Western-Armenian Periodical Press on Swiss National Movements in the 1840s

Abstract

The Canton movement in Switzerland in the 1840s attracted the attention of the Armenian periodical press of that time. The newspapers ‘’Arshaluys Araratyan’’, ‘’Hayastan’’ and ‘’Europa’’, the ideologues of the Western-Armenian national conservative current, elucidated that movement immediately. The political weekly of the Mkhitaryan Congregation of Vienna considered the Swiss national movement to be ‘’internal confusions’’ created by the influence of the July Revolution of 1830, as well as by the propaganda of the radicals. According to the weekly, the radical Cantons were eager to overthrow the existing authorities and establish a republican order. The Congregation members were supporters of the monarchical order recognized in Europe by the Vienna Congress of 1815, so they called the struggle of the Cantons just “a riot’’. The Catholic congregants also emphasized the religious component in the Canton movement and complained that violence was being used against the church and monasteries were being closed. “The Arshaluys Araratyan’’ doubted that the rebellious mountain Cantons would succeed. The weekly didn’t openly express its position on the struggle of the Cantons and was content to express a vague opinion with the publications of its ideologue European press. “The Hayastan’’, the official newspaper of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, also ignored the religious component of the Canton movement, though it preferred to report on it merely as an impartial “historiographer”.