Translated and edited with permission from the original Armenian text by Dr. Karen Khanlari
The notion of a “real Armenia,” as propagated by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, is deeply rooted in the rhetoric of Armenian-Azerbaijani “peace” and the “zeroing” of Armenian-Turkish enmity. This ideology stems from a defeatist mindset and a commitment by the Armenian government to serve the Turkey-Azerbaijan tandem, despite attempts by Pashinyan’s party to present a more optimistic picture.
However, the concept of a “real Armenia” is not new to Armenian political thought. It reflects a long-standing ideological struggle between the idealism of the homeland and materialistic pragmatism, often disguised as “realism.” This ideological conflict was succinctly analyzed by ARF Bureau member Garo Mehian (1898-1984), a literary critic, historian and political figure imprisoned and exiled by Soviet security forces.
The concept of a “real Armenia” is not new to Armenian political thought. It reflects a long-standing ideological struggle between the idealism of the homeland and materialistic pragmatism, often disguised as “realism.”
Mehian’s analysis is particularly relevant today as Pashinyan attempts to argue that the vision of a “historical Armenia” could lead Armenians into traps of war and genocide. In 1973, Mehian wrote: “I do not mean the territory and borders defined by the word ‘homeland.’ Nor the natural and constructive elements within those borders — mountains, lakes, rivers and settlements. Together, these are geographic features, and geography changes as territories expand or contract. The homeland is an idea, and an idea is conditioned by understanding.
Certainly, our people are not unique in being devoid of the idea of a homeland for centuries after their formation and establishing their settlements. Our literature mentions the native land. However, these terms, like ‘Armenian land,’ if they characterize a territorial whole in specific periods, do not define the complete concept of a homeland” (Garo Mehian, “Our Homelands,” Aztag Daily, Beirut, January 11, 1973).
Mehian thus places the process of forming the idea of homeland at the heart of this millennia-long ideological struggle, which he sees as a conflict between geography and identity (self-concept).
Analyzing manifestations of this struggle in state policy, Mehian writes: “Artaxias, Tigranes and later, to some extent, Tiridates were strong personalities.
Their strength created the unity of territory and the collective ambition to preserve it and gradually expand it through collective efforts…
The Arsacid dynasty deprived us of this possibility. Arsaces tried in vain to impose not the idea and understanding of a collective homeland but to make the defense of the native land a collective act. The noble houses, or separate delineations with their lands and forces, often preferred their interests, frequently leading them to prioritize their own over the general good.”
The fall of this dynasty was not only the result of the superiority of nearby or distant forces compared to our own. It was also because it was not a WHOLE inspired by passion to protect the WHOLE. It resulted from partial preferences and the perspectives that stemmed from them.
Did geography play a negative role in this negative reality? Yes, just as geography has perpetually opposed the character of our people, even though it played a dominant role in shaping that character. First, the Bagratids and then the Rubenids’ revolts and rises stem from that character and against not only the ruling forces but also the primary cause of their rule — our geography. Throughout centuries, the continuous process of opposition between our geography and our character — the crossroads and the pursuit of freedom — lasted for six centuries. The period of slavery inherited ‘historical Armenia’ as only a map, not even geography, which legal borders should condition.
Having barely survived the Genocide, Armenia’s independence not only fundamentally altered our political status but also turned the ‘historical’ homeland into reality. May 28 is a turning point in two respects — a new page in our history and the emergence of the concept and understanding of a homeland.
“Sovietization of Armenia sought the disappearance of this emergence. ‘Soviet Armenia,’ despite the mandatory union of these two words, was a struggle between them — ‘Armenia’ as the revelation of a homeland, and ‘Soviet’ as the attempt to erase it,” Mehian wrote in “Our Homelands.”
Journalist, political analyst and ARF Bureau member Hrant Samuel (1891-1977) expressed a noteworthy view on the Palestinian Question in 1973, prompting reflection even today: “The U.N. voted on Resolution 242 on November 22, 1967, inviting Israel to fully withdraw from the Arab lands it occupied in June 1967. At the same time, a just solution for the refugee issue was anticipated. For six years, Israel has refused to comply with the U.N. Security Council’s decision. It does not want to evacuate the occupied lands fully. Under the pretext of border security, it wants to keep Jerusalem completely, Sharm el-Sheikh, the Golan Heights and so on.
As for the return of the refugees, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared in front of French television on May 25 during an interview: ‘The homes of the Arab refugees no longer exist. They cannot even find the places of their villages. Their country no longer exists. That was Palestine. Today, it is Israel. The past no longer exists, but Israel will give them a new future.’
When this mentality dominates Israeli leaders, it is difficult to foresee how the painful issue of Palestinian Arab refugees will be resolved — by war or by peaceful means” (Hrant Samuel, Harraj, June 10, 1973, Paris, Page 1).
Nearly 50 years later, history seems to repeat itself, drawing Armenia and Artsakh into the same geopolitical situation — seeking a just solution to the national question, the return of refugees, the pretext of border security, the nonexistence of the country and settlements, Moshe Dayan and Ilham Aliyev, the U.N. Security Council, the past and the “new” future, and so on. One thing is clear: unfortunately, peaceful means did not yield a just solution yesterday, and there is no guarantee that they will today, be it for the Palestinian or the Armenian question.
In Mehian’s theoretical views, the turning point of the First Republic of Armenia does not lie solely in the existing geography characterized by 60,000 square kilometers. It is also in the 1919 declaration of the Armenian Parliament about “United Armenia” and the two brilliant achievements of Armenian diplomacy in this direction — the Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920) and President Woodrow Wilson’s arbitral award (November 1920).
These achievements endowed Armenia with real legal borders and gave flesh and spirit to the concept of a homeland, which, with the cold complicity of Soviet Armenia’s Bolshevik leaders, were sacrificed on the altar of the Leninist-Kemalist geopolitical flirtations.
As a reminder, we note the November 29, 1920, Declaration of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of Armenia, the first section of which is titled “On the Declaration of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia.” In this Declaration, one finds the following lines that essentially echo the statements of Pashinyan’s party:
“The guarantee of fraternal Soviet Azerbaijan secures the Revolutionary Committee of Soviet Armenia and deeply believes that by establishing Soviet power in Armenia, the disputed issues that have caused rivers of blood to flow between the workers and peasants of the two countries will forever disappear.
The Revolutionary Committee of Armenia is full of faith that it also enjoys the sympathy of the working people of Turkey, a people that has already understood the necessity of liberating itself from the yoke of the Entente and is called to play a significant role in the revolutionization of the East. We believe that the people of Turkey, liberated from the imperialist yoke, will also extend a fraternal hand to us, considering us an opponent of the Treaty of Sèvres now that we have overthrown our enemy and are fighting against the predators of the Entente alongside him. We are also convinced that not the sword of the victor will dictate the terms of the peace between Soviet Armenia and the working people of Turkey, but the fraternal solidarity and agreement of the free peoples of Soviet Armenia and working Turkey.”
Someone should remind the great powers that this attempt to build a “real Armenia” is merely a dead-end as long as the idea of justice is absent from its foundations.
With evident similarities in content, it is clear that today, as well, the officials of the “Fourth” Republic, following the example of their Bolshevik predecessors, are trying to build a “real Armenia” once again by opposing the existing geography formed under the terms of capitulation to identity — the idea of homeland.
The Pashinyan government is once again trying to implement the idea of “real Armenia,” perhaps without considering that the Republic of Armenia is the heir not only to the Treaty of Sèvres and Woodrow Wilson’s arbitral award but also to the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia.
Someone should remind the great powers that this attempt to build a “real Armenia” is merely a dead-end as long as the idea of justice is absent from its foundations.
The anti-national state thinking
Let us assess where Pashinyan’s doctrinal statement originates, according to which “The Republic of Armenia has never pursued the policy of the Armenian Cause. The Republic of Armenia has never questioned the Armenia-Turkey border” (2022). Interestingly, the Bolshevik leaders of Armenia also adopted such a doctrine a hundred years ago, taking a clearer position towards the Treaty of Sèvres, which clarifies the ideological origins and historical roots of today’s extraordinary discourses and statements.
Artashes Karinyan (1886, Baku-1982, Yerevan), Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1956), Hero of Socialist Labor (1976), Soviet statesman, Commissariat of Armenian Affairs and member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, describes his teammates this way: “The noise, the protest and the diplomatic movement in the East about the Armenian issue have allowed the imperialists to crush the Turks and take away some of their economic monopolies… The Treaty of Sèvres was one of the weapons of that same imperialism. One way or another, that pact will encourage the Armenians and the Greeks and make them tense against the Turks, and allow the expansionist states to save their forces. Who knows, if Sevres had not happened, perhaps the people would not have fought, and Armenia would have woken up from its nationalist dreams.
The role of the infamous Treaty of Sèvres was to organize and gather the scattered nationalists around the agreement. Perhaps the composition of the Treaty of Sèvres in the cabinet of the confederation government is also a bloody thing for him. For the Allied rulers, that document is still a ‘symbol’ of national victory. For Armenian workers, a bloody monument commemorating the death of millions of workers” (Artashes Karinyan, The Imperialist War and Armenia, Athens, 1925, p. 32-34).
Leaving aside Karinyan’s pro-Turkish qualifications (the Treaty of Sèvres: a weapon of imperialism, a nationalist dream, a notorious, bloody monument, etc.), let’s highlight two issues.
First, the term “Armenian question,” emphasizing the Treaty of Sèvres and Woodrow Wilson’s arbitral ruling, was gradually replaced by the concept of “Armenian law,” with its related legal justifications, corresponding legitimacy and political demands. A hundred years ago, Karinyan and the like categorically rejected the issues of the Republic of Armenia’s legal succession and existence in general. Therefore, they also rejected Sèvres and all other justifications.
Then, no leader of the Third Republic of Armenia officially pursued the Armenian Cause; however, no leader, apart from Pashinyan, declaratively strengthened the official rejection of the Armenian Cause. Karinyan, Kasyan and other Bolshevik leaders, as well as Pashinyan and CP officials, denied and still deny the Armenian question and the Armenian cause. They officially renounced and still renounced their legitimacy to please Turkey and “Azerbaijan” with the practical drive to fulfill the will and preconditions of those states.
In the swirling vortex of history, the “Armenian Cause” legacy juxtaposes with the modern political narratives that seek to reshape national identities and boundaries. As today’s leaders tread the precarious path of redefining Armenia’s stance toward its historical territories and long-standing grievances, they invariably conjure the specter of past ideological battles. Mehian’s profound reflections remind us that the notion of “homeland” is not merely a set of territorial markers but a deeply ingrained cultural and ideological ethos transcending physical geography. It prompts reconsidering what constitutes national identity amid geopolitical pressures and shifting alliances.
The current Armenian administration’s approach, which diminishes the fervor of historical Armenian territorial claims, starkly contrasts with the impassioned declarations of past leaders who viewed these claims as sacrosanct. This approach might be a pragmatic attempt to foster regional peace and cooperation. Yet, it risks diluting the rich tapestry of Armenian national identity woven through centuries of struggle and resilience. As Armenia navigates this complex geopolitical landscape, the voices of its past, like that of Mehian, serve as a crucial reminder of the enduring power of a collective national idea — a concept that must not be forsaken for expedient political gains.
Ara Nazarian, PhD
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The utopian waffle of the internationalist Bolsheviks and the short sighted gulliblity of the mendacious Soviet Union trading away western Armenia hoping to gain an ally in Turkey but gained a thanks but no thanks and we don’t need you anymore from the wily Turks who a century later seem to be fooling the gullible Kremlin beaurocrats much in the way they did then. Nevertheless the arbitrary boundaries just as elsewhere in the world so don’t take it personally! will be considered binding by the international community and protocols and unless there’s a collapse of the UN such dreams will go nowhere although it does legally protect Armenia from encroachment and conquest and annexation and such actions wouldn’t be accepted by other powers as lawful.
I admit that I have no recollection of having read any of Garo Mehian’s works. But he was a known ARF party ideologue and I distinctly remember attending in my youth, in late 60’s or early 70’s, a lecture he gave in Beirut, in a hall in the Djemaran complex. I have retained the following from his presentation to this day. He said that ARF reined communist soviet expansion onto the Armenian diaspora. He was a committed anti-communist and anti-Soviet Union. Those were the cold war days and Soviet Armenia was an inaccessible state. The idea that “The homeland is an idea, and an idea is conditioned by understanding”, transcending borders may have served Diaspora then but not for long given the state of the Armenian community in Lebanon now. Homeland is in a geographic entity with well-Vadefinite borders.