The battle of Avarayr
Armenian nobles led by Vardan Mamikonian fight a far larger Persian army to resist the imposition of Zoroastrianism; they lose the battle but, in the long run, keep their faith.
- Elishē: History of Vardan and the Armenian War — Robert W. Thomson (trans.), Harvard University Press (1982)
- The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present — Simon Payaslian, Palgrave Macmillan (2007)
- The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times (2 vols.) — Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), St. Martin's Press (1997)
- The Armenians — A. E. Redgate, Blackwell (1998)
After the Persians abolished the Armenian monarchy in 428, the Sasanian king Yazdegerd II tried to bind Armenia more closely to his empire by ordering its nobles to convert to Zoroastrianism. Many refused. In 451 an Armenian force under Vardan Mamikonian met a much larger Persian army, with war elephants, on the plain of Avarayr, in today’s north-western Iran. Vardan and, by the account of the historian Yeghishe, 1,036 of his men were killed, and the Persians won the battle.
- Elishē: History of Vardan and the Armenian War — Robert W. Thomson (trans.), Harvard University Press (1982)
- The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present — Simon Payaslian, Palgrave Macmillan (2007)
But resistance continued for decades, and in 484 the Treaty of Nvarsak, won by Vardan’s nephew Vahan Mamikonian, granted Armenians freedom of worship and local self-government. Armenians remember Avarayr as a defeat that won the war. The church made Vardan and his companions saints, and Yeghishe’s history of the war, with its line that “death not understood is death, death understood is immortality”, became a classic of Armenian literature.
- Elishē: History of Vardan and the Armenian War — Robert W. Thomson (trans.), Harvard University Press (1982)
- The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times (2 vols.) — Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), St. Martin's Press (1997)
- The Armenians — A. E. Redgate, Blackwell (1998)
Why it matters today
Avarayr is the model of a very Armenian idea: that a defeat for the sake of faith and identity can be a moral victory. The feast of Vardanants is still celebrated every year before Lent, Vardan is one of the most popular boys' names, and leaders and poets have invoked Avarayr in every later struggle, including the Karabakh wars.