Categories: History

Mikoyan To Saryan: “Why Do You Need Karabakh?”

In the summer of 1965, Bagrat Ulubabyan, executive secretary of the regional branch of the Writers’ Union of the NKAO, met painter Martiros Saryan in Moscow and discussed the unfavorable situation in Artsakh.

The master, raising his hands, began to resent:

“Local famous Armenians forgot that they are Armenians. They are unsuitable nationalists. Once, I was invited to chat by Mikoyan. When left alone, I asked:

‘Anastas Ivanovich, why aren’t you giving Karabakh back to us, how long will this injustice continue?’

He answered:

‘Why do you need Karabakh? If you want people to live richly and happily, we will present you with several factories so that people can live and work. As for Karabakh… Karabakh doesn’t concern you…’”

Bagrat Ulubabyan, “Artsakh’s Struggle for Existence”, Yerevan 1994, p. 221.

Arshaluis Zurabyan

Vigen Avetisyan

Recent Posts

Abandoned by an Ally: The French Armenian Legion in Cilicia and the Road to the Smyrna Catastrophe

How a promise made to genocide survivors was traded away for peace with Ankara —…

1 hour ago

The Vilgort Cup: A Silver Masterpiece of Cilician Armenia (c. 1150–1159 A.D.)

A Fragment That Traveled Across Continents The gilt-silver medallion shown above — two richly dressed…

2 days ago

Hannibal and Artaxias the Great: The Carthaginian General Who Helped Build the “Armenian Carthage”

Few episodes in ancient Armenian history capture the imagination quite like the tradition that Hannibal…

1 week ago

The Priestess of the Kingdom of Van: A 9th-Century BC Bronze Figurine in the British Museum

Five angles of one small bronze figure — and what emerges is not an abstract…

2 weeks ago

The Winged Sun and the Armenian Tiara: Royal Symbolism of the Orontid (Yervanduni) Kingdom of Commagene, 163 BC – 72 AD

Introduction Among the successor states that emerged from the fragmentation of the Achaemenid-derived Orontid (Armenian:…

3 weeks ago

A Bronze Age Vessel from Gardman: Solar Symbolism, the Sun-Cross, and the Sacred Landscape of Ancient Armenia

Article based on the explanations and interpretive observations of Angela Terian, with additional archaeological and…

3 weeks ago