ARMENIA’S FOUNDATIONAL DAY

On May 28, 1918, the Republic of Armenia was born out of the ashes of a nation newly martyred by genocide as empires and the world order were collapsing following the First World War. However adverse the circumstances of its birth, amid widespread disease and flanked by its ever-predatory neighbors, the ephemeral republic of 1918–1920 set the foundations of our modern homeland, which this year celebrates 35 years of independence. Until its renewed independence in 1991, few Armenians believed they would see the tricolor flag fly over their free homeland again. Yet today, notwithstanding the challenges Armenia faces, the republic endures, carrying forward the promise first proclaimed on May 28 and reaffirming, against all odds, the Armenian people’s will to live free in their ancestral homeland.