Without Ararat We Will Not Be a Biblical People, We Will Be an Ordinary People: Mikael Minasian

For millennia, Ararat has been and remains the most famous mountain in humanity. The biblical mountain is the most recognized symbol of hope, new beginnings, and new life. However, few notice that the world knows Ararat as it appears from the territory of modern Armenia—Mount Masis on the right and Little Masis on the left.

This was noted by Mikael Minasian, Armenia's former ambassador to the Holy See, on his Telegram channel: "The global perception of Ararat has an Armenian perspective. We have created our own meta-reality for the world. Ararat is our first victorious struggle with reality, the first challenge aimed at geography. De jure, the mountain is outside our borders, but de facto, it is ours. Ararat is a symbol calling out that we are a biblical ethnicity. Ararat is a symbol of our independence; it is depicted on the coats of arms of all our republics. Hakob Kojoyan and Alexander Tamanyan placed it on the emblem of the First Republic. Kojoyan and Martiros Saryan depicted it at the center of the emblem of Soviet Armenia. Ararat is also present on the current republic's coat of arms.

Why does Turkey demand that we renounce all connections to Ararat? And why does the Armenian government strive to please Turkey? Removing the image of Ararat from the seal is, in fact, a link in a long chain. A significant episode. This is a continuation of the surrender of the homeland. It transforms a citizen of an inconvenient state for Turkey into a disloyal people, then to a rootless, defeated, and bitter crowd, and in the third phase, to a formless, forgetful herd that has renounced its future. In other words, it is the final solution to the Armenian question. This is a perfect place for retreat.

In 1515, the great Italian painter Carpaccio created one of his most famous works, 'The Martyrdom on Mount Ararat'. Before the massive depictions of ARARAT by Armenian painters, no one had a clear idea of what it looked like. In Carpaccio's painting, ARARAT is an ordinary mountain. At its foot, after an angel's appearance, Roman soldiers headed by Saint Akakios accept Christianity. The Roman emperor punishes them by crucifixion for their conversion.

Carpaccio's paintings are known for their red color. Therefore, in 1950, Giuseppe Cipriani created his famous dish of raw beef in Venice and named it 'carpaccio' in honor of his compatriot, so that everyone would remember the Venetian painter known for shades of red, whose most famous work depicts ARARAT.

Let’s go back. Carpaccio did not know what ARARAT looked like. He read the word 'mountain' and painted a mountain. We have imposed our vision of history on the world. We have proven to the world that we are an ethnicity whose history has been continuously ongoing for millennia. Turkey and the current Armenian government are committed to stripping us of all features of our chosenness, and the first among them is ARARAT.

Without it, we are not a biblical people, but an ordinary people, of which there are many. Without it, we have no meaning or symbols of victory. Without it, in a few decades, a painter depicting ARARAT, like Carpaccio, will paint an ordinary, faceless mountain. An image where Ararat was just a mountain served as proof of our inferiority and insignificance. And it continued to prove this until Armenians made it part of their DNA—the focal point of collective memory, history, belonging, emotions, and consciousness. If Ararat is taken from Armenians, there will be no difference between us and those on the 'other' side of the mountain and beyond the borders," wrote Minasian.