“Յաղթելու Ենք” - «We Shall Prevail»

Vahe H. Apelian

 

During the 44-days war, which basically was Armenia’s military response to the TurkaBaijan’s aerial and land blitzkrieg, the PM of Armenia came with the following battle cry,  “Յաղթելու ենք”. The translation of which is “We Shall Prevail”.

Regretfully, as we all know, Armenia lost the war against far superior military alliance of Turkey and Azerbaijan. The alliance was aided by hordes of mercenaries from Syria, Pakistan. There were other nations who militarily aligned with the Turks and Azeris, against Armenia although they did not take active participation in the war, such as Ukraine and Pakistan and maybe others as well. Armenia militarily confronted the unprovoked attack unliterally. No country came to its aid.

After the disastrous defeat, many factions in Armenia resorted  to ridiculing the PM’s choice “Յաղթելու Ենք” -  «We Shell Prevail» for battle cry claiming that it was misleading. Strangely some factions of Armenians in the Diaspora, who understandably did not take part in the battle, started echoing the same ridicule.

The claim that the battle cry was misleading is driven politically because  “Յաղթելու Ենք” -  «We Shell Prevail» was not and linguistically cannot be taken as a  public assurance that Armenia was posed to prevail in the war.

Much like in English, “shall” does not necessarily imply assurance, although it can but should be read in context.

Shall  refers to something that one intends to do.  It can also refer to something that is bound to happen but that does not mean that it necessarily will,  such as when we say:  “we shall be landing at such a such time.” One can bring many other such examples such as “the president shall be in office until 2024”. That does not mean that the president will be in office until the said time. 

I have taken a strong aversion against those who resorted ridiculing the PM’s “Յաղթելու Ենք” or “We shall overcome”  battle cry, and I wonder, what would have been their choice for a battle cry. 

Although many echoed the ridicule and continue to do so,  but  so far, no one has proposed any other,  even as a hindsight.  

On a further note, Krikor Kradjian recently noted in his email to his friends that the Soviet forces had adopted the same slogan - “Յաղթելու Ենք” or “We shall overcome” -  in their fight against the Nazis in the second world war during which, it is claimed that the Armenians lost disproportionally many more, some  300,000 combatants staking the viability of Armenia as a sovereign state. The Armenians refer to that war as the Great Patriotic war

Armenia celebrates the event to this day  on May 9^th as the Victory Day. Quoting Wikipeida “On May 9th Russia and a handful of former Soviet Union republics celebrate Victory Day, which marks the day after Nazi Germany surrendered and Soviet forces took control of Berlin, bringing the second world war (also referred to as 'The Great Patriotic War' in Russia) in Europe to an end.”