An anniversary that was not meant to be

Vaհe H Apelian

Lately it has become common place to come across on the Armenian social media, announcements of the ARF Day celebrations with most of them, if not all of them, noting ARF’s anniversary year. For example, on January 25, 2023, Sossi Essajanian reported in the Armenian Weekly that the Detroit Armenian community celebrated 132 years of the ARF. The poster for ARF Day in Lebanon also noted the 132nd anniversary.

Historically the decision to denote a day in a year to ARF came about during the 10th ARF World Congress that took place in Paris, France on November 17, 1924, and lasted until January 17, 1925.

The ARF had held the previous 9^th World Congress in Armenia for the very first time. The 9^th World Congress had lasted from September 27, to October 30, 1919, in Yerevan.  A year and a few months later, the short-lived Republic of Armenia lost its independence. Many of the principals that had founded the first republic, had fled to Diaspora escaping the communist retribution. They were formally getting together for first time at the 10^th World Congress. A few months after concluding the congress, on July 25, 1925, Simon Vratsian reflected upon the 10^th World Congress in the ARF organ “Troshag” and wrote: “This World Congress was not just an ordinary convention of a political party, but a kind of parliament.” Surely Simon Vratsian meant to say a parliament in exile. 

 It is that World Congress that ruled that once a year, preferably in the month of November, ARF presented itself to the public and addressed the issues the Armenian nation faced and elaborated to the public the contributions the ARF made to meet the challenges of the day.

The first ARF Day likely took place the following year, in 1926. The eminent editor of the “Haratch Daily”in Paris, Shavarsh Missakian, in a 1926 editorial wrote “The ARF Day is not an anniversary in the literal sense of the word, nor a commemoration of this or that great event, but the condensation of the history of an entire period, with its victories and upheaval. The ARF, established for itself a special day in a year, not only to look at its past 35 years with just pride, as the most powerful impetus to the Armenian liberation struggle, but also to renew itself, to strengthen itself.”

The ARF Day is celebrated regionally, because each region has its own challenges for the ARF to respond. Quoting Shavarsh Missakian, ARF Day is not meant to be “an anniversary celebration in the literal sense of the word.” The number of years since its founding, surely can be noted, but is incidental. The Hnchakian party was founded three years earlier than ARF. That does not confer upon the Hnchakian party any seniority, nor relegates to ARF any lesser status. 

The ARF Day is simply an annual public report to the stakeholder, who naturally is the Armenian people. More than anything else, I liken it to State of the Armenians address. Was, during the past year, the local Armenian community, and hence the Armenian nation better off than it was because of the contribution the ARF rendered?

In the last few years, the once a year  ARF Day  has turned more into an anniversary celebration of sort, and what is more disturbing to me is the fashion that has come about for the attendees to wear an ARF scarf.  If making a statement is warranted, that the scarf should  be the Tricolor that ARF upheld throughout the Soviet Socialist regime in Armenia.

ARF Day is the year’s reckoning, done every year. In the words of Shavarsh Missakian, it is a day for reflection, " to renew itself, to strengthen itself.”