ON TWO FRONTS

We are a little more than a month away from the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism that will take place in Moscow. The leaders of many countries were invited to participate in the jubilee festivities. Though a number of Western leaders have refused to go to Moscow because of the confrontation with Russia in connection with the Ukraine conflict, heads of 26 states as well as the heads of UNESCO and the Council of Europe have already confirmed their participation in the celebrations.

Among those invited is Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, which seems to be quite natural. Firstly, Yerevan is a strategic ally of Moscow. Secondly, Armenia, which took part in the war against Hitler's army while being part of the USSR, now officially declares its commitment to common democratic values and human rights. As it turns out, there is a specific Armenian "But" even in this situation.

The fact is...

The national conservative Republican Party of Armenia led by Serzh Sargsyan does not hide that it adheres to the Nazi ideology of Tseghakron. We are speaking about the ideology of the namesake pro-Hitler organization, which was founded by a Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan (General Nzhdeh) during World War II. We will return to his personality later. In the meantime, it is in order to have a look at his ideas. Let us refer to the Wikipedia.

"Based on the ideology of Tseghakronism, the Armenians are divided into three sensorial-conscious parts. Most Armenians represent zhoghovurd, i.e. a certain number of people possessing Armenian qualities. Only a small part of Armenians belong to tsegh (genus, nation) based on their sensorial-conscious level and lifestyle. The third part of the Armenians is constituted by takanks. 

"Tseghamards, as representatives of tsegh (genus), are the best part of the Armenian nation, the purpose of which is the perpetuation of its kind at home, in Armenia. A tsehamard carries the Armenian qualities and passes them on to descendants.

"Zhoghovurd is the undecided and hesitating part of the Armenians. Zhoghovurd is exposed to the effects of the crowd, if he is more under the influence of takanks rather than tseghamards.

"Takank is an apostate element among the Armenians; this is an internal enemy of the tsegh and part of a foreign enemy. As an Armenian, a takank lacks the backbone and does not have a sense of pride, and as a man, a takank is disgusting".

As can be seen, even the Armenians are divided by the idea of Tseghakron into three parts: first-class, second-class which, incidentally, includes the whole of zhoghovurd (people), and those utterly despised. Meanwhile, the Turks and the Bolsheviks are classed by the supporters of this idea as organic enemies of the Armenians.

Lessons from history

Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan (Nzhdeh), the founder of the Tseghakron organization, is a native of Naxcivan. After the October Revolution of 1917, he began to form the so-called Armenian National Army to fight the Azerbaijani Turks. After organizing a bloody ethnic cleansing in Vedibasar, Eastern Anatolia and Naxcivan, he defected to Europe, and then to the United States, where he took part in the attempted murder of the Turkish ambassador in 1933. There, he began to form a pro-Hitler organization among the Armenian diaspora, whereupon he moved to Berlin to organize the Armenian SS Legion. Nzhdeh was not alone in serving the Fuhrer; he was accompanied by a Drastamat Kanayan, who is now glorified in Armenia as General Dro. "Dro had practice and experience to kill without feeling any remorse, and this greatly impressed Himmler. Neither Dro nor Himmler cared about the fact that they themselves sent people to death. About 30,000 Armenians responded to the call of Dro and joined the Nazis," Austrian historian Erich Feigl wrote about Kanayan's meeting with Himmler.

The Armenian battalion took part in operations against partisans in Ukraine and Poland, for which it was commended by Wehrmacht commanders Gitzinger and Ilgen. Meanwhile, Sonderkommando "Dromedar" named after Dro excelled in reconnaissance and sabotage activities in the North Caucasus front. As written in a memo of the Rostov Region Office of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs that is now stored in the Russian archives, "A group of Armenian nationalists led by General Dro arrived to the city of Rostov-on-Don during its occupation in August 1942. The group was authorized by Hitler to form a volunteer legion consisting of Caucasians to fight against the Soviets; the legion was to rise in arms for the liberation of Armenia from the Bolsheviks when German troops enter the Caucasus".

The anti-Semitic activities of Armenian supporters of Hitler deserve special attention. The Times of Israel, an Israeli newspaper popular in the United States, published an article by Israel Baruch, an American rabbi, about the role of the Armenian community in the US. "Up to 20,000 Armenian Nazis participated in the crimes against the Jews and other "undesirables" stigmatized by the Nazi ideology and in the organization of slaughter in the concentration camps. These Armenian formations were led by General Dro (Drastamat Kanayan) and General Nzhdeh (Garegin Nzhdeh). In the 1930s, such Armenian-American magazines as "Hairenik" freely propagated the ideology of Hitler and called Jews "toxic elements", thereby justifying the Holocaust, which they dubbed "surgery," Baruch wrote.

Sonderkommando "Dromedar" itself claimed the extermination of more than 20,000 people in western Crimea. Their report appears in the Death Tango book of the late Azerbaijani historian Rovsan Mustafayev. "17,645 Jews, 2,504 Karaites, 824 gypsies and 212 guerrillas were shot dead from 16 November to 15 December 1941 inclusive. Simferopol, Yevpatoriya, Alushta, Karasubazar, Kerch and Feodosiya as well as other areas of western Crimea have been cleared of Jews," the documents say.

Neo-Tseghakron and glorification of the Nazis

To put it in a nutshell, this is history which, in the view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is inadmissible to forget, and even worse, to alter. "There is no and cannot be a limitation period for such crimes, they should be neither forgiven nor forgotten. Any attempts to silence these events, to distort or rewrite history are unacceptable and immoral," said Putin on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of liberation of the Polish city of Oswiecim from the Nazis, where one of the most horrible death camps was situated.

Today, however, preachers of the ideas of Hitler's generals Dro and Nzhdeh, represented by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, are going to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism, as if nothing had happened. And this is despite their attempts to glorify the Nazis in Armenia, and now in Russia, at the state level.

In Yerevan, a metro station and a square were named after the Nazi Nzhdeh, and a namesake medal was established. Dro has also been exalted to the rank of the national hero, and now the Strategic Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence of Armenia bears his name. This is not to mention the glorification of such well-known international terrorists as Monte Melkonian.

However, it would have been half bad if such actions would not go beyond the borders of Armenia. "Of great concern is the fact that the Russian media and the cultural space of our country can become a channel for presenting criminals as heroes," the Russian newspaper "Our version" writes in this regard.

The publication reports that the Armenian diaspora activists organize regular pilgrimages to the prison cemetery on the territory of the Vladimir Central Prison, where Nzhdeh was buried, not mentioning, of course, the reason for which he was imprisoned. The issue of erecting a monument to Nzhdeh was also raised. In the meantime, the book called "Conversations with Nzhdeh, or a monument to the 125th anniversary of Nzhdeh" is being presented in the Russian capital. "Moreover, today the Armenian and Russian media have conducted an advertising campaign of the film "Garegin Nzhdeh" produced by Armenian director Hrach Keshishyan, which was filmed with the participation of famous Russian movie stars Chulpan Khamatova and Mikhail Yefremov. In this film, a war criminal and a Nazi collaborator is imparted a vivid image of nearly a national idol," the article says.

Attempts to glorify Hitler's accomplices caused outrage among World War II veterans who appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to prevent the use of Russian resources for whitewashing Nazi criminals. "We are saddened by the fact that Nazi accomplices and traitors are exalted in the country which is the successor to the Soviet Union. This is notwithstanding the fact that Russia has always actively opposed the rewriting of history and the distortion of realities of World War II," the veterans resented. The reaction of people, who shed their blood in the war against fascism, is understandable. Glorification of war criminals such as Nzhdeh and Dro is an insult to the memory of people who died in that war. Especially when the establishment of such a cult is a state policy of Armenia.

It is not difficult to officially ground the invitation of the head of Armenia to take part in the events marking the anniversary of the victory over fascism. However, lack of Moscow's reaction to the building of a large-scale cult of Armenian Nazis in the Russian information space, with the involvement of the Russian intelligentsia, raises many questions. Especially under conditions where Russia opposes the glorification of Hitler's henchmen in the Baltic countries.