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IN ARMENIA, THIS DIFFICULT YEAR, FILLED WITH WOUNDS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
The Healing Properties of Ancient Memories
Everything here is from antiquity. The state, faith, legends, destinies. As a legacy from the Soviet Union, the Armenian province of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) remained under Azerbaijani rule. During the war of the 1990s, as Armenians say, it was liberated. But in 2020, in just forty-four days, almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh came back under Azerbaijani control. What remained in Armenia, are full cemeteries and a lot of bitterness and doubts. The pro-American government in Yerevan, imposed by the street, is trying to attribute its disastrous balance to ”Russian betrayal”. Is that really the case and will they manage to convince the Armenians themselves?

Text and Photo: Mišo Vujović

The myth says that the Armenians are the descendants of Noah’s grandson Haik. Official history records that they originated from the Phrygians from Asia Minor, from where they immigrated to the Caucasus before the new era. The opinion that Armenians are natives on the Armenian plateau is widespread in Armenian national circles. It is evident that this country is one of the oldest in the world. In the 1980s, the Kingdom of Armenia dominated Southwest Asia.
It is the first country in which Christianity became the official religion, since 301 AD.
In the 6th century, it was conquered by the Byzantium, in which the Armenian language was made official. From this ancient people are several Byzantine military leaders and sovereigns: Heraclius I, John I Tzimiskes, Nikephoros II Phokas, Basil II Porphyrogenitus (nicknamed ”The Bulgar Slayer”), Alexios I Komnenos...
After the fall under Ottoman occupation, the influence of the educated and wise descendants of Haik did not weaken until the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when Turkey, in its death rattle, began the systematic persecution and destruction of Armenians. The culmination of that is the genocide in World War I, unprecedented in recent history, in which a million and a half Armenians were killed in the cruelest way. That conflict continued after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the war for Nagorno Karabakh, a part of Armenia that the Soviet leadership annexed to Azerbaijan a hundred years ago.
”Six years of struggle for the defense of Artsakh, then the victory of justice and patriotism of the Armenian people. Now in just forty-four days defeat and capitulation, migration and suffering. Why?” asks Edgar Galstyan, a former officer, special forces, our host and guide, staring at the snowy peak of Ararat. We visit an endless field of fresh mounds over which hundreds of national flags are hoisted. Sadness hovers over this slope above Yerevan. There, in the extension of the old resting place of the Armenians who died in the battles of the 1990s in Nagorno Karabakh, young men, recruits, athletes, students, and volunteers have now found eternal peace...
Most of them had just stepped into life, but the Armenian sense of belonging to the homeland is above life, and the human age is just a blink in the eternal struggle against frequent attacks on the homeland.
I look at the thousands of graves of slaughtered youth.
They were fried by new weapons in the hands of old hatred. Many of them perished like clay pigeons, without adequate equipment and the ability to defend themselves on equal footing.
Edgar, with a spasm on his face, says that the official number of dead is between four and five thousand, but many are listed as missing. There are four times as many wounded.
Last year’s short-lived war between Armenia and Azerbaijan caused enormous damage to both countries, especially the smaller Armenia, whose human losses are enormous.

FATAL SHADOWS BEHIND THE SCENES

”Such adventurism could only be allowed by a political dilettante, such as our Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan”, Noro, who knows the situation well, begins with anger and excitement. ”These are mostly children from eighteen to twenty years old, unprepared and pushed into the abyss of war. They were torn to pieces by drones, pilotless aircrafts and Turkish commandos”.
He emphasizes that Nagorno Karabakh is an ethnically pure Armenian territory, delineated by communist cartographers, by decree, as a province annexed to Azerbaijan. Similarly, the Bolsheviks in the SFRY divided Serbia, creating provinces organized as republics, with the goal of crippling Serbia one day, when the deadline for communist Yugoslavia expires.
Noro speaks excellent Serbian, with a mild Montenegrin accent. He spent part of his life in Montenegro, and later in Serbia. He compares the seizure of Nagorno Karabakh to Kosmet, believing that Turkey did not support the aggression without the go ahead of the international centers of power.
”The prime minister asked the people if they want to defend their compatriots who had been able to resist and preserve their independence for four decades. The situation had been very tense for a long time and a conflict could have been expected”, says a young historian and lawyer, national human rights activist Vahe Grigoryan.” On September 11, 2020, the person who took the post of prime minister signed the document, late at night, and donated 75 percent of Artsakh (as Armenians call Nagorno Karabakh) to the enemy”.
Grigoryan continues: ”There were mass protests in Yerevan, the nation calls him a traitor and a capitulator. It is very dangerous that this man is still the Prime Minister of Armenia. That he uses his position and power to make Azerbaijani propaganda much more effective in Armenia”.
This young man is filled with bitterness for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, a former journalist.
We learn that during the conflict in Karabakh, the Prime Minister’s son was also ”drafted”. One of our interlocutors claims that his wife also stayed in the war zone to take care of her son, taking a huge security with her.
Our interlocutor believes that it is inadmissible for twenty-five special forces to die because of that marketing stunt at the front, saving the Prime Minister’s son from the environment into which he inadvertently fell.
”Also, that man as prime minister is trying to sign a new document related to the internationally recognized borders of Armenia. I would like to say that this person is not doing anything for the benefit of Armenia and Armenians.

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

Our interlocutors suspect, justifiably or not, that everything was planned earlier in the agreement between Turkey and Russia, although Russia stopped that war and prevented an even more severe Armenian catastrophe. Others warn that these are anti-Russian spins pushed by Pashinyan’s pro-American government, trying to provoke anti-Russian sentiment and covering up two big things. First, the heavy Armenian war defeat, for which it alone is responsible. Secondly, its unsuccessful task, obtained from the other side of the Atlantic, to drag Russia into the great war in Central Asia, on the ”soft belly of Russia”. According to that calculation, the crisis in Nagorno Karabakh should have turned into a disastrous Russian-Turkish war.
We learn that the operations in Nagorno Karabakh were commanded by Turkish generals, and that it is unlikely that the conflict could have been avoided.
Many young people were killed in last year’s war. They were killed mercilessly from drones and pilotless aircrafts.
”Azerbaijan does not respect international law. According to all recommendations, protocols and statements of the OSCE group, conflicts should be resolved peacefully, through negotiations. However, Azerbaijan has never been ready for true peace, because a new war is a new chance for the dictator from Baku to solve their problem of national minorities. Aliyev sends primarily national minorities to the front line”, Grigoryan claims. He emphasizes that Aliyev said that the problem of Nagorno Karabakh should be solved with weapons, that is why the war started.
Despite the great influence of Armenian emigrants and a very powerful lobby, the world has not condemned the crimes of Azerbaijan.
Some link the attack of Azerbaijan on Nagorno Karabakh with the initiative of Armenia to finally condemn and make official the genocide of Turkey against Armenians in 1915. In addition to the command staff, Turkey has engaged jihadists from Syria and Iraq in this conflict, our interlocutors agree. The neo-Ottoman campaign in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire, they claim, lasts a long time.
”The blindness and silence of the international community resulted in 75 percent of Artsakh being occupied by Azerbaijan, which continues to violate the international borders and territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia”, emphasizes the young lawyer Vahe Grigoryan.
Most of our interlocutors are unanimous in the assessment that the upcoming elections, in which Nikol Pashinyan’s chances of remaining in power are 50-50, will not bring a big step forward, but they also agree that the current prime minister must bear the consequences of his disastrous politics.

RUSSIANS AND ARMENIANS WILL REMEMBER

Ancient Yerevan was founded in 782 BC, is older than Rome and is one of the first cities where the persecution of Christians stopped and where Christianity became the official religion, in the fourth century AD. Armenians are great fans of chess, friendly and cordial hosts, known for their excellent cognac, which was adored by a passionate lover of good liquor, Winston Churchill. Armenians are one of the most scattered peoples in the world. According to the latest census, there are about three and a half million Armenians living in the country, but it is estimated that there are three times as many of them in the diaspora. Among the most famous members of this nation are Charles Aznavour, Cher, Andre Agassi, Kim Kardashian...
A city with a lot of greenery, beautiful parks, monumental buildings, wide streets and spacious boulevards, which are used by almost all models of four-wheelers, some luxury cars like Rolls Royce, but also old-timers, old trams, dilapidated buses. Most of the buildings in the center were designed by the famous architect Alexander Tamanian.
Children play carelessly in the nearby parks, cafes are full, citizens do not wear masks and there is almost no tension due to the epidemic situation as in most European countries.
”It hit us all at once, both the Covid and the attack on Artsakh. The Russians are dying in Syria for much smaller things, and they seem to have forgotten us”, says our cordially friendly host Edgar Galstyan with a smile.

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Genocide and Calculations
As it is known, during World War I, Turkey, under the command of the reformer Kemal Pasha Ataturk, carried out an unprecedented pogrom of one nation. About 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Little has been said about these horrors, and recently even the United States has officially qualified them as a crime of genocide. Unfortunately, not because of justice and reverence for the victims, but within the framework of foreign policy games of disciplining Turkey and suppressing its close relations with Russia.

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Holy Mountain
Turkey also occupied the important Armenian mountain Ararat, which features in all state symbols of Armenia. The highest peak of that famous mountain is 5,165 meters high and there is almost no part of Armenia from where it is not visible. According to legend, Noah’s ark landed on Ararat after the forty-day flood.

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Shrine and History
According to Armenian history, the Geghard Monastery was built in 305. It was founded by St. Gregory the Illuminator, the first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. According to one version, he decided to build a shrine right here because of the spring he found in the cave and which can still be seen inside the monastery. According to another, there was a spear with which the Roman legionary Longinus pierced Christ crucified on the cross.
The monastery was reconstructed in the 8th century. In the 9th century, during the Arab invasion, Caliph Nasser destroyed the monastery complex. It was rebuilt during the dynasty of Lord Zakaria, the leader of the joint Georgian and Armenian armies that liberated this area. Then this area was donated to a member of the ruling Persian dynasty.