It was exactly 100 years ago when Armenia lost 30 thousand square km of its territories within 6-7 weeks. The leaders of the first republic, who were forced to transfer the political power over to Armenian Bolsheviks, would later write about their own miscalculations and unpragmatic decisions, when instead of engaging in a direct dialogue with Turks and Azerbaijanis, they hoped for support from third parties. You can find self-critical points in the writings of 3 out of 4 Prime Ministers of the first republic – Hovhannes Kajaznuni, Alexander Khatisyan and Simon Vratsyan all touch upon this issue.
Instead of learning from the mistakes of the first republic, modern Armenian political discourse created an unreal world with numerous myths. Like during the first republic, Armenia hoped for a third-party support, overestimated its capabilities, while underestimated the adversary and ended up with the 44-day war losing thousands of lives, large territories and infrastructure.
This devastating war, which lasted for 44 days, many myths created during the last decades were destroyed. Mythical stories and narratives have been dominant in Armenia’s official propaganda, thus blurring people’s minds. I would like to discuss 11 myths, which in my view brought Armenia and its people to the situation where it is now.
Myth #1. Sustaining status quo in Nagorno Karabakh
For over 25 years, we believed that status quo is sustainable in Artsakh. Moreover, there was an unspoken consensus that we can not only keep the status quo for another 25 years, but forever.
The first serious challenge to the status quo came across in 2016. The Azerbaijani offensive in April of 2016 felt like it was a rehearsal for a larger war. Although Azerbaijan was not able to get serious territorial gains, it became clear that the Armenian defense line is not unbreakable. In the very first days of 44-day war, Azerbaijan was able to break through the Armenian defense in Horadiz. If before Khodaferin reservoir the Armenian defense forces fought for a couple of days, after reaching the reservoir it took only a couple of hours for the Azerbaijani army to go through the 50 km of territory with no resistance and get to the border of Meghri.
Myth #2. The Armenian army is invincible
No army in the world is or has ever been invincible. The myth of the Armenian army being unbeatable was created after the 1991-1994 victory in Artsakh. This was a war, which was indeed won by the Armenians, however it was not a regular army fighting, but military formations based on groups of volunteers. This victory was a result of several factors. First and foremost, because of the bravery of Armenian freedom fighters and the courage of Artsakh’s villagers, as well as the internal political turmoil and chaos which existed in Azerbaijan.
Even if we entertain the idea of invincible Armenian military, it was impossible to win the 44-day war against Azerbaijan, Turkey and Islamist mercenaries fighting against Armenians in Artsakh. It was impossible to resist against the attacks of a 21st century army with 20th century military, it was also impossible to imagine that Armenia with its 3 million population, will be able to prevent the offensive of Azerbaijan with 10 million and Turkey with 80 million people.
Yes, Armenia lost in the 44-day war because the forces were unequal. Azerbaijan, Turkey, Islamist mercenaries with the use of Israeli drones were able to get an upper hand during the very first days of the war. Azerbaijani aggression continued until Russia decided to get involved directly and put together a ceasefire deal on November 10th. We need to accept that Armenia lost this war because Azerbaijan did have better prepared, more organized and responsible military. This is the hard truth and we need to accept it. While we hear lies and accusations within the Armenian society, we need to accept this defeat with dignity and try to learn lessons from our past.
Myth # 3. “New war, new territories”
It was Armenia’s post-revolution Defense Minister David Tonoyan who came up with the slogan of “New war, new territories”. Tonoyan’s controversial announcement meant to suggest that if Azerbaijan decides to attack Artsakh, Armenia will be able to not only defend it, but take over more territories from Azerbaijan. This came to add to the already existing maximalist discourse about Armenia’s aspirations of controlling River Arax and “drinking tea in Baku”.
Our soldiers, volunteers and officers who were fighting in the tranches during the 44-day war would mock the Defense minister by saying that Tonoyan was correct, except he should have clarified which country was going to take over those new territories. Now we know, that at this new war Azerbaijan was able to take over 8000 square km of territory from the Armenian control, including the region of Hadrut and the city of Shushi.
Myth #4. Azerbaijan will not wage a war
The myth about the impossibility of Azerbaijani full-scale offensive became secondary after the 4-day April war of 2016, however, many of our compatriots continued to think that it was highly unlikely to expect a serious war coming from Baku. It has been my strong belief that the war was inevitable, and we should have prepared for it, which we did not do. Moreover, we would have been able to avoid this devastating war, if we chose to accept the deal in 1997, which would have meant that we would maintain control over Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, plus Lachin region (over 6000 square km of territory) with its people having the right to vote and veto. We would have twice as much as we have today.
Back in the day, we the Armenians were the party which was pushing for its interests and it was because we won in the war. Today the only thing we can do is accepting Ilham Aliyev’s ultimatums. It would have been possible to avoid this humiliation, if in 1998 members of the political establishment such as Vazgen Sargsyan, Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan and Samvel Babayan were unsuccessful in taking over the political power by bloodless coup d’etat. It would have been possible, if Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian diplomacy and the military leadership were more pragmatic in assessing our abilities as a state.
Myth #5. Turkey will not attack Armenia
One of the delusions in Armenia’s public discourse has been the argument that Turkey will not attack Armenia. My question to the people with this point is, why shouldn’t it? What has changed since 1920? What we have been hearing in response is, if Turkey attacks Armenia, Russia will come to rescue us. My response to this is, why did it not happen 100 years ago in 1920 and if it happens again and Russia does not come to rescue us, how are we going to defend this small piece of land called Armenia?
Myth #6. Armenia can develop with closed borders and no concession
This myth has been entertained not only by regular citizens or people of Armenian descent, but also political parties, some of which included this narrative in their campaign programs. The fact is that with its 3 million population, surrounded by Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia could not resist a Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression.
At this patriotic war there are indeed great stories of courage and selfless service of our soldiers, volunteers and officers, however, we must accept that we lost this war. Between September 27 and November 10 of 2020, during the 44-day war, Armenians had lost several regions including Fizuli, Jebrayil, Zangelan, Kubatlu, parts of Lachin, as well as Hadrut and the city of Shushi, which were part of Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast during the Soviet era. Three additional districts, Aghdam, Karvachar and Lachin were handed over to Azerbaijan, based on the announcement signed by Nikol Pashinyan, Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev.
It is impossible to weigh our human losses. This is a national tragedy, a true disaster. I would argue that this is the biggest defeat of the Armenians in the last 100 years. The previous one being our loss of Kars in 1920. This was the time, when the Armenian government led by Armenian Revolutionary Federation lost over 30 thousand square km of territory. Shortly after that Armenia lost its independence and became part of the Soviet Union.
Today, Armenia and Artsakh have lost 8000 square km of territory, which have been conquered during the 1000 days of war in 1991-1994, with 6000 lost lives. This happened under the leadership of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his “My Step” alliance.
Myth #7. Overestimating the Diaspora
The myths discussed above have been active not only in Armenia and Artsakh, but in different communities of the Armenian Diaspora. There is no doubt that the Diaspora has been standing behind Armenia and Artsakh, however, the scale of the financial and human support of the Armenian Diaspora has been exaggerated. We did not measure our own might correctly. Our approach was not based on pragmatic calculations, while wishful thinking and illusions took us to a catastrophic end.
Myth #8. Azerbaijanis cannot fight, they are stupid cowards
Many of us will remember how the Armenians were mocking Azerbaijanis by calling them lambs. Well, if we believe that Azerbaijanis are cowards, stupid and no fighters, how come we lost in this war against them? You could respond by saying, well it was the big brother Turkey that helped them. My question will be, and so what? Why did nobody help us? Why were we left alone in this war? We all know that we lost the war for Artsakh against Azerbaijan 100 years ago in 1920. Have we thought about why we lost back in the day and why were we left alone like today?
Myth #9. Why is there not enough support from Armenia?
The narrative about Armenia not supporting Artsakh is not just a myth, it is an immoral lie and/or a lack of knowledge. Armenia has fulfilled its motherly obligation by sending its own children to the wolf’s mouth and it could not have been any different. The artificial division between Armenians of Artsakh and Armenia proper is a dangerous myth brought by politicians.
Myth #10. Everyone, or most everyone would accept the return of the territories
This is the so called “Armenian smarts”, when you are not ready to compromise during peace time, while during the catastrophe you not only surrender all you have, but find justifications for what happened by saying that you acted that way to save the nation. If we could have found a way to compromise, we could have simply avoided the catastrophic outcomes which we face today. 100 years ago, we brought identical arguments. The question is, are we going to say the same thing in another century? We seem not to learn from our mistakes and are creating new myths next to the already existing ones.
Myth #11. Nikol Pashinyan and his team are traitors
When you oversimplify a catastrophe of this scale, you basically close the door for thinking, reflecting and analyzing your own past in a levelheaded manner. Let’s assume Pashinyan is a traitor, now how are we going to describe the Prime Minister of the first republic Hamo Ohanjanyan and his party, who lost over 30 thousand square km of Armenia’s territory in only 7 weeks. This is four times more than what we lost in 2020. Pashinyan and Ohanjanyan can be blamed for their infantile maximalism, wrong calculations, irresponsible behavior and many other mistakes. It is my belief, that maximalism, undermining the enemy, overestimating your own might and crucial miscalculations are much bigger accusations than oversimplification of calling people traitors.
Tatul Hakobyan
December 10, 2020
The Valley of Death: 44-day catastrophe – War Diary by Tatul Hakobyan
