The states of the South Caucasus will celebrate the centennial jubilees of the creation of their first democratic republics at the end of May: on May 26, 1918, Georgia withdrew from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, on May 28 - Azerbaijan and Armenia. The resultant states were, respectively, the Georgian Democratic Republic, the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and the Republic of Armenia, which is now called the First Republic of Armenia, in order not to be confused with the modern state. All three existed for a short time, were taken under the control of the Bolsheviks and transformed into the Soviet socialist republics in 1920-1921, but this did not diminish their historical significance, a leading analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza Andrey Petrov said today in the program National Question on Vesti FM.
The expert stressed that the most important aspect of the celebration in the South Caucasus republics - especially in the modern conditions of the total information war - is an absence of any anti-Russian component. "There are no anti-Russian meanings in these independence jubilees because they do not celebrate secession from Russia. In April-May 1918, when the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was proclaimed, and then three separate democratic republics were created, there was no such state as Russia - the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic came into force only in July 1918,’’ the expert said.
Thus, according to Andrey Petrov, the holidays of the first democratic republics - Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia - bear an exceptionally positive sense of the self-organization of peoples in the era of the total powerlessness. "This is really a valuable thing for the nation - the moment of building and protecting sovereignty after the collapse of the previous states in the truest sense of the word,’’ the leading analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza noted.
”The reasons for the careful preservation of historical memory of the first democratic republics in the South Caucasus are clear: the modern republics - the presidential republic of Azerbaijan, the parliamentary republic of Georgia and still presidential but soon parliamentary republic of Armenia - perceive them as a valuable experience of a sovereign life in their newest history. Modern Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi perceive themselves quite naturally as heirs of the democratic republics that appeared in 1918. Hence the attention to May 26 and 28, and the abundance of historical research of that time, so Russia can only welcome these holidays of its southern neighbors, " Andrey Petrov concluded.
