Արշալոյս Հ. Թոփալեան2025-08-122025-08-121994Թոփալեան, Ա. Հ., «Հինգերորդ դարի հայ պատմագրութեան հետապնդած նպատակները», «Հայկազեան հայագիտական հանդէս», 1994, Պէյրութ, էջ 63-79https://haigrepository.haigazian.edu.lb/handle/123456789/711With the fifth century Armenian Renaissance, which followed the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtotz, a number of Armenian historians gave themselves the task and duty of writing the history of the Armenian nation. Some of them were contemporaries to the events they related, yet most of them were full-fledged historians educated in the best possible centers of Greek and Assyrian culture and universities of the time, hence were well-informed and well-disciplined with their own right. Of these Dr. Topalian talks of Moses of Khoren, Faustus of Byzantium, Yeghishe Patmich, Ghazar of Parbi, Agathangelos, and Korun, Moses of Khoren is called "The Father of Armenian History" and is the first man who has ever written the history of the Armenians from its dawn to the mid-fifth century. The others are all contemporaries of the events they relate and have usually taken active part in the events which make the history of the time, and, in a way, they keep the continuity both of the events of the day and the nation and its country. But, what is of great importance for them all is the fact that all of them dig deep in the past and present to bring forth the elements which have kept the Armenian Nation and the Armenian Fatherland strong enough to face the dangers and the political, social and religious upheavals of all times and come out victorious and able to keep their national existence. The aim pursued by all the historians of the time was to imbue their present and future readers with necessary personal moral and patriotic courage and national, social, and religious strength so as to be able to face the military and imperialistic designs of both the Persian and Byzantine camps, and which endangered the political and national existence of Armenia and the Armenians. By making direct use of the fifth century works of the aforesaid historians, Dr. Topalian has endeavored to point out the one particular resemblance of them all —the element of national conduct and the anxiety they have in front of the imminent dangers, the Armenians face and the self-given duty to prepare their people to the threats at hand.