ՇՈՂԻԿ ՈՍԿԱՆԵԱՆ / SHOGHIK VOSKANYAN
(arm)
Համառօտ ակնարկ մխիթարեանների դպրոցական-լուսաւորական գործունէութեանը Օսմանեան կայսրութեան ժամանակ
A short surview of the educational and enlightening activities of the Mekhitarian order under the Ottoman empire
Bazmavep
2010 / 1 - 2,
pp.
205-223
Elucidating the educational activities of the Mekhitarists we have the intention to reveal some details which were characteristic for all the fathers of the Congregation. The holy mission of the Congregation fathers, alongside with their doctrine, was to spread light, hope and science among Armenians, and that was their credo and the main direction of their activities. As faithful devotes of their duty, they had to forget their person, to risk their life, constantly undergo persecutions, betrayals, calumnies, they were accused and doubted, they had to face vengeance, malice and hatred, but nevertheless, they always tried to remain faithful to their ideas of enlightenment and never did they betray the orders of Mekhitar Sebastatsi.
One mustn’t forget that the main goal of the Mekhitarists’ enlightening activities was first of all the paramount idea of educating in schools Armenians having lost their sovereignty and their national independence, living under the yoke of a stranger imperialistic state, or dispersed all over the world, and thus lead them to preserve their national dignity and identity. To realize this idea they used all their either material, physical, moral and religious possibilities or available potential and advantages.
The Soviet Armenian historiography and pedagogy, getting round a series of important circumstances, considered their enormous, rich and substantial activities exclusively from the confessional viewpoint, pointing out only their being of service to the Vatican, the citadel of Catholicism. Meanwhile their fruitful enlightening activities of three hundred years, the schools they founded and their outstanding feats in the sphere of education need supplementary studies, new interpretations, new appreciation and estimation.
First of all they played the role of a huge bridge for dialogue and influences between Armenian and European culture. Mekhitarists’ strong connections and affinities with European milieu and culture helped to transfer to them such well organized and methodical ways of activity, thanks to which they created their works in historiography and Armenian studies, their encyclopedias, their descriptions of Armenian antiquities and geography, beautiful printings and many other works. Not only they get acquainted the European civilization with the Armenian nation, but spread the Armenian centuries-old culture with all its splendor and originality in the entire Occident.
Being directly and immediately influenced by the entire human civilization, the Mekhitarists coordinated all the branches of national science and established order within the borders of their studies. Sebastatsi, Alishan, Chamchian, Bagratuni and other great figures in the sphere of Armenian studies and historiography were the authors of first systematic books of grammar, history, geography, bibliography and other sciences; they founded the best schools and printing houses of European type.
Their activities of three centuries were carried out in two main directions: to rediscover and remind the historical values of Armenian people’s spirit and thought; and to constantly get connected the national culture with European civilization. The services of Mekhitarists in these two spheres of activity are inestimable, as the spreading of cultural influence is a necessary condition of human civilization development and its perspective path.