Dear Vazgen, undoubtedly a minister and, of course, a military commander.
Ten years ago, as a thirty-year-old writer, you must have understood the power we writers possess: it is we who create the figure of the leader; the Evangelists created Christ, not the other way round; Marzpetuni was born of Muratsan, and Vardan of Yeghishe and Demirchyan.
An immense mission for the writer and for literature, which you bypassed, dear Vazgen. Your youthful ardour and your writer’s ambition did not keep you on the hills of our new Avarayr: they brought you down onto the battlefield, and you fashioned yourself into a warrior and a commander. It had not happened before; it does not happen; it is not allowed. It is, at the very least, selfishness, and only a rare few are granted the ability to be like this. Many of us would have wished to do the same, but you were the first to step out of our fettered ranks, and the mist of heroic legend took bodily form in you, Vazgen Sargsyan.
An enviable age and an enviable stature, dear Vazgen.
Your unbroken courage will surely allow you, decades from now, to look back from the heights of time upon these days of heroism and downfall, and to bring into one vast panorama the efforts of a people who do not die but rise again. For among the accomplished writers and the living souls, no one had your courage to see and know as much as you have, dear writer, comrade general, Mr Minister.