«Այգի՞, թե՞ լաբիրինթոս» - Հարցազրույց Լևոն ԱԲՐԱՀԱՄՅԱՆԻ հետ

Karen Agekyan's article is devoted to an interview with the ethnographer Levon Abrahamian, corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of RA, head of the "Ethnology of Modernity" department at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the NAS RA, in which the problems of Armenian identity, the methodology of anthropological research, and the role of historical mythology in contemporary national self-consciousness are discussed.

Introduction and Methodology

Levon Abrahamian presents his scholarly path from physicist to ethnographer, author of more than 150 publications and several books devoted to the culture of Australian Aborigines, Armenian folk art, poetic anthropology, and Armenian identity. The key methodological principle of the researcher is a comparative, typological approach: knowledge of archaic societies is used to analyze contemporary social processes, in particular the events of the Karabakh Movement of the late 1980s, which he studied as an "ethnographer on the Square."

Key Thesis: Festival as a Model of Social Process

Abrahamian develops an idea going back to Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of carnival, but applied to archaic society and dual organization. The main thesis is that the nationwide movement of 1988–1990 typologically represented a festival — regardless of its specific political content (revolution, reforms). Such a structuralist analysis, according to the author, makes it possible to predict which aspects of society are capable of changing and which will return to their original state.

The Construction of Armenian Identity

The central theme of the interview is the historical formation of Armenian identity:

Abrahamian asserts that Armenian intellectuals of the fifth century (the "golden age") consciously constructed the basic set of features of national identity, including history as its key component;
this model was subsequently recreated many times — in the 10th–11th centuries (the "Armenian Renaissance"), in the 16th century (Chamchian), and also in contemporary times (the renaming of streets in Yerevan in honor of figures of the fifth century);
the uniqueness of the Armenian case lies in the extraordinary earliness of this constructivist act compared to other peoples.

The Symbolism of Monuments and the Problem of Statehood

Special attention is devoted to the analysis of monumental symbolism: the images of Mesrop Mashtots and Sahak Partev form a "binary code" lacking a third, state element — the image of King Vramshapuh. The absence of the triad "intelligentsia — Church — state" in public consciousness, according to Abrahamian, gives rise to a cult of solitary heroes (Vardan Mamikonian, Andranik), destructive outside of a systemic context, and hinders the formation of a stable notion of statehood.

Conclusion

The key conclusion of the interview is that contemporary Armenian identity is built on the repeated reproduction of the model laid down by the intellectuals of the fifth century, yet in the process a systemic notion of statehood is lost, replaced by personified images of heroes and martyrs, which calls for a rethinking of historical pedagogy and national symbolism.