Armenia's First Alphabet Mesrop Mashtots and the Birth of a Nation

In this episode of The Story of Armenia, Lucas and Luna explore the extraordinary story of Mesrop Mashtots, the monk who created the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD. They discuss how Mashtots, working with King Vramshapuh and Catholicos Sahak Partev, developed a 36-letter script that gave Armenians a written identity. The conversation covers the invention's political and religious context—how the alphabet was a shield against assimilation by the Persian Sassanid Empire and the Byzantine church. They delve into the translation of the Bible, known as the 'Queen of Translations,' and the Golden Age of Armenian literature that followed, including historians like Movses Khorenatsi. Lucas explains how the alphabet unified a scattered people across the Caucasus and beyond, and how it later became a symbol of resistance during the Armenian Genocide and Soviet era. The episode also touches on the legacy of Mashtots' tomb, the modern holiday of Saints Sahak and Mesrop, and the recent addition of three letters in the 20th century. A nuanced look at how a script shaped a nation's survival. #MesropMashtots #ArmenianAlphabet #SahakPartev #Vramshapuh #GoldenAgeOfArmenianLiterature #MovsesKhorenatsi #ArmenianGenocide #SassanidEmpire #ByzantineEmpire #Caucasus #405AD #ArmenianApostolicChurch #Edessa #Samosata #TranslationOfTheBible #SovietArmenia #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo