«Ինձ այստեղ պետք է ոչ միայն պետություն, այլև հայկական պետություն» - Հարցազրույց Արմեն ՀՈՎՀԱՆՆԻՍՅԱՆԻ հետ

Karen Aghekyan's article is devoted to an interview with civic activist Armen Hovhannisyan, in which the paths of his politicization, current challenges facing Armenian nationalism, and the problem of the political agenda being replaced by pseudo-traditionalist discussions are discussed.

Introduction and methodology
The material is constructed as an extended conversation in which the interlocutor traces his own path from journalist and TV host to active participant in civic initiatives — from protests against the Armenian-Turkish protocols to the campaign against the opening of foreign-language schools and the demolition of pavilions in Mashtots Park.

Experience of civic protest
Hovhannisyan notes that the struggle against foreign-language schools yielded not only experience of peaceful confrontation with the authorities, but also:

the ability to interact with ideologically diverse people;
conviction in the vulnerability of the existing system;
an unexpected side effect — a rise in the fashion for the Armenian language among young people and a change in the Armenian segment of social media.

Key thesis: the substitution of the political agenda
The central thesis of the interview is a critique of television and media technologies that artificially construct a conflict between "traditionalists" and "progressives" on an everyday level (homosexuality, premarital sex, clothing). In Hovhannisyan's view, this is a deliberate strategy for distracting society from real political problems, analogous to the Pussy Riot scandal in Russia.

Ethnographic vs. political nationalism
Special attention is given to the distinction between:

ethnocultural (ethnographic) nationalism, dependent on the authorities and replacing history with "folk history," with myths about the prehistoric origin of Armenians;
political nationalism, which presupposes a national state, territorial integrity, and constitutional equality of citizens.

Hovhannisyan criticizes racial interpretations of identity, the myth of the immutability of the Armenian nation, and the "parasitic" model of emigration, which appeals to the "greatness of ancestors" instead of one's own labor.

Conclusion
The interview concludes with a discussion of the Karvachar Declaration as an attempt to formulate a framework political ideology for Armenian nationalism modeled on Irish republicanism, Zionism, or Kemalism. The article's key conclusion: genuine nationalism is not ethnographic preservation or self-admiring "Armenianness," but the hard political work of building a national state with equality of citizens before the law.