Today we celebrate the Republic Day, which is associated with a truly turning point in our history: the establishment of the First Republic. The First Republic, which materialized with the heroic battle of Sardarapat, did not have a long life, its existence lasted only two years and a few months. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this in his address at the Sardarapat Memorial on the occasion of Republic Day anniversary.

“But the First Republic [of Armenia] again turned us from a nation that had been stateless for about 4.5 centuries into a state-built people, and for the first time in our history, a state system was outlined: a republic, where the people of Armenia are the ones who hold power, and it is they who decide through elections who and how shall govern the state.

The First Republic renewed, but did not strengthen the perception of statehood, it sowed, but did not implant democracy and freedom in us because it did not have time for it. And for almost the entire period of the Soviet Union, the First Republic was targeted as evil, became an object of ridicule and contempt. The [USSR] empire thereby was pursuing the objective of destroying the sprouts of independent statehood that the First Republic could have re-sprouted in our consciousness.

In 1991, when Armenia regained independence, it seemed that the 70-year-old propaganda had not left a deep mark on us, our fears of being independent and self-reliant had been overcome. But now a retrospective analysis of the history of the Third Republic [of Armenia] already makes it obvious that the disdain for statehood, our fears of sovereignty and independence are not fully overcome. We often continue to perceive history and the world through the formulas that the imperial propaganda of the USSR has consistently instilled in us," Pashinyan added.