From Behind Bars, Armenia’s Former President Releases Memoir

More than anything else, the book reads as socialist realism: Kocharyan is constantly engaged in everyday constructive work, making unpopular but wise decisions and resolving a series of crises. His enemies are, by contrast, invariably ill-intended schemers driven by greed and self-interest.

He confesses to a lack of understanding of economics and finance, but claims that his outstanding memory, learning ability and dedication have been enough to compensate. He writes about his interest in psychology, and the book is replete with pop-psychology clichés. Encounters with opponents are portrayed as a clash of characters in which Kocharyan’s strong personality inevitably defeats his opponent’s indecisiveness. Cooperation with his allies, on the other hand, is never anything but a smooth and amicable process.

Kocharyan does touch on some of the most notorious chapters from his career. In one episode, Kocharyan details his earlier clashes with Pashinyan, when the latter was an opposition activist who helped organize the protests against Sargsyan’s election in 2008. Kocharyan depicts Pashinyan as a ruthless politician whose unhinged rhetoric and irresponsible behavior led to bloodshed. “The purposeful manipulation of the masses and the effort to create an atmosphere of hate resulted in an uncontrollable and destructive energy of the enraged crowd,” Kocharyan writes, singling out Pashinyan as “a main actor behind the riots in front of the city hall that resulted in casualties.” In the scenes leading to the bloodshed, he repeatedly describes Pashinyan as “controlling the crowd.”

The book omits, meanwhile, the story of Poghos Poghosian, the man beaten to death in 2001 by Kocharyan’s bodyguards in a downtown Yerevan restaurant. The story has shaped the former president’s public image in Armenia as not only a strongman but a “murderer,” an accusation repeated by his many opponents, including Pashinyan. (One of the bodyguards involved in the killing eventually went on trial and was sentenced to two years of probation, spending no time in jail).

More illuminating are Kocharyan’s descriptions of his encounters with world leaders. He is cautious about saying much about those still in office, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev. He opens up more, though, about those retired or dead. Russia’s Boris Yeltsin is described as a commanding and authoritative figure, but a bull in a china shop. Bill Clinton is an exemplary, deeply informed statesman. George W. Bush is primitive, distracted and disengaged; Jacques Chirac is ever-interested, a pleasure to work with, understanding every nuance.

Perhaps the single most compelling part of the book is Kocharyan’s account of his many conversations with Azerbaijan’s former leader, Heydar Aliyev. Aliyev, Kocharyan claims, not only was ready to recognize Karabakh as a part of Armenia, but spoke frankly with him about many other topics, sharing his frustrations with his domestic opposition and even touting the idea of passing power onto his son. Kocharyan’s account of the failed 2001 Key West peace talks portrays his Azerbaijani counterpart as backing out of the initial agreement under pressure from his family, an account Kocharyan claims has been privately confirmed to him by Ilham Aliyev. But overall, the elder Aliyev’s image in this book is positive, one of an experienced and wise statesman and at the same time a witty and engaging interlocutor.