Armenian nation’s Garibaldi – March 5 marks Vazgen Sargsyan's birthday
Vazgen Sargsyan’s role and weight in the Armenians’ battle for liberation can, without exaggeration, be compared with Garibaldi’s image, says an Armenian literary critic and a veteran of the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
“Likewise [Giuseppe] Garibaldi unified Italy, Vazgen Sargsyan unified us all, so his memory can be respected differently by different representatives of the nation,” Vardan Devrikyan, a deputy director of the National Academy’s Institute of Literature and a member of the volunteers’ union Yerkrapah (Defender of Land), told Tert.am, remembering the legendary commander.
Describing Sargsyan as a bright-minded and amazingly charismatic figure, Devrikyan said he thinks that the naivety and plain character typical to a countryman were what could best describe the late military leader, politician and writer.
A champion of the Nagorno-Karabakh independence movement, Vazgen Sargsyan rose to prominence during the 1990’s war for the country’s liberation. He was independent Armenia’s first minister of defense (from 1991 and 1992 and then from 1995 to 1999) and also served as prime minister from 1999 until his tragic assassination during the terrorist act against Armenia’s National Assembly (on October 27 of that year). Sargsyan was also an amateur writer and a member of the Writers’ Union of Armenia.
He seemed to embody every single particle of his homeland, Devrikyan said, sharing his ideas of the late statesman’s dedication to homeland and his heritage left behind. “Vazgen Sargsyan was a man coming from the plain folk on the one hand and a man of state on the other,” he said, attributing the commander’s somewhat harsh character to his enthusiasm to protect also the state interest.
“His living memory will be the free and independent Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] and the efforts to keep our country’s borders invincible,” he added.
Devrikyan added that every year on March 5 - which marks Vazgen Sargsyan birthday - the union Yerkrapah traditionally swears in young members “to assert that we are a continuing, not a fading generation.”
Devrikyan said he finds the day’s selection very symbolic. “To respect Vazgen Sargsyan’s memory means to remain consolidated around Yerkrapah,” he added.
Edik Minasyan, the dean of the Yerevan State University Department of History, says Vazgen Sargsyan’s role was irreplaceable when it came to army-building.
“His role had been really very great since the 1988 movement and the unification of the volunteers’ detachment. He did really turn the volunteer group into an army. It is important to remember especially the battalion [of warriors] sentencing themselves to death. People were in despair after the enemy’s advance in 1992. Vazgen called for at least one person from each region [to join the battle]; he urged that the military registration and enlistment offices gather around 500 people. And those 500 created the battalion,” he added.
The historian described the military leader as a connoisseur of military art. “He would feel happy with every single piece of success. I remember the pride with which he spoke of our arms and arm supplies (that the enemy couldn’t possess) as he visited the University in 1997 when he was a minister of defense,” said the dean.
He further valued Sargsyan’s role in state-building. “The reforms which he initiated as both a serviceman and a state figure inspired great hopes; but they were never carried to life,” Minasyan added.
Manvel Yeghiazaryan, Nagorno-Karabakh war veteran who led a battalion during the battles, said he remembers Sargsyan as one of the founders of independent Armenia and a man who stood very close to the country’s army-building.
“He carried the entire burden in that period and did all he was supposed to do. He was a man who tried to do the possible and the impossible. So we must be able to bridge the gaps evolved over those years,” he added.
Considering army a major tangible success in the history of Armenia’s third republic, Yeghiazaryan said he finds it to be the duty of every Armenian to remember the legendary commander when glorifying the military.
“All other evaluations have to be made by the society. We can’t, of course, say that he didn’t have omissions, but anything good we have today is thanks to Vazgen Sargsyan,” Minasyan added.
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