Birth of Axel Bakunts (June 13, 1899)

Axel Bakunts was the most important prose writer in the first generation of Soviet Armenian literature. As many other intellectuals, he would also become a victim of totalitarianism.

Bakunts was born Alexander Tevosian on June 13, 1899, in Goris (Zangezur), in a family with eleven children. As he wrote in his autobiography, “my parents had had land and wealth, but I did not see either that land or that wealth. I recall horrendous poverty and a house filled with children. . .” He studied in the parish school from 1905-1910 and then he was admitted in the Kevorkian Seminary of Etchmiadzin, where he studied until 1915. After his short story, “The Fool Man,” published in the children’s monthly Aghbiur in 1911, a satirical piece appeared in July 1915 in the newspaper Paylak under a pseudonym, that cost him a stint in prison, as it was a criticism of the mayor of Goris and the provincial administration. The Seminary was closed in the school year 1915-1916 due to the flow of refugees from the genocide, and after 34 days, the future writer was freed from prison and invited to teach at the village school of Lor, in Zangezur.

By then, Alexander had been replaced by Axel, as his friends called him after the name of the character he played in a comedy, “The Newly Married,” by Norwegian writer and Nobel laureate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He would later adopt the family name Bakunts as his pseudonym.

He graduated in 1917 from the Seminary, and in the fall he became a soldier in the battlefronts of Erzerum and Kars, until his participation in the crucial battle of Sardarabad in late May 1918. He worked in Yerevan as a proofreader and reporter in 1918-1919, and in 1919-1920 he studied at the Polytechnic Institute of Tiflis and taught at the high school of an orphanage. After three years of studies at the Agricultural Institute of Kharkov (Ukraine), in 1923 he returned to Armenia, where he worked as an agronomist. In the same year, the authorities organized the so-called “liquidation” of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in a conference of party members, and 24-year-old Bakunts chaired the conference.

He worked in Goris from 1924-1926 as head of the land section of the executive provincial committee, and moved in 1926 to Yerevan, where he was deputy head in the Land Commission of the republican government until 1931. After a short stint at the Nor Ughi journal, he dedicated himself to literary activities until 1936.

Bakunts started a serious literary career in 1924, and his short stories soon established his reputation as a gifted writer, which was strengthened by his first collection, Mtnadzor (The Dark Valley), published in 1927. Together with Yeghishe Charents, Gurgen Mahari, and other first-rate writers, he was also involved in the literary movements of the time, and fought for the development of Armenian literature in years when the Soviet regime had not yet established its iron fist over culture. Besides several collections of short stories (The White Horse, The Walnut Trees of Brotherhood, etcetera), he published the satirical novel Hovnatan March and also wrote three novels that were lost. He also wrote the screenplays for the films Zangezur and The Son of the Sun.

As Charents wrote in a poem dedicated to his friend Bakunts, “Sadness flows in your Dark Valley / And longing of childhood in the familiar valley, / But work to ensure that in that dark valley / Your bright road will not be lost forever.” There was an insidious campaign against both writers, as well as their friends, especially by fellow writers who tried to follow faithfully the directives of the Communist party. Political accusations started to pile up and Bakunts, together with other names, was victim of a round up on August 9, 1936. He was charged with “anti-revolutionary, anti-Soviet and chauvinist activities.” He was tortured for eleven months in jail. All his attempts at defending himself were useless, and his letters remained unanswered. As many others who were subjected to the terror installed by Stalin in 1936-1938, he was finally given a 25-minute trial and summarily condemned to the firing squad. He was shot on July 18, 1937.

His name disappeared from public recognition until the death of Stalin in 1953. He was later rehabilitated and Bakunts became a classic of Armenian literature in the twentieth century. In 1957 his childhood house became a house-museum.

Opening of the Monument of Sardarabad (May 25, 1968)

Sardarabad, located 25 miles to the west of Yerevan, became the last Armenian stance against the advance of the invading Third Ottoman Army in May 1918. A defeat would not only open the door for their penetration to the rest of Eastern Armenia, but also the follow-up to the genocide of 1915-1916. Major General Otto von Lossow, German delegate to the Caucasus, had reported to his government on May 15, 1918 that the Ottomans intended to advance the border further to the east, monopolize the economy of the region, and bring about “the total extermination of the Armenians in Transcaucasia also.” Two days before his departure from Tiflis, on May 23, he wrote in his final report: “The aim of Turkish policy is, as I have always reiterated, the taking of possession of Armenian districts and the extermination of the Armenians.”

The Armenian victory in Sardarabad, from May 22-28, 1918, became the cornerstone of the foundation of the first Republic of Armenia. However, the victories of May 1918 and the first republic remained taboo issues in Soviet Armenia until the national awakening of the 1960s that led to the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide in 1965. Afterwards, there would be a historical reassessment, although within the ideological constraints imposed by the regime.

Part of that reassessment would be the construction of the monument dedicated to the battle, inaugurated on May 25, 1968. Its author was talented architect Raphael Israelian (1908-1973), who had already built popular memorials such as the arch of Charents (1957) on the road to Garni and the first monument to the genocide, built in the courtyard of Holy Echmiadzin (1965). Other projects would be completed during his lifetime and posthumously.

The entrance of the impressive complex, which extends over some 50 acres, is guarded by gigantic winged bulls, which symbolize the victory obtained by the people. The steps take the visitor to a wide square, dominated by the 115-foot high bell tower. The nine-bell structure, built from red-orange tufa stone, is the focus of the monumental complex. It reflects the critical moment that the entire country lived and that called the people to the fight. As it is well known, Catholicos Gevorg V ordered all church bells in Armenia to sound day and night in the days of the three battles of Sardarabad, Gharakilise, and Pash Abaran. The bells sound every year on the day of the victory.

The bell tower square marks the beginning of the avenue, flanked by a series of eagles, leading to the 180-foot long Victory wall, which depicts the images of the battle, sculpted by Ara Harutunian and other artists. In 1978 the State Ethnographic Museum of Armenia was built on the end side of the complex, with an impressive collection. It also includes a section dedicated to the first Republic.

As the refrain of the famous song written by poet Paruyr Sevak exhorts, “Generations, know yourself in Sardarabad.” The monument to the battle is one of those mirrors that have helped know history for almost half a century.

September 14, 1862: Birth of Movses Silikian

The battle of Sardarabad, from May 21-28, 1918, symbolized the defining moment in Armenian life. It is quite likely that, following an Armenian defeat, the Turkish armies would have had a free pass to occupy Eastern Armenia and liquidate its population, completing the process of annihilation that had been taken place with Western Armenians from 1915-1916. The victory had a military hero, General Movses Silikian.

Silikian was born on September 14, 1862, in the village of Vardashen, in the province of Nukhi (currently Azerbaijan). He was not an ethnic Armenian, but belonged to the Udi minority (an ethnicity descending from the Caucasian Albanians, with a distinctive Northern Caucasian language), although he was a faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He graduated from the Moscow Military Gymnasium (1882-1884) and the Alexander III Military School.

Silikian entered the military service in 1884 and was assigned to the military region of the Caucasus. After serving as company and battalion commander, he was awarded with the degree of colonel in 1914. He became adjutant to the military commander of Yerevan in 1915, commander of the Eighth Regiment in 1915, and commander of the Army Group of Van in 1916. He participated in the liberation of Mush and Bitlis, and became military commander of Erzerum after the occupation of the city. He was awarded the order of St. George in 1916 and rose to the degree of major general in August 1917.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the retreat of the Russian forces, Silikian was designated commander of the second rifle division of the Armenian army in January 1918, and afterwards, commander of the Army Group of Yerevan. He managed to organize a regular army in a short time, and by order of Aram Manukian, who had taken the leadership of the Province of Yerevan, Silikian led the Armenian troops in Sardarabad, where their victory stopped the advance of the Turkish army towards Yerevan.

After the independence of Armenia, Silikian, promoted to general commandant in 1919, became commander of the front of Nor Bayazid (nowadays Gavar) in the same year and was designated general commander of the front of Kars-Alexandropol (nowadays Gumri) in the fall of 1920.

The veteran soldier was exiled in January 1921 to Riazan after the establishment of the Soviet regime in Armenia. He returned in May 1921 to Armenia and settled in Yerevan. He was exiled once again, this time to Rostov-on-Don, and returned again to Yerevan. He worked at the Alexandropol branch of the Swedish “Baltic” company from 1921-1923, and from 1923-1929 or 1930 at the Armenian branch of the Near East Relief.

Silikian was arrested once again during the Stalinist purges of 1937 (he had been previously arrested in 1927 and 1935), and charged within the frame of the “Tukhachevsky case” (a fabricated case against Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other prominent Soviet military leaders), to which he bore no relation. As many other victims of the purges, he was executed in the gorge of Nork, together with General Kristapor Araratian and other heroes of Sardarabad, on November 22, 1937. He was rehabilitated fifty years later, on November 10, 1987. A neighborhood in Yerevan has been named after him, as well as a medal of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia.