and explore the positive sides of the human potential. Cruelty comes from anger and we humans have much stronger will and power to be kind then cruel (beleive it or not). So, instead of surfing the net and blogging, pick up a book and read about real Armenian history and read another one about what a privilege it is to be human and how great it feels to be kind and courteous to others and respect their history as millions of people being killed is not a "funny" story for you to write about or joke about, it's REAL, it's PAINFULL and it's SAD, so learn to respect that wherever you go in your life or whatever you write or talk about. We have a choice to be good and it's because of people like you (uneducated, unworldly) that create an illusion for the weak that they can't do anything to help people. THIS IS NOT TRUE, we all have a choice. These types of Genocides happen even today, look at Africa, Darfur, Sudan....but now with the power of media and public knowledge we are all aware of it more and we have a choice as a "HUMAN RACE" to do something about it. We are no different from each other, we are just colourful in EVERY SENSE of the word.
AND YES ! I am ARMENIAN and I'm PROUD.
Your humour would earn you a free vomit bag at Guantanamo. The Real comedian and writer, Michael
Bedrosian would slice and dice you and spit you out. How can you call what you have stated here
to be humourous? Was your mother as ill as you?
And by the way, what nationality are you, mr. writer???
Mr Author,
I meant Eric Bogosian. Your insipid remarks however just upset me so much that I
wrote, Michael, for Eric. But you, sir, have
to find the hole that you crawled out of before
you offend the wrong person. One world, it seems,
is not large enough for all of its people, of
different colours, ethnicity, creeds, or beliefs.
u fuckin dick your too pussy to say this shit anywhere else so you write it were noone knows who you are and u say all this bullshit grow some balls and a fuckin brain u pussy muthafucka
Honestly I dont even want to put my time into writing a post, becaues I know the OP is hardheaded. Its very easy for you to write somthing like this and think that its funny. I'd like to see you in person and give you a piece of my mind. If your ever in LA, make sure you email me, Id love to come smack you around a bit.
And to all my fellow ARMOS. Quit this ignorant angry armo pride persona thats making everybody else look like morons. In case you didnt understnad stop acting like a hard ass and use your brain.
This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.
I'm pretty sure each time he typed in ALL CAPS it was a sarcastic statement...
Looks may be or seem to everything but it’s not everything..media makes it so because it’s the first thing that we see
With a little more effort, you would be as witty as a retarted person.
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Other famous Armenian - Principal Skinner (real name Armin Tamzerian)