Nicholas Adontz

Nicholas Adontz (; ; January 10, 1871 – January 27, 1942) was an Armenian historian, specialising in Byzantine and Armenian studies, and a philologist. Adontz was the author of Armenia in the Period of Justinian, a highly influential work and landmark study on the social and political structures of early Medieval Armenia.

Biography Early life Adontz was born Nikoghayos Ter-Avetikian in the village of Brnakot in Sisian, which was then part of the Zangezur uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate (present-day Syunik). His family traced its roots to an eighteenth-century Armenian military figure and close ally of David Bek named Ter-Avetik. He attended a parochial school in Tatev and later studied at the Gevorkian Theological Seminary in Echmiadzin and the Russian gymnasium in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi) from 1892–1894. During the Second World War, after Belgium's occupation by the Nazis and after Adontz and the other professors refused their orders to work at another institute, the University of Brussels was shut down. Left with no salary, Adontz willed his work to Belgium's small Armenian community, dying shortly thereafter in Brussels on January 27, 1942. These included two booklets published in English in 1918, The Historical Basis of the Armenian Question and the Fall of Turkey and The Dismemberment of Turkey; two works published in Russian in the same year, Turkey's Note and Western Armenia and The Armenian Question and German Plans; and The Armenian Question at Sèvres, which was published in English in 1920. He accused Western Europe for taking advantage of the Armenians' plight in the Ottoman Empire in order to increase their own influence in the region. Adontz also condemned Soviet Russia for signing the 1918 Treaty of Brest Litovsk, which effectively left the once-Armenian-populated regions within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

Legacy

Selected publications Samuel l'Armenien, Roi des Bulgares. Bruxelles, Palais des academies, 1938, 63 p. Published also in: Etudes Armeno-Byzantines. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Distributor: Livraria Bertrand. Lisbonne, 1965. Histoire d'Arménie, les origines du X-e siècle au vie (av. J.C.). Préf. de René Grousset. Paris, 1946. Armenia in the Period of Justinian: the Political Conditions Based on the Naxarar System. Translated with partial revisions, a bibliographical note, and appendices by Nina G. Garsoïan. Lisbon, 1970. Denys de Thrace et les commentateurs arméniens. Lisbon, 1970. Antsano't' e'jer Masht'ots'i ew nra ashakertneri keank'its' e"st o'tar aghbiwrneri [Unknown Pages from the Life of Mashtots and His Students according to Foreign Sources]. 1925. Towards the Solution to the Armenian Question. London, 1920.