Artur Aslani Mkrtchyan (; 16 February 1959 – 14 April 1992) was the first Chairman of the Supreme Council of the

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Artsakh ( ), officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh ( ), was a list of states with limited recognition, breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory was internationally recognised as part of Azerbai ...

, who was elected on 7 January 1992. He made an important contribution to reinforcing the defensive capabilities of the

, but was fatally shot under unclear circumstances in April 1992.

Biography

Artur Mkrtchyan was born in 1959 in the village of Ukhtadzor in the Hadrut District of the

Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union, autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The majori ...

. After graduating from the village secondary school in 1976, he entered the faculty of history at

Yerevan State University Yerevan State University (YSU; , , ), also simply University of Yerevan, is the oldest continuously operating public university in Armenia. Founded in 1919, it is the largest university in the country. It is thus informally known as Armenia's ...

. After graduating from university, he conducted his post-graduate studies at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. From 1981 to 1983 he worked at the Armenia Ethnography Museum. In 1986 he returned to his hometown to work as the director of the Hadrut Historical-Geological Museum. In 1988 he defended his PhD thesis and received the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences. Mkrtchyan was an active participant in the

Karabakh movement The Karabakh movement (), also known as the Artsakh movement (), was a national mass movement in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the transfer of the mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast ...

from its early days. He joined the

Armenian Revolutionary Federation The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (, abbr. ARF (ՀՅԴ) or ARF-D), also known as Dashnaktsutyun (Armenians, Armenian: Դաշնակցություն, Literal translation, lit. "Federation"), is an Armenian nationalism, Armenian nationalist a ...

(ARF) and after that party's victory in the 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh parliamentary election, he was elected the first Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on 7 January 1992. Mkrtchyan was killed in his apartment in Stepanakert under mysterious circumstances on 14 April 1992. While an initial report by the NKR's interior minister, Armen Isagulov, stated that Mkrtchyan had been killed by unknown "gunmen," a later official report described his death as accidental. In 2019, former commander of the NKR's army, Samvel Babayan, claimed that Mkrtchyan's death was a suicide․ No one has ever been prosecuted in connection with his death. He was succeeded by Georgy Petrosyan as acting chairman of the Supreme Council. Mkrtchyan had two children. In 2020, Mkrtchyan was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Artsakh.

References

1959 births 1992 deaths People from Hadrut Province Politicians from the Republic of Artsakh Members of the National Assembly (Artsakh) {{Armenia-politician-stub