Who is Responsible for the Nagorno-Karabakh Disaster: Levon Ter-Petrosyan

Ilur.am presented Ter-Petrosyan's statement, in which he specifically states: "The main thesis of the majority of opposition forces is that the only responsible party for the defeat in the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh is Nikol Pashinyan. The best formulation of this thesis is presented in the declaration of the 'Homeland Salvation Movement Council' from December 3 of last year. 'Nikol Pashinyan and his administration essentially led the country to capitulation, placing the entire Armenian people in front of serious losses, obliterating decades of our national achievements, making national security vulnerable for a long time. What has happened is a national disaster and betrayal...'.

One could fully agree with this assessment, were it not for the fact that it is a half-truth, and the forces that signed the declaration would confess that Nikol Pashinyan is, in fact, their creation, their creature. Since 1997, all political parties in Armenia, except for the Armenian National Movement, have followed a disastrous path of rejecting compromises and maintaining the status quo, undermining the most favorable opportunities for a compromise solution. This has become the state policy of the subsequent administrations in Armenia, leading to the disaster for which they now blame only Pashinyan.

The so-called elite, consisting of intellectuals, political scientists, analysts, journalists, academic scholars, and the overwhelming majority of higher education faculty, also has its share of responsibility, as do nearly all leaders of national institutions in the Diaspora. In short, all those forces that have made irredentism, claims for reparation, and non-mythological beliefs the national doctrine of Armenians, as unassailable as the Bible itself. Figuratively speaking, all the mentioned forces, especially with Nikol Pashinyan's final role, brilliantly executed the two 'commandments' of Vazgen Sargsyan: a. 'Land won by blood is not surrendered by paper'—meaning it is rather surrendered with much more blood, which is indeed what happened; b. 'We will go for compromise when we are forced to'—and a forced solution is nothing else but capitulation, which also became a reality.

To be just, I feel it is my duty to mention that, to his credit, Vazgen, although belatedly, recognized his mistake and attempted to correct it through the alliance he formed with Karen Demirchyan. I believe that this alliance, constituted by Vazgen Sargsyan's reevaluation of his mistake, along with Karen Demirchyan's wisdom, could have redirected the Nagorno-Karabakh process into a realistic flow. However, the October 27th tragedy put an end to this hopeful development.

As for the people on behalf of whom the above-mentioned forces supposedly speak, and who are subsequently accused of misunderstanding, ignorance, and indifference, it must be understood once and for all that the people bear no guilt in the disaster that has befallen our country. Moreover, they are the ones who directly and solely carry the gravest consequences of it. It is only right to bow one’s head before the people; for the liberation of Artsakh, they made enormous sacrifices, enduring the unbearable hardships caused by the complete blockade and the periodic explosions of the gas pipeline and railway into Armenia, and most importantly, sacrificed tens of thousands of their children’s lives.

Despite the unfair criticism coming from both political and governmental circles, our army also bears no guilt in the defeat. Due to the criminal policies of the authorities, it was forced to bravely fight against an adversary with far superior numbers and state-of-the-art weaponry, and it selflessly fulfilled its duty to the homeland until the end.

The essence of my claims is that we have not actually been defeated by Azerbaijan, but rather brought this defeat upon ourselves due to the stupidity of political thinking. In any case, all of this is already history, subject to any interpretation, the right to which belongs to anyone. The issue, however, is what lessons need to be learned from history. Unfortunately, both in Armenia and in the Diaspora, the post-war rhetoric is again saturated with false expectations of support from the outside world, ongoing threats and trifles of revenge against Azerbaijan and Turkey. During the pre-election campaign, this trend will undoubtedly intensify, which does not inspire any hopes in terms of learning lessons. And this means that our people are still awaiting new losses and new disappointments.

In my life, I have only met a few deeply insightful people who envisioned Armenia's future decades ago, during Soviet times, in the context of not repeating our previous mistakes and living reconciled and peacefully with neighboring peoples. Among them, first and foremost, is certainly my lecturer from university, Rafael Ishkhanyan, and later, well-known and distinguished historians Levon Khachikyan, Hakob Papazyan, Gagik Sargsyan, Hrach Bartikian, Vladimir Barkhudaryan, Ashot Harutyunyan, Vahan Bayburdyan, Eduard Zohrabyan, and musicologist Nikoghos Tahmizyan. I am confident that others have also recognized such authoritative figures with similar thought in their surroundings.

Moreover, earlier in the past, only a few courageous individuals publicly urged caution and prudence in Armenian-Turkish relations, particularly Patriarch Makaghia Ormanyan of Constantinople, who was ousted in 1908 due to the agitation of Armenian revolutionaries. The next might be Hovhannes Kachaznuni, who, however, addressed the previous mistakes publicly and more substantively afterward, after the downfall of the First Republic, which does not minimize its value. Certainly, in understanding the bankruptcy of Armenian political thought and its tragic consequences, one cannot overlook the fundamental works of eminent historians Leo, David the Anonymous, Levon Chormisyan, and in the realm of literature, Yeghishe Charents' 'Land of Nairi' and Gurgen Mahari's 'Burning Orchards,' genius works that have been unjustly vilified.

Activists of the Karabakh movement and members of the 'Karabakh' committee belonged to the generation of national revival of 1965 and, in essence, were nourished by the irredentist-demanding ideas that prevailed during that period, vocally rallying under the slogan 'land, land.' Thus, when Vazgen Manukyan announced at one of the first rallies in 1988 that 'there are no permanent friends and permanent enemies,' it had a bomb-like impact on both the demonstrators and, especially, on the so-called nomenklatura intelligentsia. Even more shocking was the publication of Raphael Ishkhanyan's article 'Exclusion of the Third Force.' My speech during the session of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenia SSR in June 1989, and thereafter the same themed publications by Ktrich Sardiaryan, followed that. Public perception of this new way of thinking, founded on realism and rejection of illusions, gradually began to take root, while the nomenklatura intelligentsia—led by Silva Kaputikyan, Lendrus Khursudyan, and Zori Balayan—waged a fierce struggle against it through extensive publications. Similar was also the response of the Diaspora's irredentist forces. However, due to the unconditional authority enjoyed by the 'Karabakh' committee, all this had no effect on public opinion, as evidenced by the fact that both Silva Kaputikyan and Lendrus Khursudyan and Zori Balayan were defeated by the candidates of the Armenian National Movement in the May 1990 Supreme Soviet elections by a huge margin.

In the years 1990-1998, irredentism found absolutely no place in the state policy of the authorities of Armenia. Everything changed after the coup of 1998, when it was established at the heart of the politics adopted by subsequent governments, which I attempted to elucidate in the main part of this article. What is remarkable and gratifying, however, is that if, at the onset of the Karabakh movement, claims for reparations were rejected by only a few individuals, today the rejection of this ideology has become a belief for tens of thousands of representatives of the new generation. This phenomenon undoubtedly inspires a degree of hope and optimism about the future in the current bleak reality.