Compelling Narrative of Armenia’s Survival

WINCHESTER, Mass.—Eva Medzorian’s new documentary film, “Armenia, Ancient Nation Endangered,” was released on July 15. The documentary exposes the escalating danger confronting Armenians who reside in the villages bordering the northeastern corner of Armenia and Azerbaijan, a four-hour drive from Yerevan in the Shamshadin region of the Tavush province, clustered around the central town of Berd.

Eva Medzorian
Eva Medzorian

Through first-hand documentary videos coupled with a brief history of Armenia over the past 2,000 years, Medzorian tells a moving story of Armenia, an ancient nation with a rich Christian heritage, constantly under persecution by its neighbors, and how it has survived with the tenacity of its people. Now, it is confronted by yet another threat of annihilation—this time, by hawkish neighbor Azerbaijan, which is encouraged and supported by ally Turkey. Tragically, most of the civilized world knows very little about Armenia, and what news that does surface is distorted, or hardly reported.

“Over the past four decades I have visited Armenia more than 60 times and witnessed the country during the Soviet period and post independence,” Medzorian said. “I have traveled to border villages and seen the hardships and dangers confronting the people, especially on the hostile Azerbaijan border. I felt it was time to tell the story as it truly is. To ensure accuracy of historical and modern aspects, I consulted with noted Yerevan historian Eduard Danielyan.”

To view the film on YouTube, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=diEE1yixQHE.

Guest Contributor

Guest Contributor

Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles or press releases written and submitted by members of the community.

4 Comments

  1. Thank you Ms Medzorian, great work, I enjoyed watching your short film. I am glad it correctly mentioned that Turkey made agreements with the Soviet Union in order to invade and confiscate western Armenia. The Armenian Genocide was the worst thing that happened to us, but sometimes I wonder if the Soviet Union could challenge that title.

    I find the situation there very troubling. Azerbaijan is basically invading Armenia proper, never mind Artsakh. How can this go on? It is obvious that neither side is willing to “start the war” because then that party will be the one to blame by the world community. However, I do not understand the definition of “cease fire” – because it has already been violated since its inception. Armenia has no incentive to fire at Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijan has every (supposed) incentive to fire at Armenia. So we know who is doing the cease-fire violations. When Azerbaijan invades Armenian positions, we always hear, Armenia gave back a “harsh response”. Well, is that enough to prevent the next attack? Apparently not, since the attacks are continuing and getting bolder. It is time Armenians rethink their approach with Azerbaijan. A better concept is, if we must lose blood, better to trade it with more liberated lands.

    In the video, the priest says, Armenia does not block Armenian water supplies to the Azeris (while the Azeris fire at Armenians) because we live by Christian ideals. That is honorable and would be correct against normal people, but I have to respectfully disagree here. Defending yourself and your interests would not be un-Christian. In the past, all this kind of Christian kindness and charity has gotten us is Genocide, because we are not dealing with normal God-fearing humans, but crude savages who firstly do not belong on our lands and want to destroy us and secondly only understand force, and are incapable of being moved by acts of kindness, charity and love.

    In addition, Armenia is not obligated to “take care of Azeris”, that is the job of the belligerent gang of thugs called the Azeri ‘government’. If they care about their public, instead of buying weapons to invade Armenia, they can buy bottled evian water for them. There is supposedly an international agreement or law that countries cannot restrict the flow of fresh water to other nations. Turkey shut off the water supply to Syria (which also happens to be Armenia’s water supply under occupation might I add). What repercussions has it suffered as a result? Nothing. I can guarantee that if our places were switched, Azerbaijan would have cut our water, not now, but 20 years ago. I say, let them drink oil.

    Giving these primitive nomads a taste of their own medicine is the only way anything gets through their thick skulls.

    • Well said HagopD: agree with most of what you wrote.

      Have a serious disagreement with this one statement though: “….but sometimes I wonder if the Soviet Union could challenge that title.”
      We need to discuss it more to see why you feel that way: maybe on another occasion.

      I also found the statement by the Armenian priest about the water very puzzling: I am no student of religious studies, but am not aware of any tenet in Christianity that says one is obligated to commit suicide so as not to harm another human being.
      If somebody is attempting to exterminate you, you do whatever you have to do to survive: why else would God give life to man and give him the means to defend it ?

    • Avery,
      Perhaps you are thinking the post WWII era, while I’m I’m thinking the WWI era. Yeah that could be a discussion another time, but I’ll tell you why I feel that way. I made that as an analogy, the Armenian Genocide destroyed our population, but the Soviet Union prevented our country’s self determination and freedom as a culture to progress naturally after the Genocide. Despite the Armenian Genocide, without the Soviet Union, Turkey would not have been able to wage their so-called “war of independence”, nor stepped foot in western Armenia. There can be no war without weapons, money and provisions. The Soviet Union provided all that to Turkey and the deal was apparently that Turkey could take western Armenia while the Soviet Union could take “Azerbaijan”. If not for this today a large chunk of western Armenia would have remained part of Armenia, perhaps even Wilsonian Armenia and even more. We would have had our sea to conduct our business by our own determination. Our history would have been vastly different and today Armenia would have had a much larger population and free enough to be a significant player in the region. We would not have had such a large diaspora scattered everywhere, and not have lost all those post-Genocide Armenians to assimilation. When I think of the Soviet Union and Armenia, the word that comes to mind is ‘betrayal’. I have a lot more issues, but this is just the start of it, and will discuss it another time.

  2. Great documentary Ms. Medzorian.

    I like how you seamlessly tied attempts by Turk and Turkbaijani invadonomads to exterminate indigenous Armenians from their native lands through the ages, and continuing to this day.

    And it was very gratifying to hear you correctly assert that Armenian indigenous presence on our lands goes back at least 5,000 years and not 3,000 years or so as many misinformed Armenians commonly cite. In particular, Dr Artak Movsisyan (Dr of history) of RoA has done extensive work in that area, and has demonstrated proto-Armenian and Armenian presence for about 5,000 years, as of now.

    Much about our wonderful history is still unpublicized.
    That is slowly changing, now that we are not under the Islamist yoke, nor being told by Soviet Moscow not to publicize it (…so as not ‘offend’ our Soviet Turkic ‘brothers’)

    Your work is another small step forward in correcting that.
    Վարցքդ կատար.

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