“As State Minister, the second most important position in the capital, Stepanakert, Mr. Vardanyan hoped to draw the world’s attention to Armenians who faced the threat of extermination.

Conspiracy theories followed. Some claimed that Mr. Vardanyan had been sent by Moscow to turn the republic into a Russian protectorate, others that he was to facilitate its surrender to Azerbaijan. The simple explanation, that a person might aspire to something more than money and comfort, or be driven by romantic ideas such as patriotism or justice, seemed far less likely. And certainly less comfortable for those who had never been inspired by such ideas.

Conspiracy theories about Ruben Vardanyan continued even after Azerbaijan returned to Artsakh in 2023, ethnically cleansing its indigenous Armenian population, looting its churches and cemeteries, and liberating the land from Armenian presence for the first time in thousands of years. They continued even when Azerbaijan arrested Mr. Vardanyan himself, along with 15 other former officials.

And yet, as the trial of Armenian political prisoners begins behind closed doors in Baku, these few photographs show us something we cannot deny – something we recognize as historical memory. Deprived of a lawyer and water, emaciated to the bone, rejected by Russia that created him, ignored by the West whose values he romanticized, abandoned by his own Armenian government, standing for the last time to face his life sentence, Ruben Vardanyan looks at last like a real Armenian”.