ZURICH — I first encountered Zori Balayan in Yerevan in 1991. The times were politically charged and chaotic. The Soviet Union was in its death throes. CSI was then undertaking its first of many human rights fact-finding visits to Nagorno Karabakh, at a time when it was under a strict Soviet-Azeri blockade. I had been drawn to Karabakh by credible reports of the organized deportation of Armenian villages by Soviet-Azeri forces in the infamous Operation Ring.
I had been introduced to Zori by our mutual friend, the great Karabakh advocate Caroline Cox. She had gotten to know him through Soviet rights activist Elena Bonner and the Sakharov circle of Karabakh advocates. As a prominent writer, medical doctor and traveler, Zori was well connected within that political world. He was the facilitator of that CSI mission and those that followed during what we now call the First Karabakh War.
It was obvious upon first setting eyes on Zori that he possessed a commanding character. He radiated a force of personality and was greatly respected by all he encountered, even those who turned out to be political enemies. We did not spend much time with him in Yerevan beyond courtesy calls to senior officeholders in what was left of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. He arranged a quick exit from Yerevan in an old, weather-beaten two-ton helicopter. The Lachin Corridor had not yet been opened by Armenian forces. The only way to break the Soviet-Azeri blockade was by crossing the mountains and the woods, or by helicopter to the Shahumyan region.
We were immediately received and hosted for a “picnic” lunch in a remote field by Shahen Meghryan, the organizer of the Shahumyan defense forces. It was immediately apparent that Zori knew everyone in Karabakh and could make things happen, quickly and efficiently. Zori was clearly the kind of person who was conscious of the reason for his existence, and was not interested in a life that was not aligned with providence. He was driven by a deep understanding of what the horrible consequences would be for his Karabakh birthplace and the whole of Armenia should the Azeri plans for ethno-religious cleansing of Karabakh be fulfilled. He was determined to do all in his power to prevent that outcome.
I have a vivid memory of Zori that says much about his character. I was riding with Zori in a beaten up, scarcely roadworthy vehicle along the unpaved, dusty roads of Karabakh. I do not remember exactly where we were going, but I recall we were running late. But he ordered the car to stop at every small village along the way. The villagers quickly dropped what they were doing and assembled around the car. Zori would then deliver a stirring, spontaneous speech. He would always engage with the locals, no matter how pressed for time, before leaping back into the car and continuing the journey.
Zori had time for the people, with whom he had a deep connection, and he was able to be the conduit of their thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to those in power in Stepanakert, Yerevan, Moscow and other important capitals of the world. I will never forget time spent with Zori cramped in the crowded cellars of Stepanakert, together with the brave townsfolk, as the city was struck with GRAD missiles fired from the heights of Azeri-controlled Shushi. Again, Zori was with the people.
Zori saw the preservation of the Armenian character of Karabakh as crucial for the survival of the Armenian Republic as a secure homeland for Armenian Christians and their civilization. He was acutely aware of not only the Great Armenian Genocide (1915-23), but also the smaller-scale massacres and pogroms that preceded it and followed it in the Caucasus.
In his eyes, all of this anti-Armenian violence has a political purpose: Turkey and its junior Azeri-Turkic partners in Azerbaijan were and are today determined to eliminate Armenian Christian political agency. He understood the connection between the anti-Armenian Christian Operation Ring of 1990-1 and the massacres of Armenians in Sumgait and Baku on the one hand, and the broader anti-Armenian Christian genocidal historic process on the other. For Zori, Karabakh was the front line of defense. He could foresee that, should Karabakh fall, that process would continue one way or another in the Republic of Armenia itself. And so it has.
Today, Armenia is openly threatened by war if it does not surrender its political agency to Ankara and Baku. If Armenian Christian leadership of the sort that Zori exemplified cannot be found in Armenian public life today, whether inside or outside government, still darker days await the nation.
The destructive political and spiritual goals that drove the Hamidian massacres, the Great Armenian Genocide, the massacres by the Army of Islam and Azerbaijan militias, Operation Ring, and the ethno-religious cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023 remain alive in the political culture of Turkey and Azerbaijan, notwithstanding the enormous public relations efforts to convince Armenians otherwise. It is for this reason that Turkey, Azerbaijan and their fellow travelers in Yerevan continue to devote so much energy trying to denigrate Zori Balayan’s great legacy. It haunts them.
Armenian Christians and their non-Armenian advocates must see the past, present and future with the clarity of Zori, and act on it inspired by his wisdom and enormous energy.
