
ArmInfo. Armenian political scientist Karen Igityan doesn't believe the renaming of Arsen Amiryan Street to King Papa Street was accidental.
On his Facebook page, the expert expressed his conviction that by doing so, the Armenian authorities were making yet another concession to Azerbaijan. "Why did they remove Amiryan's name? It's simple. The Aliyev regime, and therefore the Pashinyan regime, doesn't like him. The Aliyev regime invented the 1918 "Baku genocide" and blamed the Armenians-the leaders of the Baku Commune, including Amiryan. Furthermore, Azerbaijani propaganda also declared the cavalry commander Tatevos Amirov, who is Arsen Amiryan's brother, an enemy," the political scientist noted.
Thus, according to Igityan, this "simple renaming" has two subtexts: removing Amiryan as a symbol of Armenians in Baku and their role in the Baku Commune, and also as an irritant to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "Furthermore, renaming Amiryan Street (to King Pap Street - ed.) symbolizes the struggle against the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), which is also understandable in the modern political context of Armenia," Igityan concluded.
As a reminder, the Yerevan Council of Elders, at its meeting on June 23, voted by a majority to rename Arsen Amiryan Street to King Pap Street. During the meeting, Council of Elders member Manuk Sukiasyan from the Mother Armenia faction emphasized that he has no objection to the establishment of a street named after King Pap in Yerevan, but in this case, he believes, it seems the main goal is to abandon the name "Amiryan." In response, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan stated that, with all due respect to the descendants of Arsen Amiryan, he does not believe that this man embodies the values after which one of Yerevan's central streets adjacent to Republic Square should be named.
It's worth noting that Arsen Amiryan was a Bolshevik revolutionary, journalist, and one of the 26 Baku Commissars. He was born in Baku in 1881 to an Armenian family. He studied law at Kyiv University, participated in the revolutionary movement, wrote journalism, and edited the Bolshevik newspaper "Bakinsky Rabochiy." During the events of 1918, he was a member of the Baku Commune leadership. After the fall of the Commune, he was arrested and executed in September 1918 along with other Baku Commissars in Transcaspia.