Zareh Melik-shanazarian

[ED]

 

http://www.bvahan.com/ArmenianWay/AW/sketches/comp.html

 

 

COMPILER'S PREFACE

 

 

My grandfather, Zareh Samsonovich Melik-Shahnazarov, lived an unusual life, like many people in Nagorno Karabakh during those years. He was born in 1903 into the noble family of Melik-Shahnazarian. The family lived in Shushi but was known far beyond Karabakh, Armenia and even Russia. The family had spawned over 50 officers who served in the Russian army, including several generals. Andrei Pavlovich Melik-Shahnazarov was apparently the most famous of them. As a lieutenant, he received the St. George Cross from Emperor Nicholas It's own hands. Later, under the USSR he was promoted to the post of corps commander in the Red Army and was shot in 1937 on Stalin's order.

Our family was also a family of diplomats. David Melik- Shahnazarian was a personal friend of Napoleon and his special envoy to Iran. Later he was Persian Ambassador to France. Nariman Melik-Shahnazarov served and died together with A. S. Griboyedov in the Russian Embassy in Teheran. Later other members of the family kept the diplomatic tradition in the family alive. Among others was my father, Ashot Melik-Shahnazarov, an experienced career diplomat who became the first Ambassador, permanent, epresentative of the Republic of Armenia to the UN office and other international organizations in Geneva. Today he is a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the independent Armenia.

There were also scientists, writers, engineers and government officials in our family. My great-grandfather Samson-bek Melik-Shahnazaryants was among them. He was a railroad engineer and constructed several projects in Nagorno Karabakh for the Yevlakh-Shushi line. Trains first started running on that line in 1913, and several bridges constructed by my great-grandfather still remain. My great-grandfather studied and often visited abroad, he spoke 5 languages fluently, including French, German and Turkish. The year 1918 was a hard one for the people of Nagorno Karabakh. That year Samson-bek was elected a member of the Council of War In the Nagorno Karabakh Provisional Government. He died in March 1920, mortally wounded in battle.

My grandfather Zareh Samsonovich was 14 years old when he joined the Karabakh army as a volunteer. He fought for Artsakh until 1920 in Berdadzor, Shushi and Hadrut. In the ranks of Karabakh units, he took part in fighting the Musavatist rebels in Gyandja. Generals Dro (Drastamat Kanayan} and Njdeh (Garegin Ter-Haroutiunian) personally handed him his decorations. After burying his father, he became the oldest man in the family. At that time he was 17. With a weapon in his hands, returning fire, he fled from the burned town of Shushi with his mother, three brothers and two sisters. His little brother and his aunt were killed there.

During the early years of the Soviet regime my grandfather was a member of an underground patriotic organization. They executed Azerbaijani and Turkish military criminals. The guerilla bullets found their way into the bodies of the organizers and perpetrators of the massacres of Armenians in Baku, Gyandja (Gandzak) and Tiflis.

During 1930-36 Zareh Samsonovich served in the Trans-Caucasus Central Executive Committee, following which he returned to Baku and worked on construction projects in Sumgayit. When World War II began he was mobilized and taught young officers to shoot and trained snipers for the front at the Azerbaijan SSR Military Education Office (Vsevobuch). My grandfather was not the only arms expert in our family. My grandmother, Anahit Melik- Shahnazarova (born Mirzoyan) several times won Azerbaijan shooting championships. After moving to Armenia, she also became a championship markswomen there. There were always weapons at my grandfather's home, until the mid-1970'several excellent hunting rifles and even pistols. Of course, the pistols were kept In the house illegally.

From 1950 until his death, my grandfather lived in Yerevan. Several times he started to write memoirs about the events of 1918-1920 in Karabakh. He wrote in Russian. It was only after he turned 80 that he devoted serious attention to that work. That happened when be met John Kirakosian, Armenian Foreign Minister and Armenian history scholar. Mr. Kirakosian persistently urged my grandfather to write down everything he had seen and lived through during these years. However, it was impossible to have even the first part of the memoirs published at that time. Only after 1988 have my grandfather's articles and fragments of his memoirs appeared in Armenian and Karabakh publications, and in the "Armenian Herald' newspaper published in Moscow.

My grandfather was devoted to Karabakh. When visiting his native Artsakh he devoted much time and effort to revisiting the familiar places, he had very long conversations there, he told of his experiences and reminisced. Many people knew him in Artsakh. He inspired others with his belief in the freedom and bright future of Karabakh. He was certain his motherland would be liberated. Many times he petitioned Moscow, demanding that justice be done and Karabakh be reunited with Armenia. They summoned him, very old but still physically and spiritually strong, to high Communist Party offices and suggested that he "keep his shirt on. My grandfather argued there too, he attempted to persuade the officials.

He lived in Gnuni (Knuniants) Street, across the road from Dynamo Stadium. It is not surprising that his apartment became a kind of headquarters when the liberation movement began in Karabakh and was supported in Armenia. Discussions and arguments went on at all hours, and plans were formulated for the future of Armenia and Karabakh. Many of the movement's leaders from Yerevan who took part In these 'sessions' in my grandfather's apartment later became people's deputies and ministers of Armenia. Unfortunately, I saw almost none of them at Zareh Samsonovich's funeral in January 1992.

My grandfather died suddenly, at the age of 88. In fact, he was one of the victims of that winter's blockade. But he suffered at least as much from the fact that Shushi was still held by those who used the Shushi hills as positions for their "Grad" missile launchers as from the blockade's shortages. They were shooting at Stepanakert, Karabakh's capital, where women and children were dying. If my grandfather had lived just four months longer, he would have seen the liberation of Shushi. He grew up and received his education in that town. He became a boxer there, the champion of East Armenia. He defended that town with weapons in his hands as a teenager. I am sure my grandfather would have lived twenty years longer, if he had only lived to see Shushi liberated. But the cold blockade winter took its toll... There were an amazing number of young people among my grandfather's visitors. They remember him as an optimistic person who believed in the revival of Artsakh and his native town of Shushi.

Zori Balayan was in Karabakh that hard January. When he heard that my grandfather had died he said, "In parting with Zareh Samsonovich, we are saying goodbye to a piece of our history.

My grandfather was a unique person. He was always ready to help people with a kind word or a deed, although his soul was very vulnerable and poetic. The reader wilt find that in the verses my grandfather wrote as early as 1968. These were the only verses I found among his effects.

 

KARABAKH

 

My land,

My motherland,

My cradle,

My country,

Thou art the best.

 

I was born in thy embrace,

I was raised on thy bosom,

I spent my life in thy grim mountains,

Since my salad years I adored thy beauty,

Beloved and fair Karabakh.

 

Oh my native land,

Oh my native Karabakh,

Oh my attractive motherland

Oh my gloomy land,

Thou art the most beautiful.

 

 

Thou art the stronghold and foundation of our Armenia,

Thou art the pride and glory of all Armenians,

Thou art an orphan, now living far from thy mother,

Thou art crying but no one hears thy cry,

Thou art mourning alone, my beloved.

My land,

 

My native Karabakh,

My cradle,

My country,

Thou art the bes

.

[irlandahay]

Great post