We kept making mistakes in our calculations and kept encountering surprises, surprises only for us, because we did not know how to foresee.” He continues on: “Complaining bitterly about our fortunes and seeking external factors for the causes of our misfortunes is one of the characteristic features of our national psychology, from which the ARF is not free, of course. We feel obliged to once again quote Kajaznuni’s words written in 1923: “If it is rightfully said that to govern means to foresee, then we have been useless governors, because we have lacked that capability to foresee. Vratsyan does not say a word about our inability to foresee the events or about our short-sightedness. And by overestimating our very modest worth, naturally we also heightened our hopes and expectations.” And, naturally, the disappointments followed. To be enlightened we had to read the words of the first Prime Minister of the First Republic of Armenia Hovhannes Kajaznuni: “We put our own desires in others … We overestimated our capabilities, our political and military worth, the importance of the services we rendered to the Russians. Now everyone was working to secure their own benefit by exploiting the Armenians.” During our scholastic years, reading such statements naturally filled us with anger against foreign powers, but we did not realize that such emotions did not help us comprehend the essence of the issues and learn its lessons, and hence did not enlighten us. He writes: “The Armenian people waited in vain for justice by the “great allies” who had forgotten the services rendered to them by the Armenians and the solemn promises made to the Armenians. On the internal front he blames the Armenian Bolsheviks for the demise of our independence, and on the external front he mainly blames Kemalist Turkey and Bolshevik Russia, followed by England and France. When we review the 1958 edition of Vratsyan’s “The Republic of Armenia” volume, there too we do not find the critical and objective analysis of the questions whether we were worthy of independence or not, and whether our people were capable of leading a sovereign life or not. He continues: “An objective study of the facts gives us the right to claim that the reasons for the decline of Armenia’s independence were not internal, but mostly external.” He, however, responds indirectly by referring to the causes to the decline of independence. Why? Didn’t the Armenian people deserve independence? Was Armenia incapable of leading an independent state life?” Vratsyan, unfortunately does not answer his questions directly and does not delve on his thoughts exhaustively and analytically. Vratsyan writes at the beginning of the book: “In December 1920, Armenia was forced to accept the Soviet regime, then to renounce independence. The Sovereign Statehood of Armenia, and National Orientation Hovhannes Katchaznouni Though our main goal is to discuss the impact of Russian-Turkish relations on Armenia, we find it necessary to simultaneously discuss two other major issues that are closely related to our subject: The sovereign statehood of Armenia, and the question of Karabagh (Artsakh). To re-read it in the light of our defeat in the recent Artsakh war and to find parallels between what happened during Vratsyan’s time hundred years ago and today. This article expands on the following point raised in our previous article (Why and is it that…): “Why did Russia get a foothold in Azerbaijan at the expense of impoverishing Armenia?” Attempting to answer this led us to re-read the above-mentioned book by the fourth and last Prime Minister of the First Republic Armenia, Simon Vratsyan. He must know in order to avoid inaccurate judgments, baseless illusions and wrongful steps in the future.” (Simon Vratsyan “Armenia Between the Bolshevik Hammer and the Turkish Anvil” 1953) Every person interested in the destiny of Armenia and the Armenian people should know this story in order to understand everything that befell onto those. … The Turkish-Bolshevik relations are not only a story of the past, but an urgent issue of today and tomorrow. It is no longer a secret that Armenia was squeezed and destroyed between the Bolshevik hammer and the Turkish anvil, becoming the innocent victim of the world revolution. “Turkish-Bolshevik relations are an unbelievably painful issue, fatal and catastrophic for our homeland and for the Armenian people.
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