My Brother's Road : An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia

by Markar Melkonian

• ISBN13: 9781850436355
• ISBN10: 1850436355
• Format: Trade Book
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

Known at various times as "Abu Sindi", "Timothy Sean McCormick", "Saro", and "Commander Avo", Monte Melkonian was denounced in Europe as an international terrorist, while his adopted homeland of Armenia decorated him as a national hero who led a force of 4,000 men to victory in Azerbaijan. Markar Melkonian spent seven years unravelling the mystery of his brother's road: a journey which began in his ancestors' town in Turkey and led to a blood-splattered square in Tehran, the Kurdish mountains, the bomb-pocked streets of Beirut, and finally, to the windswept heights of mountainous Karabagh. Monte's life embodied the agony and the follies of the end of the Cold War and the unraveling of the Soviet Union. Yet, who was this man, really? A terrorist or a hero? My Brother's Road is not just the story of a long journey and a short life, it is an attempt to understand what happens when one man decides that violent deeds speak louder than words

Author Biography

Markar Melkonian is a teacher, writer and veteran solidarity worker. Melkonian's books include Marxism: A Post-Cold War Primer (1996) and Richard Rorty's Politics: Liberalism at the End of the American Century (1999). He is a founder and a member of the Board of Directors of The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc., a nonprofit organization that assists the neediest of the needy in the impoverished former Soviet Republic of Armenia (www.melkonian.org). He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Funeral, 1993 * Maps * Choosing Ancestors * Small Town Kid * A Riddle * Stories of Forebears * Departures * The Open Road * Pilgrimage * Time of Turmoil * The Secret Army * Underground * Terrorist Suspect * Martyrdom * Everywhere Walls * Do-Gooder * Serving Time * Wandering Through Ruins * Armenia at Last * Bitter Bread * "Call me Avo" * Discipline Problems * Other Mountains * A Proper Army * Come In, Zero-Zero * Leave Like Water * The View from Yeraplur * Notes * Acknowledgments

Prologue: Funeral, 1993 * Maps * Choosing Ancestors * Small Town Kid * A Riddle * Stories of Forebears * Departures * The Open Road * Pilgrimage * Time of Turmoil * The Secret Army * Underground * Terrorist Suspect * Martyrdom * Everywhere Walls * Do-Gooder * Serving Time * Wandering Through Ruins * Armenia at Last * Bitter Bread * "Call me Avo" * Discipline Problems * Other Mountains * A Proper Army * Come In, Zero-Zero * Leave Like Water * The View from Yeraplur * Notes * Acknowledgments