The church thrived in many parts of the Armenian diaspora, and is regaining its strength in newly independent Armenia. In the post-Soviet period, the church has struggled to define itself in society, having to overcome the decades of persecution and neglect, as well as making adjustments in a political culture in which it is favored but must still coexist in an officially pluralistic society.
The liturgy of the Armenian Church (the eu-charistic service is called patarag) with Syriac and Greek roots, has been vastly enriched by the hymnody of Armenian writers. Contact with Rome has also been important in this context. Armenians, preserving an ancient Eastern tradition, celebrate Christmas and Epiphany together on January 6. See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; ORTHODOXY; RELIGION; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Maksoudian, Krikor (1995). Chosen of God: The Election of the Catholicos of All Armenians. New York: St. Var-tan’s Press. Ormanian, Malachia. (1988). The Church of Armenia: Her History, Doctrine, Rule, Discipline, Liturgy, Literature, and Existing Conditions. New York: St. Vartan’s Press.
See DASHNAKTSUTIUN.
The Armory (Oruzheinaia palata) was a Muscovite state department that organized the production of arms, icons, and other objects for the tsars and their household; later it became a museum. Partial view of the Kremlin Armory in Moscow. © WOLFGANG KAEHLER/CORBIS
An Armory chancery (prikaz) was established in the Moscow Kremlin at the beginning of the sixteenth century to supervise the production and storage of the tsars’ personal weapons and other objects, such as saddles and banners. By the middle of the seventeenth century, it encompassed a complex of studios, including the Gold and Silver Workshops and the Armory Chamber itself, which employed teams of craftsmen to produce a wide variety of artwork and artifacts and also stored and maintained items for the palace’s ceremonial and liturgical use and for distribution as gifts. The chancery commanded considerable funds and a large administrative staff, presided over by such leading boyars as Bogdan Khitrovo, who was director of the Armory from 1654 to 1680, during which time it emerged as a virtual academy of arts.
From the 1640s onward, the Armory had dedicated studios for icon painting and, beginning in 1683, for nonreligious painting. Its most influential artist was Simon Ushakov (1626-1686), whose images demonstrate a mixture of traditional compositions and more naturalistic use of light, shade, and perspective. Characteristic examples include his icons “The Planting of the Tree of the Muscovite Realm” (1668) and “Old Testament Trinity” (1671). He also made charts and engravings and painted portraits. The development of portrait painting from life by artists such as Ivan Bezmin and Bog-dan Saltanov was one of the Armory’s most striking innovations, although surviving works show the influence of older conventions of Byzantine imperial portraits and Polish “parsuna” portraits, rather than contemporary Western trends. Teams of Armory artists also restored and painted frescoes in the Kremlin cathedrals and the royal residences: for example, in the cathedrals of the Dormition (1632-1643) and Archangel (1652).
Russian Armory artists worked alongside foreign personnel, including many from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who specialized in woodcarv-ing, carpentry, and ceramics. Other foreigners worked as gunsmiths and clock- and instrument-makers. A handful of painters from western Europe encouraged the development of oil painting on canvas and introduced new Biblical and historical subjects into the artistic repertoire. By the late 1680s secular painters began to predominate: Armory employment rolls for 1687-1688 record twenty-seven icon painters and forty secular painters. Nonreligious painting assignments included making maps, charts, prints and banners, and decorating all manner of objects, from painted Easter eggs and chess sets to children’s toys. Under the influence of Peter I (r. 1682-1725) and his circle, in the 1690s artists were called upon to undertake new projects, such as decorating the ships of Peter’s new navy and constructing triumphal arches. In the early eighteenth century Peter transferred many Armory craftsmen to St. Petersburg, and by 1711 the institution was virtually dissolved, surviving only as a museum and treasury. From 1844 to 1851 the architect Karl Ton designed the present classical building, which houses and displays Muscovite and Imperial Russian regalia and treasures, vestments, carriages, gifts from foreign delegations, saddles, and other items.
ARMS CONTROL
See also: CATHEDRAL OF THE ARCHANGEL; CATHEDRAL OF THE DORMITION; ICONS; KREMLIN; PETER I; USHAKOV, SIMON FYODOROVICH
Cracraft, James. (1997). The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hughes, Lindsey. (1979). “The Moscow Armoury and Innovations in Seventeenth-Century Muscovite Art.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 13:204-223.
Russia’s governments-tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet-have often championed arms limitation. Power and propaganda considerations as well as ideals lay behind Russian and Soviet proposals. Because Russia and the USSR usually lagged behind its Western adversaries in military technology and economic strength, Russian leaders often called for banning new weapons or abolishing those they did not yet possess. Russia sought to bring the weapons of all countries to the same qualitative level. If that happened, Russia’s large size would permit it to field larger armies than its rivals. By contrast, the United States often led the world in military technology and economic strength. Accordingly, U.S. diplomats often called for freezing the existing military balance of power so that the United States could maintain its advantages. Such measures, if implemented, would often have put Russia at a disadvantage.
FUNDAMENTAL BARRIERS TO DISARMAMENT
Besides its large size, Russia had the advantage of secrecy. Both tsars and commissars exploited the closed nature of their society to hide weaknesses and assets. With its open society, the United States had fewer secrets to protect, so it advocated arms treaties that permitted onsite inspection. The usual pattern was that the United States wanted inspection first; disarmament later. The Soviets wanted disarmament first; inspection later, if ever.
Language differences magnified these difficulties. While English has just one word for disarmament, Russian has two, and thus distinguishes between voluntary and coerced disarmament. Voluntary disarmament, as the outcome of selfrestraint or negotiation, is razoruzhenie, whereas disarmament by force is obezoruzhit. Vladimir Ilich Lenin, however, believed that razoruzhenie was a pacifist illusion. The task of revolutionaries, he argued, was to disarm its enemies by force. Soviet diplomats began calling for wide-scale disarmament in 1922. They said that Western calls for “arms limitation”-not full razoruzhenie-masked the impossibility for capitalist regimes to disarm voluntarily. Soviet ideologists averred that capitalists needed arms to repress their proletariat, to fight each other, and to attack the socialist fatherland.
Seeking a more neutral term, Western diplomats in the 1950s and 1960s called for “arms control,” a term that included limits, reductions, and increases, as well as the abolition of arms. But kon-trol in Russian means only verification, counting, or checking. Soviet diplomats said “arms control” signified a Western quest to inspect (and count) arms, but not a willingness actually to disarm. After years of debate, Soviet negotiators came to accept the term as meaning “control over armaments,” rather than simply a “count of armaments.” In 1987, when the USSR and United States finally signed a major disarmament agreement, President Ronald Reagan put the then-prevailing philosophy into words, saying: “Veriat no proveriat” (trust, but verify).
THE MAKING OF ARMS POLICY
A variety of ideals shaped tsarist and Soviet policy. Alexander I wanted a Holy Alliance to maintain peace after the Napoleonic wars. Like Alexander I, Nicholas II wanted to be seen as a great pacifist, and summoned two peace conferences at The Hague in an effort to achieve that end. Lenin, however, believed that “disarmament” was a mere slogan, meant only to deceive the masses into believing that peace was attainable without the overthrow of
