THE WORK ,,AYRARAT. NATURE OF ARMENIA” BY GHEVOND ALISHAN, ARAGATSOTN REGION AND MOVSES KHORENATSI

“Ayrarat. nature of Armenia” is one of the masterpieces of the great work conceived by Ghevond Alishan. Father Alishan set himself the goal of subjecting information about all 15 provinces of Historical Armenia to historical and geographical expertise, writing works, presenting them separately in 20-22 large volumes. In 1855, in the published work “Topography of the Armenians”, he presented the provinces of historical Armenia, essentially gave the corresponding scientific and geographical characteristics. In 1881, a work dedicated to one of the provinces of the Ayrarat province, Shirak, was placed on the reader's desk, in 1885 - "Sisuan", dedicated to Cilician Armenia. "Ayrarat" was printed in Venice in 1890 in the printing house of St. Lazarus. Ghevond Alishan's book presents a historical and geographical description of all the provinces, cities, towns and villages of the historical Ayrarat province of Armenia using various sources. Among them, a prominent place is occupied by the Father of Armenian historiography, Movses Khorenatsi, especially his work “History of Armenian”, to which the author turned when explaining various issues. In this article, we reviewed the book "Ayrarat.. the nature of Armenia." Our task is to present Movses Khorenatsi in the mentioned work, to separate from the comprehensive study conducted by Alishan, information regarding Aragatsotn, the largest region in the Ayrarat province, especially those settlements that are still part of the Aragatsotn region according to the administrative-territorial division, and to show how great is the legacy left by Khorenatsi for the writing of this book by the tireless Armenologist of the 19th century.