THE ARMENIAN CONTRIBUTION TO

THE ALLIED VICTORY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Ara Sanjian

(Paper presented at the round table conference dedicated to

the 60th Anniversary of the Victory over Fascism in the Second World War,
the University of Balamand, Tuesday, April 19, 2005)

As one of the constituent republics of the USSR, Armenia made its fair contribution in securing
a victory against Nazi Germany and its allies during the Second World War. The leadership and
populace of the post-Soviet, independent Republic of Armenia will duly mark that contribution
on May 9.

In 1941, Soviet Armenia had a population of about 1.5 million, out of a total Soviet population
of about 195 million. Prior to the outbreak of the war, it was estimated that 50,000 Armenians
served in the Red Army, including 30,000 from Soviet Armenia. This number increased
significantly during the general mobilization in the months that followed the Nazi attack. Six
special military divisions were formed in Soviet Armenia in 1941-42, partly because so many
draftees from the republic could not understand Russian. These six divisions alone had more
than 67,000 soldiers. Five of them would have a distinguished war record, while the sixth was
ordered to stay in Armenia to guard the republic’s western borders against a possible incursion
by neighbouring Turkey. Many Armenian soldiers also served in two other multi-ethnic
divisions. Altogether, it is estimated that around 500,000 Armenians fought for the Allies
during the Second World War. They came not only from Soviet Armenia, but also from the
other Soviet republics and other countries with considerable Armenian minorities.

Of the estimated half a million Armenian troops in the Second World War, some 200,000 were
eventually killed or classified as missing in action, including over 100,000 casualties from
Soviet Armenia alone. Among those killed was Volodya, the son of Anastas Mikoyan, the
highest ranking Armenian in the Soviet political hierarchy. He died during an air-fight near
Stalingrad.

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Many Soviet Armenian officers attained high positions in the Red Army command during the
war, including some sixty generals. Four of them would finish their military careers as
Marshals of the USSR. These statistics make the Armenians, despite their relatively small
number, the fourth most heavily represented ethnic group in the high positions of the Soviet
armed forces, behind only the three major Slavic nationalities, the Russians, Ukrainians and
Byelorussians.

107 Armenian soldiers, as well as ten additional soldiers from other nationalities living in
Soviet Armenia, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their record in the
Second World War. Of these, 36 had been killed in action and were awarded this title
posthumously. Altogether, some 70,000 Armenian soldiers won various Soviet medals for their
bravery and service during the war.

Soviet Armenian citizens were active in the resistance groups, better known as the partisan
movement, which operated behind enemy lines, not only inside Soviet territory, but also in
other theatres of war like France, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and
Greece. Most of these Armenian partisans were former Soviet prisoners of war, who had
escaped their Nazi captors.

The territory of Soviet Armenia was far from the shifting battlefronts, and the country escaped
direct war damage. Yet, the impact of the war on Armenia’s economy, society and culture was
considerable. A number of factories were evacuated to Armenia from other Soviet territories
occupied temporarily by the invaders. Hundreds of millions of roubles were invested in new
industrial enterprises in the republic. Large sectors of Armenia’s population was conscripted
for labour service in the military industries and for other activities essential for defence, like the
production of rubber, copper, carbide and other raw materials. Thirteen Armenians were made
Heroes of Socialist Labour during the war years. Among them, Artyom Mikoyan, the co-
constructor of the MiG fighter planes and the younger brother of Anastas Mikoyan, received
that honour twice. Women were recruited to the workforce in large numbers to replace men
fighting on the front; by 1942, 54 percent of all industrial workers in Armenia were women.
Armenian workers and peasants were encouraged to donate from their savings for the

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construction of additional tanks, fighter aircraft and armoured trains, plus to send food
packages to soldiers at the front. Armenians were asked to temporarily welcome in their midst
many Soviet citizens evacuated from the war zones, while many wounded were treated in the
republic’s hospitals. New educational and research institutions were set up to support the war
effort, most notably the Soviet Armenian Academy of Sciences, which has continued to serve
the republic since 1943. Finally, in the field of the arts and culture, writers and artists were
encouraged to glorify in their creative works Armenian heroes both from medieval and more
recent times as a means to inspire their readers as well as the Soviet Armenian soldiers.

The vast majority of Armenians in the Diaspora, themselves mostly survivors or direct
descendents of survivors of the Armenian Genocide during the First World War, also supported
the Allied war effort. The Armenian community in the United States of America, numbering
between 150 and 200 thousand at the time, supplied 18,500 young men and women to fight in
the US army. Thousands of Armenians fought under French colours as well. Missak
Manouchian, an Armenian resistance fighter who was captured and executed by the Nazis in
1944, together with over 20 members of his cell, remains a much respected figure in modern
French history. Finally, Armenian communities in the Middle East and the West donated
considerable sums of money to the Soviet government to help construct a series of tanks for the
Red Army. These tanks were named after David of Sasun, the hero of an Armenian medieval
epic, and General (later Marshal) Hovhannes (Ivan) Baghramian, the highest ranking Armenian
soldier in the Red Army at the time.

The heroes of the Second World War remain dear to the hearts of the people of Armenia.
Dozens of World War II memorials were erected in the various cities, towns and villages of
Soviet Armenia in the 1960-80s. There is a special Victory Park in Yerevan with an eternal fire
commemorating the martyrs who fell during the war. A special museum (with its research
wing) was established within the park compound in 1970 to study and commemorate the
Armenian contribution to the victory against Fascism.

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Armenia’s independence in 1991 has not dampened the people’s respect toward the war
generation. While their numbers are gradually dwindling as the years go by, there are still some
9,000 veterans of the war who live in Armenia. They receive from the government monthly
pensions higher than the average in a country which is still experiencing the difficulties of post-
Soviet economic transition, as well as the repercussions of a bloody war in and around the
Armenian-inhabited region of Mountainous Karabagh and a transportation blockade imposed
by Turkey. A three-volume compendium listing all the Soviet Armenian dead and missing in
action in World War II was published from 1995, and an equestrian statue of Baghramian was
unveiled in Yerevan in 2004. Moreover, a monument dedicated to the memory of Armenian
soldiers killed during the liberation of Hungary was erected in Budapest in the year 2000.

The leaders of the independent Armenian government visit Victory Park every May 9 to
commemorate the war heroes. This anniversary has been coupled in Armenian minds in recent
years with the celebrations to mark the Armenian victory in the town of Shushi in Mountainous
Karabagh on 9 May, 1992. Having in mind that another famous Armenian military victory in
the 20th century, that of the battle of Sardarabad against the Ottoman Turkish army in 1918,
also took place in May, Armenians now describe the month of May as ‘a month of victories,’
which follows the more sombre month of April when Armenians commemorate the genocide of
1915.

Contemporary Armenian historians also underline the conviction that, in addition to the
universal importance of defeating Fascism, Armenian soldiers in the Red Army were also
indirectly defending the Armenian motherland against a possible military attack by Turkey.
The Soviet authorities were worried by the rise in pan-Turkist sentiment in Turkey during the
initial stages of the war. They were afraid that, in case of a German advance to the Caucasus,
Turkey might open a separate front against Armenia to grab, in turn, a chunk of Soviet
territory. It is reported that the General Headquarters of the Red Army had information that 26
Turkish armed divisions were stationed across the border, waiting for an opportunity to launch
an offensive. Such a development, it is believed in Armenia today, might have caused another
wave of genocide against the population of Armenia.