|
|
Stoletie, March 4 - This morning it was announced that VG Ardzinba
died in Moscow on 65 th year of life in the Central Clinical Hospital
in Moscow.
V. Ardzinba worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies,USSR Academy
of Sciences, for many years. He was an excellent scholar, a specialist
in the Hatti (the oldest population in Minor Asia), whose language he
argued to be common with the Abkhaz-Adyghe language-family. He wrote an
excellent monograph, "The rituals and myths of ancient Anatolia”, which
later was defended as his doctoral dissertation.
V. Ardzinba was never a careerist. In Soviet times, he was occupied
with cuneiform and proto-Hittite — hardly the choice of a careerist.
Vladislav Grigoryevich was man of science, but fate literally pushed
him into politics. And that he turned out to be worthy of his
historical role was a hugely fortunate for the Abkhazians. V. Ardzinba
was a politician from God, the leader of the nation at its most tragic
of times.
|
|
 |
He was not a typical politician – too soft and intelligent, but in a
critical situation for the sake of national interests capable of the
most decisive measures.
He was also a politician from the
"inconvenient” category. In 1994 he did not conceal his negative
attitude towards Russia’s policy in Chechnya, considering the beginning
of the first Chechen war a monumental mistake, and he offered the
Kremlin to mediate in deciding the problem by entirely different means.
But in those years of Yeltsin’s leadership such disagreement was not
deemed to be acceptable. The Kremlin was so angry that Yeltsin gave the
order to block the border of Abkhazia, and the blockade lasted for
several years. Today, the correctness of V. G. Ardzinba’s stance is
obvious to all.
The circumstances of his illness are
still not clear. In 1997, he flew to Tbilisi for negotiations; I saw
him in Pitsunda immediately thereafter and, remembering how in 1936 at
the home of Beria the Abkhaz leader, Nestor Lakoba, was poisoned, made
the wholly bad joke : "Vladislav, I hope you didn’t eat anything there,
did you?” In response, Ardzinba could only shrug it off with a joyless
sigh.
Shortly after his visit to Tbilisi, he
started having problems with his health. It is this that gives grounds
for the suspicion that he was poisoned. By the way, the head of his
body-guard, who also travelled to Tbilisi, suddenly died soon after
this trip.
The fact that physicians of different
countries were unable to reach a clear diagnosis of Vladislav
Grigoryevich’s illness, gives ground for suggesting that his disease
was the result of the action of some substances which are available for
use by intelligence agencies but unknown to modern medicine.
The last time I saw Vladislav
Grigoryevich was in October 2008. We had not met for several years, and
his progressive disease was striking. His eyes sparkled as of old, his
mind remained perfectly clear, but he moved and spoke with the greatest
of difficulty. We had a long conversation about the problems of
Abkhazia, its future, the prospects for the survival of the Abkhaz
ethnic group, Russia’s recognition of the republic, and to what this
recognition might lead, because there are not only positive but also
negative aspects. In the context of globalization we are witnessing the
disappearance of tens if not hundreds of small nationalities, so that,
even after Russia’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia, the
problem of the ethnic revival of the Abkhazians remains serious. And he
understood that problem very clearly.
During our last meeting I had the
impression that what he most wanted was that the split which occurred a
few years ago in Abkhazian society be finally repaired. I hope that his
political heirs will succeed in solving this problem.
Source: Stoletie (Политик из разряда «неудобных», Александр Крылов)
Translated by Disa Wurdem. |
