Alone with Myself

Alone with Myself or How to Reach You, Descendants! by Leonid Karakhanovich Hurunts. A posthumous publication of entries from 1975-1982. Translated from the original Russian to English by Learn for Artsakh. 

Part Two: Fires in Karabakh - About Karabakh Itself

From the Author

The records I keep are, of course, not to be made public, at least not for decades to come. But I still keep them, like the fabulous barber of King Midas. Remember, not daring to divulge the secret, but not knowing how to be silent, he whispers it at night in a deaf, deserted forest. But we also know another tale, also about a barber, very similar to this one. Alexander the Great, as legend tells, had horns, the existence of which only his personal barber knew. The unfortunate man languished for a long time, not knowing what to do with this secret: to divulge it was to risk his life, but it was unbearable to remain silent. The barber of Macedon found another way out. He entrusted this secret to a lonely well in the steppe, into which, bending down, he whispered, “Alexander the Great has horns on his head. Alexander the Great has horns on his head…”

Years have passed. Many, many years. One day a shepherd, grazing his flock near this well, saw that reeds were growing at the bottom of it. He descended into the well, chose one reed and made himself a flute. But when he began to play it, instead of a song, words suddenly flew out of it, “Alexander the Great has horns on his head. Alexander the Great has horns on his head…”

So I hope for a fabulous flute. To the shepherd who will extract from these records the cry of my soul. This mournful voice will bring to posterity.

Fire in Karabakh

These are not the fires of friendship. Not the fires of brotherhood. These are the fires of nationalism. Bonfires, the fire of which burns the holy of holies – friendship. Bonfires that also kindle enmity between peoples. Here we will talk about bonfires that do not unite nations, but divide them; about the newly-minted Nazis, pursuing a policy of oppression of one nation by another, a policy of national discrimination and enmity; about a sinking ship without a distress signal. And all this under the marches of internationalism, under the guise of well-being and the cover of verbal tinsel. And all this in Karabakh, small Karabakh, which has so many big enemies. These are the fires we want to talk about here.

It has become fashionable to talk about Karabakh, to look for a place for it on earth. Fool’s errand! Karabakh has its place. These are its mountains, its imperishable Gandzasar, gray-haired Amaras, its unique courageous history - the history of Armenia with all its pains and joys. And there exists not a single force strong enough to move my Karabakh from its place even one inch. 

No one now doubts that a complaint will not make anyone feel sorry. Complaints are simply ignored. And if they are read, they are forwarded to local authorities. And most often it falls into the hands of the one you complain about. I was convinced of this when I got involved in a fight for Karabakh. And the fight was shameful: the half-wit Kevorkov - Vasak Syuni1 - spat on our souls, insulted Karabakh, its history. I, like many others, dared to stand up for Karabakh, for its honor. I began to write letters and telegrams. To all high authorities. To prove something, to convince. It didn't work out. Bumps amassed, and the benefits of all my writings are not worth a penny. Unquenchable bonfires of national disaster are burning in all corners of Karabakh and there is no end to them.

I do not have at hand the full documentary evidence of the breadth and extent of these disasters. This requires statistics, analysis, and generalizations. Hope others do it. I'm only talking about what I see, what's in my field of vision.

But First, About Karabakh Itself

“Armenia was a crossroads of centuries and destinies, catastrophes and upsurges, barbarism and insight, and every stone on its roads has traces of blood and fire, traces of the look of a genius and calluses of a builder. You only need to be able to peer into these stones burned by the blessed sun. You just need to be able to read on these stones the living soul of the history of the people, their struggle and suffering, their courage and patience, their indestructible faith in the triumph of their destiny.” - Mikhail Dudin

Nagorno-Karabakh is my love and constant pain. And when your loved one is sick, you suffer with him. My Karabakh is seriously ill. My native torn-away Karabakh, my Hiroshima! How can I save you from your serious illness, whose name is EVIL! 

My Karabakh is a part of this land. Tyranny reigns there now. She is no stranger to resentment or evil fantasies. She saw everything: the persecution of people, mules, even donkeys. But the people, driven by fate, did not submit to it, and remained on their land. Mulberry brought its gifts in due time - the sweetest berries in the world, delighting the people who raised them. 

My region is sick. It is degrading with catastrophic speed. The lark flew from her shoulder. She is in the air, waiting for a change to return to her promised place. Help people. My land is waiting for a healer, waiting for its lark that has flown from its shoulder ... And yet, how to be? How to be a writer who cannot be silent, but is not able to change anything. The writer, who was ordered to go to Karabakh. The writer who, with all his books, is calmly weighed on the scales by a werewolf, devoid of all human qualities, but endowed with power, a long stick that can stop any word dispute with a blow to the crown of the head ... And yet we are waiting for a miracle, a lark on our shoulder, on the land of Karabakh.

"Friendship of Peoples." Isn't it a wonderful common phrase? Union of peoples - how great it is. It is no coincidence that this union has become our coat of arms, our greatest asset, the greatest strength of Soviet society. And we know what a difficult birth this friendship had. It was born in the class battles against the autocracy, in the struggle for the victory of October, grew stronger at the construction sites of the five-year plans, and was tempered in the fire of the Great Patriotic War. But we are able, endowed with an amazing ability, while retaining the outer shell, to radically change the content, the essence.

What remains of our friendship, of all its achievements, if you take Karabakh, Baku, Kirovabad, Nakhichevan as an example? This is only in one Azerbaijan. Nothing. A soap bubble, blow harder, and it will burst, a thin shell will scatter. However, here it seems to have already burst.

Let's turn to the facts. Armenians flee from Azerbaijan. Not only the Armenians are fleeing, but they are the main detachment in this stream of fugitives. They are fleeing from the fire kindled by the newly-minted nationalists, from the Ataturks, who have not yet thrown off the Red Army communal apartments - it is more convenient to deceive gullible judges. This is the flight of people from reprisals against them under the mute of unctuous talk about friendship, brotherhood, internationalism.

We wonder how Lenin could believe in the buffoonery of Ataturk, who repainted himself as a revolutionary, in red, and we are not surprised at the belief in Heydar Aliyev. Aliyev is the same Ataturk, who has not yet thrown off his communards. Friendship of Peoples. We constantly talk about what is not, does not exist in practice. The current 75th year is the year of the triumphal procession of Azerbaijani nationalism, Azerbaijani pan-Turkism. There has never been such rampant nationalism, such a flight of Armenians from the republic, even under the ferocious Bagirov.

L. I. Brezhnev once said in one of his speeches: “We have been and remain irreconcilable to any manifestations of national hatred, chauvinism, nationalism.” Words, words! I have personally addressed Brezhnev more than once, pointing out the flagrant manifestations of nationalism in Nagorno-Karabakh - and complete silence. I did not notice any intransigence towards manifestations of nationalism behind him. It's the same optical illusion. Attention. To our great heritage - the friendship of peoples, a fickle cord has been connected. One end is lit. Stop the fire! I reach for this cord, I want to bring down the fire, but they hit me on the arm. What are you up to, you fool?

They say you shouldn't go to war without a chance of winning. I disagree. You need to join the fight, even if you know that your death will not change anything. And I'm crawling, crawling to this dangerous cord. Go ahead, old man, no chance of winning.

I remember that in the twenties, under the Musavatists, when Armenian villages blazed up, set on fire by Azerbaijanis, my uncle mounted a horse and headed for Novruzla, an Azerbaijani village where he had a winery. He bought standing grapes there and crushed them. I am talking about Harutyun Hovhannisyan, a well-known winemaker in Karabakh, about whom I wrote more than once.

“Where are you going, Harutyun, the hour is uneven, they will shoot you on the way!”

To all these warnings, he answered in one word, “The Azerbaijanis will not touch me. I didn't harm any of them.”

And whipping his horse, he rode his way. But I think that the uncle was not touched, not because he did not harm them. Uncle then was very needed by the Azerbaijanis. At that time, Azerbaijanis did not yet produce wine; without an uncle, the grapes would have disappeared. And this uncle's need was his shield. I'm going to Karabakh. Can I make such a trip today without fear for my life? My need for Karabakh did not become my shield.

I can't make sense of the argument. We are talking about the place of Karabakh: where should it be, as part of Azerbaijan or Armenia? Leaving aside the absurdity of the subject of the dispute - such a question does not exist. The place of Karabakh is determined by history itself, its blood connection with the native Armenian land, with Armenia. Let's talk about the essence of the dispute. For some reason, those who believe that Karabakh's place within Azerbaijan are internationalists, while the other side, who holds the opposite opinion, is nationalist. Where is the logic, a hint of logic, at least a drop of common sense? It does not exist, this common sense, just as it does not exist, however, in our entire everyday life. And the controversy continues. Like those medieval scholastics arguing about how many devils can be placed on the head of a pin.

I live in Armenia, already almost without the right to travel to Karabakh, I live as if in emigration. Such conditions are created. But Karabakh still continues to be a source of moral and creative forces for me. I always feel like her son, and the more they oppress her, the more I feel in myself this kinship, this intimate, unchanging love for her. This love for my native land cannot be stifled either by Kevorkov's vanity or the evil hand of his executors. I, writing these lines, believe that truth will win, justice will prevail, that the ancient land of Karabakh will be freed from captivity, will return to its foremother, to sorrowful, unfortunate Armenia.

Moscow's indifference to injustice has no limits. Whatever conflict arises in Karabakh, it ends with the flogging of the Armenians. I do not remember a case when an Armenian, turning to Moscow with his truth, achieved anything, even the most meager justice. Let us cite such an anecdotal case with the expulsion from the region and the expulsion from the party of the candidate of philological sciences Jean Andrian. Baku refused to include many Armenian monuments of antiquity, including the famous churches of Akuletsi and others, in the list for state protection of Karabakh, arguing that these were religious centers where people were drugged, etc. True, the only mosque in Shushi… was turned into a museum. Jean Andrian worked in the department of culture. When discussing this issue, he dropped: “You might think that Marxism-Leninism was preached in the Shushi mosque at that time.” That was enough. "Yerevanism"... Is this story not an anecdote? Yervand Baghdasaryan, deputy chairman of the regional executive committee, went to Yerevan, defended his candidate's thesis, and returned - already out of work. Dismissed from a high position. This is how his comrades, leaders of the region, congratulated him.

The fact that Azerbaijani nationalism did not arise today, but grew from year to year, taking on monstrous proportions, is evidenced by such a fact taken from the recent past. Raise the materials on the state loan: how many bonds were sold among collective farmers in the poor mountain villages of Nagorno-Karabakh and how many for the same number of households in the rich Azerbaijani villages of the fertile lowland? Let's name these figures: 300 thousand rubles were signed by the Armenians of poor mountain villages, 50 thousand - by Azerbaijani rich owners of the lowlands. They would have seen how they took the last cow from the yard of a poor peasant to pay off a loan debt, how they opened the roof, ripped off the iron, leaving the family in the open - also to pay off the debt.

Will you say why you were silent, why you didn't write to Moscow? We wrote. But the complaints were sent to Baku, people came from there - no longer to analyze complaints, but to identify the organizers of collective letters, letters of complaint. The complaints ended.

More examples? Please. Also from the recent past. Back in tsarist times, an Armenian engineer Pirumov presented a project for the construction of a narrow-gauge railway between Yevlakh and Nagorno-Karabakh. This road was built in Soviet times, but did not last long. Responsible officials of Azerbaijan demolished it. Ask why? The railway would undoubtedly enable the Armenian population to export agricultural products to distant markets, would raise the economy and the well-being of the people. Fifteen years later, Azerbaijan is building a wide-gauge railway there, which, however, runs through the Azerbaijani regions, bypassing... Nagorno-Karabakh.

There used to be handicraft enterprises in Nagorno-Karabakh: brick, tile, pottery, saddlery, lime. There were enterprises for the manufacture of millstones for mills, wineries and many others. The mountains of Karabakh are rich in valuable minerals - building stone, marble of different colors, building materials, forests, alpine meadows. And what beautiful places, mineral springs, mountain rivers are here! What wonderful rest houses and sanatoriums could be built here! But there is none of that. There are no sanatoriums, rest houses, and if there are, then only in Shushi and in the Shushi region, where, after the massacre of Armenians in 1920, mainly Azerbaijanis live.

A characteristic detail: oil is produced in areas bordering the NKAO, but the line of the NKAO is not crossed. Isn't it strange? Seeing the situation in the region, one of its leaders, comrade Sarkisov decided to send a letter to the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Party. “To raise the economy of the region, it is necessary to restore the railway, build irrigation canals, and create industrial facilities,” Sarkisov wrote.

The answer was noteworthy. Comrade Sarkisov was immediately removed from the post of second secretary, barely holding on to the party. He was no longer allowed to work in the party. An Armenian in party work in Azerbaijan should move up the career ladder only over the corpses of other Armenians, infringing and trampling on their interests. It was like that under Bagirov, and it continues like this now, I'm not afraid to say - more frankly and more cynically - under Heydar Aliyev.

The economy of Nagorno-Karabakh is developing extremely poorly. For many, many years, nothing has been built here. This is a fact that can be verified. Compare the development of the regions of Azerbaijan, for example, Agdam, Mirbashir, Barda, Sumgayit, Khachmas, Khudat, Yevlakh, Kirovabad and others, with the regions of the NKAO - Mardakert, Hadrut, Martuni. While the former developed into large industrial cities, the latter remained villages. A correction is needed here. One of the regions of Karabakh in Azerbaijan in a special account is Shushi. This area is in great favor with the republic. Still, Azerbaijanis live there! Try to find here "a fair distribution of wealth among all nations" - the words that I read in one of the party documents of the republic. However, it is not today that people in Azerbaijan have learned to fool with words. Count how many crackling words, assurances of friendship, internationalism were uttered after one obviously nationalist report by Kevorkov at the plenum of the NKAO! And imagine, they believed again, again they mistook a wolf for a roe deer.

For centuries, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh have planted mulberry trees in their gardens. Mulberry berries are dried, pekmez is boiled from them - medicinal syrup, and vodka is driven. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, taking advantage of the decision of the Union government to combat moonshiners and grain thieves, ordered to cut down all mulberry trees and orchards in Nagorno-Karabakh, depriving the collective farms of even a small source of income. Why, you ask? After all, collective farms handed over alcohol to the state, like other agricultural products. 45 bulldozers in one day rushed into centuries-old trees, destroying almost 80 percent of the gardens. Only the intervention of the Izvestia newspaper, however, with a great delay, saved the mulberries from its final extermination. Why was this done? Isn't it clear? To undermine the farms of the peasants and force them to leave their homes - a kind of genocide, forcing the Armenians to leave the borders of Karabakh.

We have an expression in the mountains: “The owner of the herd mourns for the bullied ram, and the wolf for the rest.” We say that for many years of Soviet power, Azerbaijan did not lift a finger to create any tolerable industry in Karabakh, and it seems to Azerbaijan that even what we have is too much for Karabakh. And they decided, in front of the entire Soviet Union, to take an unheard-of act - to liquidate in Nagorno-Karabakh even that small industry that still existed. They suggested transferring a motor transport convoy, a slaughterhouse and other enterprises of Karabakh to Aghdam, and a silk-winding factory to Nukha, etc. That is, to deprive thousands of people of their jobs. It turns out that mulberries will be grown in the NKAO, and the factory will be two hundred kilometers away, in Nukha.

How could the leaders of Azerbaijan in the Soviet country decide on such a daring act? But they made up their minds!

Looking ahead, let's say: they decided because all similar actions against the Armenians had previously taken place with impunity. They simply systematically continue the plan thought out by Bagirov to deprive the NKAO and other Armenian regions of the economic base, creating the prerequisites for the flight of Armenians from their homes, their evacuation "of their own free will."

I have already said that the leaders of Azerbaijan in their actions against the Armenians have always resorted to the help of the Armenians. They relied on them, very cleverly, cunningly selecting for this the appropriate people who were ready to give up the interests of their native people for a warm place. There have always been enough such traitors among all peoples at all times. Among the Armenians of Azerbaijan, treacherous qualities have been encouraged for many years, cultivated consciously. Here is the situation. The Karabakh Poem was published in Moscow at the height of frenzied nationalism in Azerbaijan, when Armenians due to "unreliability" were expelled from Baku and other regions of Azerbaijan, driven to the North. People were evicted to the streets, and therefore it was not surprising to fall under the hot hand of the newly-minted "Janissaries."

The appearance of the Karabakh Poem during this period was tantamount to the most unheard of crime. I was on the “blacklist” and if I avoided deportation, it was completely by accident. Azerbaijani writers - Samed Vurgun, Mirza Ibrahimov, Mehdi Hussein began to study me, each in his own way, according to his temperament.

In the office of Samed Vurgun, at that time he was the chairman of the Writers' Union of Azerbaijan, we had the following dialogue:

“You want to give Karabakh to your compatriots, you fool, mister Hurunts.” (I omit many other epithets).

“From where is that visible, Samad? Is this in the book?”

“You're not stupid enough to write this.”

“So what's the deal?”

“Why Karabakh? You don't have many other places? What did you do - ‘Karabakh! Karabakh!’ Follow in the footsteps of this crazy old woman!” (The crazy old woman is Marietta Shaginyan2, against whom Bagirov took up arms at that time. More on that later). “You sit in the boat, you fight with the boatman. If life is bad for you in Baku, I will find you a better place…”

A gesture towards the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was located opposite the Writers' Union, through the area of ​​26 commissars.

Mehdi Hussein, one of the leaders of the Writers' Union, at that time the editor of an Azerbaijani magazine, somehow went to the editorial office of a Russian magazine, where I happened to be. In the room, besides me, there were also Yuri Granin and Joseph Oratovsky, my good friends. Mehdi Hussein addresses them:

“Comrade Russian writers, in particular, Oratovsky and Granin.” I did not like it.

“Comrade Mehdi Hussein, you say that as if I were a French writer.”

Mehdi Hussein: “You are not French or Russian ... You are a Dashnak.”

“This from the Musavatist.”

There was an uproar, mutual insults rained down. The writers who were in the neighboring rooms came running. Among them, I remember, was Mirza Ibragimov, who immediately joined the squabble, of course, not on my side. And all because of the Karabakh Poem, which none of them read. She pissed everyone off with just her name. My first book - and no joy from it, only grief.

I took it and wrote to Bagirov about everything. The reaction was amazing. At night, Bagirov called the editor of the Baku Armenian newspaper Kommunist, Grigoryan, and asked if he had the Karabakh Poem. Grigoryan had it. At two o'clock in the morning the book was delivered to Bagirov, and at twelve o'clock in the afternoon the telephone rang at the editor of the Baku Worker newspaper. At the end of the Bagirov wire: “Do you have the Karabakh Poem?”

It was on the editor's desk.

“What are you waiting for? For it to be chewed and put in your mouth? The book is good, write.”

It was a call equal to Stalin's call. All my enemies were defeated, you should have seen how ingratiatingly they apologized. They started talking about the Karabakh Poem... Of course, I fell out of the black list. The gesture on Bagirov's part was insidious, with a long-range aim, but then I did not understand anything and began to idolize him, calling him a friend of the Armenians and a great internationalist.

Exactly one month later, the war against Marietta Shaginyan began, and I was invited to the Central Committee to put my signature under the devastating article against her. Hasanov spoke to me - after Bagirov, the second person in the republic. I refused, motivating my refusal by the fact that she was like a foster mother to me: she introduced me to literature, she was the first to say a kind word about me. Hasanov did not insist. I left home without much loss.

I worked in the radio committee, the editor of the Russian literary broadcasting, and no one touched me. "Weasel" Bagirov was still in force. But less than two months later, I was again summoned to the Central Committee, to the same Hasanov. This time the scapegoat was Georgy Kholopov with his novel Fires of the Bay. This novel, as you know, is about Azerbaijan. It was first published in the Zvezda magazine, was well received in the republic, and came out as a separate publication. And suddenly they realized that its author, Georgy Kholopov, was an Armenian. And the province went to write! The author of the article is a certain geek, a former Izvestia correspondent who became the editor of Baku Rabochy. It was written evilly, unacceptably rudely, with the intended intent to destroy the author. Good thing I read the novel. Everything in the article was distorted. And I began to explain this to Hasanov.

“What? Won't you sign?”

“I won’t, Comrade Hasanov. I said the article is wrong…”

“Fine,” Hasanov said dryly. “Go.”

I was not a traitor. In vain, it turns out, they treated me kindly. It's time to end this. Three days later I left my post. Further stay in Baku became dangerous, and I soon moved to Yerevan.

But I seem to have gone off topic. So, Karabakh with its misadventures, which have no number, no end. Let's go back to the Armenians, who betrayed and sacrificed the interests of their people. Such was the case at the time described by the Secretary of the Regional Party Committee Shakhnazarov, who gave his consent to the destruction of the industrial facilities of the NKAO.

I did not mention one more Jesuitical detail - about the use of Armenians in unseemly actions of expelling our compatriots from the republic. At the very height of the reprisals against the Armenians, when the Armenian population of an entire block or street disappears at night, suddenly people pick up a newspaper in the morning and see a miracle: the director or chief engineer, an Azerbaijani, has been removed, and some Avnatanyan has been appointed in his place. People who packed their bags during the night in order to clean themselves for good, for health, in the morning after such a gesture, they begin to unpack their suitcases. With one Avnatanyan, Bagirov killed two birds with one stone. First - a mask, a screen. Still, it was under Stalin, whose temper no one knew properly - what if this night eviction of the “unreliable” did not please him? What then, after all, in the same manner, Bagirov himself may turn out to be “unreliable.” On the hook of Stalin and worse fish came across. Secondly: look, Armenians, Bagirov himself appointed Avnatanyan. So sit down, wait for the night visitors.

The population did not allow the dismantling of industrial facilities in the NKAO. All the efforts of the sell-out Shakhnazarov did not lead to anything. At one meeting, some old man planted in the face of the first secretary: “Your great-grandfather Melik-Shakhnazar was the largest landowner in Karabakh. He sold Shushi to the Iranian Fatali Khan, and you are selling the entire Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan!”

How did it all end? Still, it was not possible to dismantle industrial facilities, but the "instigators" ended up behind bars. The long stick was again in the hands of the offender. We must pay tribute, not all leaders could be bribed, and there were those who did not succumb either to affection, or to a long ruble or position. This turned out to be, they say, the Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee Comrade Shahramanyan. He allowed himself to speak negatively about the sensational case of the liquidation of industrial facilities in Karabakh.

Some time later, near Agdam, an assassination attempt was organized on the car of Shahramanyan, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The driver was killed. Shahramanyan was lightly wounded, and the Secretary of the District Committee, Oganjanyan, who was traveling with him, was seriously wounded ... We move on, closer to our days, to Heydar Aliyev, who in his actions against the Armenians has long outdone Bagirov and all the secretaries after him.

If under Bagirov there was still an Armenian intelligentsia in Baku, Kirovabad, and Karabakh, then under Aliyev it was gone. For 450,000 Armenians of Soviet Azerbaijan, there is not a single prominent composer, artist, scientist, not a single leader of a republican scale, not a single minister, not a single secretary of the Central Committee. Not a single writer, except for the corrupt Samvel Grigoryan, who is responsible for the death of the writer Markar Davtyan3, who died in his office after another reprimand, the death of the prose writer Petrosyan, the death of Vostik Karakozyan, who was driven to death by endless persecution.

For some reason, under the “hated” tsarist regime, Alexander Shirvanzade, a classic of Armenian literature, could live until the end of his life in Baku, and Armenian writers - Ashot Grashi, Hamo Saghyan, Arshavir Darbni, Garegin Sevunts, I and many others were forced to leave the republic. And what is being done in Karabakh? Not a single writer. They all left, fleeing. Bagrat Ulubabyan, Bogdan Janyan, the beginner poet Yasha Babalyan, Zori Balayan cannot escape from the Azerbaijanis even in Yerevan. In Yerevan they get to me too. Even in Moscow. Aliyev's hands turned out to be longer.

The Armenians have created the largest library in Baku, and now it is in the most miserable condition. And others are simply eliminated. The Armenian theater is closed, the famous Armenian cathedral was demolished. Armenians who did not sign the document on the demolition of the cathedral were imprisoned. But in the courtyard of the cathedral, the heroes were solemnly buried - the defenders of the city from the Turkish and Musavat hordes. Isn't that why they took it down? And all the mosques in Baku are intact and even renovated.

Newer? Please. It is very difficult for Armenians in Azerbaijan to enter universities, the conservatory, become professors and academicians. And if there are such, then these are units that somehow survived the “defeat.”

Is it not a genocide, not a tragedy, if the course of life development is artificially hampered for 450,000 Armenians of Soviet Azerbaijan? The Nakhichevan region was the first victim of Azerbaijan’s Genocide. The genocide here was fifty or more years long. Why didn't they write, didn't cry for help? They wrote, they cried. But all these complaints ended in flogging. The petitions often talked about self-determination, about the annexation of Nakhichevan to Armenia, as it has been at all times in history. Here it is, Armenia, at hand. But as they say - the elbow is close, but you will not bite.

The judges especially dislike the word “self-determination” in the complaints. Naive people, these Armenians! Yes, there is this word in the Constitution. So what? Are there not enough beautiful words in it? And the Constitution must be able to be read. Remember, it is written there in black and white: nationalism is punishable - up to and including execution. According to the Constitution, Heydar Aliyev was to be hanged three times and shot four times. But they don’t hang, they don’t execute. He himself will bring anyone you want under the monastery.

Ah, this is "self-determination!" How much did it cost the Nakhijevanians? Let us recall the collective letter of the Armenian population of the Nakhijevan region in 1928-29. They came from the GPU, from Baku. Although the letter was not addressed to them. Investigations have begun. Many Nakhijevanians who signed the letter were arrested and killed. Here is the free will granted by the Constitution. Now there is no Nakhijevan region. This term disappeared along with the Armenians, who preferred to take off their feet, get away from the punishing hand. The Armenian issue in the Nakhijevan region was resolved in Turkish. There are no more Armenians here, they fled in all directions.

Let us take the ancient cultural settlement of Agulis in Nakhijevan, the center of Armenian Zoks4. In tsarist times, many talented people came out of here - engineers, doctors, writers. There is a large ancient temple, churches, and a cemetery, indicating that Armenians have been living here since time immemorial. They say that when the Seljuks captured this village, the Armenians distorted their language in order to save themselves physically, and preserved it. They survived both tsarism and even Musavat captivity, but they could not survive Heydar Aliyev. He is stronger than the Seljuks, stronger than the Turks, even the Musavatists. There is not a single Armenian, not a single Zok in Agulis. Well, what do you say to that, Comrade Heydar Aliyev? How do you explain such emptiness, such flight? A manifestation of brotherhood, deep internationalism?!

In the hanged man's house they don't talk about the rope. But Tairov, a correspondent for Pravda, neglects this law. Most recently, he burst into an article about the Nakhichevan SSR, where he saw many mosques and not a single Armenian church. I did not see empty Agulis, devastated Armenian villages, numerous Armenian churches, ancient monuments, cemeteries of khachkars mentioned in the article. Strange blindness in this Tairov, in the newspaper that printed his shameless lie.

He died, and the Nakhijevan territory was buried alive. Now the Armenian Kirovabad is dying. The native inhabitants, the Armenians, are fleeing, fleeing from it. How else can one explain such a total flight? The clueless lamb Aliyev has nothing to do with it. Haven't you heard his crackling speeches, which so breathe friendship, internationalism, assurances in them? The lamb knows the judges' love for empty assurances. Judges are so pleased when they are lulled by sweet words! This kind of music brings good dreams.

I read: “It is unacceptable to pass by the manifestations of chauvinism, nationalism, no matter how an outwardly harmless form they take. It is necessary to rebuff them with all decisiveness and integrity.” This is from one party document. Absolutely correct words. The author of these words is one of the then leaders of the country, Pavlov. But what is it really? The Leninakan football team Shirak won the match against the local Azerbaijani team in Kirovabad. The slaughter began. In the Armenian part of the city, the windows of houses were broken, they were beaten, wounded. When a commission arrived from Moscow, where the words about “the inadmissibility of passing by nationalism” were written, the injured Armenians turned out to be guilty. Why? This is already known: the commission always asks the opinion of the leaders. And the opinion of the leaders is known. Where is the logic, you ask? If the Armenians won the match, is it not clear that they could not start a massacre, and even in a foreign republic. And finally material evidence - Armenian houses with broken windows and other damage. But who will take into account all these facts? I sent a telegram to Com. Andropov. A comrade from Moscow went to Karabakh, studied the facts, but the opinion of the leaders prevailed here too. A comrade from Moscow was generously supplied with materials of a completely opposite kind - cases when Armenians killed Armenians. And then where is the nationalism?

And again, again everything is to waste.

Who is Ataturk? This is the Turkish Prime Minister Kemal Pasha, who modestly renamed himself Atatürk, the father of the Turks. What is he known for? The cunningness of a caterpillar that pretends to be dead when threatened.

For the first time, he “feigned dead” after the defeat of the Entente. This helped him get away from the well-deserved punishment, the division of Turkey and the rejection of Western Armenia from it, provided for by the international Treaty of Sevres. The second was when Armenia, raising a reciprocal sword, threatened to take away by force the primordially Armenian lands seized by Turkey. Great Ataturk again pretended to be first a corpse, then red, crying out for help.

It worked again. Help came from Russia, which gave him the opportunity to raise and equip his soldiers again. Again, Atatürk's cunning saved Turkey from well-deserved retribution. Ataturk got a taste. He went on. He dressed his janissaries in communards and with the same scimitars, on which the blood of Armenian babies had not yet cooled, sent them to us as liberators from the "Dashnaks."

Shame, shame on our heads, on the heads of those who let themselves be deceived so easily, wrapped around their finger!

Aliyev declared me a nationalist, and himself, the author of the savage massacre of Armenians, this unbridled manifestation of nationalism, an internationalist. No one will weigh us on the scales. The leader's opinion is non-negotiable. It has long been known that the strong always blame the weak. The old proverb is alive even now, even for some time now it has become younger, fresher, full of strength.

How not to remember Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, who said, not without sarcasm: "Philosophers, do not look for the stone of wisdom, it will be hung around your neck."

And it seems they have already hung. I am sinking.


Notes

1 Vasak Syuni was the Armenian prince of Syunik. He too fought in the Battle of Avarayr - but sided with the Persians. He was accused of abetting the ruin of Armenia, and thus sentenced to death. By referring to Kevorkov as Vasak Syuni, Gurunts is labeling him a traitor to the Armenian people. Boris Kevorkov was an Armenian man appointed as First Secretary of the NKAO Committee between 1973 and 1988. Unlike his predecessor, however, he was not from Karabakh, and the Armenian community was largely not fond of him. Kevorkov was loyal to Aliyev and Azerbaijan. 

2 Marietta Shaginyan (1888-1982) was an Armenian writer and historian. In 1946, Shaginyan was persecuted by Mir Jafar Bagirov, the then-leader of the Azerbaijan SSR, for her book Soviet Transcaucasia, in which she mentioned the massacre of Armenians by Azerbaijanis during the Armenian Genocide.

3 Markar Danilovich Davtyan was an Armenian writer born in 1910 in Nakhijevan. During the reign of Heydar Aliyev, at the height of repressions against Karabakh Armenians, many Armenian writers waged a struggle. Davtyan was murdered in 1979 during a beating from Samvel Grigoryan in Grigoryan’s office. 

4 The Zoks are an Armenian community indigenous to Nakhichevan. Their dialect is unintelligible to speakers of Standard Eastern Armenian, and perhaps the most distinctive Armenian dialect, with a unique vowel system. The last of the Zok Armenians were forced to leave Nakhichevan in 1988. 

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