Yerkrapah Volunteer Union
Yerkrapah, the Volunteer Union of Defenders of the Land, grew from Armenian veterans of the First Karabakh War. It was both a social organisation for fighters and a political network that linked wartime legitimacy to post-war state power. In the 1990s and 2000s it became closely associated with the Republican Party and the security establishment.
Veterans as political infrastructure
Yerkrapah, the Volunteer Union of Defenders of the Land, grew from Armenian veterans of the First Karabakh War. It was both a social organisation for fighters and a political network that linked wartime legitimacy to post-war state power. In the 1990s and 2000s it became closely associated with the Republican Party and the security establishment.
The organisation's importance lies in the conversion of battlefield capital into political authority. Veterans had real claims on the new Armenian state: they had fought when institutions were weak and the outcome uncertain. But veterans' networks also helped militarise politics and protect patronage systems. The boundary between honouring service and using war legitimacy to evade democratic accountability was often blurred. editorial
Yerkrapah matters because the First Karabakh War did not end when the ceasefire was signed. It remained embedded in Armenian politics through veterans, parties, property, policing and the symbolic authority of victory.