"Karen Demirchyan, an Armenian man who put justice before convenience" by Carlo Coppola
In remembrance of the anniversary of the birth of Karen Demirchyan (1932–1999) – First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia from 1964 to 1988 and, for more than two decades, the highest political authority of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic – assassinated on 27 October 1999, a revealing episode emerges that speaks more eloquently of his moral stature than many official tributes ever could. The story is told by Tigran Levonyan, the celebrated tenor and opera director awarded the title of People’s Artist of Armenia.
Levonyan, newly graduated in opera directing from the prestigious GITIS in Moscow, returned to Yerevan with innovative ideas and a bold new theatrical language. Young artists welcomed his vision with enthusiasm; the Opera House establishment, however, reacted with hostility, deploying the most classic form of Soviet-style obstructionism. Directors, conductors, chorus masters, and officials from the Ministry of Culture demanded his removal, sending a letter to Demirchyan in which they went so far as to accuse Levonyan of subversion and treason—charges that, even amid ongoing reforms, still carried enormous stigma and threatened to destroy not only his career but potentially his life.
Summoned to the Central Committee, the signatories read the document aloud before the leader. To Levonyan’s bitterness, he discovered that the letter did not even mention his name: he was referred to merely as “the husband of Gohar Gasparyan,” the legendary Armenian soprano and herself a People’s Artist of Armenia. It was a public humiliation that reduced him to a familial appendage, denying him both identity and professional dignity.
It was at that moment that Demirchyan intervened. He halted the reading and, in a stern voice, rebuked those present: “Does this young man not have a name? Is he to be defined only through his marriage?” Then he tore up the letter and threw it into the wastebasket. He refused to hear another word. He defended the young director’s right to work and admonished the apparatus: brilliant ideas are not to be suffocated, but supported and cultivated.
For Levonyan, this was not merely a personal vindication; it was a triumph of truth. Within a system often rigid with conformism, Demirchyan chose to protect talent against the entrenched logic of power. That simple yet resolute gesture remained etched in the memory of the artist and his family, offering tangible proof of Demirchyan’s distinctiveness within the Soviet establishment. In the years that followed, that very distinctiveness would bring marginalization and isolation, culminating in the tragic events of 27 October 1999.
Today, this episode restores the image of a leader capable of placing justice above convenience. Not only a statesman, but a defender of personal dignity and creative freedom—qualities that, decades later, continue to illuminate the moral legacy of Karen Demirchyan.
