The possible reasons for this memory lapse vary. The government’s lifespan was short: just over two and a half years, until December 1920, when power was ceded to the Bolsheviks. In the ensuing decades, the First Republic was not a topic for public discussion. That changed when Armenia regained its independence in 1991, but history classes still pay the era scant attention.

Every year, though, Armenia celebrates May 28 as its Republic Day, an official holiday complete with concerts and speeches. But attention falls mostly on the three Armenian defeats of Ottoman Turks that preceded the republic’s foundation (Sardarabad, Gharakilisa and Bash-Aparan). This was the moment, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated in 2017, when “our ancestors won their right to live.” He did not mention the First Republic.