Vahagn Aleksanyan, a true role model

 Vaհe H Apelian

Vahagn Aleksanyan

I pieced together the following information about Vahagn Hovik Aleksanyan from the Armenian Wikipedia. He was born on August 4, 1993 in Ijevan, Armenia. This makes him arguably the youngest independence generation member in the National Assembly, those born in Armenia declared free, independent, democratic on September 21, 1991.   Vahagn was born 2 years, 10 month and 14 days into the second republic.

Vahagn graduated from Yerevan Khachik Dashtents School No. 114. He graduated from Yerevan State University (YSU) Faculty of Oriental Studies.  In 2017-2018, he participated in the Arabic language teaching course at the State University of Jordan (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). In 2019, he graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University and received the qualification of an Arabist.

He is a member of Civil Contract party having assumed various positions. On June 20, 2021, he was elected as a deputy of the 8th convocation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia on the national electoral list of the "Civil Contract" party. He is a member of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security of the National Assembly.

Vahagn Aleksanyan can be outspoken. In 2023, speaking about his military service, he announced from the podium of the National Assembly of Armenia that he was not given a t-shirt and underwear during his military service, blaming the then Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan. He has served the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia from 2014-2016 and holds the military rank of sergeant. 

Vahagn Aleksanyan's mother being harassed.

It turns out that Vahagn has overcome many challenges in his younger life that could have devastated any young man growing in a single family in Armenia when the country was experiencing war, poverty. This revelation came about when his political opponents, in plain daylight and under the watch of recording bystanders started harassing his mother to have her sign in support of Kocharian. As if that was not enough, in the cut throat, shameless Armenian politics, his political opponents started a vicious campaign of innuendos about his mother and about him.

Vahagn Aleksanyan became a victim of families torn apart because of poverty in Armenia, especially during the early decades of the new republic. Many husbands left their families and went abroad, mostly to Russia seeking work. It so happened that many husbands neglected the wife and the family they left behind and got married and settled there. Among them was Vahagn Aleksanyan’s father who left his wife, Vahagn’s mother to take care of the son he left behind. Instead of offering support for the single women raising their children on their own, such woman often become victims of innuendos in the strictly patriarchal closed society of Armenia is. Vahagn Aleksanyan and his mother became no exceptions, to such despicable social trends in Armenia.

The true measure of a person comes about in adversity. Vahagn Aleksanyan lived up to his in a remarkable way. On May 6, 2025, in the National Assembly he confronted those who had harassed his mother and were spreading rumors. He admonished them for not being men enough to confront him but instead they had resorted to harassing his mother.

But in a much more remarkable openness, especially for the closed strictly patriarchal society Armenia is, he said in a public address in the National Assembly that he is one of the thousands and even tens of thousands of children in Armenia who grew in a single family because one of their parents left them and went overseas and settled there with a new family of his own. But he encouraged such children, that in spite of the difficulties and adversities they experience, they can overcome and achieve in life because they are no less than others. 

Vahagn Aleksanyan, well done. I heard you in the National Assembly come in defense of your mother who raised you to become a member of the National Assembly and your encouragement of the many who faced and may even be facing what you faced with your mother in your tender years, but that they too can overcome adversity and achieve.

Vahagn Aleksanyan, you are a true role model for the many young and upcoming in Armenia.