Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Hidden Fortress of Tsitsernakaberd: A Forgotten Armenian Stand
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Sardarabad, about the last stand that saved Armenia. But there's another battle from those same days, barely two weeks later, that almost nobody remembers. It happened at a place called Tsitsernakaberd — that's the same hill where the Genocide Memorial stands today, but in 1918 it was just a rocky outcrop with the ruins of an ancient Urartian fortress. Luna: Wait, the genocide memorial is on a fortress? Lucas: Exactly. The hill itself is ancient — the Urartians called it something else, but it's been a defensive position for thousands of years. And in late May 1918, while the main Ottoman army was pushing toward Sardarabad, a smaller force broke off and headed straight for Yerevan. The only thing between them and the city was a handful of Armenian volunteers holding that crumbling fortress. Lucas: And before we go deeper — you know how we never run ads on these conversations, and that's a choice we've made since the beginning. If that matters to you, the link to keep us going is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small thing, but it's what lets us keep digging up stories like this one. Luna: Yeah, I always appreciate that. It's nice to listen without interruptions. Lucas: So, the Ottoman Third Army after Sardarabad — they weren't done. General Vehib Pasha still had troops in the field, and one column veered toward Yerevan from the southwest. The Armenian National Council, barely organized, scraped together whatever fighters they could find. Many of them were refugees, survivors of the genocide who had nowhere else to go. Luna: So these were ordinary people, not soldiers. Lucas: Right. Among them was a woman they called Soseh Mayrig — 'Mother Soseh' — a fedayi who had been fighting for decades. She was in her mid-forties by then, but she stood on the ramparts with a rifle and a pistol, shouting orders. And then there was Dro, or Dro Kanayan, a seasoned commander who had been part of the Armenian revolutionary movement since the 1890s. He took charge of the defense. Lucas: The fortress itself was in ruins. The walls had been crumbling for centuries, and there wasn't much cover. But it sat on a high bluff overlooking the Ararat plain, so they could see the Ottoman columns approaching from miles away. They had maybe two hundred fighters, a few machine guns, and almost no artillery. Luna: How did they hold on? Lucas: They used every scrap of the terrain. The Ottoman forces, maybe a thousand strong, attacked in waves. The Armenians let them get close, then opened fire from behind rocks and broken walls. Women and children from nearby villages, like the village of Nork just below the hill, carried ammunition and water up to the defenders under constant fire. It was chaotic, desperate hand-to-hand at times. Lucas: There's a story, maybe legend, that Soseh picked up a wounded soldier’s rifle and kept firing while dragging another man to cover. And Dro, at one point, stood on the wall and shouted, 'They will not take this hill while we live.' It's the kind of thing that gets retold, but it captures the mood. Luna: I've heard of Dro from other episodes, but never this battle. What happened after? Lucas: The Ottomans pulled back after a day of fighting — not because they were beaten, but because they got word that the ceasefire talks were underway. The Armistice of Mudros came later, but already the pressure was easing. Yerevan was saved, barely. The First Republic was declared the next day, on May 28th, and that fortress became a symbol of survival. Lucas: But then, in the decades that followed, the story faded. Sardarabad got the monuments, the parades. Tsitsernakaberd turned into a memorial for the genocide, and the battle itself was almost forgotten, even though the same hill had sheltered both the dead and the living. Luna: That's bittersweet — that the place of a last stand became a place of mourning. Lucas: It is. And there's evidence the battle mattered more than we think. If the Ottomans had taken Yerevan, the Republic might never have gotten off the ground. The Armenian Red Cross, which was operating out of a small building in the city, sent volunteers to tend the wounded during the battle. One of their reports, filed days later, lists nearly forty dead and over a hundred wounded among the defenders. Lucas: Compare that to the number of Ottoman casualties — it's harder to find, but some Turkish sources suggest they lost around two hundred in that engagement. They just couldn't break through. Luna: So it wasn't just a skirmish. It was a real battlefield. Lucas: Absolutely. And the fortress had a long history before that day. The Urartians built a citadel there in the 8th century BCE. Later, the Armenian kings of the Artaxiad and Arsacid dynasties used it as a refuge. There are records of a church on the hill in the medieval period, and even a small settlement that survived into the 19th century. So when Soseh and Dro stood on those walls, they were standing on centuries of Armenian defense. Lucas: And there's a personal angle too. Soseh's own family had been killed in the genocide — her husband, her children. She had nothing left but the cause. After the battle, she stayed in Yerevan and later became a national hero, but she died in obscurity in the 1930s. Dro went on to serve in the Republic’s army, then lived in exile after the Soviet takeover. Luna: It's strange to think that the same hill is now a place where people go to remember the dead, not a place where they once fought to live. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why I wanted to tell this story — because the victory at Tsitsernakaberd is part of the same story as the genocide, but it's the part where Armenians fought back. It deserves to be remembered alongside Sardarabad. Lucas: There's a memorial stone on the hill today, but it's small, easy to miss. It doesn't mention the battle. Most visitors don't know that the ground they're walking on was once soaked with blood. Maybe that's okay — the memorial is for the dead. But I think the defenders would have wanted to be remembered for what they did, not just for what was done to them. Luna: I'll never look at that hill the same way. Thanks for bringing this back. Lucas: There's a lot more to uncover in those weeks in May 1918. The battles at Bash Abaran and Karakilis also played a role, and each has its own forgotten heroes. Maybe we'll get to those another time.