Letter by the novelist Sero Khanzadian on Mountainous Karabakh addressed to Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R.
Dear Leonid Ilyich,
During the March plenary session of the Mountainous Karabakh Communist Party Regional Committee (1975) everything was done to demean the successes and achievements of socialist Armenia. Things got to point of such desecration that the professed and violent enemy of Soviet Russia–the massacres of millions of Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Assyrians, Talaat Pasha was characterized in the Soviet press (Sovetakan Karabakh, March 23, 1975) merely as an “unpleasant personality.” Such an evaluation was given to the enemy of many peoples and to the person who [more than any other] incited and organized the Genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
During that same period many representatives of Soviet Armenia, insulted in their human and national feelings, addressed themselves to you and other responsible authorities, requesting strongly that you condemn the activities of the leadership of the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabakh and punish the guilty. As it became clear to us and it became known to us, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union communicated instructions to the party organization in the Autonomous Region with regard to the mistakes that have been tolerated.
Passions were eased, particularly when the Central Committee of Armenia’s Communist government conducted informational work among the party organizations trying to avoid all kinds of incidents.
Personally, I have met after the plenary session with the leaderships of the Azerbaijani S.S.R and Mountainous Karabakh. The main purpose of my mission was to avoid all kinds of undesirable reactions which were possible in that extremely heated atmosphere. We were all convinced that similar incidents could no longer occur in or about Mountainous Karabakh.
However, all of us were extremely surprised when again today in the current issue of Problems of Peace and Socialism (number 6, 1977), the most widely distributed monthly in the world, considered to be the theoretical and informational publication of the world’s Communist and workers’ parties, published in 32 languages and distributed in 145 countries, I found a discussion of Karabakh, again in the name of the leadership of the Autonomous Region, in which insults addressed to Soviet Armenia. To the natural question as to “why is Mountainous Karabakh under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan and not Soviet Armenia from which it is separated by a narrow strip of land?” they answer that although the Karabakh Autonomous Region is close to the Armenian Soviet Republic, nonetheless, the two are separated by high mountains. Such an argument, allow me to say, is not only ridiculous in our century of technology but is also incorrect.
Throughout the century, the historically Armenian Karabakh region has never been separated from the Armenian motherland by these mountains, which are no different from mountains all over the Caucasus; but that is not the most important point. To the question as to whether everyone has consciously accepted this kind of argument as a reason why a historically Armenian region is cut off from the Armenian motherland and incorporated into a newly established Azerbaijani S.S.R. Armenians answer in the following manner: “I would prefer to have a bad life but be attached to Armenia.”
I think this statement could be made by ever person who has pride, every Russian, Czech, Slovak, Frenchman; every man who loves his fatherland would say that. Every man can state with pride that he has not chosen his fatherland, that he agrees to everything as long as he is attached to his fatherland. The leadership of Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabakh consider such people “backward” and “people who do not understand” but even that is still nothing. Ultimately, each person understands and interprets his own love toward the fatherland in his own way. Consider that such a statement, “Let me live badly but be attached to Armenia,” applies to Soviet Armenia. It is alleged that it is good for an Armenian to live in Azerbaijan and it would be bad for him to live in Soviet Armenia and this is said after the fact that you, dear Leonid, nothing the flourishing and rebirth of Armenia, stated: “The people, Communists, non-party members, workers, peasants, and intelligentsia of Armenia have wonderfully brought together the spirit of patriotism with another, no less valued characteristic, the internationalism of the Soviet man.”
I am convinced deeply that they have misled the editorial collective of the monthly Problems of Peace and Socialism, which includes representatives of Communist and workers’ organizations from 53 countries just as they have misled the authors of the article “We Saw the Brotherhood of Nations.” There is one thing that is not comprehensible. Who benefits from the propaganda of such pan-Islamic ides in our country and in our community? It is incomprehensible that on the eve of the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of Soviet rule to say throughout the world: “Let me be poor but be part of Soviet Armenia.” Does such a statement correspond to the title of the article published in the monthly, “We Saw the Brotherhood of Nations”?
At a time when we are examining the draft of the new constitution for the U.S.S.R., how is it possible to write in 38 languages and to distribute in 15 countries a statement such as: “The Armenian people of Mountainous Karabakh have obtained statehood within Azerbaijan and that fate they have accepted willingly.” This is a grotesque distortion of historical facts.
[…]
Second, the Armenian population of Mountainous Karabakh has never accepted willingly its destiny of today which has meant its separation from the motherland; and such a “destiny” is, in itself, an injustice which must be liquidated because as the great Lenin has said, “Nothing so corrupts or perverts the development and solidification of proletarian class harmony as national injustice.”
Dear Leonid Ilich, this is not the first time that the unresolved problem of Karabakh is disturbing the friendship between the two peoples. You are our hope. We are all hoping that you will finally resolve a question which for more than half a century has embodied injustice.
The Armenian region with its over 80 percent Armenian population, Armenian schools, and official Armenian language that is within the boundaries of our great state must be under the jurisdiction of Soviet Socialist Armenia.
The just solution of this question will be appreciated by peoples as a new victory of the Leninist nationalities policy.
Sincere Respects,
Sero Khanzadian
Member of the Central Committee of Soviet Union, 1943
Writer and Member of Executive Committee of the Writers’ Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics
[Zartonk, Beirut, October 15, 1977]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 49-51.
Image – Shushi
