The National United Party was an underground national democratic party founded in 1966 in the Armenian SSR. The main goal of the party was the independence of Soviet Armenia from the USSR.
In 1968, the founders of the party Haykaz Khachatryan, Shahen Harutyunyan, and Stepan Zatikyan were arrested, and the leadership of the party passed to famous dissident Paruyr Hayrikyan. Hayrikyan has been four times convicted in the USSR and imprisoned for 17 years in total.
Having become the leader of the party, Paruyr Hayrikyan proposed the independence strategy of Armenia through a referendum. The party operated until 1987, after which it was renamed the National Self-Determination Party, becoming the first democratic party in the USSR.
As human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseeva writes: “Armenia is the only republic in the USSR housing a party that aims to separate from the USSR, and this idea causes the sympathy of the people. For 15 years, the KGB has had the opportunity to become reassured of the indestructibility of the National United Party – after each series of arrests, new and new adherents have appeared.”
For more than fifteen centuries, one line from Movses Khorenatsi's History of the Armenians has…
Armenian historical tradition, echoed by a number of modern researchers, identifies Rusudan as an Armenian…
Tucked away in the greenery of the 2nd block of Yerevan's Nor Nork district, in…
Based on the Armenian-language essay "Երևանը տոն է. Արատտայից Երևան" ("Yerevan Is a Festival: From…
The combination of a crescent moon and a star is one of the most recognizable…
Among the most evocative artifacts to survive from the Armenian Highland's Late Bronze Age is…