Igor Muradyan ( hy, Իգոր Մուրադյան; 29 April 1957 – 17 June 2018) was an

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

political activist and political scientist. He was one of the earliest leaders of the

Karabakh movement The Karabakh movement ( hy, Ղարաբաղյան շարժում, also the Artsakh movement Արցախյան շարժում) was a national mass movement in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from 1988 to 1991 that advocated for the transfer of the ma ...

, along with

Zori Balayan Zori (), also rendered as zōri ( ja, , ), are thonged Japanese sandals made of rice straw, cloth, lacquered wood, leather, rubber, or—most commonly and informally—synthetic materials. They are a slip-on descendant of the tied-on sandal. ...

, Silva Kaputikyan and Viktor Hambardzumyan. Born in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrat ...

, Muradyan grew up in Baku, where many Armenians lived during the Soviet period. He finished the

Plekhanov Institute of National Economy The Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (russian: Российский экономический университет имени Г. В. Плеханова) is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. It was fou ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. According to

Thomas de Waal Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal (born 1966) is a British journalist and writer on the Caucasus. He is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. He is best known for his 2003 book '' Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War''. Li ...

, "Muradian was a Soviet insider. He worked as an economist in the state planning agency Gosplan in Yerevan and had good connections among Party cadres." Muradyan was later critical of the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, calling the unrecognised

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh () or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (),, is a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Artsakh controls a part of the former N ...

"a failed experiment" and criticising its authorities for not being able to come up with a clear strategy for its existence and arguing for Nagorno-Karabakh's incorporation into Armenia.Armenian Analyst: NKR a Failed Experiment
''Haqqin.az''. 20 August 2016.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Muradyan, Igor 1957 births 2018 deaths Armenian activists People from the Republic of Artsakh Armenian political scientists Members of the Karabakh Committee People from Odesa