I am a member of ARF and I am bewildered and aghast that contrary to the pragmatic policies the principals of the first Republic of Armenia pursued, and also contrary to avowed democratic advocacy; the present leaders of ARF lead its rank and file in the diaspora against the government led by Nikol Pashinyan, the citizens of Armenia elected. The attached is my translation of Ara Sanjian’s namesake post on his Facebook page today. Vaհe H Apelian
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| L to R: Prime Ministers Simon Vratsian, Nikol Pashinyan. Courtesy Ara Sanjian |
November 24, 1920
Excerpted from the report of the newly appointed Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Simon Vratsyan, at the session of the Council of Representatives of the ruling ARF Dashnaktsutyun party (November 24, 1920). As a result of the campaign initiated by Kemalist Turkey, Armenia had already lost Kars and Alexandrapol and was preparing to conclude peace with the Ankara government.
"...We have suffered great losses by turning our country into a stage of endless battles and constantly clashing with our neighbors.
"Our experience should lead us to the conviction that we should confine ourselves to our own strengths and not go out to seek new spheres of influence, which could be just as disastrous for us as the ones we have had so far, because external forces always and above all have their own interests in mind; they always try to take and not give. We should have our own orientation, keep our own strengths and our own real valuations in mind when formulating our political programs, of course, adapting to the general conditions. Our historical mistake was that we wanted to implement great political programs with our relatively modest strengths, as a result of which we have always suffered and been defeated on all fronts. We need a stunning blow to wake us up, and that blow has already reached us. Now is the time to wake up." However, this awakening should not reach too extreme a point, something that, unfortunately, is peculiar to our people.
“If from Cilicia to Shushi was too much for our modest forces, if we were too few for those borders, then we are too many for a small Armenia consisting of parts of the Nor-Bayazet and Yerevan regions. And now, criticizing our past practices, we should not fall into exaggerations and adapt our aspirations to our forces. Those who lead our current politics are required to have a political line that will keep us free from foreign political interference, to pursue a political line thanks to which we will be able to maintain our independence, to devote the creative forces of our people to peaceful cultural work.
“And that will happen when we are able to find a common language with our neighboring peoples.
“And I hope that we will be able to find that language and conclude the necessary reconciliation.
“But if it happens that our neighbor does not understand our and his common interests and, intoxicated by his historical victories, wants to trample on our independence and the existence of our people, then we will have the strength and determination to defend ourselves and wage a fateful battle to preserve our independence and the existence of our people.
“And I am convinced that at such a moment our people will be able to sober up and emerge with honor from the grave crisis.”
“At such a moment, I believe, we will not be left alone…” (S. A., “Comrade Georgian Report”, ARF Dashnaktsutyun’s “Harach” official newspaper, second year, No. 262, Sunday, November 28, 1920, page 3)
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| My placement, not in Ara Sanjian's text.. |
April 24, 2026
From the message of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, on behalf of the government of the Republic of Armenia, which lost the war against Azerbaijan in 2020 and failed to prevent the exodus of Armenians from Artsakh in 2023, (instead of translating, I incorporated Nikol Pashinyan’s message Armpress posted).
Below is the full text of Pashinyan’s statement as reported by Armenpress.
“Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
Today we commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915—the Medz Yeghern—and pay tribute to our compatriots who, for being Armenian, were subjected to massacre, deportation, and famine in the Ottoman Empire. The Medz Yeghern is the greatest tragedy that has befallen our people, one that we have been reliving for 111 years.
Every year on April 24, tens of thousands of our citizens march to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to bow before our martyred compatriots. Our nationwide procession on this day is also an expression of reflection, remembrance, historical assessment, and a determination to prevent the recurrence of the Medz Yeghern. It is upon this reflection and determination that the policies of the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the ruling majority in recent years have been based.
By your mandate, citizens of the Republic of Armenia, we have shown resolve to more deeply understand our people’s past and its recurring patterns, in order to prevent their repetition and to build a better present and future.
Today we have reached that goal, including by recognizing that the Medz Yeghern must not be allowed to become a tool in the hands of international actors in their conflicts with one another. The academic volume on the History of Armenia published by our National Academy of Sciences substantiates that the Medz Yeghern was also a consequence of the practice of drawing the Armenian people into international machinations—a practice that began in the mid-19th century and reached its tragic culmination in 1915.
Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia, our people’s greatest aspiration has been fulfilled: we have a state, and we have peace. Statehood and peace are the guarantees that the Armenian Genocide will never happen again.
To realize this historic goal, we must cease searching for a homeland beyond the internationally recognized 29,743 square kilometers of the Republic of Armenia. This territory is not small for the prosperity, development, and well-being of the Armenian people. Today, dozens of our settlements are empty, and many more—as well as our state overall—are underpopulated. This has been due to a lack of peace and an absence of awareness that the homeland is the state, identity is the state, and security is the state—with its internationally recognized borders. Based on this understanding, the Armenian people must move beyond the logic of emigration and wandering.
With its current territory, the Republic of Armenia can become a home to 5 million, even 10 million Armenians. The territory of Singapore is smaller than two-thirds of Lake Sevan, yet 5.5 million people live there, because the state is built on education, self-awareness, peace, and human-centered aspirations. Today we are leading the Republic of Armenia with this very logic—the ideology of a Real Armenia—understanding that peace and security, first and foremost, mean normalized relations with neighbors, based on mutual recognition of territorial integrity, sovereignty, inviolability of borders, and political independence.
Those forces that call for “reclaiming lost homelands,” “restoring historical borders,” and “historical justice” place the Republic of Armenia back on the path of the 1878 San Stefano Conference, whose inevitable final stop is the loss of statehood and homeland. This is because everyone in the world has their own history, their own justice, and their own lost homeland.
We have ultimately escaped this trap, and attempts to drag Armenia back in that direction are an invitation to the gallows for our state and people. At the cost of victims and sacrifices, we have found and rediscovered our homeland, and that homeland is the Republic of Armenia. The repayment of all our martyrs’ sacrifices is the eternity of the Republic of Armenia.
The freedom, security, and well-being of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia are the fulfillment of the aspirations and interrupted dreams of all our martyrs. We are moving along this path. The people of the Republic of Armenia are moving along this path.
Glory to the martyrs, and long live the Republic of Armenia.
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| Not in Ara Sanjian's text |
Ara Sanjian P.S.
“If you have been able to endure this far and have read this much, I would like to add that during my lectures I constantly convey to my students my conviction and suggestion that during historical comparisons, the study of differences is as important as similarities, especially in order to imagine the past as comprehensively as possible.
The government headed by Vratsian, which lasted barely 10-11 days, was forced to renounce the Treaty of Sevres in writing. Vratsian also had publications with the same content in 1921, when he headed the Committee for the Salvation of Armenia for 45 days. Later, however, having become an exile, Vratsian and the ARF returned to the demand for the implementation of Sevres; less than 23 years after the above-mentioned report, in the spring of 1943, Vratsian, who was in America, without first coordinating with the ARF bureau based in Egypt at that time, put forward the idea-demand of annexing the territories promised to Armenia in Sevres to Soviet Armenia. Two more years, and he submitted a petition with the same logic to the founding congress of the UN in San Francisco. Today, perhaps only a few specialists remember Vratsian’s speeches in November 1920-April 1921. Nowadays, when we say Vratsian, other episodes from his long political and publicist biography come to mind.
Twenty-three – 23 - years from today, in 2049, Nikol Pashinyan will be 73 years old. What he will say or write at that time, he, nor those who worship him today, neither those who curse him day and night, know today.
I can present to any audience todsy, how we posthumously remember and appreciate the role of Vratsian in our 20th century history. I will probably not be around the day Pashinyan dies to see what kind of obituaries will be written about him.
What does the parable show? Dear people, be cautious, both when praising and when criticizing. We do not know what tomorrow brings.
