Levon Ter-Petrosyan

He had three brothers, Telman (1936–1997), Petros (1938–2013), and Kamo (born 1948), as well as a younger sister, Iskuhi (1953–2015).

Levon Hakobi Ter-Petrosyan (Լևոն Հակոբի Տեր-Պետրոսյան; born 9 January 1945), also known by his initials LTP, is an Armenian politician and historian who served as the first president of Armenia from 1991 until his resignation in 1998.

Ter-Petrosyan was born on 9 January 1945 in Aleppo, Syria to an Armenian family descended from a long line of priests living near Musa Dagh in the region of Hatay (now located in the south of Turkey).

His family took part in the armed resistance at Musa Dagh during the Armenian genocide before fleeing to Syria.

His father, Hakob Ter-Petrosyan, was first a member of the Hunchakian Party and later a founding member of the Syrian Communist Party.

His family emigrated to Soviet Armenia in 1947, when he was still an infant, just before the birth of his only living younger brother, Kamo.

In 1969, he graduated from the Oriental Studies Department of Yerevan State University.

In 1972, he completed his postgraduate studies at Leningrad State University.

From 1972 to 1979, Ter-Petrosyan worked as junior researcher at the Manuk Abeghian Literature Institute of the Armenian Academy of Sciences.

From 1979 to 1984, he held the post of science secretary at Matenadaran named after Saint Mesrob Mashdots.

Since 1984, he has worked at Matenadaran as a senior researcher.

Ter-Petrosyan wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Assyrian language and its ties to Armenian.

In addition, he is the author of more than 30 books, about 80 scientific articles in Armenian, French and Russian, as well as thousands of political publications in the multilingual press (speeches, articles, interviews, press conferences, etc.).

He is a member of the Writers Union of Armenia, the French Asian Society, the Mekhitarist Academy in Venice and a recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of La Verne, University of Sofia, Paris-Sorbonne University and University of Strasbourg.

In 1987, he received his doctoral degree from the same university.

In late 1987 and early 1988, the Karabakh movement emerged in Soviet Armenia and the Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast with the goal of transferring the autonomous region from Azerbaijan to Armenia.

A senior researcher at the Matenadaran, he led the Karabakh movement for the unification of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia which began in 1988.

On 19 May 1988, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Vazgen Manukyan and 9 others founded a new Karabakh Committee, which soon took leadership of the Karabakh movement from the older committee led by Zori Balayan and Igor Muradyan.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan was the de facto leader of the committee.

Under the leadership of Ter-Petrosyan and Manukyan, the Karabakh movement transformed from being purely concerned with the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia into a broader movement for democratization.

From 10 December 1988 to 31 May 1989, Ter-Petrosyan was imprisoned in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison together with other members of the Karabakh Committee; they returned to Yerevan after their release and continued their activities.

In 1989, Ter-Petrosyan and the other members of the Karabakh Committee founded a political party called the Pan-Armenian National Movement (ANM, also known by its Armenian acronym HHSh).

Later on, Ter-Petrosyan became the party's chairman.

After Armenia's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in September 1991, Ter-Petrosyan was elected president in October 1991 with overwhelming public support.

He led the country through the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Azerbaijan.

He was reelected in the 1996 presidential election, which was marred by accusations of electoral fraud, sparking mass protests led by runner-up Vazgen Manukyan.

The mass rallies were suppressed by military force.

Due to disagreements with key members of his government over a peace proposal for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, especially Defence Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, Ter-Petrosyan resigned on 3 February 1998.

From his resignation up to 2007, Ter-Petrosyan was inactive in the political scene.

However, he made a political comeback in September 2007 and ran for president in 2008.

He faced one of his former government members, at the time Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.

According to official results, he earned 21.5% of the total vote.

Ter-Petrosyan claimed the elections were rigged and led thousands of his supporters in mass protests against the alleged electoral fraud and called for new elections.

After a week of mass protests, the government used police and military force to disperse his supporters, resulting in the deaths of ten people on 1 March 2008.

On 1 August 2008, Ter-Petrosyan founded the Armenian National Congress (ANC) which included more than a dozen of political parties and NGOs.

Being the main opposition party in Armenia at the time, the ANC was out of the parliament and was mainly involved in street protests against Serzh Sargsyan's government.

They organized mass rallies in 2011, forcing the government to grant several political concessions.

In parliamentary elections in 2012, the ANC received 7.1% of the popular vote, gaining 7 seats.

Ter-Petrosyan's party lost those seats in the following elections and has not entered parliament since.

He led the ANC's electoral list during snap parliamentary elections in June 2021, where the party again failed to enter parliament.