LEONID AZGALDYAN, A SOLDIER OF INDEPENDENCE
Edik Baghdasaryan
June 21, 2012
In Karabakh in 1991, a foreign journalist asked Liberation Army
Commander Leonid Azgaldyan, “What color are you? I mean, what political
party do you belong to?” Leonid knelt down, scooped up a handful of
earth and said, “Here, this is my color.”
On June 21, 1992, Commander Leonid Azgaldyan was killed near the
village of Tonashen in the Martakert region. In an enemy ambush, the
commander’s car drove off the road in a hail of gunfire. His driver,
Pavlik Tadevosyan, managed to leap out the car and escape. The
circumstances of Leonid’s death remain a mystery until now. His
comrade-in-arms, Sargis Hatspanyan, says, “Leonid was the victim of
treacherous bullets.”
The Karabakh Movement originated in 1988 and attracted hundreds of
thousands of Armenians to the Opera Square. For many, the Karabakh
struggle meant going to Opera Square; for some it meant making
speeches there. At the time, Leonid was already warning friends that
the struggle would turn into an armed conflict and that people should
be prepared. And he was getting prepared. Leonid’s apartment turned
into a laboratory where he and his friends tested different weapons.
Then he gathered like-minded people and began studying and teaching
how to be a soldier.
Leonid was born in Tbilisi in 1942. Some time later his family moved to
Yerevan. He was a physicist by training, graduating from the Physics
Department of the Yerevan State University and working at various
scientific institutions.
At the beginning of the Karabakh Movement he found himself on the
front line of the struggle. From February 1990 he was the commander
of a military unit called the Liberation Army. He organized the
self-defense of a number of regions and participated in the first
liberation battles.
In 1991, he and his friends founded a military organization called
the Independence Army. He served as its commander-in-chief till the
end of his life.
“Until now, we have only surrendered our lands to enemies and the
nation’s psychology has been such that the spirit of resistance
has languished. This comes from the fact that those who make up our
nation’s intellectuals are poor in spirit; they don’t know how to
struggle. And here are, in fact, our nations outposts – Getashen,
Shahumyan, Artsakh, Zangezur. They are under direct threat of
destruction, and these are not empty words, this is true. At any
moment, a small well-organized force might attack, cut the roads off,
and repeat 1915,” Leonid Azgaldyan said in a March 1991 interview.
In those years, Azerbaijani military groupings supported by the
Soviet Army were launching attacks on various Armenian settlements in
Karabakh and in the Shahumyan region. Leonid’s detachment organized
the self-defense of these settlements.
“In the process a selection was made, only those stayed who came to
defend their land, who truly understood that not a single inch of
land could be surrendered, that it was, in fact, Armenia. Whatever
international or national figures say, this is Armenia. Period. No one
can say that it is not Armenia. No one has the right to put it up for
sale, to exchange or surrender it. No idea can justify the surrender
of Shahumyan, Getashen, Artsakh,” Leonid said in the same interview.
There is no place in Karabakh where people don’t know Leonid. Before
he received an award from the government, he was decorated by the
people. His photographs are displayed in all Artsakh schools and
state institutions.
[h-0406-azgaldyan-2.jpg]
“We are creating efficient military camps here. We select from
among the local boys those who are gifted militarily, and we train
them according to a special program; we create groups of commandos
for special assignments. Our Army is based on ideas of national
rehabilitation, independence, fulfillment of national aspirations,”
Leonid said.
There were several Diaspora Armenians in his detachment, a fact that
Leonid found inspiring. “It is no accident that Armenians gather here
who understand the meaning of the nation’s struggle. The presence of
guys from the Diaspora here is an important source of inspiration,
from a spiritual point of view. One guy’s being in the camp, in
itself, attracts others. People realize that their work is not in
vain, that this is a pan-national cause, that we are indeed right,
and that’s why Armenians from very distant countries come and stand
side-by-side with us and say, we are going to fight here.”
In 1991 the Soviet Army and Azerbaijani military groupings were
the masters of the situation in the Shahumyan region. Under these
circumstances, Leonid and his comrades managed to carry out the
self-defense of Armenian villages.
The Liberation Army stood out compared to other military detachments
for its discipline. In the course of four years and dozens of battles,
Leonid lost six only soldiers. He trained his soldiers to be ready for
every hardship. Smoking and drinking were strictly prohibited. There
was no other detachment like this in Karabakh. His boys trained for
eight hours a day. He was preparing soldiers for a regular army.
Before combat he would always order, “Don’t shoot at unarmed people,”
and would add, “Don’t shoot at fleeing soldiers either. Let them go.”
He gave that order the day the military station near the village
of Aghdaban was destroyed. That same day the Azerbaijanis came and
massacred the peaceful residents of the village of Maragha. Leonid
and his unit rushed to Maragha. The enemy suffered heavy losses and
retreated, leaving behind the villagers they had killed, dozens of
mutilated bodies of children, women, and old people.
Leonid admired the natural beauty of Karabakh and said, “Armenians have
no sense of beauty; if they had they wouldn’t have given up Karabakh,
for that reason alone. Giving something so beautiful away to somebody
else is a crime.”
Leonid’s dream was to create a national army with a powerful Armenian
state behind it. But the Army was taking shape slowly at that time.
When we last met (it was after the opening of the Lachin corridor)
he said, “These victories will come to nothing because there is no
regular army behind them.”
He could not reconcile himself to the surrender of the Shahumyan
region and parts of Martakert after the opening of the Lachin road.
The fact that some soldiers left these regions before the residents
did filled Leonid with rage. He said that they should be punished. He
was planning to liberate Shahumyan with his soldiers.
Leonid’s best friend and his favorite soldier was the commander of
the Artsakh Front unit of the Liberation Army, Vladimir Balayan.
Leonid considered Vladimir a born military expert. Vladimir Balayan
was killed on June 9, 1992 defending the village of Chailu in the
Martakert region. That day Leonid’s soldiers saw their commander
crying like a baby for the first and last time.
“He was killed, he went to the gods because they needed him there.
Therefore, we have to defend our country so that he doesn’t become
a martyr. He is a victim, not a martyr,” Leonid told the people who
gathered for the funeral.
After Vladimir’s funeral, he didn’t speak to anybody for two hours;
he just stood by himself. Then he waved his hand and said, “I’ll go
and meet Vladimir there – in heaven.”
Twelve days later Leonid Azgaldyan was killed.
On different occasions, Leonid used say, “The nation that loses
Karabakh will be completely overthrown.”
Photos by Frederic Karegin Tonolli, Myriam Gaume Guragossian, Sarkis
Hatspanian
From: Baghdasarian
http://hetq.am/eng/special/9813/video-leonid-azgaldyan-a-soldier-of-independence.html