RECOGNITION OF THE STONES

On May 28 of this year, for the anniversary of Armenia's first independence (May 28, 1918), a statue of Garegin Nzhdeh (1886-1955) was unveiled in Yerevan. The ceremony received the highest official endorsement, as were present: the President, Prime Minister, Speaker and Deputy Speakers of the National Assembly, Mayor of Yerevan-among others. The event provoked a small crisis between Yerevan and Moscow. Indeed, Nzhdeh fought the Russians twice: In 1921, during the conquest of Armenia by the Red Army; and more seriously, during the Second World War, when, like dozens of thousands Armenian nationalists, Nzhdeh joined the army of the Third Reich. Interestingly, except Vestnik Kavkaza (an online newspaper) no Russian media in Western language devoted even a single article to the crisis. This is definitely a case of double standards. Indeed, Russia Today and Sputnik defame Ukrainian patriots because a minority of them claim the legacy of Stepan Bandera and his followers-who, indeed, joined the Nazis in 1942, but rebelled against them in 1943. On the contrary, Nzhdeh, this official hero of today's Armenia, remained a devoted Nazi until he was arrested by the Soviets. 

Who was Nzhdeh, exactly? Born in Nahcivan, he later moved to Bulgaria, and fought with the Bulgarian army during the Balkan wars (1912-1913), participating to the ethnic cleansing against Turks, Pomaks and Jews. Then, he joined the Russian army against the Ottoman Empire, in 1914 and the army of the new, independent Armenia in 1918. In both cases, the units such as the one of Nzhdeh were involved in the ethnic cleansing against Ottoman and Azerbaijani Turks. After the defeat of Armenian forces against the Soviets, in July 1921, he went to Iran, then to Bulgaria and eventually to the United States. In 1933, Nzhdeh's party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) gave him the mission to establish the youth organization of the party in the U.S. Nzhdeh did so, and gave it the name of Tzeghagron, a neologism meaning "the religion of race" in Armenian. Nzhdeh was indeed obsessed by the idea of the "superiority of the Aryan race". Quite logically, he was also a deep admirer of Hitler and Mussolini. For example, he stated: "Today Germany and Italy are strong because as a nation they live and breathe in terms of race." (Hairenik Weekly, April 10, 1936). The Tzeghagron was a copy of the Hitlerjungend. Remarkably, the name Tzeghagron was changed into Armenian Youth Federation in 1943 only. The group still exists today, and even established branches in Canada as well as in Australia. All these branches proudly claim the legacy of Nzhdeh today.

At the beginning of the WWII, Nzhdeh went to Germany. He joined the Third Reich's army and was appointed in 1942 as a member of the Armenian National Council. That council was established under the auspices of Alfred Rosenberg, the minister of Adolf Hitler for the territories conquered in USSR. Initially skeptical about Armenians, Rosenberg had indeed changed his minds, at the contact of people like Nzhdeh. The views of Hitler himself experienced a similar change.

It must be emphasized that Nzhdeh's choice was not accidental. He represented his party, the ARF. Indeed, the ARF was obsessed since 1910s by the so-called "superiority of the Aryan race" and, as a result, ferociously anti-Semitic as well as anti-Turkish. The ARF killed Jews as well as Ottoman and Azerbaijani Turks, from 1914 to 1922. The ARF also tried, at the end of the 1920s, to create an "Aryan confederation" with the Kurdish and Iranian nationalists against Turkey and against USSR.. In addition to Nzhdeh, other ARF leaders, such as Drastamat "Dro" Kanayan, Alexander Khatissan, Hratch Papazyan and Vahan Papazyan were deeply involved in the ARF-Nazi alliance. Indeed, "Dro" was the commander of the 812th Armenian regiment of the Wermacht and an agent of the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Germany at that time. He was also in touch with Fascist Italy. More politically, Vahan Papazyan was a member of the Nazi-endorsed Armenian National Council, together with Nzhdeh. The alliance, however, was not limited to the eastern European front. Indeed, the Nazi regime used Armenian volunteers to arrest and deport Jews in the Netherlands-and they were efficient, as 84% of the Dutch Jews were exterminated, the highest proportion in Western Europe: 75% in Germany, 53% in Luxembourg and 25% in France, for example. Hairenik and Hairenik Weekly, the official mouthpieces of the ARF in Boston (USA) published vitriolic editorials, supporting the Nazi regime and its racist doctrine, particularly in 1936.One example will suffice:

"Sometimes it is difficult to eradicate these poisonous elements when they have already struck deep root like a chronic disease. And when it becomes necessary for a people to 'eradicate them in an uncommon method, these attempts and methods are regarded revolutionary. During a surgical operation the flow of blood is a natural thing." (Hairenik, August 19, 1936)

The ARF and the Nazis also collaborated in Iran-until Britain and USSR invaded that country in 1941-, in Greece and France. The repression against collaborators of Nazis that followed the liberation of these three countries seriously damaged the ARF network here, another proof that the party was deeply compromised.

Since 1945, ARF apologists tried to present this collaboration as motivated by the fear that Nazis could classify the Armenians in the same category than the Slavs, but that is a lie, purely and simply. 

Indeed, as early as 1933, the Nazi regime officially classified the Armenians as "Aryans", so there was no risk of persecution. The Volkischer Beobachter, namely the official newspaper of the Nazi party, even wrote (December 4, 1933) that the alliance of Berlin with Arab nationalists was acceptable, as the Arabs had been partially Aryanized, by mixed marriage with Armenians. A concrete consequence of this trust is the fate of Vartan Sarkisyan. An officer of the Red Army, Sargsyan was made prisoner by the Wermacht. Then, he became a colonel and eventually a general of the Waffen-SS, the elite troop of the Third Reich. Beside of the case of Sarkissian, here were at least 11,000 Armenians in the Waffen-SS and 20,000 in the Wermacht.

Today, it is no exaggeration to say that "Nzhdehism" is the common ideology of the parties in power and of most of the organized opposition. Indeed, Armenia is ruled by a coalition of the Republican Party and of the ARF. The ARF never reproved Nzhdeh and its other Nazi leaders. Quite the contrary, both the ARF in Armenia and for the branches of the party in the diaspora, Nzhdeh and Dro are official heroes. The statement of principles is (normally) the most important source for the ideology of a party. The Republican Party of Armenia refers to Nejdeh and Nejdeizm only in that statement. One of the opposition parties of Armenia is named Tzeghagron, in tribute to Nzhdeh and his Nazi-styled racism. More seriously, the official endorsement of Nzhdeh began during the presidency of the so-called "moderate" Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who gave the name of that Nazi criminal to a station of the Yerevan's metro. More recently, in 2013, the Heritage Party, another opposition group, officially paid tribute to Nzhdeh. Similarly, in 2014, when the municipal council of Yerevan discussed about the statue of Nzhdeh unveiled last month, the only controversy, in the council and in the medias, was about the place of the statue. No political group, no prominent personality opposed the statue itself-at least not publicly. Similarly, I could not find even a single trace of protest, in Armenia, against the unveiling of the mausoleum of "Dro," the commander of the 812th regiment of the Wermacht, in 2000.

It is indispensable to have these facts in mind if you want to understand why Serzh Sargsyan justified the ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijanis in 1992-1994 by "ethnic incompatibility". When you believe in the ideas of a Nazi war criminal, it is logical to express racist views openly. Armenia is the unique case of official, unsophisticated glorification of Nazi war criminals. The official "Nzhdehism" and the glorification of other Nazis such as Dro, speaks volume of the ideology that rules Armenia today.This kind of official neo-Nazism has to linked with the statute of official heroes attributed by the regime of Yerevan to ASALA terrorists, such as Monte Melkonian and Varoujan Garbidjian, as the ASALA was ferociously racist against the Turks, and anti-Semitic as well. For instance, the ASALA claimed its participation to the bombing of the synagogue of Copernic street in Paris (1980). Melkonian was the second man of the ASALA at that time. He has his statue in Yerevan, like Nzhdeh.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and its other side, the diplomatic war of Armenia against Turkey, is a primarily due to ideological fanaticism. It has nothing to do with the actual interests of the Armenia's population. However, this population is reduced to material and intellectual misery by its political and "intellectual" leaders. Recipro-cally, these leaders nurture their citizens with anti-Turkish racism and anti-Semitism, explaining all the problems of Armenia by "Turkish nationalism" and "Zionist-Azerbai-jani conspiracies". 

Not all Armenian citizens believe these hateful tales, of course. Yet, the absence of strong and organized opposition to "Nzhdehism" remains a particularly big problem for the pacification of the South Caucasus. Even if, by an extraordinary-and completely unlikely-chance, the tinydemocratic groups took power in Yerevan, these persons would have difficulties to convince a majority of their own citizens that giving back the occupied territories to Azerbaijan and making peace with the neighbors is the right thing to do.