Ideas of National Self-Determination and Sovereigntyin the Political-Philosophical Concepts of Maghakia Ormanyan and Levon Shant

Abstract

XIX-XX century’s geopolitical realities, constitutional and national-liberation movements, and the change in Ottoman statelegal order became the historic-political basis of the politicalphilosophical constructs of the thinkers of that time. Due to the military and diplomatic policies of the superpowers Full or partial liberation of the people under the rule of the Ottoman Empire was conceived by the Armenian nation as a historic injustice against the Armenians and a violation of the principle of the legal equality of the nations. In the context of these realities, prominent political scientist-philosophers of that century Maghakia Ormanyan (1841-1918) and Levon Shant (1869-1951) argue for the fundamental ideas of civilizational identity, protection of historical rights, political self-determination, freedom of self-government of the Armenian nation, substantiate independence and national-state sovereignty as highest values.