Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Dvin Earthquake of 893: How a Disaster Reshaped Armenia
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Bagratid kingdom — its rise under Ashot I, the splendor of Ani, the wars with Byzantium and the Caliphate. But there's a moment early in that golden age that almost derailed everything — and it wasn't an invasion. It was the ground itself. Luna: An earthquake? Lucas: Exactly. In late March of 893, a massive earthquake struck Dvin — the Bagratid capital at the time, one of the great commercial hubs of the Caucasus. The chronicler Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi, who was a contemporary, says the quake toppled most of the city in minutes. Tens of thousands died. The markets, the palaces, the churches — leveled. Lucas: And this wasn't just any city. Dvin had been the capital of Armenia on and off since the fifth century. It sat at a crossroads of the Silk Road, with a population of perhaps a hundred thousand. The quake hit during the day, when the markets were full. Draskhanakerttsi writes that people were buried under the rubble of their own homes. Luna: That's devastating. What did the king do? Lucas: The king at the time was Smbat I — Ashot I's son and successor. He wasn't in Dvin when it hit — he was at his court in another city, maybe Bagaran. But he rushed to Dvin as soon as he heard. According to the chronicle, he personally supervised the digging, organized the burial of the dead, and ordered that food and supplies be brought in from surrounding regions. Lucas: Catholicos Gevorg II, the head of the Armenian Church, also played a key role. He came to Dvin with clergy and helped coordinate relief. The church at the time was a major institutional force — it had land, wealth, and a network of monasteries. So together, the crown and the church managed to prevent a total collapse. Luna: But the city itself — did they rebuild? Lucas: They tried. Smbat ordered reconstruction, and some parts of Dvin were restored. But the damage was too extensive. The water system was shattered, the layout was unstable, and many people simply didn't want to return. Over the next few decades, Dvin gradually lost its primacy. The Bagratid court started spending more time in other cities — first Bagaran, then Shirakavan, and eventually Ani. Lucas: Ani, of course, became the iconic capital of the Bagratid golden age. But that shift might not have happened as quickly — or at all — if Dvin hadn't been crippled. So the earthquake indirectly catalyzed the rise of Ani. It's a classic example of a disaster reshaping political geography. Luna: Interesting — so the very thing that destroyed the old capital made way for the new one. Lucas: Exactly. And there were other knock-on effects too. The earthquake weakened the nakharar families who had estates in and around Dvin. Some lost their entire power base. That actually strengthened Smbat's hand — he could replace those nobles with loyalists more easily. So it accelerated the centralization of Bagratid power. Lucas: On the other hand, the economic blow was severe. Dvin was a major node on the Silk Road — Armenian merchants, Persian traders, even Chinese silk passed through. After the quake, trade routes shifted toward Ani and even down to Cilicia. That reorientation changed the economic geography of Armenia for centuries. Luna: Did the earthquake have any religious meaning for people at the time? Lucas: Absolutely. Draskhanakerttsi frames it partly as divine punishment for sin — a common trope in medieval chronicles. But he also records that people saw it as a test of faith. Catholicos Gevorg II led special liturgies and called for fasting. There's a sense that the disaster was interpreted as a call to moral renewal. Lucas: Interestingly, there's also a report of a 'rain of stones' during the aftershocks — probably landslides from the hills around Dvin. The chronicle says people thought the mountains were falling on them. That kind of trauma gets passed down orally for generations. Luna: It's amazing we have such detailed accounts from that far back. Lucas: We're lucky that Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi wrote his History of Armenia in the early tenth century. He was Catholicos himself later in life, and he had access to court records and eyewitness testimony. His account of the earthquake is one of the most vivid descriptions of a natural disaster from the medieval Caucasus. Lucas: And there's a broader point here. Armenia sits on a seismically active zone — the Arabian Plate pushing into Eurasia. Earthquakes have repeatedly shaped Armenian history, from ancient Urartu to the 1988 Spitak quake. But the 893 Dvin earthquake is the first one we have a really detailed chronicle for. Luna: It's almost like the land itself is part of the story. Lucas: It really is. And that's something we don't always think about — the physical environment as a historical actor. The collapse of Dvin wasn't just a tragedy; it was a pivot point. Without it, the Bagratid golden age might have looked very different. Lucas: You know, episodes like this take a lot of digging — literally into old chronicles, but also into the economics, the geology. And that's only possible because of a small group of listeners who chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No ads, no sponsors — just people who love these deep dives. If that's you, it makes a real difference. Luna: Yeah, it's a great way to keep this ad-free and focused on the stories. Lucas: Exactly. So back to Dvin — after the quake, the city never fully recovered. By the time the Seljuks swept through in the eleventh century, it was a shadow of its former self. But the memory of that day lingered. Even now, when we look at the ruins of Dvin, we're seeing a city frozen by catastrophe. Luna: And a reminder that history isn't just about kings and battles. Lucas: Right. Sometimes it's about the ground shifting under our feet — literally. That's a note to sit with. Next time, we'll look at how the Bagratids rebuilt Armenia's cultural identity after all that upheaval.