The minority and the majority, rulers and ruled, creators and consumers – these are the topics that great thinkers have been reflecting on since ancient times. In modern historical and political sciences, aristocracy is given attention not so much as a philosophical value phenomenon, but as a form of state governance. So, what is aristocracy, and who are the aristocrats?
In the ancient world, the aristocracy was considered a minority with power. It was assumed that the rulers must have had sufficient power resources to govern the majority (including by force) to protect it from external threats. In order to preserve their status as a ruling minority, the ancient aristocracies had to not only possess power, but also constantly project it (conquer so as not to be conquered) and pass it on from generation to generation. The ancient Greek philosopher Homer believed that the rulers, who were capable of taking responsibility for their land and fellow countrymen, were chosen by the Supreme God himself – Zeus. The excessive power of the worthy necessarily generates the highest value – nobility, which distinguishes true government, which has a divine source of origin. Within the framework of the same logic, the ancient Romans referred to the representatives of the ruling minority as ‘patricians’ (descendants of the great fathers).
Ancient aristocracy is about the rule of the strong, responsible and valiant. Representatives of the Greek aristocracy were required to constantly study logic, rhetoric and philosophy (spiritual strength), and improve themselves physically in order to be an example for those they were going to lead into battle (physical strength). At the same time, the emphasis was on political training, since an aristocrat who was able to protect his land and people without going to war had achieved the highest wisdom in the field of public administration.
This approach had its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the aristocrats were actively trained in the art of public administration, on the other, the ground was created for the emergence of a class of demagogues and populists. In times of crisis, real aristocrats came to the forefront, saving their country (polis) from deadly threats. In the Greco-Persian wars of 500-449 BC, when the survival of all Greek poleis was at stake, the outstanding aristocrats of their era were forged – Themistocles, Pericles, Cimon and Leonid the First. However, in peaceful conditions, the role of such aristocratic rulers fell sharply, and they were replaced by populists.
Due to the shifting of the internal balance between real aristocrats and populists in favour of the latter, the crisis of the classical polis began, which was the key reason for the decline of Greece at that time.
The Romans, on the contrary, emphasised the improvement of the art of war and material enrichment through hard work. The local patricians assumed that politics without war and the pursuit of wealth led to laziness, decay, and loss of a sense of power – a key component of aristocracy. This configuration created great opportunities for the Plebeians (also Roman citizens, the non-noble majority). Having shown extraordinary talents in the field of military art and trade, many of them made their way into the ranks of the patricians. A striking example of this transition was Marcus Licinius Crassus – a merchant who became the richest man in the Republic. At a certain historical moment, the local nobility turned to him for help in financing the army in order to suppress the slave revolt led by Spartacus 73-71 BC. Crassus led the army he formed, which suppressed the rebellion and saved the Republic from invasion. He became the saviour of Rome, but he understood that due to his lack of a noble family name and for the sake of maintaining a fragile intra-elite balance, it was necessary to share the triumph with the true (by family) patrician – Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey).
In this story, Crassus acted like a true aristocrat, putting Rome’s public interests above his own. Pompey also acted nobly, not succumbing to the persuasions of individual senators to present the defeat of Spartacus as solely his own merit. As a result, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Gnaeus Pompey the Great and Gaius Julius Caesar formed the First Triumvirate – the union of three men (or the union of three aristocrats).
Later, Caesar, who had learned invaluable lessons from his colleagues, would lay the foundation for a new conceptual system – the Empire. Caesar became Emperor, concentrating the lion’s share of power in his hands, realising the unacceptable level of internal corruption among both the patricians and the most noble plebeians. But even in such circumstances, he did not thoughtlessly destroy one of the key foundations of Roman aristocracy – the Senate. An unprecedented system was formed at that time, in which the de facto authoritarian used his power to reform the state system. For Caesar, the imperial absolute power was not a goal, but a necessary tool for cleansing and restarting the country.
Tigran II, the founder of Greater Armenia, tried to build an Armenian national aristocracy of a mixed type. Military leaders were at the core of the aristocracy. Their courage and dedication made possible the establishment of a powerful empire that became a direct geopolitical competitor to the other two great empires of the time – Rome and the Kingdom of Pontus.
Tigran the Great kept the military away from civil affairs, creating local cells of professional rulers. Thus, the military was always hungry for new victories, while the population was fairly governed.
Tigran’s mistake was that, contrary to the wishes of his generals (the foundations of the imperial aristocracy), he married Cleopatra – the daughter of the ruler of the Pontic Kingdom Mithridates Eupator. Not without reason, the Armenian military aristocracy believed that the Pontic sovereign was trying to make Tigran his ally in the confrontation with Rome by dynastic marriage. Regardless of any geopolitical calculations, the Armenian king should not have ignored the concerns of his aristocratic core. Many of them were disappointed with Tigran, whose decisions no longer inspired proper confidence. Both the military and the rulers also noticed that the king of kings (the title of Tigranes the Great) was held hostage by representatives of his own family, who began to wage internal wars for power. As a result, Greater Armenia was dragged into an unnecessary war (prior to which Tigran arrested many prominent generals on the false denunciations of his wife), falling into a position of vassal to Rome, while the sons of Tigran attempted to overthrow him on the advice of their mother Cleopatra, who fled back to the Kingdom of Pontus.
In the Middle Ages, the concept of aristocracy underwent significant changes. This was largely due to the rise of the Catholic Church in Europe. Everything became much simpler: the rulers ensured the primacy of Catholicism in their land, whilst the Holy See ensured the divine legitimacy of their power. Kings, tsars, and dukes became God’s anointed ones on earth, and their rule became nothing less than his direct will.
The kings, on their own, formed their own retinue that began to be mistakenly considered an aristocracy due to the active propaganda of that time. In fact, they were nobles (people close to the royal court), to whom the ruler granted certain privileges in exchange for absolute loyalty. This created a large gap between the organised ruling minority and the disorganised majority.
In the Middle Ages, the concept of classical (ancient) aristocracy was perverted beyond recognition: the rulers lived their lives pursuing their own interests, their retinues served them implicitly, while most were abandoned to their fate. Thus, such fundamental categories as responsibility, valour, and dignity were removed from the definition of aristocracy.
One of the last classical aristocracies of that time was the Medici family, which ruled on the basis of correct values and ideological attitudes. The wayward residents of Florence saw this family (Cosimo de’ Medici and later Lorenzo de’ Medici) as a real force that ensured strict order and a fair balance of power. Cosimo studied well the works of Plato and Homer, focusing on the Greek experience of constructing an aristocracy. Moreover, he founded the Plato Academy, which became a key think tank where future managers were trained. Perfectly knowing the history of the ancient world and seeing the processes of decay within the ruling minority, his son Lorenzo began to act more harshly, because broader state interests demanded so. He was the Julius Caesar of his time, with one difference – he studied the past so as not to repeat its critical mistakes. People understood that the Medici was synonymous with true aristocracy: strength, responsibility, iron will and dignity. It was not surprising that the Florentines sharply rebelled against this family after learning that Piero de’ Medici, the son of Lorenzo, agreed to all the humiliating terms of surrender, kneeling before the French King Charles the Eighth. This was no longer a Medici, not a Florentine aristocrat, not even a descendant of the great Cosimo and Lorenzo, but an ordinary mortal, who cowardly surrendered his country, its citizens, and his own legacy.
The Catholic medieval moral system created a class-corporate way of life, within which aristocracy became a priori impossible. Thus, the peasant, the main class unit of the majority, was deprived of an immaterial ideal and, consequently, of the need to sacrifice himself for a higher goal (due to its banal absence). The nobles, the representatives of the middle class, served exclusively the monarch – the supreme class, who ruled not by virtue of qualities and merits, but solely by the will of God. Even the knights – a kind of noble class of that era, served the monarch and the beautiful lady they were sworn to protect.
The classical aristocrat (Themistocles, Marcus Crassus, and Cosimo de’ Medici) serves neither himself, nor the social group from which he originates, nor God, but only an ideology based on responsibility for the past, present, and future of his land and his people. For an aristocrat, his own greatness is measured solely through the prism of the greatness of his own country and its people.
England broke out of the class system faster than others (the revolution of 1639). The uncontrolled lawlessness of the local monarchical dynasties led to the weakening of the country and the formation of a demand for the creation of a real aristocratic class capable of acting decisively and putting the interests of the country and the people above all. The British statesmen (mainly from the movement of Independents) united around the personality of Oliver Cromwell. Not only did he execute the weak ruling class, but he also eliminated external threats, subjugating to the will of England two of the most warlike peoples – the Irish and the Scots. Cromwell laid the foundations of the English political nation, which would become the core of the British nation in the future – the ruler of one of the largest empires in the history of mankind. As a true aristocrat, Cromwell did not become a new monarch and did not gather the nobility around him. He and his followers remained statesmen and protectors of England, Scotland, and Ireland. By the way, Cromwell became an example for the future founding fathers (aristocracy) of Ireland, which he conquered by the most brutal methods.
Modern times gave rise to a whole galaxy of brilliant aristocracies. The Great French Bourgeois Revolution of 1792 was somewhat similar to the English Revolution of 1639. The same scenario: an irresponsible monarch, a thoroughly corrupt nobility, and a country that is rushing into the abyss at high speed. The intelligentsia, represented by revolutionaries from the educated bourgeois class (not to be confused with the aristocracy), using the discontent of other classes (especially the military), ended the power of the monarch (King Louis XVI was executed). However, instead of switching to nation- and state-building (like the Independents led by Cromwell), the revolutionaries split into separate narrow groups that began waging internal wars for power. A dangerous situation developed: the people were split, the army was demoralised suffering defeat after defeat, part of the country was under the actual occupation of external forces. It could not be otherwise, because the revolutionaries put the personal above the general (becoming not an aristocracy, but a new nobility). Fortunately for the French, they had their own Cromwell – the young Brigadier General Napoleon Bonaparte.
He destroyed the remnants of the nobility, which was dangerous for the country, liberated France and began to form a national aristocracy. At the core of this aristocracy were marshals and generals devoted to the idea of the greatness of France, who fought for the country despite the support of the monarch and later the new nobility – busy with the division of power of the executed king. Napoleon subordinated everyone and everything to this ideology, which allowed France to reform the internal system, establish substantial state institutions and modernise the armed forces, which later conquered the whole of Europe. Napoleon was committed to this idea to the end, but his mistake in the field of management was too expensive. On the one hand, he began to distribute lands and titles to the military class, which spoiled it and made it extremely vulnerable. On the other hand, he gave entire countries to his family members. His brother Joseph received Spain, from where he was the first to escape after learning about the outbreak of the guerrilla (uprising). Bonaparte – a symbol of French aristocracy, French will, strength and greatness – fled. This caused irreparable damage to the reputation of Napoleon himself, who eventually lost, while the country lost all its conquests. This was the inglorious end of one of the most illustrious aristocrats of his era.
Profound transformations have also taken place on other continents. Representatives of the once British colonial possessions skilfully took advantage of the strategic miscalculations of the Crown and built a bold and daring roadmap to independence. Many considered this goal akin to suicide, since at that historical period the British Empire was at the peak of its geopolitical power. The victory of Americans was made possible by the dedication, idealism, and determination of individual intellectuals. Having the opportunity to lead a comfortable and safe life under the rule of the metropolis, personalities like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others risked all worldly benefits for the sake of an immortal mission.
The success of the American statehood is the result of the synthesis of the national intelligentsia (ideology development) and the national bourgeoisie (financial support). This is how a completely unique American aristocracy was born, laying the foundations of a unique country and nation that had gone from a colony to a global superpower in just two centuries. We have already begun to consider in detail the process of its formation, structure and features in a separate series of publications. The American success story inspired other prominent aristocrats of the time – Otto von Bismarck, who united Germany and created the German political nation, and Camillo Cavour, who stood at the origins of the unification of Italy (Risorgimento).
Various geopolitical cataclysms led to great tragedies, which, however, opened up unique opportunities. The First World War triggered the disintegration of many empires, including the Ottoman Empire, which paved the way for many formerly enslaved nations to find their own national homeland. The Armenian national project was the most promising, since ethnic Armenians had a serious impact on political and economic life in key regional centres: Constantinople (Istanbul), Tiflis, Baku and Tehran. Even then, Armenians had the potential to create a powerful transnational network, taking into account the factor of noble Armenian families in the former Russian Empire, Europe and the United States. Only two nations, the Irish and the Jews, could boast of approximately the same global network capabilities.
Despite the crazy potential, the Armenian national project failed. Some influential and wealthy Armenians acted uncoordinated, preferring to believe in the truth of their own narrow ideas and narratives. And it was far from the worst stratum of the nation, because they were not indifferent to the fate of their land and people. Most of the representatives of the Armenian ‘intelligentsia’ took a neutral position, preferring to stay away from Armenian affairs and absorb themselves into the environment of their residence (assimilation). And even this stratum cannot be considered the worst, since besides them there was a whole class of Armenians who used the Armenian issue to achieve their own narrow political or economic goals.
It may sound paradoxical, but the only Armenian aristocrat of that time was Aram Manukyan, the leader of the First Armenian Republic, the ideologist of the absolute Armenian statehood, the main inspirer and architect of the victory of Armenians over the Turkish troops at Sardarapat and Bash-Aparan.
Manukyan managed to take control of a motley government, purge it of dangerous agent networks, and build a system of effective interaction between brilliant but extremely wayward individual military leaders: Andranik Ozanyan, Movses Silikyan, Garegin Nzhdeh, Drastamat Kanayan, Tovmas Nazarbekyan, and others.
Aram Manukyan was a giant of political thought who was in no way inferior to such aristocrats-titans as Napoleon, Bismarck or Jefferson. He just did not have enough time – he died of typhus already in 1919. His death meant the end of independent Armenia (which rested on him), which ceased to exist in 1920. During the same period, the Irish aristocracy, which had been forming for more than 70 years (starting with the Great Famine of 1845-1849), defeated the British Empire, achieving its key goal of an independent Ireland. Jews also moved forward, creating a critical infrastructure for the transition to a new phase – the completion of the formation of the Zionist (national) aristocracy. The difference of the Armenian case was that the ‘intelligentsia’ scattered all over the world did not seek to systematise their world around a single national roadmap. Armenians had no strategy, no structure, no institutions. The scale of the historical opportunity was understood and realised only by Aram Manukyan, who, on the one hand, had to try to build a country, on the other – to smooth out conflicts between individual factions and convince influential and wealthy Armenians to invest their forces and resources in the cause of nation- and state-building. And all this was happening in the most difficult geopolitical conditions.
All these examples clearly prove that the existence of an aristocracy is a fundamental condition for the beginning and successful completion of nation- and state-building. To summarise, aristocracy is a system in which a thinking minority is organised around the idea of responsibility for the physical, political, and spiritual security of its people (the unorganised majority). Awareness of this responsibility generates power, the recognition, the correct and effective use of which makes it possible to solve problems of an extremely complex level. This configuration allows the aristocrat to achieve the main goal – the domination of the immortal common (national) over the mortal self (personal and own).
