“Declaration was adopted on May 30 and not on May 28” (video)
“On May 22, when battle of Sardarapat started, many people even didn’t know what was happening in Western Armenia. And after destroying Western Armenia Turkey was intended to do the same with Eastern Armenia,” says Director of National Archives Amatuni Virabyan, “For the first time in long history the existence of Armenians was endangered. It was decided to surrender and go to Sevan, but Armenians didn’t obey that demand.” In this issue the speaker also highlighted the role of the clergy of that time. According to Amatuni Virabyan, the most important factor in this battle is that Turkey wasn’t going to sign an agreement with Armenia in 1918 at Batumi talks, but Turkey had to do it. In this context the speaker notes that the most important achievement of Armenia during heroic battles of May was the declaration of the Republic of Armenia, which seemed to be a miracle. “Though we celebrate the day of declaration of the RA on May 28, but in reality the declaration was adopted on May 30. The reason is that in Georgia and Azerbaijan the establishment of statehood was on May 26 and 27, so the day of declaration of the RA is celebrated on May 28 in order to show that we aren’t late,” noted Mr. Virabyan. Mr. Virabyan informs that there are many documents on all this, most of which are in Tbilisi and they don’t provide them to us.
