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From: [email protected]
Subject: An Interesting Book on Armenian Assessment of Sevres Treaty
AN INTERESTING BOOK ON ARMENIAN ASSESSMENT OF SEVRES TREATY
Azg/arm
3 Dec 04
“Gitutyun” publishing house issued young historian Avag Harutyunian’s
book under the title of “The Treaty of Sèvres and Armenian
Social-Political Thought” in November of the current year.
As it is known there have always been and still are diverse opinions and
assessments among Armenian thinkers as regards the Sèvres Treaty, the
Armenian Cause and Armenia’s orientations in general. Today when the
rivalry between the super powers for our region aggravates this issue
may help us to make right decisions. Mr. Harutyunian’s book largely
supports in the search for solution to this national issue.
The book is composed of 6 sections: prologue, epilogue and 4 chapters.
The 1st chapter is titled “Diplomatic and National Discussions of the
Armenian cause”. It contains 2 parts examining activities of Armenian
delegation at the Paris peace conference and the evaluation of the act
on United Armenia issued by the Armenian government on May 28 of 1919.
The author unveils the subjective and political reasons of discord
between the National and RA government delegations (Poghos Nubar pasha
is accused of subjectivism).
The 2nd chapter is an analysis of the Sèvres Treaty. After presenting
the history of the Treaty, Mr. Harutyunian turns to the political,
juridical and geo-economical analysis of the Treaty. Geo-economical
aspect of the Treaty has never been studied before. The author proves
that the Treaty “contained deliberate confusion in the key issues” and
that “the fact that Republic of Armenia was absent at the negotiations
could be a reason for nullifying Lausanne Treaty in so much that
Armenia’s rights are violated”.
The 4th chapter of the book deals with the evaluation of the Sèvres
Treaty as different Armenian political flows saw it. The party in power,
Armenian Revolutionary Party, had discords within the party itself.
Approaches of Liberal Democratic Party and of the socialist camp to the
Sèvres Treaty and the Armenian Cause are discussed in separate parts.
In the epilogue of the book Mr. Harutyunian deals with controversial
views on the Treaty existing today. He thinks that the fact that Turks
are so worried about the possibility of the Sèvres Treaty to float to
the surface means that it indeed “may possibly emerge on the political
arena”. The major lesson to learn from the Sèvres Treaty is this: “If
you want to see the Sèvres Treaty realized, get ready for struggle
because no one, above all Turks, will give you lands”.
The main deficiency of the book is that the author did not use foreign
sources otherwise some issues would find solution. For instance, the
author assigns all blame on Olti and Koghb Kurds for joining the Turks
during the Armenian-Turkish war of 1920 forgetting about the role of
Armenian bashibozuks in Kurds’ orientation. Mr. Harutyunian writes that
“the Treaty would not lose its force but for the treason of Russia and
western powers” forgetting that on the previous page he mentioned that
“Armenia was not able to liberate `Wilson’s’ territories on his own”.
By Gevorg Yaztchian