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The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, also known as Cilician Armenia, Lesser Armenia, Little Armenia or New Armenia, and formerly known as the Armenian Principality of Cilicia, was an Armenian state formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia. Located outside the Armenian Highlands and distinct from the Kingdom of Armenia of antiquity, it was centered in the Cilicia region northwest of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.
The Armenian highlands have been home to the Hayasa-Azzi, Shupria, and Nairi peoples. By at least 600 BC, an archaic form of Proto-Armenian, an Indo-European language, had diffused into the Armenian highlands. The first Armenian state of Urartu was established in 860 BC, and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC and in AD 301 became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Armenia still recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century before falling in 1045. Cilician Armenia, an Armenian principality and later a kingdom, was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.
Armenian Cypriots (Armenian: Կիպրահայեր, romanized: Gibrahayer; Greek: Αρμένιοι της Κύπρου, romanized: Arménioi tis Kýprou; Turkish: Kıbrıs Ermenileri) are the ethnic Armenian population native to Cyprus. The Armenian-Cypriot community has had a significant impact upon the Armenian people as a whole despite its low numbers. During the Middle Ages, Cyprus had an extensive connection with the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, while the Ganchvor monastery had an important presence in Famagusta. During the Ottoman Era, the Virgin Mary church and the Magaravank were very prominent. Certain Armenian Cypriots were or are very prominent on a Panarmenian or international level and the survivors of the Armenian genocide have co-operated and co-existed peacefully with the Turkish Cypriots.
Currently, Armenian-Cypriots maintain a notable presence of about 4,000 on the island (including about 1,500 non-Cypriot Armenians), mostly centred on the capital Nicosia, but also with communities in Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos. The Armenian Prelature of Cyprus is located in Nicosia. According to the 1960 Constitution of Cyprus, together with the Maronites and the Latins, they are recognised as a "religious group" and have opted to belong to the Greek-Cypriot community and Armenian-Cypriots are represented by an elected Representative in the House of Representatives. Since May 2006, the Representative is Vartkes Mahdessian. The religious leader of the community, since July 2024, is Catholicosal Vicar Archbishop Gomidas Ohanian, accountable to the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.
Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, romanized: hayer, [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia. Armenians constitute the main demographic group in Armenia and constituted the main population of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh until their subsequent flight due to the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive. There is a large diaspora of around five million people of Armenian ancestry living outside the Republic of Armenia. The largest Armenian populations exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil, Argentina, Syria, and Turkey. The present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian genocide with the exceptions of Iran, former Soviet states, and parts of the Levant.
Armenian is an Indo-European language. It has two mutually intelligible spoken and written forms: Eastern Armenian, today spoken mainly in Armenia, Artsakh, Iran, and the former Soviet republics; and Western Armenian, used in the historical Western Armenia and, after the Armenian genocide, primarily in the Armenian diasporan communities. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.
The Principality of Antioch (Latin: Principatus Antiochenus; Norman: Princeté de Antioch) was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.
It had roughly 20,000 inhabitants in the 12th century, most of whom were Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians, with a few Muslims outside the Antioch city itself. Most of the crusaders who settled there were of Norman origin, notably from the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria in southern Italy, as were the first rulers of the principality, who surrounded themselves with loyal subjects. Few of the inhabitants apart from the crusaders were Roman Catholic even though the city was under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarchate of Antioch, established in 1100. This patriarchate would endure as a titular one after the Crusades, until it was dropped in 1964.
The Mongol invasions of Georgia (Georgian: მონღოლთა ლაშქრობები საქართველოში, romanized: mongholta lashkrobebi sakartveloshi), which at that time consisted of Georgia proper, Armenia, and much of the Caucasus, involved multiple invasions and large-scale raids throughout the 13th century. The Mongol Empire first appeared in the Caucasus in 1220 as generals Subutai and Jebe pursued Muhammad II of Khwarezm during the destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire. After a series of raids in which they defeated the combined Georgian and Armenian armies, Subutai and Jebe continued north to invade Kievan Rus'.
A full-scale Mongol conquest of the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia began in 1236, in which the Kingdom of Georgia, the Sultanate of Rum, and the Empire of Trebizond were subjugated, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and other Crusader states voluntarily accepted Mongol vassalage, and the Assassins were eliminated. Mongol rule in the Caucasus lasted until the late 1330s. During that period, King George V the Brilliant restored the kingdom of Georgia for a brief period before it finally disintegrated due to Timur's invasions of Georgia.
Armenian genocide survivors were Armenians in the Ottoman Empire who survived the Armenian genocide. After the end of World War I, many tried to return home in Western Armenia but most were prevented by the Turkish nationalist movement which considered Armenian survivors to be a mortal threat to the Turkish state. Thousands of Armenians who tried to return were killed.
Roughly half of the survivors fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East with the other half fleeing to Eastern Armenia which later became the First Republic of Armenia. A further wave of Armenian refugees was created by the Turkey's invasion of the new Armenian Republic, and another 100,000 Armenians were uprooted from their homes in Cilicia following the French withdrawal in 1920. Between 1922 and 1929, the Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria. Fearing renewed persecution, the last Armenian communities of Cilicia fled after France ceded the territory to Turkey in 1939.
Medieval Armenia refers to the history of Armenia during the Middle Ages. It follows Ancient Armenia and covers a period of approximately eight centuries, beginning with the Muslim conquest of Armenia in the 7th century. Key events during this period includes the rebirth of an Armenian Kingdom under the Bagratid dynasty, followed by the arrival of the Seljuk Turks. During this period, a portion of the Armenian people migrate to Cilicia to seek refuge from invasions, while the remnants in Eastern Armenia see the establishment of Zakarid Armenia under the Kingdom of Georgia. This period also marks the emergence of the royal dynasty in Artsakh.
In Cilicia, Armenians establish a crusader state, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which would be the last fully independent Armenian state throughout the following centuries until the establishment of modern-day Armenia. The arrival of the Mongol Empire in the area, followed by the rise and fall of several other Turko-Mongol confederations, marks a turning point in the history of the Armenian people, defined by the large influx of Turkic-speaking peoples into their homeland. By the end of the Middle Ages, the notion of an Armenian state is relegated to history, with the western portions of historic Armenia as part of the Ottoman Empire, and the eastern portion as part of Safavid Iran.
The Château de Lusignan (in Lusignan, Vienne département, France), of which hardly any traces remain, was the ancestral seat of the House of Lusignan, Poitevin marcher lords, who distinguished themselves in the First Crusade and became the royal family of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Built in the 10th century, it reached its peak four centuries later, decayed and was finally dismantled in the 18th century.