Birth of Arno Babajanian (January 22, 1921)

Arno Babajanian was one of the most important composers of Soviet Armenia, but also was very well-known in the Soviet Union, especially as a brilliant pianist.

He was born in Yerevan on January 22, 1921. His childhood friend, composer Alexander Harutiunian, recalled that at the age of five or six, the future musician attempted to play the old piano of the kindergarten. Babajanian himself used to tell about his first meeting with Aram Khachatourian: “When I was a kindergartener, a man once visited us and asked us to sing to get to know who had music ear among us. I was singing and kicking the floor at the same time. Listening to me, that man said that I should be engaged in music. In the future, I would learn that he was Aram Khachatourian.”

Afterwards, in 1929 Babajanian entered the musical school attached to the Conservatory of Yerevan (now called after Gomidas). In 1930 he wrote his first composition, the “March of the Pioneers,” which poet Yeghishe Charents helped publish. In 1947 he graduated from the Gomidas State Conservatory and the next year he also graduated from the class of piano of the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Moscow. Meanwhile, from 1946-1948 he perfected his studies at the studio attached to the House of Culture of Armenia in Moscow. He became a remarkable pianist, who was famous for the interpretations of his own works. Returning to Armenia, Babajanian taught at the Gomidas State Conservatory from 1950 to 1956. Afterwards, he settled in Moscow, where he would live and work until the end of his life.

His natural talent and his vivid musical images turned him into a well-known representative of Soviet music. Babajanian’s style in his formative years was influenced by Aram Khachaturian and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as reflected in his early compositions, the concerts for piano (1944) and violin with orchestra (1949). His monumental “Heroic Ballad” for piano and orchestra (1950) earned him the State Prize of the Soviet Union in 1951, when he was just thirty, showing the main lines of his creative personality along his trio for piano (1952). In 1950 he composed with A. Harutiunian the widely popular “Armenian Rhapsody.” Dramatic contrasts and dynamic musical language characterized his sonata for violin and piano (1959) and the concerto for cello (1962). Many of his piano compositions, such as “Elegy” and “Dance of Vagharshapat,” are frequently chosen by Armenian pianists throughout the world. In 1960 Babajanian received the title of People’s Artist of Armenia and eleven years later he became People’s Artist of the USSR. He won the State Prize of Armenia in 1966 for his innovative composition “Six Images” (1965).



The composer was a very eclectic artist, as he worked in various genres: classical, pop, and jazz. He collaborated with some of the most celebrated Russian poets at the time, like Evgeny Yevdushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, and Robert Rozhdestvensky, but he also composed pop and jazz songs in Armenian, which were very popular at the time. He wrote the music for William Saroyan’s play “My Heart is in the Highlands,” as well as for many celebrated Armenian films: “By the Path of the Storm” (1956), “I Know You Personally” (1957), “The Song of the First Love” (1958, with Ghazaros Sarian as coauthor), “The Bride from the North” (1975), “The Mechanics of Happiness” (1982, State Prize of Armenia in 1983), and others.

Arno Babajanian passed away in Moscow on November 11, 1983. A street in the Armenian capital remembers him, and his statue has been placed near Swan Lake, in central Yerevan.

Deportation to Altai (June 14, 1949)

The great wave of repression of 1936-1938, which cost the lives of millions of Soviet citizens, had several thousands of victims in Armenia, including many people who were exiled to Siberia. During and after World War II, a second, less well-known wave would shatter many areas of the Soviet Union, including Armenia.

The preparations, in utmost secrecy, started in January 1949. By command of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, lists of former Armenian Revolutionary members (Dashnaks), former war prisoners and members of the Nazi-sponsored Armenian Legions, repatriates, and their families were prepared.

On May 28, 1949, the ministry gave the order, and the next day, the USSR Council of Ministers, with Stalin’s signature, approved the “extremely secret” resolution No. 2214-856: “On the transportation, repopulation, and work allocation of those expelled from the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republics, as well as the coastal areas of the Black Sea.”

A group of high-ranking officials of the Ministry of State Security arrived in Yerevan, led by Lieut.-Gen Yuri Yedunov, deputy head of the Second General Committee. The latter was well experiences in these matters, since he had managed the expulsion of the so-called families of “bandits and kulaks” of Latvia (28,981 people) on March 25-28 of the same year.

On the night of June 13-14, 1949, the unexpected happened. Both the locals, who already knew the Stalin inferno, and the repatriates, who took pains to get used to the whims of the totalitarian regime, were taken by surprise. Deportations were common as punishment from the 1920s, but they had skipped Armenians so far. That night, 2,754 families (12,300 people) were exiled from all regions of Soviet Armenia to the Altai territory, in the southeast of Western Siberia. Around twelve percent (1,578 people) of the deportees were repatriates. Of those families, the greatest number came from Yerevan (461) and Echmiadzin (182). Interestingly, the massive expulsion had no ethnic grounds; the deportees were known by the label of “Dashnaks.” The targeted repatriates were those with former Greek and Turkish citizenship.

They were sent by train in cargo wagons, and traveled for about two weeks until they were placed in the collective farms and state farms of the Altai region, without knowing why they were moved and what their fault was. The mass deportation was legalized much later, from November 1949-June 1950. A special committee adjunct to the Ministry of State Security prepared documents in the name of the elder of the exiled family or the member of the family who was the cause for exile.

The deportees were told that there was no return and they would stay there until their death. They were warned about leaving their area of residence, which would be penalized with 20 years of prison or forced labor. They had to present themselves once a week at the guard’s office to sign papers that confirmed their presence.

The exiles wrote letters addressed to the highest hierarchy of the country (Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, Voroshilov), as well as Grigor Harutiunian, First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party, asking for leniency and explaining that they had committed no crime to deserve such a punishment. However, most of the time, those letters were useless, and the response was standard: “Your issue is not subject to review.”

The exiled families were involved in lumbering or farming. Neither their education nor their expertise counted. The repatriates, in particular, had big issues with language, since they mostly did not speak Russian, and this complicated their interactions at work and with the authorities. The children received their education only in Russian.

After Stalin’s death, the life of the exiled had some improvement. They were not allowed to return, but they could make “illegal” movements within the region of Altai, change their residence, find another job, et cetera. The authorities started giving encouraging responses to the letters written after Stalin’s death. A special commission was set up in 1954 to review the cases of the deportees. In the next two years, they were absolved of their “crimes,” and by 1956 the overwhelming majority of the exiled families were back in Armenia.

There is very little documentation about this tragic episode of Soviet Armenian history. It remained totally unspoken until the fall of the Soviet Union. Since 2006, June 14 is commemorated in the Armenian calendar as Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Repression. A memorial complex to the victims of repression during Soviet times was opened in Yerevan on December 3, 2008. Today there are some 6,000 victims of repression from 1937 and 1949, and 8,400 descendants of those victims living in Armenia.

Birth of Nelson Stepanian (March 28, 1913)

Armenians had an important participation in the Soviet army during World War II. One of the most remarkable names in the Soviet air force was Nelson Stepanian.

Stepanian was born in Shushi (Artsakh) on March 28, 1913. He moved to Yerevan with his parents shortly thereafter and attended Maxim Gorki School. He was a fifth grader when he got interested in aviation and aeromodelism. He won competitions of aeromodelism in Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, and Baku.

In 1932 he graduated from the Sergo Orjonikidze preparatory military school of Baku, and three years later finished the school of Military Aviation in Bataysk, where he worked as a flight instructor until 1938. He continued his service in the city of Mineralniye Vodi, in the Northern Caucasus, until 1941.

On June 23, 1941, the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Stepanian was called to service in the offensive aviation of the Black Sea fleet. He entered the 46 ^th attack squadron and got familiarized with the Il-2 fighter, participating in the defensive combats in Poltava, Zaporozhye, and Odessa. He was wounded by shrapnel flak in his twentieth sortie.

In August 1941 Stepanian was transferred to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) as a member of the second air squadron of the 57 ^th division and participated in the defense of the city. He was designated ring commander. By decision of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, on October 23, 1942, he was decorated as Hero of the Soviet Union, and in November of the same year, Capt. Stepanian became commander of the squadron of the 57 ^th Assault Regiment. As of November 1942, he was reported to have destroyed 78 German trucks, 67 tanks, 63 anti-aircraft guns, nineteen mortars, 36 railroad cars, twenty merchantmen and warships (including a destroyer), thirteen fuel tankers, twelve armored cars, seven long-range guns, five ammunition dumps, and five bridges.

After he was promoted to the rank of major in 1943, he became the commander of the 47th Fighter Division. He executed about 60 battle flights in the positions of Leningrad and destroyed, together with his men, eight tanks, some 90 vehicles, and more than 60 cannons and machine guns.

During the Crimean offensive in April 1944, Stepanian became commander of the 47 ^th air battalion, which was fighting in Crimea and Kuban. Under his command, the battalion participated in the fights near Feodosia, Sebastopol, and Sudak. On April 16, 1944 Stepanian, who headed a group of 12 Il-2 fighters, had personally destroyed three landing barges. He participated in the elimination of a German convoy on May 22, although his plane suffered important damage. Prior to the offensive, the 47th Division had destroyed 8 transports, 12 barges, 9 patrol boats, and more than 3,000 soldiers and officers.

In May 1944, after the liberation of Crimea, Stepanian returned to the Baltic Sea with his 47^th Fighter Division, where they were involved in the battles of the Gulf Finland. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on July 22.

On his final sortie against Liepaja in Latvia, on December 14, 1944, the assault group was attacked by German fighters. Stepanian’s plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and, though wounded, he rammed his own plane into a German warship. The 31-year-old Armenian pilot died along with navigator Captain Alexander Rumyantsev. The devastating loss hit the rest of the squadron harshly. His fellow pilots sent the following letter to his parents after his death:

“[A] simple and modest man, close and beloved by all; he was a father and teacher to all of us, a friend and a commander....We all wept when Nelson Gevorgovich failed to return on that fateful day. They say that tears bring comfort. But the few tears of a soldier, like the red-hot drops of metal, burn the heart and call for vengeance.”

Stepanian was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title for a second time for his sacrifice. According to Soviet sources, Stepanian undertook no less than 239 combat sorties, sunk 53 ships (thirteen alone), destroyed 80 tanks, 600 armored vehicles, 105 cannons, 130 machine guns, 27 aircraft, and 5,000 soldiers.

Four statues of Stepanian were inaugurated in Liepaja, Yerevan, Stepanakert, and Shushi. The latter was destroyed by Azerbaijanis during the Gharabagh war. The statue of Liepaja was moved to Kaliningrad in the 1990s.

Stepanian’s name is also remembered by school No. 71 of Yerevan, named after him on the tenth anniversary of his death in 1954.

Birth of Osip Mandelstam (January 15, 1891)

Osip Mandelstam, a famous Russian poet, was the author of one of the finest essays on Armenia in the twentieth century. His sojourn in the country helped him end his poetic block during the years when Stalinism was in the rise and his own life would end in a concentration camp.
Mandelstam was born to a wealthy Jewish family on January 15, 1891, in Warsaw (Poland), then part of the Russian Empire. Soon after his birth, his father, a leather merchant, was able to receive a dispensation that freed their family from the Pale of Settlement—the western region of the empire where Jews were confined to live—and allowed them to move to the capital Saint Petersburg.
Mandelstam entered the prestigious Tenishevsky School in 1900 and published his first poems in the school almanac (1907). After studying in Paris (1908) and Heidelberg (1909-1910), he decided to continue his education at the University of St. Petersburg in 1911. Since Jews were forbidden to attend it, he converted to Methodism and entered the university the same year, but did not obtain a formal degree. He formed the Poets’ Guild in 1911 with several other young poets. The core of this group was known by the name of Acmeists. Mandelstam wrote The Morning of Acmeism, the manifesto for the new movement, in 1913. In the same year, he published his first collection of poems, The Stone.
Mandelstam married Nadezhda Khazina (1899-1980) in 1922 in Kiev (Ukraine) and moved to Moscow. In the same year, he published in Berlin his second book of poems, Tristia. Afterwards, he focused on essays, literary criticism, memoirs, and small-format prose. His refusal to adapt to the increasingly totalitarian state, together with frustration, anger, and fear, took their toll and by 1925 Mandelstam stopped writing poetry. He earned his living by translating literature into Russian and working as a correspondent for a newspaper.
In 1930 Nikolai Bukharin, still one of the Soviet leaders and a “friend in high places,” managed to obtain permission for Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam for an eight-month visit to Armenia. During his stay, Osip Mandelstam rediscovered his poetic voice and was inspired to write both poems about Armenia and an experimental meditation on the country and its ancient culture, Journey to Armenia (published in 1933): “The Armenians’ fullness with life, their rude tenderness, their noble inclination for hard work, their inexplicable aversion to anything metaphysical and their splendid intimacy with the world of real things – all of this said to me: you’re awake, don’t be afraid of your own time, don’t be sly.” As poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, wrote in 1981, “The old Christian ethos of Armenia and his own inner weather of feeling came together in a marvelous reaction that demonstrates upon the pulses the truth of his belief that ‘the whole of our two-thousand-year-old culture is a setting of the world free for play.’ Journey to Armenia, then, is more than a rococo set of impressions. It is the celebration of a poet’s return to his senses. It is a paean to the reality of poetry as a power as truly present in the nature of things as the power of growth itself.”
Mandelstam was ferociously criticized in Pravda for failing to notice “the thriving, bustling Armenia which is joyfully building socialism” and for using “a style of speaking, writing and travelling cultivated before the Revolution,” meaning that it was counterrevolutionary.
In November 1933 Mandelstam composed the poem “Stalin Epigram” (also known as “The Kremlin Highlander”), which was a sharp criticism of the climate of fear in the Soviet Union. He read it at a few small private gatherings in Moscow. Six months later, in 1934, he was arrested and sentenced to exile in Cherdyn (Northern Ural), where he was accompanied by his wife. After he attempted suicide, the sentence was reduced to banishment from the largest cities in European Russia, following an intercession by Bukharin. The Mandelstams chose Voronezh.
This proved a temporary reprieve. In 1937 the literary establishment began to attack Mandelstam, accusing him of anti-Soviet views. In May 1938 he was arrested and charged with “counter-revolutionary activities.” He was sentenced to five years in correction camps in August. He arrived to a transit camp near Vladivostok, in the far east of Russia, and died from an “unspecified illness” on December 27, 1938.
Like so many Soviet writers, after the death of Stalin, in 1956 Mandelstam was rehabilitated and exonerated from the charges brought again him in 1938. His full rehabilitation came in 1987, when he was exonerated from the 1934 charges. Nadezhda Mandelstam managed to preserve a significant part of her husband’s work written in exile and to hide manuscripts. She even worked to memorize his entire corpus of poetry, given the real danger that all copies of his poetry would be destroyed. She arranged for the clandestine republication of Mandelstam’s poetry in the 1960s and 1970s, and also wrote memoirs of their life and times, the most important being Hope against Hope (1970).

Independence Referendum of Karabagh (December 10, 1991)

The Karabagh movement started in 1988 with the goal of reuniting the region of Mountainous Karabagh (an autonomous enclave artificially created in Azerbaijan) to Armenia by legal means. The joint statement of reunification, issued on December 1, 1989, seemed to be the culmination of that process. However, the opposition of Azerbaijan, with the consent of the Soviet central power, became the main obstacle for its realization.  

Another process, the collapse of the Soviet Union, was playing simultaneously. As a result, the Soviet republics prepared to break away, especially after the failed coup d’état in Moscow on August 19-21, 1991.  On August 30, 1991, Azerbaijan adopted the Declaration on the Restoration of the State Independence (a document similar to the Declaration on Independence adopted by Armenia on August 23, 1990), declaring itself the successor of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan of 1918-1920.

The first Azerbaijani Republic did not include Mountainous Karabagh, which was recognized as a disputed territory by the League of Nations. The legislature of Karabagh enjoyed the right to take advantage of existent Soviet legislation, particularly the Soviet law of April 3, 1990 “On the Procedure for Secession of a Soviet Republic from the USSR.” According to this law, in the case of a Soviet republic withdrawing from the Soviet Union, autonomous entities and densely settled minorities in that republic had the right to independently determine their political-administrative status. Azerbaijani repression against the Armenian population, which would take the shape of ethnic cleansing, led to the joint session of the Regional Councils of Mountainous Karabagh and Shahumian, which declared the establishment of the Republic of Mountainous (Nagorno in Russian) Karabagh on September 2, 1991, within the borders of the former Autonomous Region of Mountains Karabagh and the Shahumian region.

The declaration was consolidated with a referendum held on December 10, 1991, days before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union. The question asked to the voters was: “Do you agree that the proclaimed Republic of Mountainous Karabagh becomes an independent state, which will determine the ways of cooperation with other states and unions by its own will?” A total of 132,328 people were eligible to vote. The participation was 82.20% (108,736) of the voters, with the Azeri population of Karabagh boycotting the referendum. The “yes” had a resounding 98.89% (108,615 votes), with 95 votes annulled. 

Azerbaijan, which would not recognize the result of the referendum, did not stop shelling the capital Stepanakert and other towns. Ten people died on the referendum day and another eleven were wounded.

After parliamentary elections held later in the month, the Supreme Council of the new republic was formed. The first session of the Supreme Council in January 1992 ratified the proclamation of the independence and elected its president, Artur Mkrtchyan. The Council of Ministers was also created, with Oleg Yesayan as first prime minister. Soon the republic would have its own flag, coat-of-arms, and anthem. 

The Constitution of the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh, however, was not ready until 2006. The project was also put to referendum on December 10, 2006. Of 90,077 people eligible to vote, 77,279 voted to approve the Constitution (85.79%). There were 554 votes against. After 2006, December 10 became a holiday in Karabagh.

Unification of Armenia and Artsakh (December 1, 1989)

Demonstration in Karabagh, 1988

The movement for the reunification of Karabagh to Soviet Armenia in the 1980s did not start from one day to another. After Mikhail Gorbachev, the last First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, declared the new formula of glasnost (“transparency”) in the plenary session of the party (April 1985), many issues came to the surface. The atmosphere of openness and relative freedom offered the opportunity to look forward to reunification. In August 1987 the Armenians in the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabagh, then a part of Azerbaijan, submitted to Moscow a petition signed by more than 80,000 people.
The crucial step was taken in the February 20, 1988 session of the Regional Soviet of Mountainous Karabagh, which voted 110 to 17 to request the transfer of the region to Armenia.  Instead of a conciliatory solution, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party issued a resolution that qualified the Karabagh movement as “extremist” and “nationalist,” as well as contrary to the interest of the workers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The lack of a solution from the top instilled the need for a solution from the bottom: massive popular demonstrations in Yerevan and Stepanakert followed, to which Azerbaijan reacted with the massacre of Sumgait on February 28, 1988.
The situation became more and more complicated and conflictive during 1988. In an attempt to find a solution, in January 1989 Gorbachev attached the Karabagh region directly to Moscow and designated Arkady Volsky as head of a special committee for administration. The Regional Soviet and the regional committee of the Communist Party were dissolved. However, hopes for a solution of the conflict were dashed and a congress of plenipotentiary representatives of Mountainous Karabagh was held in Stepanakert on August 16, 1989. It elected a National Council, to which it delegated the faculties of executive power. On November 28, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union decided to eliminate the special committee and reattach Karabagh to Azerbaijan. It also created an Organizational Committee, led by the second secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Viktor Polyanichko. In response, on December 1 a joint session of the Supreme Council of Soviet Armenia and the National Council of Mountainous Karabagh adopted a resolution about the unification of Armenia and Karabagh.
The resolution was based “on the universal principles of self-determination nations” and reflected “the legal aspiration of the two sections of the Armenian people separated by force.” The Supreme Council recognized the self-determination of the Autonomous Region, approved by the resolutions of the Regional Council of February 20 and July 12, 1988, as well as the resolutions of the congress of representatives of Artsakh (August 19, 1989) and the National Council (October 19, 1989) (article 1). It also recognized the congress of plenipotentiary representatives and the National Council as only legal authority of Karabagh (article 2). The Supreme Council and the National Council declared the reunification of Soviet Armenia and Mountainous Karabagh, and the citizenship rights of Soviet Armenia were extended over the population of Karabagh (article 3). A joint committee was created by the Supreme Council and the National Council to set up the steps towards reunification (article 4). Both legislative bodies took upon themselves the representation of the districts of Shahumian and Getashen, in the north of Karabagh, which still have their Armenian population (they would be occupied by Azerbaijan and its population expelled in 1991-1992) (article 5). The presidency of both bodies and the Council of Ministers of Armenia were tasked with the execution of measures derived from the resolution “to realize the actual fusion of the political, economic, and cultural structures of the Armenian SSR and Mountainous Karabagh in a unified state and political system.” (article 6). 
Azerbaijan characterized the resolution as an intromission in the internal affairs of the country. The tension between both countries was rising, and the conflict was shaping up towards a military solution. However, the Soviet Union still existed and its police and army, regardless of who they protected, were the last force that prevented the confrontation between Karabagh and Azerbaijan. Once they disappeared, the war became unavoidable.
Although the referenda on independence by Armenia (September 21, 1991) and Mountainous Karabagh (December 10, 1991) declared the independence of both countries, the resolution about the unification was never challenged. As a matter of fact, when Robert Kocharian was proclaimed candidate to the presidency in February 1998, his candidacy was questioned since article 50 of the Constitution of Armenia, sanctioned in 1995, established that the president should have a ten-year citizenship and permanent residency in Armenia. The courts of Armenia, however, determined that the candidacy was legally based on the resolution of December 1, 1989, since article 3 had proclaimed the “reunification of the Armenian SSR and Mountainous Karabagh” and extended the rights of Armenian citizens over the population of Karabagh. The declaration on independence of Armenia (August 23, 1990) had been based on the December 1, 1989 declaration, which was and still is in force. As it is well known, the independence of Karabagh remains unrecognized, even by Armenia.

The Treaty of Kars (October 13, 1921)

As a result of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, the regions of Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, and Batum, at the time in the Ottoman Empire, went to Russia. 

The next conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was during World War I. The Caucasian expedition of Enver Pasha in late 1914-1915 was soundly defeated in the battle of Sarikamish. Enver covered his defeat by accusing the Armenians of treason. As a result, the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Empire were disarmed and killed en masse, and the subsequent massacres and deportation of Armenians would soon turn into genocide. The Russian forces occupied an important section of Western Armenia (Van, Erzerum, Bitlis and Mush, Trebizond, and Erzinga) in 1915-1916.

After the October Revolution, the Russian forces abandoned the front. The Armenian battalions formed in a hurry were insufficient to stop the Ottoman advance and the territories of Western Armenia were lost between February and April 1918. The Treaty of Brest Litovsk (March 3, 1918) between Soviet Russia and the Ottoman Empire recognized the transfer of Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to the latter. After the armistice of Mudros (October 30, 1918), the Republic of Armenia established its sovereignty over most of the region of Kars, and the Treaty of Sevres recognized the region of Kars and most of Western Armenia as part of Armenia (August 1920).

However, as a result of the Armeno-Turkish war of September-November 1920, the region of Kars and Alexandropol (nowadays Gumri) was occupied by the Turkish forces, which threatened once again the existence of Armenia. The invasion of the XI Red Army on November 29 forced the government of the Republic of Armenia to transfer the authority to the Communists on December 2, which turned the country into a Soviet republic. 

Meanwhile, the representatives of the Republic signed the Treaty of Alexandropol with the Turks on the night of December 2 to 3. This treaty recognized the occupation of the region of Kars by Turkey. However, its legal validity was dubious, because it had been signed on behalf of a government that was already out of office. The next step was the signature of the Treaty of Moscow between Kemalist Turkey and Soviet Russia on March 16, 1921. Turkey received the region of Kars, and the southern portion of the region of Batum. Probably as a compensation for the north of the region of Batum, the Bolsheviks transferred the Armenian province of Surmalu to the Turks. 

At the time, the February rebellion had expelled the Communist government from Armenia, while Georgia was still an independent republic. After Armenia and Georgia were finally occupied by the Red Army, the signature of the Treaty of Kars was meant to confirm the terms of the Treaty of Moscow by the representatives of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

The treaty was signed on October 13, 1921, and ratified in Yerevan on September 11, 1922. Signatories included four Turkish representatives, Russian ambassador Yakov Ganetsky, and two representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Minister of Foreign Affairs Askanaz Mravian and Minister of Interior Poghos Makintsian signed it on behalf of Armenia.

The treaty confirmed the division of the region of Batum, with the north ceded by Turkey to Georgia and the south, with the city of Artvin, annexed by Turkey, which was also guaranteed free transit through the port of Batum.

It also created a new boundary between Turkey and Armenia, defined by the Akhurian and Arax rivers. Turkey annexed most of the region of Kars, including Surmalu, with Mount Ararat and the cities of Igdir and Koghb, the cities of Kars, Ardahan, and Olti, and the ruins of Ani.

The region of Nakhichevan became an autonomous territory under the protection of Azerbaijan, which was turned into the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Nakhichevan in 1924, as an exclave subordinate to Soviet Azerbaijan and sharing a fifteen kilometer boundary with Turkey. 

The Soviet Union attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars and regain the lost territories of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin after World War II on behalf of Armenia and Georgia. However, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill objected to those territorial claims, and in 1947 the Soviet Union gave up its claims from Turkey.

The validity of the Treaty of Kars has been questioned on the basis that the sides that signed it did not have authority. The Turkish Grand National Assembly, which was represented by the Turkish signatories, had no authority to sign international treaties, which still rested with the legal ruler of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan, as established by its Constitution. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed in 1923. On the other hand, the Soviet republics were under strict control of Moscow and the Soviet Union was established in December 1922.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Treaty of Kars was accepted by Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. However, the government of Armenia has made no such ratification.

Referendum on the Independence of Armenia (September 21-23, 1991)

On August 23, 1990, the “Declaration on the Independence of Armenia” approved by the Supreme Council (former Supreme Soviet) of the Republic of Armenia initiated the process of independence according to the legal framework established by the Soviet Constitution, which was assumed to last up to five years. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last First Secretary of the Soviet Union, organized a referendum to preserve the Soviet Union, held on March 17, 1991, to ask whether the constituents considered “necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics.” Six republics, including Armenia, boycotted the referendum, which nevertheless had almost 70% of approval in the remaining nine republics. On March 1, the Supreme Council had issued a resolution to organize a referendum to allow Armenia to legally secede from the USSR. The preparations in the spring and summer were not only on a legal and organization level, but also took the form of an ideological struggle. The new democratic authorities led by the Armenian National Movement (ANM), which had come to power in August 1990, struggled both against those forces that considered independence a dangerous and meaningless movement, or pushed for a declaration of independence without referendum. The legalist position of the Armenian authorities and the steps taken towards the establishment of democracy were heavily praised by the international press, since they did not leave room for any opposition from Moscow and ensured an orderly transition. The month prior to the referendum was heavy in changes that impacted on the public reception: the successful resistance of democratic forces against the failed putsch of August 1991 in Russian that tried to re-establish the old Soviet order; the recognition of the independence of the three Baltic states; the proclamation of independence by the Supreme Councils of various republics, et cetera. The campaign for the “Yes” multiplied its efforts in the first twenty days of September, and the declarations by public figures and organizations from Catholicos Vazken I to the Writers Union had a cascade effect that countered the anti-propaganda of Moscow agents and anti-independence forces. Levon Ter Petrosian, president of the Supreme Council, issued a declaration on the evening of September 19: “… We are taking a decisive step, which must be followed with the proclamation of the independence of Armenia by the Supreme Council. But we are all aware that independence is not a goal in itself for us. Independence is just a means to reach Freedom, because the supreme goal is freedom. Only the independent statehood of the nation may ensure freedom for each individual and people. We do not go towards independence with sentimentalism; we go with awareness, rationality, and true political calculation . . .”  The organization of the referendum fell upon the Central Electoral Committee headed by the vice-president of the Supreme Council, Babken Ararktsian. The referendum was orderly held and in a festive environment. On the third Saturday in September 1991, people across Armenia left their homes to do something they had never done before: vote in a referendum. Old and young alike crowded voting stations, determined to make their voices heard. Even newly married couples, still attired in wedding garb, set aside time to cast their vote. The 117 observers invited from more than two dozen countries and international organizations did not report any irregularity and noted that Armenia was the only country holding a legally binding referendum. The participation in the referendum of September 21 was 95.4 per cent of legally registered voters (2,163,967 people), and 94.39 per cent of them (2,042,627 people or 99.51% of the actual voters) voted “Yes” to the question posed to them: “Do you agree that the Republic of Armenia becomes an independent, democratic state out of the U.S.S.R.?” Armenia had become independent by the will of its citizens. On Monday, September 23, the results of the referendum were introduced to the session of the Supreme Council, which passed the historical decision: “Faithful to the declaration on the independence of Armenia, based on the norms of human rights and free determination of nations, with the goal of creating a democratic, juridical society, on the grounds of the results of the referendum held about coming out of the U.S.S.R. on September 21, 1991, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia proclaims the Republic of Armenia an independent state.” September 21 became, rightfully, a holiday. The Supreme Council addressed the population in the following terms, which were an anticipation of what Armenia would see in the next twenty-five years: “The return to identity will not be easy. We are just starting to walk on the road of freedom. The path crossed by civilized humankind shows that this is not a matter of one day and, especially, it is not an easy road. Therefore, prudently incorporating the experience of progressive states, we must be able to maintain and enrich ours. Yes, we are going towards the family of the entire humanity, but under our own flag, with our independent statehood and our own profile. New trials wait for us on the road of freedom. This will be a daily test for us. Let’s keep our enthusiasm, but let’s also be filled with realism; let’s be dreamers, but with alert judgment.” The Soviet Union collapsed barely three months later, on December 25, 1991, and the Republic of Armenia was accepted as a full member of the international community as a sovereign state, joining the United Nations on March 2, 1992. Meanwhile, as a result of the referendum held on December 10, 1991, the Republic of Mountainous Gharabagh had also proclaimed its independence as a second Armenian state, yet unrecognized to this day.

Birth Of Vahan Cheraz (August 16, 1886)

Vahan Cheraz in scout uniform

Armenians had an important role in the development of sports in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Among those pioneers was Vahan Cheraz, who later became one of the founding members of the scout movement of the Armenian General Union of Physical Education (Հայ Մարմնակրթական Ընդհանուր Միութիւն), better known by its initials as Homenetmen (Հ.Մ.Ը.Մ.).

Cheraz was born in Constantinople on August 16, 1886. His father Kaspar, a lawyer, was brother of a famous writer and public figure, Minas Cheraz (1852-1929), who had been a member of the Armenian delegation to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, accompanying Khrimian Hayrig.

He first studied at the French religious school of St. Benoit, in the neighborhood of Pera (Beyoglu). In 1901 he went to London, where he lived with his uncle Minas and studied for four years. He returned to Constantinople in 1905 and graduated from the Getronagan Armenian School in 1906. In 1905 Shavarsh Krisian, a pioneer of Armenian sports, had founded the first Armenian soccer team, Baltalimanı (many such teams would be named after Armenian districts). Upon his return, Cheraz had brought a soccer ball and founded a soccer team with the students of the Getronagan School, which was called “Santral” (Central, the French translation of the school’s name). In 1906 he founded another team called Proti. In 1908 both teams merged into the “Tork” team (named after a pagan Armenian god of strength), under his leadership. By 1911 the number of Armenian soccer teams had become 65.

“Tork” soccer team in 1911. Vahan Cheraz is pictured sitting in the middle.

“Tork” soccer team in 1911. Vahan Cheraz is pictured sitting in the middle.

Meanwhile, he worked from 1906-1911 as an inspector at the Constantinople port. He served in the Ottoman army from 1911-1912, and then he left the capital for Europe. He left for Paris and worked for an antiquarian until 1914. He later moved to Marseilles, where his uncle lived, and after the beginning of World War I, he traveled to Tiflis, where he enrolled in the first battalion of Armenian volunteers, under the command of Antranik, and fought in Persia from 1915-1916. After the dissolution of the volunteer groups, Cheraz went to work in the orphanages of the Russian Union of Cities, in Sarikamish and Erzerum, until 1917. 

When the October Revolution broke out in November 1917, the Russian troops withdrew from the Caucasian front. Cheraz returned to military service as a member of Antranik’s reorganized battalion and fought in the front in 1917-1918, and later in Persia and Zangezur in 1918-1919.

He became seriously ill at the beginning of 1919 and, after almost two months of illness, he went to Constantinople in search of medical treatment. He recovered and became scout head of the recently founded Homenetmen. At the same time, he worked as a translator for the British general headquarters, since Constantinople was under Allied occupation from 1919-1922.

Upon the invitation of the government of the Republic of Armenia, Homenetmen was officially invited to share their knowledge and expertise in sports and scouting. The Executive Committee sent three members, Vahan Cheraz, Dikran Khoyan (later pastor of St. Stephen Church in Boston and Soorp Khatch Church in Washington), and Onnig Yazmajian to Yerevan.  Their successful efforts were short-lived. After the establishment of the Soviet regime, Homenetmen was banned in the country.

In September 1920 the Armenian-Turkish war started, and Cheraz enlisted in the Armenian army. Later, he participated in the February 1921 uprising against the Soviet regime and settled in Alexandropol (later Leninakan, now Gumri). From 1921-1924 he worked for the Near East Relief (known in Armenia as Amerkom, abbreviation for Amerikian komite, “American Committee”) in different capacities, including head of the scouting branch in Alexandropol. 

He married a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Vartanush Antreasian, whose first husband, a school principal had been burned alive, along with his students. Cheraz’s tragedy started a few days after his marriage, in November 1924, when he was arrested by the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) on trumped-up charges of being a spy for England and the United States. He was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia, but freed after five months thanks to an amnesty. He returned to Armenia, but could not find work, and after a short stint again at the Near East Relief, he remained unemployed.

He was arrested again, in September 1927, along with other Armenian employees of the Near East Relief, and imprisoned in Tiflis. He was charged with spying and being a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He denied both charges, since he had never belonged to a political party. However, the interrogator came to the following “conclusion”: “to recognize [Cheraz] as an element socially dangerous and extremely suspicious in espionage.” On January 9, 1928, he was sentenced to death. Days later, before parting ways with his cellmates, he told them: “Farewell, friends. I know why they are taking me. It doesn’t matter, let them eat my head. But be sure that victory is ours. Don’t despair, remain always brave. Long live free Armenia, long live the Armenian people. Don’t forget me.” He left behind his wife and a one-year-old daughter. His wife Vartanush would be killed in the prison of Gumri during the Stalinist purges of 1937, at the age of 42, falsely accused of being an A.R.F. member and holding meetings of activists at her home, but, essentially, for having been Cheraz’s wife and having a brother abroad. Their ten-year-old orphaned daughter was adopted by her uncle Vartkes Antreasian, who changed her last name, fearing persecution. Buragn Antreasian-Cheraz currently lives in Yerevan.

Today, a street in Gumri and a sports school are named after Vahan Cheraz. A plaque on the front of the city’s Tumanian library says: “Vahan Cheraz, founder of the scout movement in Armenia, lived in this house from 1925-1927."

Death of Vahram Papazian (June 5, 1968)

From Constantinople to Yerevan and from Paris to Moscow, Vahram Papazian would become the most accomplished Shakespearean actor of the Armenian scene worldwide for half a century.

He was born in Constantinople on January 6, 1888, in a middle-class family. He graduated from the Esayan School (1902) and the lyceum of Kadikoy (1902-1904), and had his debut on the stage in 1904. Then he went to the Murad-Raphaelian School of the Mekhitarist Congregation, in Venice, where he studied from 1905-1907.

In 1907 he departed for Paris and then for Baku, where he performed with an Armenian theater group for a few months. After this experience, he returned to Italy and studied at the Art Academy of Milan from 1908-1911. Famed actress Eleonora Duse was among his teachers. During his student years, he performed with Italian itinerant groups and gradually perfected his roles (Othello, Romeo, and Hamlet, among them). He returned to Constantinople in 1908 and his performances of Othello, at the age of 20, earned him the applause of Armenian audiences and the press. He went to Paris in the early 1910s to study the different currents of theater and become closely acquainted with acting techniques. As a professional actor, he performed from 1910-1913 in Constantinople and Smyrna, and from 1913-1917, in Baku and Tiflis. He enriched his repertory with a roster of roles in Armenian and non-Armenian plays.

Papazian as the title character in Shakespeare's Othello

Papazian played in fifteen Russian silent movies from 1917-1918 with the pseudonym of Ernesto Vahram, and would later play in three more films in 1922-1923. In 1920 he returned to Constantinople, where he performed until 1922. After the occupation of the city by the Kemalist forces, he settled in Soviet Armenia. He would perform and direct in Yerevan, Baku, and Tiflis between 1922 and 1927. He moved to Moscow in 1928 and then performed in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from 1929-1931. In 1932 he played in Lithuania, Letonia, and Estonia, and in the same year he left for Paris, where he played Othello with the Odeon Theater group; his performances were singled out by the French press. In 1933 he visited Berlin, where he met the famous director Max Reinhardt and studied closely the German school of acting.

Thereafter, he returned to the Soviet Union and was distinguished as People’s Artist of Armenia and Georgia in 1933, and People’s Artist of Azerbaijan in 1935. He toured the cities of the three countries in 1934-1935, and continued his tour through Russia and Ukraine from 1936-1941. He played in Moscow in 1941 and settled in Leningrad from 1941-1944, where he survived the German blockade.

After years of new presentations in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia, from 1946-1954, Papazian finally settled back in Yerevan as a member of the Sundukian Academic Theater, and he also directed plays in Yerevan and Leninakan (now Gumri). He returned to cinema in four films from 1953-1964, and in 1956 he was given the title of People’s Artist of the Soviet Union. In the last fifteen years of his life, the actor revealed himself to be an accomplished writer with his two-volume memoir, Retrospective Regard (1956-1957). He also wrote his reminiscences on Western Armenian actors, My Heart’s Duty (1959), and several books on performance analysis about the roles of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.

His art belonged to the classical school, enriched by elements of neo-romanticism and psychological realism. His performances of Shakespearean roles were grounded on the traditions of ancient tragedy and the Renaissance, as well as his own Armenian viewpoint.

Vahram Papazian passed away in Leningrad on June 5, 1968, and was buried in the Pantheon of Yerevan. The State Theater of Stepanakert (Karabagh) carries his name.

Declaration of Secession of Nagorno Karabagh from Azerbaijan (February 20, 1988)

The question of Karabagh started in the years of the first independent Republic of Armenia and was not solved after the South Caucasus became part of the Soviet Union. The arbitrary decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the Soviet Communist Party (July 5, 1921) to attach Karabagh to Azerbaijan only contributed to open a new Pandora’s box. Throughout the decades, the Azerbaijani discriminatory policy had the other historical Armenian region, the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan, as poster child: due to continuous emigration, its Armenian population went from 40% in 1926 to 2% in 1988.

It is not surprising then, that the Armenians of Mountainous Karabagh, who constituted 90% of its population in 1926, took every opportunity to address Moscow and ask for a fair solution of the issue. Various letters were sent in 1945, 1965, and 1977. The petition of 1965 was signed by 45,000 people. On its grounds, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union assigned to the Central Committees of the party in Armenia and Azerbaijan the mission of preparing a proposal for the solution of the problem of Karabagh in 1966. However, Azerbaijan was able to put the brakes on any possible solution. The Azerbaijani KGB, led by Heydar Aliyev (future president in post-Soviet times) stimulated interethnic conflict. As a result, more than 150 Armenians were sent to prison, where 20 people were killed and ten others disappeared. More than a hundred families, after two years of persecution, were forced to leave Karabagh. The issue was again treated in 1977 during the discussions of the draft Soviet Constitution, but never went through.

After the proclamation of the policies of restructuring (perestroika) and transparency (glasnost) by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, the movement for Karabagh entered a new phase in mid-1987. There were demonstrations and meetings, and the representatives of the autonomous region sent petitions to the party and state organs of the Soviet Union. A petition that asked for the reattachment of the autonomous region to Soviet Armenia was signed by 80,000 people.

This phase found its climax on February 20, 1988. The first secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan, Kamran Baghirov; members of the Bureau of the Central Committee, and the instructor of the Soviet Communist Party, V. Yashin, arrived in Stepanakert, the capital of Mountainous Karabagh, with the intention of thwarting the extraordinary session of the Regional Council of the Nagorno (Mountainous) Karabagh Autonomous Region (NKAR), intended to pass a resolution on the issue. The visitors called for a session of the party regional committee, and the local party structure was held responsible the organization for the situation. Despite the pressure of representatives from Baku and of the first secretary of the Communist Party in Karabagh, Boris Kevorkov, the session was held on the same day and the Regional Council passed the following resolution, entitled “On a Petition to the Supreme Councils of the Azerbaijani SSR and the Armenian SSR on the NKAR’s Secession from Soviet Azerbaijan and Its Transfer to Soviet Armenia”:

After hearings and debates on a petition to the Supreme Councils of the Azerbaijani SSR and the Armenian SSR on the secession of the Nagorno Karabagh Autonomous Region from Soviet Azerbaijan and its transfer to Soviet Armenia, the special session of the Nagorno Karabagh Autonomous Oblast Regional Council of People’s Deputies have decided:  “Meeting the requests of the NKAR workers, to appeal to the Supreme Councils of the Azerbaijani SSR and the Armenian SSR to show a profound understanding of the expectations of the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabagh and to resolve the issue of NKAR’s secession from the Azerbaijani SSR and its transfer to the Armenian SSR, and at the same time to submit a petition to the Supreme Council of the USSR on a positive resolution of the issue on NKAR’s secession from the Azerbaijani SSR and its transfer to the Armenian SSR.”

This document followed the legal procedures established by Soviet law and was backed by peaceful demonstrations held in Stepanakert and Yerevan in the same day. The Karabagh Movement, the “test of the perestroika,” had started. Three years later, it would end in the independence of the Republics of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh.

January 13, 1990: Baku Pogrom

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, which had a large Armenian community since the late nineteenth century, was the theater of anti-Armenian massacres in 1905 and 1918. In January 1990, the local community was persecuted, massacred, and forced to leave the city forever.

The beginning of the Karabagh conflict, followed by the pogrom of Sumgait in February 1988, was marked with a violent Azerbaijani response to the peaceful Armenian demonstrations and claims. Exchange of population started. However, while Armenians were expelled by force from Kirovabad (currently Ganja, the second city of Azerbaijan) in the fall of 1988, as well as from other locations, Azerbaijanis were able to sell their properties and leave Armenia without being disturbed.

Azerbaijani mass media, and particularly television, were flooded with anti-Armenian propaganda, which paved the way for violence. The Popular Front of Azerbaijan, a nationalist and anti-communist movement, called to expel Armenians from Baku and take up their homes. Killings and robbery became frequent throughout 1989.

On December 1 of that year, the Supreme Councils of the Armenian SS Republic and the Mountainous Karabagh Autonomous Region passed a joint resolution on the formal unification of Armenia and Karabagh. This resolution triggered the anti-Armenian massacre of Baku from January 13-19, 1990 as a direct response.

The violence was preceded by demonstrations of the Popular Front, which called for the defense of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty from Armenian demands. Groups of young Azerbaijanis roamed the streets, terrorizing Armenians and warning them to leave Baku. Azaddin Gyulmamedov, a young Azerbaijani who attended the rally in Baku on January 13 and witnessed the outbreak of anti-Armenian violence, gave the following testimony: “We went to see what was happening. We saw these guys in the streets. I don't know who they were - drug addicts, maybe. They had sticks and clubs, and lists of Armenians and where they lived. They wanted to break down the doors of Armenian apartments and chase them out. The police didn't do anything. They just stood and watched. Same with the soldiers, who had weapons. We asked them to help. There were about a dozen soldiers and ten of us, and there were about twenty in the gang, but the soldiers wouldn't help. They said: 'You can do it yourself, Blackie. We're not getting involved.’”

At nightfall of January 12-13, attacks started; Armenian homes were set on fire and looted, while Armenians were killed or injured. The homes of Armenians had been previously identified and mapped, while law enforcement bodies stood idle, and ambulance people made fake medical certificates, according to which the deaths of Armenians were caused by circulatory injury and not by the violence.

An elderly Armenian woman is one of many evacuees that escaped Baku after the massacres of Armenians by Azeris began in mid-January of 1990.

According to Radio Liberty, on the night of January 14 alone, 25 people were killed in the Armenian district. The Russian daily Izvestia reported on January 18 and 19 that 64 cases of pogrom had been identified, with Armenians as victims, on January 16, and 45 pogroms and arsons of residential houses on January 17. The New York Times wrote on January 19: “Nationalists in Lithuania are struggling to wrest independence from Moscow by nonviolent, political means. Nationalists in Azerbaijan also talk of independence, but their protest includes bloody pogroms against their Armenian neighbors.”

One of the leaders of the National Front of Azerbaijan, Etibar Mamedov, testified about the cruelties and the lack of official intervention: “I myself witnessed the murder of two Armenians near the railway station. A crowd gathered, threw petrol on them and burned them, whereas the regional militia division was only 200 meters away with some 400-500 soldiers of the internal forces. The soldiers passed by the burning bodies at a distance of some 20 meters, and nobody attempted to circle the area and dissolve the crowd.”

Central authorities in Moscow did little to stop the violence until January 20, when Soviet troops entered Baku and declared the state of emergency. As Moscow News wrote on February 4, “the troops entered the town seized with pogroms not to stop them, but to prevent the final seizure of power by the People’s Front of Azerbaijan, which was planned for January 20.” Most Armenians fled Baku. Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and his family was among the evacuees. Kasparov later testified: “No one would halt the Armenian pogroms in Baku, although there were eleven thousand soldiers of internal troops in the city. No one would intervene until the ethnic cleansing was carried out. The pogroms were happening not in a random place but in the huge capital city with blocks of flats. In such a megapolis as Baku the crowd simply cannot carry out targeted operations like that. When the pogrom-makers go purposefully from one district to another, from one apartment to another this means that they had been given the addresses and that they had a coordinator.”

The number of victims of the Armenian massacres in Baku is not clear yet, with estimates going up to 400. The events were never assessed from a legal point of view and the damages were not repaid.