Identity Paradigm in Armenia in the Late Antiquity: Are the People of Armenia Armenian?

Abstract

Ancient Armenia, throughout history, has hosted many diferent ethnic origins and cultures due to the various traditions of the communities living on it and the political instability of the geography. The fact that this multicultural structure of the region does not examine in depth in the general literature has resulted in the people of the region being evaluated as Armenian from a collective and mostly from a toponym point of view. However, many noble families that formed the feudal understanding, which was a part of the natural life in the multilingual and ethnic Armenia, were associated with many diferent ancestry stories even in ancient Armenian texts formed after the 5^th century. In this context, the fact that examination of the peoples of the region as ethnonym rather than toponym during the late antiquity shows that some of the communities living in the region can be called people of Armenia and some Armenian. The cultural innovation, especially, brought about by the search for the lineage of Armenia after Christianity has an important place in the eponym naming and origin relationship. Therefore, this study aims to discuss the sub-factors that created the peoples of the region called Armenian rather than being people of Armenian, the social structure on which the new identity was built, and the origins of the nobles called naxarar.