An Armenian Brand Bloodless Revolution

Vahe H. Apelian 

 

The 40 days that span from March 31, 2018 to May 8, 2018, with both dates inclusive. During that period a fundamental change took place in the governance of Republic of Armenia.  The revolution came to be known as the Velvet Revolution. It was an Armenian brand, bloodless, bloodless. It may very well be, next to the declaration of the free and independent Armenia on May 28, 1928,  the most consequential event in Armenia's modern history

Recently I read  «Հայկական Թավշյա Հեղափոխություն»- “The Armenian Velvet Revolution”, to learn the course of the revolution. . It appears that the original text of the book was not in Armenian as it acknowledges Loucine’ Sargsyan (Լուսինէ Սարգսյան) as its translator and lists Galya Hovhannisyan (Գալյա Յովհաննիսեան), as the publishing editor, Heghine’ Peloyan (Հեղինէ Փիլոյան), as the typesetter, and Arapo Sargsyan (Արաբո Սարգսյան) as the formatter. 

Stepan Grigoryan (Ստեփան Գրիգորյան), who is a physicist by educational training, has authored the book. He was born in Tbilisi on September 24, 1953. From 1975 to 1983 he was affiliated with the prestigious A. Alikhanian Yerevan Institute of Physics in Yerevan. He has authored many scientific as well as social or political papers. He has also assumed different positions in the government and in the private sector.  He is married and they are parents to a son a daughter.

The book  book is in a soft cover and was published on March 16, 2019 by Edit Print publisher. It measures 6x8 inches. It is 183 pages long including the foreword, table of contents, acknowledgments and the listing of the photographs in the book and their photographers and the author’s closing statment. On a front cover inside flip, the biogrpaphy of Nikol Pashinyan is listed and on the back cover inside flip the biography of the author is listed. It is in an easy to read script size on white glossy paper and contains many colored pictures depicting the historic event.

The Barnes and Nobles overview of the book accurately notes the following: “The book discussed the political situation in Armenia in recent years and presents a chronology and analysis of the political processes in the country from March 31, 2018, when the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan and his allies started a march from Vardanants, the center square in Gyumri, to Yerevan until May 8, 2018, when the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia elected Nikol Pashinyan prime minister of the country in a special session.”

The content of the books is divided into two sectors. The first contains 7 sections. This section jump starts with the historic meeting between the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan and PM Serzh Sargsyan in the Marriott Hotel reception hall in downtown Yerevan that ended with the PM holding Nikol Pashinyan accountable for the turmoil in the country and reminding him of the March 1, 2008 incident. From there the author takes the readers through grievances people harbored regarding the Serzh Sargsyan rule, the prevailing corruption and to the constitutional change from a presidential form republic to a parliamentarian form. To make his point that the people were caught in a dilemma he cites the example of an incident that had nothing to do with the turmoil in the country but in his estimation presented a graphical picture of the dilemma the people were facing. On May 3, a police captain attacked a bank but it was the people who intervened to take control of the situation and resolve the issue, blurring the responsibility for keeping law and order in the country. This section analyzes grievances and is the shorter of the two sectors of the book and extends from page 12 to page 54.

The second sector is the longest and gives a detailed chronology of the events that transpired from the day Nikol Pashinyan took his first step, of what came to be known as "My Step" movment, on March 31, 2018 from downtown Gyumri to his arrival to Yerevan on April 13, and from there to his election as the Prime Minister by a special session of the National Assembly of Armenia on May 8, 2018 in Yerevan.

This sector contains 5 sections and is detailed in chronology not only by day but also at times by the hour. It starts from page 58 and ends on page 179.

The five sections are as follow:

The first section starts from March 31 and end on April 12 (pages 62 to 63). It covers the start of the “My Step” march headed by Nikol Pashinyan from Vardanants center in Gyumri to Yerevan that lasted until April 12. 

The second section starts from April 13 and ends April 15 (pages 64 to 69). It covers the opposition starting its demonstrations in Yerevan

The third section starts from April 16 and end on 18 (pages 70-89). It covers the spread of the public demonstrations in many parts of the country while on April 17 in a snap session the National Assembly of Armenia elected Serzh Sargsyan as its Prime Minister. 

The fourth section starts from April 19 and ends on 24 (pages 90 to 128). It covers the continued spread of public demonstrations and acts of public civic disobedience and PM Sargsyan’s call on April 21 for negotiating with Nikol Pashinyan for a common ground. The call, the author noted, was wholeheartedly endorsed by the ARF. However, on April 22, the two negotiators had diametrically opposing stands. While PM Sargsyan had presented itself for negotiating, Nikol Pashinyan stated that he had come to meet the PM to discuss the terms of his resignation. The author had already alluded about that historic meeting earlier in his book. The following day, on April 23 afternoon, the PM Serzh Sargsyan announced his resignation with his famous statement that will reverberate into history, that he was wrong and Nikol Pachinyan was right. 

The fifth section is the last section. It  starts on April 25 and ends on May 8 (pages 129 to 178). It starts with Nikol Pashinyan ruling that the resignation of the PM Sargsyan was in effect but no one from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia could assume the premiership. On May 1, Nikol Pashinyan conveyed his vision to the National Assembly of Armenia as a candidate for Prime Minister and on May 8, he was elected the PM by a vote of 59 in favor to 42 opposing him. 53 votes were needed for his election. The author noted that ARF, which  broke rank with the Republican Party of Armenia, voted in favor of Nikol Pashinyan’s election as the PM. Without their votes, NP  would not have been elected as the PM of the third republic of Armenia, a parliamentarian form of a republic.

The book ends with the author’s closuring text analyzing the event giving his assessment of the historic Velvet Revolution of Armenia.

In my view it was a unique and an Armenian brand bloodless revolution and it differed from the revolutions I had read because all previous revolutions I have read that brought a change in governance were bloody and subverted the existing order in favor of tribunals and the revolution's vision. But they all failed. Russian communist revolution imploded into a quasi, unregulated capitalism. The Chinese revolution morphed into a one party rule again overseeing their brand of capitalism. Cuban revolution morphed into a dictatorship of sort. The Armenian Velvet Revolution was bloodless and it upheld the existing order but aimed to amend it and had the promise of a fundamental but lasting change. But there came upon the Covid-19 pandemics and the war and brought it at a crossroad where we are now as a nation.

This was the first book I read in modern Armenian language during the recent years. Modern Armenian (Arti Hayeren –Արդի . Հայերէն) is a term that is commonly referred to nowadays especially in the academic circles in Armenia. I have been an avid reader in Armenian and my mother, who was a teacher of Armenian language and literature, had ascribed my poor grammar to my reading in Soviet Armenian dictation, known as Apeghian dictation. Reading this book was also a realization that our language is also undergoing a seismic revolutionay change. I would not have been able to understand some of the words used in book had I not known English for they were Armenianized foreign words and their use is becoming common place. But that is an altogether a different matter.