Yakov Nikitayi Zarobyan (Armenian: Յակով Նիկիտայի Զարոբյան; 25 September 1908 – 11 April 1980) was a Soviet Armenian politician who led the Armenian SSR as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia from 1960 to 1966, most notably authorizing the first official state commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on its 50th anniversary.
Born in Artvin, Ottoman Turkey (then Russian Empire), Zarobyan fled with his family inland during World War I amid ethnic violence. Settling in Kharkiv, Ukraine, he labored in factories from 1925 to 1941, embodying proletarian roots. Joining the Communist Party in 1932, he rose swiftly: factory committee secretary by 1939, Central Committee department head in 1949. Returning to Armenian roots, he became Yerevan City Committee Secretary (1950), Armenian SSR Deputy Security Minister (1952), and First Deputy Premier (1953–1958; 1958–1960), serving in the USSR Supreme Soviet (1954–1966).
Rise to Power and Genocide Anniversary Initiative
Zarobyan ascended to First Secretary on 28 December 1960, succeeding Suren Tovmasyan amid Khrushchev’s post-Thaw consolidation. His tenure coincided with the Armenian Genocide’s semicentennial (1915–1965), a taboo under Stalin. Defying Moscow’s Russification, Zarobyan championed commemoration: on 13 December 1964, he petitioned the CPSU Central Committee for events honoring “mass extermination by the Turkish criminal gang,” framing it as anti-fascist history. Permitted, Yerevan hosted rallies at Opera Square on 24 April 1965—first state acknowledgment, with water cannons deployed against crowds exceeding 100,000, cementing April 24 as remembrance day.
This patriotic pivot extended to diaspora outreach: Zarobyan fostered ties with Western Armenians, repatriation drives, and cultural projects like the Tsitsernakaberd Genocide Memorial’s inception (completed 1967 under successor Anton Kochinyan). Economically, he accelerated industrialization—hydroelectric dams, cotton mechanization, and Yerevan’s skyline—while navigating Karabakh tensions and Brezhnev-era conservatism.
Dismissal and Final Years
Zarobyan’s ouster came 5 February 1966, blamed on the 1965 demonstrations’ “nationalist excesses.” Demoted to Soviet Deputy Minister for Electrification in Moscow—a gilded exile—he died there 11 April 1980. Posthumously, Gorbachev-era glasnost lionized him as a national hero, crediting his “impossible” feats: Genocide breakthrough amid ideology, economic surge doubling GDP.
In Armenian memory, Zarobyan symbolizes restrained patriotism—from Artvin refugee to Yerevan liberator. His brief reign bridged Thaw optimism and stagnation, birthing Tsitsernakaberd and global Genocide advocacy, enduring beyond Soviet collapse.