Vaհe H Apelian
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| Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Alexander Myasnikian, Hovhannes Kachaznuni, |
A few days ago, on Monday June 23, 2025, Tatul Hakobyan, who undoubtedly is one of the foremost authorities on recent Armenian history, claimed that he thought that Armenia has three major statesmen in the 20th century: Hovhannes Kachaznuni, Alexander Myasnikyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan. He also noted that based on his continued further research, he may add or subtract from this list.
I am not a historian and I am not as knowledgeable of the history of the Republic of Armenia as Tatul Hakobyan is. But I am knowledgeable enough to know that the choices Tatul Hakobyan made pertain to the three stages of the Republic of Armenia in the 20th century.
1. Hovhannes Kajaznuni, pertains to the founding of the Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918. He was its first prime minister.
2. Alexander Myasnikyan pertains to the Sovietization of Armenia as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia where Alexander Myansnikian played a major role. I invite the readers to hear historian Pietro Shakarian’s podcast about Alexander Myasnikyan and other major Soviet Armenia leaders. See the link below.
3. Levon Ter-Petrosyan pertains to the third – second? – Republic of Armenia. He played a pivotal role as Armenian reasserted itself as a free, independent, democratic Republic that came about on September 21, 199.
The first two, Hovhannes Kachaznuni and Alexander Myasnikyan belong to history. Decades have passed since the prominent roles they played in Armenia. They are for historians to study. But the third, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, is very much alive. Many of us, in one way or another, learned of the prominent role he played that will be forever enshrined in the history of Armenia.
I will refrain from expressing my opinion about the first two Tatul Hakobyan presented among the three prominent Armenians in the 20th century. But I will take the liberty of expressing my views about Levon Ter-Petrosyan.
First and foremost, I will make the bold statement that I understand Levon Ter Petrosyan perhaps more than most Armenians do because I am a Kessabtsi and he is a Mussa Dagh Armenian who repatriated to Armenia as an infant with the rest of his family from those years when, to have been a Soviet Armenia leaning person or a family in Kessab, and I imagine also among the Mussa Dagh Armenians, was almost akin to being a leper and expected to live with the rest of lepers in their leper colony. I will refrain from justifying as to why I make such a crude analogy, but I stand with the analogy I made however crude it is, simply because it was a crude reality of the day.
Consequently but arguably for sure, I understand the dichotomy in Levon Ter Petrosyan more than others, from his falling with ARF to his determined support for having Kessabtsi catholicos Karekin I Sarkissian occupy Gregory Illuminator’s throne at Etchiadzin. I also appreciate Levon Ter Petrosyan standing by Rev. Movses Janbazian, himself of Mussa Dagh extraction much like LTP. Rev. Movses Janbazian was the executive director of the AMAA, who was instrumental in reintroducing the Armenian Evangelical Church in Armenia. I read that whenever it happened that the two or three met, they conversed in their native kesbenok dialect of Kessab and of Mussa Dagh. Yes, it is called Kesbenok, the dialect of the Christians in Orontes valley and on its surrounding mountain range in historical Antioch, where Kessab and Mussa Dagh are located.
Without a doubt Levon Ter Petrosyan is the unsurpassed academic intellect who led Armenia during this crucial period of ours. But he also is a controversial statesman, who failed to capitalize on his unique status as an elder statesman. I believe the very foundation of the emerging republic would have been different, had he not relied or given free rein to his controversial interior minister Vano Siradeghyan who spent the last decade or two of his life hiding from law, apparently in plain view of those who mattered. Wikipeida notes that Vano Smbati Siradeghyan was an Armenian politician and writer. He held several high-ranked positions in the 1990s. He served as Minister of Internal Affairs from 1992 and 1996 and as Mayor of Yerevan from 1996 to 1998.
Levon Ter Petrosyan led Armenia as it made the transition from a Soviet Republic to a free, independent, democratic state. He was the last to head Armenia as a Soviet Republic and was also the first denizen elected as the president of the new republic.
He burst onto the Armenian history as the leader of Karabakh Committee in Armenia, subsequently as the President of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia and was the signatory of the Armenian Declaration of Independence and on November 11, 1991, he was elected as the president of Republic of Armenia.
The first Karabagh liberation war ended under his watch with the signing of a ceasefire agreement (the Bishkek Protocol) between the warring parties that came into effect on 12 May 1994.
LTP will go in history for his “War or Peace, Time to get Serious” position paper that came about on November 1, 1997, three years after the halting of the Karabagh hostilities (see the link below).
In his historical position paper, he advocated major concessions for resolution of the Karabagh conflict. He emphatically noted that, “Rejection of compromise and maximalism (striving to achieve the maximum and not the possible) is the shortest way to the complete destruction of Karabakh and deterioration of the situation in Armenia,” and prophetically noted that “it is not about giving or not giving Karabakh. It is about keeping Karabakh Armenian. It was inhabited by Armenians for 3000 years and it should be inhabited by Armenians after 3000 years.”
Regretfully LTP’s negotiating position outlined in that document resulted in the palace coup engineered by the very same persons whose political fortunes were facilitated by him.
Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sargsyan, Vazken Sarkissian and Vartan Oskanian led a palace coup that resulted in LTP’s resignation and ushered the country onto a 20 years long catastrophic policy that culminated in the disastrous 44-Day second Artsakh War under PM Nikol Pashinyan’s watch.
The rest is the unfolding of the tragic Armenian history.
Being a controversial does not lessen LTP for being a contender as one of the greatest Armenian statesmen of the 20th century. In time, it will be the unfolding of the historical events that will be the final arbiter of the true measure of any statesman, including LTP.
I am blogger and the remarks I made in this blog should be taken in advisement.
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Link 1: Pietro A. Shakarian: Seven who made (Armenian) history: https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2022/07/seven-who-made-history.html
Link 2: A document for history: “War or peace, time to get serious" - "Պատերազմ թէ՞ խաղաղութիւն՝ լրջանալու պահը" - Introduction:
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