Tatul Hakobyan's Karabakh book out in translation

Published: Tuesday March 02, 2010

Tatul Hakobyan during Feb. 26 presentation of his book. Photolure

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Interviews with state and public officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan and information drawn from their previously unpublished personal diaries present the book's "heroes" in new, more personal light.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