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Letters from the Soviet ‘Paradise’: The Image of Russia among the Western
Armenian Diaspora
q
Nona Shahnazarian
Center for Independent Sociological Research in St. Petersburg, Russia
article info
Article history:
Received 22 July 2011
Accepted 14 September 2012
abstract
The paper deals with the complicated relationships between the Western Armenian
Diaspora and Russians. These relations are mediated by the ambiguous attitude of Dias-
pora to the Eastern Armenians. The study examines two social contexts, the Soviet and
Post-Soviet eras. To elaborate the topic the author draws from letters, jokes, and anecdotes
taken from different kinds of international interlocutors, ranging from scholars to ordinary
people.
I argue t hat the image of Russia is constructed of intertwined discourses of negative and
positive meanings. Positive discourses are based around the Russian- (Eastern) Arme-
nians’ cultural connections and Russian involvement to the political movement for
recognition of the 1915–1923 Armenian Genocide, while negative ones are extracted from
(1) the bitter experience of Armenian repatriates to Soviet Armenia ( totalitarianism,
political reprisals, and harsh social censorship), (2) the low standard of living in the USSR
as well as (3) the idiosyncrasies of Russian/Eastern Armenian everyday lif e in post-Soviet
times. So the stereotyped image of Russia is formed at least by three aspects of social life
such as political, cultural, and routine. These types of exoticization/stereotyping engender
some social distance between the Western Armenian Diaspora and Russians as well as
between the Western Armenian Diaspora and post-Soviet Armenians. I conclude that
neverthele ss a litmus test for the Western Armenian Diaspora attitude to USSR/Russia is
the latter’sofficial position regarding the 1915–1923 Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman
Empire.
Copyright Ó 2012, Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hanyang University. Production and
hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The idea of this study started up in 2001, during my
eight-month fieldwork in Nagorno-Karabakh, de facto
Armenian state that was resulted the Azerbaijani-Armenian
ethnic conflict. That was unique situation generated by Iron
Curtain fall in the social context of Gorbachev’s perestroika
and glasnost. The society in Karabakh became multi-
segmental during the Karabakh movement and war
(1988–1994), when the area swiftly attracted the most
heterogeneous groups including, let us call them natives,
with their settled norms and ideas about the nation, honour,
masculinity and femininity; Soviet army officers and
q
This paper is translated from the Russian text, which was initially
printed in The Independent Journal of Diasporas Ed. Kosmarskaya N. (Vol.
4, Moscow. 2009) under the title: “But what do we want with elephant
meat.?: The Image of Russia among the Western Armenian Diaspora” («Ea
tpm:lp l yfnu oan smpo>tjoa...? Pbrai9 russlp[p, spcftslp[p j
rpssjkslp[p u arn>o ejasVpr9»).
E-mail address: shahnon@mail.ru.
Peer-review under responsibility of Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hanyang
University
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Eurasian Studies
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/euras
1879-3665/$ – see front matter Copyright Ó 2012, Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hany ang University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/1 0.1 016/j.euras.2012.09.001
Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17
soldiers (including those of Armenian background) loyal to
the Soviet as well as the Armenian state; volunteers from
Armenia with distinctly nationalistic views; representatives
of the foreign Armenian Diaspora from the USA and Euro-
pean countries and from Middle Eastern countries like
Lebanon and Iran. Such a mixture of cultural backgrounds
amidst the military confrontation created a context for
various alliances and combinations of values and views.
Karabakh swif tly became the axes of concentration of
the most heterogeneous groups of Armenian patriots.
1
In
Karabakh, the interests of all these groups, filled with
suspicion and mistrust towards one another (along with
a cordial joy and infinite gravity to each other), collided.
Misunderstanding and certain emotional aversion could be
found on the daily level, on the level of gender relations, as
well as on the level of concepts and world views. Among the
turbulent judgements of this nature the study’s main
questions arose. What are the scars and consequences of
Cold War in the people’s mind? How that long-term global
socialism–capitalism resistance forms the image of the
USSR assign, Russia?
This study has fairly modest aim:
2
to provide an empir-
ically grounded views of image constructions as they are
imagined by different layers of Western Armenian Diaspora
representatives. The data for this study were collected
during my observations and field research in the UK (Lon-
don, 2003), the USA (California, Massachusetts, 2006–
20 07), Canada (Ontario, 2007, 2008), Switzerland (Zurich,
20 08), Germany (Frankfurt-on-Main, Kaiserslautern, 2008),
the Netherlands (Wassenaar, Amsterdam, 2008), Belgium
(Brussels, St. Niklaas, 2008, 2010) and Turkey (Istanbul,
20 09, 2010). The paper is based on numerous original
interviews, conversations, talks and observations, con-
ducted more pointedly mostly in California County, the USA
(involving more than 48 research participants/interlocu-
tors). The total numbers of talks and interviews conducted
for this project was about 200, out of which at least seven
interviews were with the principal research participants,
marked with the longitudinal interaction.
In historical perspective the image of Armenians in the
Russian empire was tersely described by Ronald Suny as
that of Christians, as commercial, and as conspiratorial.
3
In the eyes of their imperious and imperial masters,
Armenians (and Georgians) were distinguished among the
otherwise monogenous Caucasian ‘native’ masses only by
their religious affiliation.
4
The image of Russia and Russians among Armenians is
a vexed one, as is the sheer number and variety of sub/
cultural and local groupings that make up the Armenian
experience. This includes such criteria as class, gender and
age, across various historical periods (the Imperial, Soviet
and post-Soviet ages), geographical locations (Armenians
in the Middle East, America, Western and Eastern Europe)
and political attitudes encompassing the three main
political parties (ranging from Dashnaks, or the National
Socialists, through to Hnchaks, or the Social Democrats,
to Ramkavars, or the Liberals), as well as those who
proclaim no political allegiance. Also part of this experi-
ence are those who confess their faith and those who are
atheist, and the wide divergence of social status, including
academics, school teachers, lawyers, public service volun-
teers, service industry workers, and so on.
5
For the
purposes of this paper we will focus on the Armenian
diaspora in Europe, the USA and Canada, endeavouring to
convey how they see the USSR and Russia, based on the
personal testimony of those interviewed. As I am of
Armenian descent myself, I was accepted as one of their
own and not as a Russian, although those interviewed
accepted fully the obligations and advantages of foreign
citizenship. The majority of interviews were carried out in
an informal environment.
Armenians in the Western diaspora have both positive
and negative views of Russia and the Russians. It is perhaps
relevant to note here that the majority of my interviewees
were residents of the state of California (Los Angeles,
Glendale, Pasadena, Ensino). These were Armenians who
were able to form easy relationships not only with Arme-
nians of the large-scale post-Soviet emigration from
Armenia (regarded as embodying Soviet Russian values),
but also Russians.
6
It should be added that the reception of
these emigres often is coloured by their unedifying
attempts to secure material support and their capacity for
wheeler-dealing, on both a minor and a large scale.
7
In
other words, it would be more accurate to say that we are
dealing here with various projections of Homo Sovieticus.
Thus, in the majority of cases diasporal Armenians who
avoid holidaying in Russia because of the language barrier
and/or the rumoured poor level of service construct an
image of Russia not based on their own experience but on
1
The similar processes, described by Ronald Suny, took place in the
refugee camps after the 1915 Armenian Genocide (see: Suny, R. (1993)
Looking towards Ararat: Armenians in Modern History, Bloomington and
Indianapolis, Indiana U.P. pp. 217–221).
2
The numerous international field researches were possible thanks to
the financial support of Mary Murphy (researcher, Amnesty Interna-
tional), Fulbright Program (FBSSret 06-14. 2006–2007) and The
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) (visiting scholar grant,
2008). Let me also gratefully acknowledge the advice and help received
from outstanding scholars from Yerevan, Armenia – Armenuhi Stepanian
(Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography), Armen Grigoryan (Analytical
Center on Globalisation and Regional Cooperation, Yerevan) and Hrach
Bayadyan (a professor at the Yerevan State University, Department of
Journalism and Cultural Studies, Armenia).
3
R. Suny, Images of the Armenians in the Russian Empire: Looking
towards Ararat: Armenians in Modern History, Bloomington and Indi-
anapolis, Indiana U.P., 1993, p. 31.
4
There are interesting parallels here with the collective European
categorization of the many and disparate New World social groups as
simply ‘Indians’.
5
It is interesting that responses from those in the legal sphere were
very critical of the crime-ridden image of Russia, accepting that stereo-
type while those from academia were less judgemental and more
analytical.
6
It is also interesting to note that Jews from Russia were also called
‘Russians’, not, apparently, on ethnic grounds but more as representatives
of a very particular way of life and thought.
7
Those residing in the country illegally, and the incredibly disingen-
uous lengths to which they will go to acquire American citizenship and
integration into an American way of life fundamentally at odds with the
socialist patterns of behaviour to which they are accustomed, are the
subject of a different ethnographic study.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17 9
the perceptions of Russians, Jews and especially Armenians
from the former USSR, Armenia and Russian Federation.
Rose-coloured discourses are ambivalent and, in
general, reflect the view that the USSR is to be thanked for
the creation of an Armenian state of the Eastern Armenians,
even at the expense of allowing Karabakh and Nakhichevan
to be unceremoniously ceded in order to contribute to the
expansion of the socialist camp and the idea of a single
Soviet space. However, the accepted perception is that the
historical act of the union of Eastern Armenia with the
Soviet state was a choice between the lesser of two evils,
while at the same time relations between Armenia and
Russia were and continue to be acknowledged as organi-
cally genuine, rather than morally abstract, even if domi-
nated by the looming spectre of Big Brother, that
tendentious and ideologically-charged metaphor of the
Soviet period, as well as the Kremlin policy of forced
Russification.
8
Moreover, Russia (as the USSR, with rare
exceptions), never took sides with Turkey, the country
Armenians regard as the enemy of their blood (arm. vox-
erim tshnami). The key moment here is the Kremlin’s
turning a blind eye to the annual commemoration and
national mourning on 24 April of the genocide perpetrated
by the Turks on the Armenian people in 1915. Permission
was even given in 1965 for the construction of a memorial
on Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Erevan, an event otherwise
unheard of in Soviet times.
9
Incidentally, it is this event that
persuaded the Armenian nationalist ‘dashnaks ’ finally to
bury their differences with the Communists after
the savage bloodletting during the Civil War in the early
1920s.
Also of relevance here is the cultural aspect of Russo-
Armenian relations. (Eastern) Armenian culture was influ-
enced to a certain extent by Russian culture, especially
literature, during the Imperial age and experienced its real
flourishing during the Soviet period, maintaining close
links to the Russian cultural tradition.
10
These links have
been noted by members of the Armenian diaspora, espe-
cially affinities in the work of the poets Vladimir Maia-
kovskii and Eghishe Charents. We should not forget also
that the Armenian diaspora is very well versed in the
classical literary texts of Lev Tolstoi and Fedor Dostoevskii,
and in particular the ‘dissident’ works of Boris Pasternak
and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
11
The negative perception of Russia also has several levels
and socio-political contexts which make it quite a complex
issue, but this paper does not claim to be exhaustive or
comprehensive in its suggested conclusions.
It is clear that one of the most important issues to bear
in mind is the social experience of the repatriates, which
we can trace back to the first formation of the Armenian
diaspora (in Armenian ‘spiurk’).
12
The dispersal of Arme-
nians, researchers think, began in the Fourth Century, when
in 387 AD Armenia was divided between Persia and
Byzantium, when Armenian emigrants began to appear in
various parts of Byzantium. L. Abrahamian writes that ‘the
increasing dispersal of Armenians abroad is a reflection of
the changing attitude of Roman Catholicism to the geog-
raphy of Armenian church influence: in the 9th century
they recognised the spiritual authority of Catholicism
within the borders of Armenia, whereas in the 12th century
this authority was recognised in Cappadokia, Medea and
Persia’.
13
The Armenian diaspora became established as fact
after the wholesale slaughter of Armenians by Turks in
1915, whereby the Western Armenians generally became
assimilated into the life styles of Western countries, and the
Eastern Armenians became ‘affiliated’ to Russia and then
the USSR. L. Abrahamian continues: ‘The primary group
divides into two parts, the motherland and the diaspora,
which generally behave as a binary opposition. The latter
serves as the means for the emergence and functioning of
the diaspora and can even be classified as one of its defining
characteristics.’
14
The British researcher R. Panosian agrees,
asserting that there exist ‘two Armenian communities – the
historical homeland (the Armenian republic, be it Soviet or
independent) and the diaspora, which is divided into the
internal (Armenian communities in Russia and other
former Soviet republics) and external (the Armenian
communities in Europe, America, the Middle East). Despite
being formally united into a single nation, there are
nevertheless fundamentally different in their collective
identity and political orientation.’
15
The division was
evidently along the ‘East–West’ line, but later became more
entrenched by the political stand-off between Capitalism
and Communism. In the late 1920s, with the arrival of the
Bolsheviks in Erevan, the Armenian diaspora was declared
8
On this see James Russell, Voices from the Chorus: On the Art of
Translation and Literary Dialogue between the Russian Symbolists and
the Armenians, 2009, pp. 3–4. Unpublished article, received from the
author in 2009.
9
The memorial comprises a 44 m-long wall divided into two parts that
symbolize the division of the nation into the republic of Armenia and the
diaspora. Beside the wall is a cone constructed from 12 stone slabs, in the
centre of which, at a depth of 1.5 m, burns an eternal flame (designed by
S. Kalashian and V. Khachatrian). The memorial took two years to build
after the draft was approved, although improvements continue to be
made.
10
The G. Sundukian Armenian Drama Theatre was created in Erevan in
1921, and in 1933 the A. Spendiarov Armenian Opera and Ballet Theatre
was opened. Among the cultural celebrities of Armenian descent who
have established themselves in the Russian cultural consciousness are the
composers Aram Khachaturian and Arno Babadzhanian, the writers
Marietta Shaginian and Sil’va Kaputikian, the historian Iosif Orbeli, the
chess player Tigran Petrosian, and the actors Armen Dzhigarkhanian and
Frunzik Mkrtchian, among others.
11
The Hollywood film version of Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago was
released in 1965. In Los Angeles I met a girl called Lara who was named
after the heroine of the film and novel. Lara Aharonian from Canada told
me at a workshop in Istanbul (23 May 2009) that when the film was
shown in Beirut in 1972 her mother was pregnant with her, and was so
touched by the heroine that she named her daughter Lara.
12
There are more than a dozen theories of ‘diaspora’ in academic
discourse. A. Militarev defines it as follows: ‘A diaspora is usually
described as a process of dispersal of an original social community,
aligned with those groups who assimilate from outside’.
13
L. Abramian, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora: divergence and
convergence (Diaspory: Nezavisimyi nauchnyi zhurnal, 1–2, 2000, Mos-
cow, p. 53).
14
Abramian, p. 59.
15
R. Panosian, A complex past. A difficult present, a hazy future (rela-
tions of Armenians and the diaspora 1988–1999) Diaspory: Nezavisimyi
nauchnyi zhurnal, 1–2, 2000, Moscow, p. 30.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–1710
‘an ideologically and politically alien phenomenon’ and
contacts with it were forbidden. The same policy was fol-
lowed with regard to the Russian ‘White’ emigration and
was based on the conviction of the Soviet authorities that
‘the very fact of residence abroad is sufficient proof of
political unreliability’.
16
2. Soviet discourses repatriation: ‘Let it be Soviet, but
it’s still Armenia’
17
1921–1927. Nevertheless, the first repatriation of
Armenians to Soviet Armenia was announced in 1921, with
a manageable limit of 150,000. However, they moved into
what could be termed a ‘republic of refugees’ as by that
time in Armenia there were approximately 200,000 refu-
gees and more than 10,000 children who had lost their
parents. ‘The appeal to return was heeded above all by
those in the new colonies abroad where Armenians were
officially encouraged to leave’.
18
When the Armenian
question was discussed at the Conference of Lausanne in
1922 two suggestions were put forward: to create an
Armenian autonomous region on the territory of Western
Armenia or Cilicia, or to extend the borders of Soviet
Armenia into Western Armenia. The first proposal was
rejected by the Turkish delegates, who declared that
‘Armenians can find their homeland in some other
country’. The second proposal was rejected by the Arme-
nian delegation, as the Western Armenians did not recog-
nise Soviet Armenia. The question was removed from
discussion and transferred to a special refugees’ commis-
sion at the League of Nations.
19
With the collapse of the
Armenian project at the international level, and when the
hopes to repatriate Armenians to their homeland in
Western Armenia were dashed, the repatriation of Arme-
nians took a different turn from 1922 onwards. Soviet
Armenia accepted several thousand Armenians from Iran,
Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Greece, France and Bulgaria. In 1924 the
government of Armenia took the decision to resettle in
1924–1925 ten thousand Armenians from Greece, Turkey
and Mesopotamia in the Eastern part of Sardarapat.
Armenians were repatriated from Batumi, Dzhulfa, and
Markara. In the autumn of 1925 a Repatriation Commission
was set up in the Council of People’s Commissars of
Armenia to arrange the acceptance, settlement and
employment of returning Armenians. In 1925 the
Commissionaire for Refugees at the League of Nations,
Fridtjof Nansen, arrived in Armenia as head of a special
commission ‘in order to study the local conditions and
possibilities for the settlement of 50,000 refugees. Nansen
hoped to increase suitable land for settlement through
irrigation and other projects, funding for this provided by
Armenian organizations abroad. In 1927 the Armenian
diaspora in the United States gave $70,000 to the Armenian
government, although repatriation was suspended and
renewed only in the 1930s.’
20
The period 1945–1948 saw another wave of repa-
triation, with massive immigration into Soviet Armenia
encouraged by Stalin’s policy at the end of the Second
World War ‘as part of his objective of territorial acquisition,
to return the lands of Eastern Armenia lost to the Turks in
1921. With this aim in mind actions were set in motion in
Moscow aimed at engaging the Armenian diaspora, and in
a short space of time the communities in Harbin, Teheran,
Paris and New York were all aware of the intention to bring
these Armenian territories into the purview of Soviet
Armenia.’
21
From 1946 to the middle of 1948 about 100,000
Armenians from Bulgaria, Greece, Egypt, Iraq, Iran,
Lebanon, Syria, the USA, Romania, France and other coun-
tries were repatriated to Armenia, with the first group of
immigrants arriving from Beirut in June 1946. These
included doctors, teachers, scientists, artists, and musi-
cians, with financial support again provided by the Arme-
nian diaspora.
Nevertheless, such accommodation did not last long. A
radio broadcast of 19 October 1947 about the Armenian
composer Komitas, in the course of which the Armenian
genocide of 1915 was mentioned, served as the catalyst for
the ensuing anti-Armenian campaign. A listener wrote to
the Party’s Central Committee, warning of a resurgence of
the ‘Dashnak’ threat: ‘Why do we allow the West to state
that it is not Truman, by helping the Turks to organize their
defence against us, but we ourselves who are stoking up
the flames of war with our Armenophile defamation of the
Turks.’ Another letter in similar vein to Beria encapsulated
the slogan ‘we must heighten our vigilance and crush
Armenian bourgeois nationalism.’ According to the ‘facts’ at
Stalin’s disposal among the Armenian returnees were
‘American agents’, who were ‘preparing an act of insur-
rection aboard the steamer Victory.’ Stalin informed the
Central Committee Secretary Georgii Malenkov of this in
a telegram. ‘I received your telegram about the steamer
Victory. Of course, you are right that among the Armenian
returnees there are American agents who attempted an act
of rebellion before the ship set sail from Batumi to Odessa,
after or during the disembarkation of Armenians.’ A day
later, on 15 September 1948, Malenkov again sent Stalin
a telegram: ‘The Council of Ministers has issued a decree
whereby the repatriation of Armenians from abroad has
been brought to an end with immediate effect, and the
entry of Armenian returnees into Armenia is now pro-
hibited, regardless of where they have come from. The
proposals set out in your telegram about the steamer
Victory are now accepted as Politburo decisions.’ In this
febrile atmosphere the repatriation of Armenians was
suspended from the end of 1948. Evidence of wrongdoing
on the part of Armenian returnees was not needed. In 1949
16
E. Melkonian, ‘Diaspora in the system of an ethnic minority (the
example of the Armenian dispersal)’ (Diaspory: Nezavisimyi nauchnyi
zhurnal, 1–2. Moscow, 2000, pp. 23–26).
17
Melkonian, p. 27.
18
A.A. Stepanian, G.G. Sarkisian, ‘The Repatriation of Armenians in the
Early Twentieth Century against the Background of the Demographic
Processes of Transcaucasia’, Arkheologiia, etnologiia i fol’kloristika Kav-
kaza. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii. Pervoprestol’nyi sviatoi
Echmiadzin, 2003, pp. 302–303.
19
Stepanian, Sarkisian, ‘Repatriation’, p. 303.
20
Stepanian, Sarkisian, p. 305.
21
Melkonian, p. 26.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17 11
thousands of Armenian returnees were exiled to the Altai
region, and many ended up in the prisons of the Gulag.
22
After the death of Stalin in 1953 and the Khrushchev
‘thaw’ another 30,000 Armenians were repatriated into
Armenia.
23
3. Letters from the Soviet ‘Paradise’: epistolary
sources, jokes and anecdotes of the period of
repatriation
Negative attitudes are political in nature when linked to
the historical experience and practice of Western Arme-
nians and the Soviet Union. Basically, criticism focuses on
the abuses of the authoritarian system, totalitarianism.
Quotations from the letters of returnees (hayrenadartz)
addressed to undecided relatives abroad are tragicomic in
content. Lebanese Armenians from the USA illustrated their
stories with several examples.
Not everyone thought about settling in Soviet Armenia
with such abandon. There were many who wavered and
asked their more decisive and devil-may-care relatives to
write to them on arrival and tell them if uprooting them-
selves was worth it the journey. At the same time people
were not fully aware of just how all-pervasive the control of
the secret police would be.
24
Nevertheless, returnees
would find ingenious ways of getting necessary informa-
tion through to their relatives abroad in letters that would
be scrutinized by the KGB, using Aesopian language and/or
hints and signs known only to them in otherwise upbeat
letters:
‘We were very warmly received here. We are very glad
that we have arrived, life here is just a fairy-tale. The
whole family was immediately settled in new houses
and given work. Come and join us as soon as you can.
Our whole family has a very good life here, everyone is
pleased, but especially happy is our little Garo...’
When they read this letter, the Armenian relatives living
in France unpacked their suitcases because Garo had died
in childhood from an infectious disease. In another letter
a returnee wrote to his relative: ‘Everything here is fi ne.
There is work, we are treated very well, food is also
extremely well provided. The shops are full of meat, you
can buy elephant meat. But what do we want with elephant
meat, we’re not used to it, we’d rather have a kilogram of
chicken...’
25
An anecdote from the Soviet period precisely captures
the reality of life: ‘An Armenian repatriated from Italy to the
USSR agrees with his brother who remains in Italy to write
in ordinary ink if life in the USSR is good, in green ink if
things are bad. Some time later a letter arrives written in
ordinary ink: “Everything is first-rate, I got an apartment,
work, the shops are full of stuff. There are shortcomings,
but minor ones: for instance, it’s difficult to get hold of
green ink.”’
26
Another such joke is told by Kevork Bardak-
jian, Professor of Armenian at Michigan State University in
Ann Arbor, reflecting the limits of dissatisfaction felt by
those returning to face new conditions of life: ‘Relatives
asked those going back to give them a sign of how things
were. If it was dangerous to write then just draw. A person
standing upright would mean everything was fine, sitting
down meant things were bad. So a letter was sent with
a picture of someone lying down...’
27
Those returning also encountered huge problems in the
absurdities of Soviet everyday life. An anecdote from
Armenian radio tells of the routine dissatisfaction felt by
those recently arrived with the chaotic slovenliness of
Soviet life: ‘A repatriated Armenian falls into an open
manhole, and when he crawls out he is angry. “In Europe
when they open a manhole they put red warning flags
around it.” The reply: “And when you got on the boat to
come here didn’t you see the big red flag?”’
4. Problems of adaptation and social boundaries:
vertical lines ‘from below’
To the regret of the returnees, pressure came not only
from the authorities,
28
but was exacerbated by ordinary
people’s impatience and suspicion.
29
On the microlevel of
personal relationships these hierarchies/boundaries were
constructed on the basis of two factors: the depressed
economic situation and linguistic difference (lezvi tarber-
uthyun). Children of returnees in today’s Armenia tell of
absurd situations arising from linguistic confusion. For
instance, for a long time returnees thought that income tax
(podokhodnyi nalog) was actually ‘steamer’ tax (paro-
khodnyi nalog): ‘How many years have we been here now
and we still haven’t settled the bill for the steamer?’
30
Several factors hindered returnees from adapting to
local conditions, such as politics, attitude, mentality and
dialect (lezvabarbarain tarberuthyunnery).
31
Dialectical
variations within the Armenian language served as
a palpable barrier to any swift and painless assimilation of
returnees. These variations could entail an amusing
collection of words, or the ‘translator’s false friends’, when
22
G.A. Avetisian, E.L. Danielian, A .A. Melkonian, The History of Armenia
from Ancient Times to Modern, ch. 22, section 8: The Armenian SSR from
1945 to the 1980s, Erevan, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic
of Armenia, 2006. PC CD-ROM.
23
ibid.
24
There is a famous joke from Armenian radio: ‘Is the correspondence
of Soviet citizens subject to censorship?’‘No, but letters with anti-Soviet
content do not reach their destination.’ The History of the USSR in
Anecdotes, 1917–1991, comp. M. Dubovskii, ‘Everest’ and ‘Bizness-bene-
fis’, Riga, 1991, p. 317.
25
As related to me in Los-Angeles by O. Simonian, November 2006.
26
The History of the USSR in Anecdotes, p. 35.
27
From a private conversation with Professor Bardakjian in Zurich, 14
November 2008.
28
Professor K. Bardakjian told me that ‘returnees were not allowed to
enter the Faculty of Nuclear Physics because they were not trusted and
considered to be spies (lrtes)’.
29
Bayadyan, H. (2009) Demographic Changes In: Atlas of transformation
book. http://www.monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-transformace/
html/d/demograficke-zmeny/demograficke-zmeny.html.
30
A. Stepanian, Linguistic Mis-Comprehension between Returnees and
Local Armenians (materials from 1946 to 1948), Narodnaia kul’tura
Armenii Xii. Materials from the Republican Academic Session. ‘Mugni’
Publishers, Erevan, 2004, p. 149.
31
M. Bazarian, Letters from the Soviet ‘Paradise’, Erevan, 1997, p. 12. (In
Armenian: Movses Bazarian, Namakner sovetakan “draxtits”.)
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–1712
the opposite meaning of what was intended is achieved.
Sometimes dangerous consequences could ensue. For
instance, a situation on a construction site as described by
Armenuhi Stepanian (based on the different meanings of
the words Dzkhi: pull, hold and let go): ‘A local labourer
says to a returnee: “Pull it towards yourself (Dzkhi, thogh
ga)”. The returnee answers in confusion: “Let it go on to
your head (Intor dzkhem, guluxit kiyna)?”’
These differences had social consequences. They formed
the criteria for inclusion and exclusion, falseness and
genuineness, mainstream culture and marginality, and
drew up clear boundaries between groups of Armenians. At
that time a special differentiating lexicon emerged, with
condescending and disparaging terms such as ‘thazha hay’
(the ‘new’ or ‘newly well off’ Armenian), ‘krro’ (stubborn,
hard-headed), ‘yekvor’ or ‘galma’ (‘one recently arrived’),
‘parzkastantsi’ (Iranian), ‘gaxthakan’ (refugee, colonist).
32
The widely used antonym ‘axpar’ (local disparagement of
the Western Armenian pronunciation of the word ‘eghbair’,
meaning ‘brother’ provides Armenian ethnographers with
the justification to speak of the formation of a separate sub-
ethnic group of Armenian returnees).
33
The word ‘axpar’
was thus used indiscriminately in relation to any newly
arrived Armenian. Such distinctions
34
as ‘axpar’ baptism
(aghbarakan knunkh), ‘axpar’ cuisine (aghbarakan tzash)
and ‘axparka’ (invented by local Russian-speaking Arme-
nians, translated as ‘a female returnee’) became charac-
teristics of the group, inescapably highlighting their
‘otherness’.
5. Red propaganda: ‘in our overseas world we called
them “zevzeks”’. Repressions
The processing, or rather transformation, of returnees
into Soviet citizens occurred with the help of propaganda,
or political re-education. Propagandists and agitators
gathered people together for brainwashing and lessons in
political literacy. ‘Who are they?’ the returnees would ask.
‘Propagandists and agitators,’ would be the reply. ‘In our
overseas world we called them “zevzeks ”’ (Menkh mer
artasahmany adonts zevzek gsenkh).
Political persecution in Armenia began on 17 June 1949.
Wholesale arrests were preceded by exhausting interro-
gations. ‘One returnee was always being called in for
interrogation. By that time they had already learned some
Russian words. So after another wearying interrogation he
gets into a taxi, and the taxi driver asks “Where are we
going?”, he replies with a shout, “Do you need a report,
too?”’
35
A consequence of political repressions was that the third
stage of repatriations in the 1960s and 1970s occurred in
parallel with the emigration of those who had been arres-
ted returning from internal exile. ‘When documents for
emigration to the USA were being drawn up, Soviet officials
would ask, “Who are your relatives abroad?”, to which they
received the heartfelt reply: “And did we have relatives in
Siberia in 1949?”’ (49-in Sibirya ugharketsir, hon harazat
unei?) (A. Stepanian).
Nevertheless, emigration seemed almost irrational
when one considers the traffic in the opposite direction,
occasioned by a romantic patriotism and a nostalgia rooted
in what modern sociologists call primordial loyalty.
36
The
turbulence of this movement of people is reflected in the
story of one Soviet soldier, Private Tsatur, imprisoned by the
Germans in the Second World War and who returned to his
homeland from the USA nearly twenty years later, despite
all the warnings. He had applied to the necessary authori-
ties from his home in the United States, eventually received
permission and in 1960s arrived back in the USSR and
returned to his native village. ‘For about three days they
drank and ate what they could, slaughtered some of the
animals, the wine flowed like a river. Then on the fourth
day the KGB came and took him, and he was given ten years
in Magadan for treason. They say that after he returned
Tsatur returned to his native village ill and a broken man.
The people would gather in the evenings and ask him what
life was like in the States’.
‘One lad asked: “Uncle Tsatur, were there any donkeys in
America?”’
‘Yes, there was one.’
‘What, only one?’
‘Yes, me.’
37
6. ‘No matter how much you steal from the state you
won’t get your own back!’
38
The economy of double
standards
The shadowy sides of the Soviet economy and the
shortage of consumer goods are the next much discussed
theme. Unrealistic Five Year Plans, false statistical data and
window dressing provided the real meat of the unreal,
fantasy world of the Soviet economy. Heated debates about
State statistics and Gosplan as a feature of socialist
economic planning are becoming more widespread and
exciting interest that makes them the second most popular
topic of discussion after tales about the omnipresent KGB.
In Los Angeles a friend of mine told an anecdote that he had
heard from a politician friend in Soviet Armenia. ‘What was
the Soviet economy? Well, probably not much has changed
even today. A bridge was built over a river. The bridge had
32
Ibid., p. 152.
33
A. Stepanian (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography), Formation
of the sub-ethnic group of Armenian returnees from the 1920s to the
1940s, in the booklet Contemporary ethno-cultural processes in Armenia.
Abstracts, Erevan, 1997, p. 43. (In Armenian: Armenuhi Stephanian (HAI),
Hayrenadartzneri Yenthaethnik Xmbi Dzevavorumy 1920–1940-akan
Tvakannerin. Erevan, pp. 43–44.) See also A. Stepanian, Linguistic Mis-
Comprehension, pp. 149–150.
34
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,
London, Routledge, 1984.
35
From a conversation with Armenuhi Stepanian, Erevan, 17.07.2008.
36
Pierre Bourdieu, The Practical Sense, St. Petersburg, 2001, pp. 168–171.
37
Interview with R. Shahnazarian, b. 1940, from the village of Dagraz in
Nagornyi Karabakh.
38
From the series of anecdotes about Armenian radio. The journal
“Xachkar”, published by the Armenian Cultural Centre, editor-in-chief C.
Mxitarian, No 1 (1), 12/2007, p. 39.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17 13
to be guarded, so they hired a watchman. They then hired
a cashier to calculate the watchman’s wages. Then they
hired an accountant to keep the books. And a supervisor
had to be hired to provide proper leadership, and so on. But
then the word came down that there had to be economies,
so they fired the watchman.’
39
Such an economy of absurdity goes some way to
explaining to Western Armenians why their Eastern fellow-
countrymen accept corruption and ‘shady’ economic
practices as the norm. They see this as the destabilising
legacy of the Soviet regime, which has led to a psychology
of collective non-responsibility. It is this feature of the
Soviet consciousness, they say, that engendered a hollow
economy of excessive regulation and poor quality produc-
tion. ‘My parents visit Armenia, in Soviet times that was the
thing to do. My mother was told that there was good
quality crystal in the Soviet Union. So she went into a shop
and asked if they had any crystal on sale. The shop assistant
replied no, they didn’t, as we could see. There was a local
man with us, and he said so can she sell us any from under
the counter (dakits). So my mother bought a set of crystal
glasses, but to this day we can’t understand what this
“dakits” means.’ (R. Sherbetjian, male aged 57).
7. Censorship
The infringement of all forms of personal freedom under
the Soviets, including the complete censorship of all forms
of expression, is a frequent topic of conversation for the
overseas Armenians. The intellectuals of the diaspora
consider the epitome of absurdity to be the censorship of
Soviet musical art. Ronald Suny recounts how the world-
famous composer Aram Khachaturian had to apologise
for writing bourgeois music.
3
Thus false standards in
economic life are transferred to the spiritual and educa-
tional spheres of Soviet life; the stereotype persisted
among particularly radical Armenians living abroad
considered that nothing of quality could be produced in the
Soviet Union because all free or critical thinking was nipped
in the bud. This environment could not produce any clear
blue sky thinking, they would say, and social sciences were
especially afflicted by plagiarism. All of this, of course, was
well known to Soviet citizens, thus giving rise to the
witticism that ‘there are four types of lie: ordinary, brazen,
statistics and quotations.’
40
Nevertheless, it is accepted that two areas of activity
were the exceptions to the above: classical music and sport.
The Soviet culture of rote learning and memorizing is seen
as a distinctive feature of the Soviet educational system,
giving rise to some universally recited yet dubious
compliments, such as ‘a nightingale is basically a sparrow
that has graduated from the Soviet conservatory.’
But contacts between Soviet Armenians and those living
abroad (letters, parcels, telephone conversations)
throughout the Soviet and especially the post-Soviet period
did not cease. It seemed that the Armenian Soviet republic
lived under a particularly benevolent regime and that the
Soviet nomenclature were not too bothered about the
‘bourgeois’ links of Soviet Armenians with the diaspora.
During the Khrushchev period and in the 1960s and 1970s
Moscow took little action and believed somehow that these
contacts contained not a drop of ideology or bourgeois
propaganda, but was simply the chattering of relatives.
41
This relatively tolerant regime allowed underground
shops in Erevan to fl ourish selling feel-good ‘capitalist’
wares such as cushions, bobby pins, records, cigarettes and
other such ‘luxuries’, and as a result Erevan gained
a semblance of bourgeois comfort and relative prosperity.
This really was an amazing combination of the
Communist and the national/nationalistic, the official and
the forbidden, the routine active use of Communist ideol-
ogy for the attainment of healthy and vital ends, without
extremes but with some panache. For instance, children in
the families of Soviet Armenian state functionaries from an
early age would learn the names of members of the Polit-
buro but would also recite for visitors patriotic poems
about the great fight of the Armenian forest partisans
against the Turks and about how the national hero Serob-
pasha was poisoned in the mountains of Western Armenia.
8. The post-Soviet period
Discourses of the post-Soviet period are mainly informal
and are linked above all to a way or styles of life and
everyday practices. This may mean that post-Soviet rhet-
oric is less mythologized and based on a direct engagement
with actual people, who may be Armenians but who are
divided occasionally by the unbreakable Soviet wall of
ideology, just as Germans were once divided into East and
West.
42
R. Panosian writes about the huge distance
between the diaspora and its ‘historical homeland’, exac-
erbated by the seven decades of isolation and physical
detachment.
43
Describing the relationship between them
following Armenian independence, he divides it into four
39
Interview with R. Sherbetjian, 06.01.2007, an Armenian who had
emigrated from Lebanon, and whose forebears had settled there from
Turkey, Urfa and Musa dag after being persecuted in 1915.
40
History of the USSR in anecdotes, p. 291.
41
Some people explain this as a result of the extraordinary compro-
mises and diplomatic genius of Karen Demirchian, First Secretary of the
Armenian Communist Party from 1974 to 1988 (L. Kagramanian, female,
aged 60). See also S. Platz, ‘“We Don’t Have Capitalism, We Have Kinship”:
the state, the family and the expression of Armenian identity’, Anthro-
pology of East Europe Review, vol. 13, no. 2 (autumn 1995) (Special Issue:
Culture and Society in the Former Soviet Union).
42
Andreas Glaeser writes that new social conditions create a new,
different German identity that does not disappear immediately with
change. The author asks why after ten years or so since the Berlin Wall fell
Germany still remains divided. See Andreas Glaeser, Divided in Unity:
Identity, Germany and the Berlin Police, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 2000.
43
The Western diaspora is also riven with profound disagreements.
According to R. Panosian, it is organized around two self-sufficient
groupings based on political affiliation and controlling two parallel
structures of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Social links and intermar-
riages between these groupings are very rare. Between these groupings
there has intermittently been open conflict (in the 1920s) or a hidden
stand-off which waned only in the 1970s and 1980s. There is also
a neutral side, particularly broadly represented in North America. See R.
Panosian, A Complicated Past, Difficult Present and Vague Future (rela-
tions between Armenia and the diaspora, 1988 – 1999), in Diaspory:
Nezavisimyi nauchnyi zhurnal, 1–2, 2000, Moscow, pp. 48, 31.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–1714
phases: 1988–1989 (a reluctant working relationship),
1991–1992 (the ‘honeymoon’), 1992–1998 (schism and
conflict), 1998–1999 (early reconciliation).
44
It is of
considerable interest that despite the spontaneous
acknowledgement of the contribution of the ‘internal
diaspora’ (the Armenian populations of Russia and other
CIS countries) as ‘a crucial source of economic help to
family members remaining in Armenia’, it is otherwise
largely ignored or even sharply criticised.
45
The profound ambivalence of the diaspora towards post-
Soviet Russia also lies in the sphere of current migration
processes, as expressed very unambivalently in the
following quotation: ‘After the collapse of the USSR one and
a half million Armenians left for Russia. Russia swallows up
the Armenian identity and remoulds it, assimilates it. At the
same time it’s clear that life in Armenia is impossible
without remittances from Russia. This is depressing, as it
means that Armenia can’t function as a state’ (Sima Abra-
hamian, Canada). The current demonization of Russia in the
Western media means that ‘those who stand against Russia
(Georgia, for instance) are cool, and the other way round.
Armenia at best therefore remains in the shade, at least for
now. But in the French diaspora we are more relaxed (than
in the diasporas of other countries)’.
46
9. Communicative styles
Freshness, vitality and sincerity in emotional commu-
nication at any time of the day or night, and especially
mutual support, is noted among the diaspora as a positive
trait in post-Soviet people.
47
At the same time this change
is often explained by reference to the sparse joys of Soviet
life. In other words, the absence of privacy and the values of
collective living as in the archetypal communal apartment
are now rejected, no longer do people need a minimalist
life style where bare survival is the order of the day.
Some Armenians living overseas believe that there
remain psychological scars from the Communist past,
where the lack of freedom of speech and its associated
threats of denunciation, persecution, exile and camps for
political prisoners, and other forms of punishment, gave
rise to a strange, idiosyncratic and rather dysfunctional
form of communication, illustrated by scenes from
everyday life. ‘To be like everyone else, or be nothing, is one
and the same thing. This fear is of literally everything.
When asked a simple question, ‘how are things?’, Arme-
nians from Russia and Armenia reply ‘OK (vochinch)’. What
does this mean? What does ‘OK’ (¼nothing) mean? It’s
a void, emptiness. What kind of style is this?’ (Ourfalian, K.)
Alien standards of everyday emotional behaviour which
contrast sharply with the optimism and daily ‘emotional
work’ that passes for social obligation, the desire to live
among other people and socialise, were expressed in terms
of a joke I heard among Armenians from Iran, and reinforce
the observation above.
‘How are things?’ an Armenian from Iran asks an
Armenian from Erevan.
‘OK’ (vochinch ¼ nothing), replies the Armenian.
The next day the Erevan Armenian asks the Armenian
from Iran.
‘How are things, neighbour?’
‘Just about (mikhich)’
‘What do you mean, just about?’
‘At least “just about” is better than your OK (nothing).’
(Gohar Serobian)
If we accept that such a ‘minimalist’ style of communi-
cation is a linguistic calque from Russian into Armenian,
then the Russian language is seen as an imposed lingua
franca and an embodiment of imperial and colonial
intervention.
10. Eating, dieting and heavy make-up
The stereotypes associated with the shortages of
consumer goods, especially food and its poor quality,
during the Soviet period, have firm foundations. When the
Iron Curtain was up relatives who had returned to Soviet
Armenia complained regularly about them, and in the post-
Soviet period the truth became evident through the
possibilities
of
actual direct contact. Our friend from
Armenia visited us in London once. While having dinner, we
amused ourselves by comparing the names of different types
of fruits in Western and Eastern Armenian languages: – How
do you call an apple [in Eastern Armenian]? – Khndzor. – Yes,
like we do. – But what about grapes? – Khaghogh. – Yes, we
also call them? and so on. When we got to exotic fruits, I ask: –
How do you call a banana? Our guest thought about my
question for a second and answered: – Well, we would
probably call it banana if we had one [bananas in our country]
(Prof. Susan Patthie, anthropologist, April 2003, London).
But it was this that Armenians of the diaspora felt
particularly guarded about. I remember one of my Amer-
ican friends asking in a sort of apologetic and hesitant
manner whether it was true that during the Soviet period
there were only two types of cheese in the shops, Russian
and Poshekhonski. To which I, a bit timidly and looking for
the right words, replied that nothing could be further from
44
R. Panosian considers that the clearest sign of ‘overcoming the split’
was the series of ministerial appointments from among the diaspora,
such as Zhiraira Libaridian (advisor to President Levon Ter-Petrosian from
1991 to 1997), Raffi Ovannisian (independent Armenia’s first Minister of
Foreign Affairs, 1991–1992), and Sebu Tashdzhian (Energy Minister, 1992).
Later disputes were to take place in the academic sphere, when politically
committed Armenian intellectuals went on the offensive to demand
a greater voice in discussions on Armenian history that were marred by
biased and essentialist readings. As a result of this battle of ideologies
many world-famous historians and anthropologists were vilified and
became persona non grata. See the 3-h film on YouTube ‘The Falsifiers of
Armenian History’.
45
Some members of the Armenian diaspora in the United States even
denied that Armenians living in Russia were not Armenian at all. Such an
outlook was an indirect expression of hostility towards Russia itself.
46
Private conversation with Nubar(ian), library director in Paris, and
with Raimond Kevorkian, professor of the University Paris VII, 14.11.2008,
Zurich.
47
The flip side of this sincerity is what others consider to be their
sincere rudeness. There are tales of Russian nannies being dismissed
because of creating ‘a bad atmosphere in the home, are gloomy and don ’t
smile’ (interview with S. Gukasov, Boston, 2008).
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17 15
the truth, there was all sorts, such as Lori and Chanakh and
Bulgarian Feta, no no, there was much more. But then I
relented as I remembered an anecdote [joke] from my
school days:
‘A schoolteacher is reading one of Krylov’s fables to her
class: “God sent a piece of cheese to a crow...” One of the
class asks “Does God really exist?” Another asks “Does
cheese really exist?”
The Armenian diaspora had differing ideas about the
regional variations in Soviet food provision. For instance,
a British Armenian girl visiting the USSR (actually Moscow)
on an academic exchange in the early 1980s complained to
another Armenian girl on the same exchange who was based
in Krasnodar (North Caucasus, the USSR) that she was
‘starving to death and was counting thedays when she would
be going back home’.
48
Soviet citizens themselves believed
that foodstuffs, like other consumer goods, were all
concentrated in Moscow, where peoplewould converge from
all parts of the USSR in search of sausage meat and bananas.
Western Armenians are totally disheartened by the
habit Eastern Post-Soviet Armenian men have of knocking
back hard liquor in one gulp, just as they are by the precise
organization of the ceremonial table and the strict hierar-
chies of toasting and feasting. They are also shocked by the
glamour and pretensions of clothing and the overuse of
heavy make-up. All of this is blamed on the Russian
influence.
11. Political culture
A different, and presumably lower, political culture
enjoyed by one’s co-ethnic brethren is another dividing
line. Elections are regarded by the majority as the time to
cultivate one’s network resources and/or improve their
material position by selling their votes for a scrap of bread
(we note the pre-election manipulation of the peasantry by
the members of the Prospering Armenia party and by Gagik
Tsarukian, oligarch and member of Parliament). The lack of
trust towards political institutions and the absence of any
civic tradition, despite the chorused excuses through
reference to totalitarianism, the patriarchal order, neo-
patrimonialism and particularism, are also worrying
distinctions to Armenians living abroad. If the future of the
Third Armenian Republic is to be guaranteed then it must
be unambiguously free of these excuses, an issue which has
raised the rhetorical temperature considerably. The huge
gulf in civic culture between the Russian and Western
diasporas was clearly exposed during discussions about the
20 05 law on dual citizenship (between Russia and
Armenia). Members of the Western diaspora were shocked
to learn that Russian Armenians desperately wanted this
law to be adopted not in order to be able to vote for the
candidate of their choice in a Presidential or other election,
but simply in order to be able to legitimately and safely buy
property in Armenia. This bitter pill, according to the
Western diaspora, leaves little hope for the development of
genuinely neoliberal institutions in the new independent
post-Soviet Armenia.
Thus, if we are to sum up our arguments above, we can
see that there exists a definite stereotyping and occasionally
fetishizing of the concepts and approaches that go towards
forming the image of what is Russian. In this construct both
negative and positive discourses are cunningly interwoven.
The negative discourse amounts to the division and alien-
ation not only of Russian and Western Armenians but also of
Western and Eastern Armenians. It is certainly true that this
is a result of a long history of migration and diaspora exis-
tence, and especially of living through the Soviet experience.
It is not fortuitous that the greatest negativity falls on the
Soviet period, and this can be easily explained simply
through political reasoning, although the Armenian Socialist
Republic did not suffer any more than other Soviet republics
from the Stalinist repressions and other constraints of the
Soviet regime (indeed sometimes less). As can be seen from
these interviews, this negative attitude became crystallized
in the personal experience of Western Armenians seduced
by the blandishments of the Soviet propaganda machine
and then cruelly deceived by the State on repatriation.
49
It
seems totally irrational that there were some intellectuals of
the diaspora who settled in the USSR out of ideological
sympathies for socialism, such as the feminist poetess Zabel
Esaian, who was later exiled to Siberia (1937–1943).
50
Why
was the pro-Communist poet Eghishe Charents repressed?
In 1998 the Armenian public charity AGBU commissioned
a documentary film entitled ‘Enemy of the People’, directed
by Zareh Cheknavorian, on the Stalinist purges, which
included an interview with the orphaned daughter of the
poet, Arpenik Charents.
51
‘It’s not that we rejected Russia,
it’s rather that we did not accept the hammer and sickle
(Murch ev mankhagh chenk sirel’), is how Sima Abrahamian
summed it up’.
52
The ‘red hysteria of McCarthyism’ with its
‘Hollywood blacklist’ and then the Cold War were simply
add-ons, though very powerful ones.
53
Nevertheless, we can conclude that despite harsh and
occasionally patronising attitudes, Russia’sofficial position
48
Recorded at a Book and Bake Fair in the Armenian church in London
(Iverna Garden), 2003.
49
‘It is a noteworthy fact that Russians living in Europe almost all
ignored the possibility granted to them by the Soviet government of
returning to their homeland’ (V. Kostikov, cited in Melkonian, p. 27).
50
From an interview with Talin Suciyan in Zurich, 14/11/2008.
51
J. R. Russell, Charents the Prophet, 2009, p. 8.
52
Private conversation with S. Abrahamian, professor at Concordia
University, Canada, in Zurich, 14.11.2008.
53
McCarthyism was a feature of American public life from the end of
the 1940s to the end of the 1950s, accompanied by anti-communist
rhetoric and a campaign of persecution of left-leaning intellectuals. The
Hollywood blacklist was a list of people working in culture and the arts in
the USA in the 1940s and 1950s who were barred from their professions
on political grounds. The lists were compiled by the owners of the
Hollywood studios and included members of the Communist Party of the
USA or those suspected of sympathizing with it, as well as those who
refused to help the authorities investigate the Communist Party’s activ-
ities. The first list was compiled by the studios in 1947 after ten screen
writers, known as the ‘Hollywood Ten’, refused to give evidence to the US
Congress Commission on Anti-American Activities. Later all received
a one-year prison sentence. Those included on the list suffered great
difficulties in getting work and found it impossible to work in the film
industry. The lists were dropped after 1960. Many Hollywood films were
produced in this period which demonized Soviet citizens.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–1716
to the events of 1915, the physical annihilation of the
Armenians in Western Armenia, remains the true yardstick
with which it is measured by the Armenian diaspora. As has
already been said, by the mid-1960s the Armenians of the
diaspora had changed their view of the USSR into a more
positive one given its position on the Armenian genocide of
1915–1923 in the Ottoman Empire.
54
The post-Soviet
Russian government has continued this stance, and
together with France consistently argues for recognition of
the Armenian genocide.
55
Moreover, on 14 April 1995 the
Russian State Duma adopted a resolution ‘On Condemnation
of the Genocide of the Armenian Population between 1915
and 1922’, which notes that ‘the physical extermination of
the fraternal Armenian people in its historical homeland
was conducted with the aim of creating conditions for the
destruction of Russia’.
56
It seems likely, then, that Russia’s position on this
question in future decades will determine to a significant
extent the attitude of the overseas Armenian diaspora
towards it.
Translated from Russian into English by D. Gillespie,
Professor of Russian at University of Bath, UK.
54
At the same time the Ramkavar party recognised the social structure
of the USSR.
55
President Barak Obama took a long-awaited political step when he
used the Armenian term for the genocide ‘Mets Eghern’ in his speech on
remembering the victims of 1915.
56
http://www.pravoteka.ru/pst/159/79044.html. The announcement of
the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of Russia ‘On Condemnation of
the Genocide of the Armenian People between 1915 and 1922’, 14 April
1995.
N. Shahnazarian / Journal of Eurasian Studies 4 (2013) 8–17 17