TATUL HAKOBYAN’S KARABAKH BOOK OUT IN TRANSLATION

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Tuesday March 02, 2010

Yerevan – Tatul Hakobyan published a Russian translation of his
Green and Black: Artsakh Diary, a critically-acclaimed book about the
Karabakh conflict that first appeared in Armenian in the fall of 2008.

In recent weeks, Mr. Hakobyan presented the book to readers in Hadrut,
Stepanakert, Shushi and Yerevan, and will next go to Tbilisi. The
Russian translation was supervised by journalist and editor Naira
Hayrumian.

According to Mr. Hakobyan, the English version of the book is currently
being edited and is due out in the next several months.

A former Armenia correspondent for The Armenian Reporter, Mr. Hakobyan
is now an analyst for the Civilitas Foundation in Yerevan.

Below is a review of Mr. Hakobyan’s book first published by The
Armenian Reporter on January 30, 2009.

A book of life and death

by Arsen Kharatian

Green and Black: Artsakh Diary is a comprehensive collection of facts,
analysis, and documents on the Karabakh conflict, starting from the
late 1980s until today. The last chapters of the book describe the
background of the conflict, taking us back to the beginning of the
20th century.

The book discusses the connections of various global and regional
events, people, and processes to the subject of the conflict. It
analyses internal and external political factors affecting Armenia
and Azerbaijan, as well as the impact of the parties involved in
the conflict as interested parties in a peaceful settlement (Russia,
Turkey, Iran, European states, and the United States).

The author, Tatul Hakobyan, approached the topic as an investigative
journalist. The effort he made to gather facts through scores of
interviews is innovative for Armenian-language non-fiction writing.

(Mr. Hakobyan is a senior correspondent with The Armenian Reporter.)

Stories in the book connect the reader with figures involved in the
war and peace process. Targeted to Armenian audiences, the book seeks
to confront stereotypes about public figures and events.

Interviews with state and public officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan
and information drawn from their previously unpublished personal
diaries present the book’s "heroes" in new, more personal light.

The discussion of Boris Kevorkov – the ethnic Armenian Soviet
Azerbaijani official who was in charge of Karabakh before being
dismissed in 1988 – is one such example. While Mr. Kevorkov died in
Moscow in 1998, interviews with his wife (an ethnic Azerbaijani)
and information from his unpublished memoirs offer unprecedented
insight into Mr. Kevorkov’s attitude toward the conflict.

Another widow interviewed by Mr. Hakobyan is Rima Demirchian, the
wife of Karen Demirchian, who was the Soviet Armenian leader (also
dismissed in 1988) who in 1999 became Speaker of Armenia’s National
Assembly and was assassinated later the same year. Mrs. Demirchian
offers her reflection on the events of late 1980s, also not discussed
anywhere before.

The book juxtaposes diaries and interviews of well-known intellectuals
and Karabakh movement figures like Silva Kaputikian, Zori Balayan,
and Igor Muradian, to those of Soviet leaders, particularly Mikhail
Gorbachev.

Mr. Hakobyan also notes the evolving attitudes of individuals involved.

In one such example, Mr. Hakobyan refers to Ms. Kaputikian’s diary,
where she wrote: "Back in 1988 when we met with Gorbachev, he asked
whether the Armenian leader at the time Demirchian was capable of
controlling the internal political situation in the country. My answer
was negative. If I was given a chance again I would definitely have
a different answer." The latter comment reflected Ms. Kaputikian’s
support for Mr. Demirchian’s political comeback in the late 1990s.

Looking at the conflict through the prism of individual lives and
experiences of common people from both sides brings an important
emotional mood to the text. And while discussion of war is about
losses – human, material, and sometimes moral – the book also refers
to a number of entertaining episodes from the war period.

One such episode is about informal talks conducted by Heydar Aliyev,
then the leader of Nakhichevan (and later president of all Azerbaijan)
and officials in Yerevan in May 1992 as the war raged in Karabakh. Mr.

Aliyev called the Armenian president’s chief national security adviser
Ashot Manucharian, in an effort to secure Armenia’s noninterference
with air traffic bound to and from Nakhichevan.

(Tom De Waal previously described some of these conversations in his
2003 book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War."

-Ed.)

On one occasion Mr. Aliyev called Mr. Manucharian at home and heard
his mother pick up the phone. She offered to relay a message to her
son as "he is not at home at the moment."

The message was as follows: "Auntie Lena could you please tell your son
that Heydar Aliyev called and asked for permission for an airplane to
fly through the Armenian air space." To which Mr. Manucharian’s mother
answered: "You can safely fly, I will inform my son about the matter."

Another story was related by Suren Zolian, who was a member of the
Armenian parliament and participated in negotiations with Azerbaijan
in the early 1990s.

In 1993, the Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations arrived in Rome
before the Karabakh delegation did. At the airport the delegates from
Karabakh were met by Armenian delegation members.

Next morning before talks formally began, Mr. Zolian asked
his Azerbaijani counterparts: "If you claim that Armenians of
Nagorno-Karabakh are your citizens, why then were you not meeting
them at the airport?"

In a return demarche, the Azerbaijani negotiating team called for
moving the Karabakh delegates from the hotel where Armenians were
staying to the one with the Azerbaijanis.

Such stories can only do so much to lighten up the heavy mood of a
war filled with acts of brutality, human deaths and displacement.

In Green and Black, standing for the green of military uniforms and
the black worn by mourning mothers, Mr. Hakobyan seeks to highlight
feelings common to people on both sides of the conflict, such as
sadness that mothers share together when waiting for their sons taken
prisoner or missing.

The book is a major collection of historical facts and documents,
including agreements and resolutions relating to the Karabakh conflict,
which will be of great interest for political and media organizations
and interested parties around the world.

Although targeted to the local Armenian audiences, Green and Black
should be translated for non-­Armenian readers as well, especially
those in Azerbaijan.

To improve the ease of reading, locating footnotes on each page or at
the end of each chapter could be helpful. And while some chronological
disorder in the text may seem to make the reading more complicated,
in the end the stories tie up as one whole.

Most importantly, Green and Black seeks to establish the facts of
Armenia’s modern history rather than expound on political propaganda
so common to writings about conflicts.

Although this book does not seek to offer solutions to the conflict,
mindful of the human losses and broken families generated by the war,
Mr. Hakobyan – probably like most of his readers – wishes the conflict
to have a peaceful outcome.

Tatul Hakobyan, Kanach u Sev: Artsakhian Oragir [Green and Black:
Artsakh Diary]. 584 pp. in Armenian. 2008.