‘It is an Important Mission – Useful and National’ – White Spots in the History of the First Armenian Private School in Moskow

Abstract

In the paper I have analysed the relations between Russian imperial policy, the history of the school and the biographies of the Armenian family Lazarovi in the context of the Armenian liberation movement in 18th and 19th century. I have followed how the colonial Russian policy changed the statute of the first Armenian private school in Moscow and Russified it – the school was designed to be orientated mainly to Armenian students and teaching European languages but was transformed into Institute of Eastern Languages. The task of the paper is to answer the questions what, by whom, and why certain aspects of the history of the school were silenced in the Russian, Soviet and post – Soviet historiography; why the question of the periodization of the Lazarev Institute for Eastern Languages still is not sufficiently decided.