A retrospective view from a distance of 100 years
Avag A. Harutyunyan
A century after the heroic battle of Mountainous Armenia, in the conditions of the current dangerous military-political developments around Syunik, the revelation of its heroic history and the assessment of Garegin Nzhdeh’s role in that context are of great actual importance.
In Syunik-Artsakh, Great Britain especially stood out with its anti-Armenian policy. The vision of British policy was first and foremost to implement farreaching anti-Russian programs. In order to solve this priority problem, it was in their interests to expand the territory of the Republic of Armenia including the Kars province, and with the donation of Syunik-Artsakh, to more strengthen Azerbaijan against Soviet Russia.
Syunik, led by Nzhdeh, struggled without even breathing։ in the conditions of the military-political blockade, many enemies came and went, the events had changeable ups and downs and with some refluxes, Mountainous Armenia withstood. Nzhdeh acted not only as a military commander in Syunik, but also as an ideological leader and organizer.
Fighting in and for Syunik, from strategic perspective Nzhdeh had always kept in his field of vision the collective interests of the statehood of entire Armenia and the Armenians . If the Armenians of Syunik had not fought heroically under Nzhdeh, the safe existence of the Republic of Armenia in the Azeri-Bolshevik hostile tongs would have been greatly questioned, and later Soviet Russia would have ceded Syunik to Baku. After that, the circumstance of Soviet Armenia to be a separate union republic would be endangered. At best, it would simply be included as an autonomous entity within the borders of the Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan, which would divide the Cis-Caucasus into two parts. Thus, the heroic Syunik ensured the possibility of preserving the Armenian state entity for both the Soviet and the present and future times.
Given the current resonance of the history of the heroic battle of Mountainous Armenia, today we must learn the relevant lessons and draw necessary conclusions.