ARS Contest Winners - 2020

Greetings. Today I will tell you about the history of my family, from my father’s side. Our family goes centuries back, as far as I know, and I am going to tell you how life was in each of my family member’s times, as well as what I know about them. And with that said, I hope you enjoy listening to my essay. My whole family lived in Artsakh and Armenia, up until my generation. My Great-grandfather Arsen, escaped from Kars during the Genocide when he was 23 years old, and miraculously escaped from the Turks, losing his brother and sister there and went to Artsakh, where he joined Zoravar Antraniq Pasha’s Army. He was a great fighter and he was very brave, strong, and very witty. He settled in Artsakh, in the Hadrut region, and got married.

He still was fighting for his land and his people even in Soviet/Bolshevik time, having established a Ghachagh/ Fidayi group to fight against bolsheviks. My great-grandfather Arsen joined World War ll in 1941. My grandfather Mikayel, his oldest son, was born a few months after his father went to fight against the Germans. I am very proud to be a great-grandson of Arsen, who was one of the armenian soldiers of the Armenian battalion who danced the Armenian Kochari victory dance in Reichstag. ln spite of his hard life, my Great-Grandfather Arsen lived a long life and died when he was g0 years old. My grandfather, Mikayel, got married, and he had two children, but by that time, in 1988, the fight for independence of Nagorno Karabakh from Azerbaijan had broken out between the Azeris and Armenians. Sadly, my grandfather was brutally murdered by the Azeris in 1988, at that time my father, David, was serving in the Soviet Union Army. When that happened, my father immediately came back and joined the Artsakh army fighted against Azeris. ln a few years, by the request of my Grandmother Jasmine, my dad, David, moved to America with his mother and sister. Life wasn’t easy in the U.S. for my dad, his mom and sister but he worked hard and became very successful always helping people in Artsakh. Soon, my grandmother died, and even though my father had seen terrible things, he carried on and he married my mother and had Jasmine and l. I can conclude that my family has a very interesting history. I hope you enjoyed learning about the history of the Ambartsumian Family, and that’s all for now.