«Էթնիկ փոքրամասնություն» - Կարեն ԱՂԵԿՅԱՆ

The article by Karen Aghekyan is devoted to the analysis of the socio-political controversy surrounding the state symbols of the Republic of Armenia — the coat of arms and the anthem "Mer hAyrenik" — that unfolded in the Yerevan press and public institutions in 2006–2008.

Introduction and Methodology

The author proceeds from the thesis that the capital's society sets the tone for the entire country and is the only possible center for the consolidation of the Armenian World, from which follows a special responsibility of the Yerevan elites for nationwide political construction. Against this backdrop, the behavior of a segment of the "creative intelligentsia" advocating for the return of Soviet symbols is analyzed.

Key Thesis

The central argument of the article is that the campaign for the restoration of A. Khachaturian's anthem and the coat of arms of the Armenian SSR reflects not aesthetic preferences, but the persisting mental dependence of part of the elite on Soviet identity and its inability for independent national-state thinking.

The author's argumentation is built along several lines:

A historical-textual analysis of the anthem "Mer hAyrenik": the myth of a "borrowed Italian melody" is refuted, the origin of M. Nalbandyan's poem "Song of an Italian Girl" is traced as Aesopian language dedicated to the struggle of the Armenian people, and its rootedness in folk tradition long before the founding of the Dashnaktsutyun party is noted.
An examination of the Soviet anthem's text: stanzas glorifying Lenin and the Communist Party are cited, demonstrating its inseparable connection with the ideology of the USSR rather than with independent Armenian statehood.
A critique of the arguments of the restoration's proponents: the thesis about the "excessive tragedy" of the anthem's text is refuted by reference to the position of Catholicos Vazgen I and by comparison with the patriotic anthems of other countries, where the motif of self-sacrifice for the Motherland is a common trope.
A socio-psychological analysis of the motives of the proponents of change: nostalgia for Soviet youth, party-based animosity toward Dashnaktsutyun, and associations of the anthem with the hardships of the 1990s.

A special place in the article is occupied by the parallel with contemporary Russia, which restored the Soviet anthem as a symbol of imperial and superpower succession — which, in the author's opinion, raises the question of what kind of succession the proponents of the Khachaturian anthem in Armenia are seeking to establish.

Conclusion

The author concludes that a change of state symbols is admissible only in the context of fundamental political transformations and with unambiguous public consensus, which was not observed during the period under review. The creation in 2006 of an official commission that leaned in favor of Soviet symbols is assessed as an indicator of the success of the Soviet system of upbringing, which formed a creative intelligentsia patriotic on an everyday level but incapable of state thinking. The anthem "Mer hAyrenik," unlike its Soviet counterpart, is characterized by the author as organically connected to the entire history of the Armenian people's national-liberation struggle and therefore the only legitimate symbol of contemporary Armenian statehood.