Dr Ara Sanjian's lecture entitled "Parties and Peasants in the Republic of Armenia, 1918-1920: The All-Russian Revolution of February 1917 Continued" was delivered in London on 22nd May and was organised by Dr Krikor Moskofian, director of the Programme of Armenian Studies.
On the eve of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the proclamation of independent Armenian statehood on May 28, 1918, Dr Ara Sanjian returns to the story of how one of the country’s thorniest socio-economic issues, that of land reform, was tackled by the government of this independent republic during the 30 months of its existence.
Dr Sanjian first briefly presents and compares the positions of the various political parties active among Armenians in the Russian Empire, as well as that of the hierarchy of the Armenian Church, toward this very pivotal issue. He then provides a concise narrative of deliberations on land reform in Transcaucasia (South Caucasus) from February 1917 to May 1918, followed by a more detailed account of these debates and actions by the government of the independent Republic of Armenia from May 1918 to the autumn of 1920 – when Armenia was first invaded by Kemalist Nationalists in Turkey and then sovietized by the Communists in Moscow. He argues that agrarian changes in Armenia in 1918-1920 were a direct continuation of earlier developments pertaining to this issue across the Russian Empire following the February Revolution of 1917.
