The Gray Days are Over.

[xBaron Dants]

I will never claim that the Soviet Union was the perfect solution for Armenia. There was NO perfect solution.

But if one has to make a choice between joining the Western block, and therefore be stuck between the Soviet enemy and your new turkish "allies", or joining the USSR, the latter was, I think, the obvious, or if you will, the better choice.

I am aware of the censorship, and the ugly Stalin ideas. However, Sovietization also gave Armenia a 99% literacy rate, urbanization. It allowed us to develop our culture, our sciences, our academics. Also, WE FINALLY GOT A CITY WHERE WE COULD STUDY, instead of going to Tiflis or Constantinople. Yerevan was a village prior to the USSR, it is now a beaaautiful city of which we can all be proud, and which boasts great art galleries, orchestras, yevayln.

I do not dare imagine what Armenia would have been like had we not had a communist revolution.

[Anonymouse]

I don't believe that it was the "Communist Revolution" per se that enabled Armenia to go through its progressive growth and development, but rather it happened towards the latter stages of the Soviet Union, meaning after Stalin, ironically one can see how the Soviet Union was critical in the blossoming of Jewish progressive culture as well, again after Stalin. After all it was a Jewish creation from top to bottom and only during Stalin did things seem bleak.

In any event, I do not like Communism, nor any other political systems that claim to have answers to everything, that is how deception occurs.

[anileve]

Baronchik, you are quite right there was no solution. The genocide was inevitable, and characteristic of world history where powerful governments are concerned. Leaders often oriented themselves upon political interests in gaining wanted power and territory; however I often wonder if we sided with Turkey unanimously what would be the outcome. Perhaps we would be able to get our autonomous government and gain independence in due time, perhaps the bloodshed wouldn’t be so severe. But enough of what ifs.

USSR donated a nice contribution to our slaughter as well, they used Armenians like chess pieces and nothing more. Communism spreads its tentacles with fury and consumes everyone and anything that is in the way, it is simply a tool for turning individuals into a mass of conditioned machines; however it portrays itself as this utopian political system. The theory is absurd if it has no chance of survival in reality in consideration of human nature.

99% would have eventually made its way into Armenia, simply because Armenians were fixated on Christianity and writing and reading was necessary to comprehend and convey the messages that were preached in the Bible. Our culture was not developed during the Soviet era it was drained. We were hardly taught Armenian history or Armenian literature, Russian language was strongly enforced and only the best schools Yerevan had to offer were taught in Russian, where as we studied Armenian as a second language. I can’t even tell you how much I read and re-read books on Lenin and his brilliant ideas and what a good son he was and how studious he was, and how he liked to close his books on the most thrilling page so that he would be inspired to return to it next time. Our churches were closed and only Echmiadzin remained open during certain time frames. We had no culture, nor history, nor language, people felt oppressed, scared and hungry. Our aristocrats and the elite remained hungry since, they refused to affiliate themselves with the Communist Party. As I have mentioned before, the works of literature by Armenian writers and poets were either forbidden or unavailable.

There is a funny story I have been told. As a little girl I remember returning home from our relatives’ house, it was around 9 and the curfew enforced by the Russians was 10 or 11, I don’t really recall, there were tanks rolling down the gloomy streets. There were a handful of civilians in the street rushing home to make it back before the curfew. To my impressionable young mind it was all very disturbing, there was hardly any crime in Yerevan, so I wonder what the Russians were protecting us from. So…the story goes…A few young students decided to play a practical joke, they lined up miniature busts of Lenin across one of the streets in Yerevan which tanks usually passed by, thus blocking their path. When a line of tanks came to the barrier of busts, they made a full stop, soldiers had to exit their vehicles and remove the statuettes of Lenin one by one, God knows what would have happened to them if they ran them over. Another story was that a different group of students placed a cigarette in the hand of Lenins Statue in the middle of the Republic Square (then called Ploshad Lenina). When the authorities found out about this outrage, the students were taken away and never heard from again. That was our rich culture during the Soviet era.

I was deprived of the ability to fully learn my culture; since the best schools were in Russian I missed the opportunity to learn our history and made up for the misfortune by studying it in NYC. As for the language, not many young students were in possession of grapar Armenian, since it was not as encouraged.

So you see, only now Armenia is returning to its heritage and struggling to survive on its own. And it would take many generations to bring it to prosperity, hopefully before its wonderfully corrupt government drives all of the intellectuals out of their Motherland and into other countries in search of better economic conditions.

[Anonymouse]

USSR donated a nice contribution to our slaughter as well, they used Armenians like chess pieces and nothing more. Communism spreads its tentacles with fury and consumes everyone and anything that is in the way, it is simply a tool for turning individuals into a mass of conditioned machines; however it portrays itself as this utopian political system. The theory is absurd if it has no chance of survival in reality in consideration of human nature.

Now when you replace Communism with any other "Ism" they all spread their tentacles. All political systems are based on subjugating other people and telling them what to do. They all require you to lose your will, your individualism, your self, no different than the Church required people to lose their will for "God" or "salvation". Eras change, religions turn into politics, and ism and that turns into many political systems yet one thing has stayed the same and that is that all such systems rely on collectivism to control and the stifling of the individual.

It doesn't matter what ism you follow they all lead to the same path of destructiveness, always resulting in the loss of life and self and spirit of the individual peoples. Your words are insightful and deep and I agree with your assessment of communism, but I would further add any and all other political systems to the list.

To quote Hermann Goering again:

"Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

For too many of us we have been conditioned and morphed to think and be caught into the tentacles of institutionalized thinking set forth by government and political systems. All the transcendence we desire is to go to school get a job, make more money, so we can have more power and authority over others in this material way of thinking. Whatever happened to the spirituality we had? The spiritual transcendence? Spirituality and transcendence is important for us because we all seek this connection of ourselves with the rest of the universe that is unique to our inner most senses and different for us all. This made me question today about where such a division occured in the human self and I can only think of Descartes when he referred to the seperation of the mind and body which is utter bullxxxx.

Whether its the Church stifling individual transcendance of a person through God, or institutions in our latter day era, the method is still the same. All our thinking is codified in an institutionalized manner. Don't believe me? Everytime when you folks debate about social problems or economics or world politics you use the term "we". "We" have to do this or "we" have to do that. That is institutional thinking at its finest. In fact I bet most of you don't even know why you use the term "we". Who are you referring to when you use the term "We should cut taxes", or "We should send troops", or "We should bomb those terrorists".

99% would have eventually made its way into Armenia, simply because Armenians were fixated on Christianity and writing and reading was necessary to comprehend and convey the messages that were preached in the Bible. Our culture was not developed during the Soviet era it was drained. We were hardly taught Armenian history or Armenian literature, Russian language was strongly enforced and only the best schools Yerevan had to offer were taught in Russian, where as we studied Armenian as a second language. I can’t even tell you how much I read and re-read books on Lenin and his brilliant ideas and what a good son he was and how studious he was, and how he liked to close his books on the most thrilling page so that he would be inspired to return to it next time. Our churches were closed and only Echmiadzin remained open during certain time frames. We had no culture, nor history, nor language, people felt oppressed, scared and hungry. Our aristocrats and the elite remained hungry since, they refused to affiliate themselves with the Communist Party. As I have mentioned before, the works of literature by Armenian writers and poets were either forbidden or unavailable.

The very fact that Communism, and its predecessor Marxism, deny culture, and at the same time that it is trying to impose a language on other peoples, is just hilarity to me. Indeed, the Armenian alphabet came out as a result of Christianity.

There is a funny story I have been told. As a little girl I remember returning home from our relatives’ house, it was around 9 and the curfew enforced by the Russians was 10 or 11, I don’t really recall, there were tanks rolling down the gloomy streets. There were a handful of civilians in the street rushing home to make it back before the curfew. To my impressionable young mind it was all very disturbing, there was hardly any crime in Yerevan, so I wonder what the Russians were protecting us from. So…the story goes…A few young students decided to play a practical joke, they lined up miniature busts of Lenin across one of the streets in Yerevan which tanks usually passed by, thus blocking their path. When a line of tanks came to the barrier of busts, they made a full stop, soldiers had to exit their vehicles and remove the statuettes of Lenin one by one, God knows what would have happened to them if they ran them over. Another story was that a different group of students placed a cigarette in the hand of Lenins Statue in the middle of the Republic Square (then called Ploshad Lenina). When the authorities found out about this outrage, the students were taken away and never heard from again. That was our rich culture during the Soviet era.

I was deprived of the ability to fully learn my culture; since the best schools were in Russian I missed the opportunity to learn our history and made up for the misfortune by studying it in NYC. As for the language, not many young students were in possession of grapar Armenian, since it was not as encouraged.

So you see, only now Armenia is returning to its heritage and struggling to survive on its own. And it would take many generations to bring it to prosperity, hopefully before its wonderfully corrupt government drives all of the intellectuals out of their Motherland and into other countries in search of better economic conditions.

Well that goes to show you all government is bullxxxx. To quote Lord Acton, one of the few of his time to write that political power is a serious threat to liberty:

"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to to govern. Every class is unfit to govern...Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[xBaron Dants]

I still say that we got out of the Soviet Union more enriched than we were before. There were its obvious flaws, and there is no debating that. However, Armenia went into the USSR as an extremely poor and starving country on the brink of disappearing from the face of the earth (yes, despite our "glorious" first independance) and in turned into an industrialized country in 20-30 years or so. That in itself is a great achievment. While you say that our culture was lost, there were thooooouuuuuusands of books published by our authors in communist times: Isahakian, Kaboudikian, Charents, Matevosian, yevayln. We also made strides in science with Hambartsoumian and the like. Before that, our major scientists probably dated from the Anania Shiragatsi era. With Badalian, Matevosian, Khachatur Avetisian and Co., armenian traditional music was reborn. We also made our mark in classical music with Babajanian and of course, Khachaturian. And once again, all this took place in Armenia, not Tiflis or Istambul.

I know I am repeating myself, but I will say once more, given our situation, we could not have had a better outcome than joining the USSR.

[anileve]

Baronchik, you are repeating yourself and neglecting to read fully my post above. What is the point of those prominent writers evolving during those years if their work was not available to the people in their own country? Their thoughts and ideas were edited and censored due to fear of appearing too political and revolutionary to their people. My mother worked as an editor and she worked on editing many works of Armenian writers. Armenian traditional music was hardly popular with the masses since their general preference was Russian pop and Rabiz (I am sorry to say there is no talent there). If you can, try to listen to Rouben Hakhverdian, he doesn’t appeal to everybody, but I consider him one of the very few geniuses of Armenian music, his guitar, voice and lyrics are astounding, but he is on the melancholic, romantic and philosophical side.
Armenia was poor and starving but not because of the lack of Soviet Rule. In fact it is in Turkey that the masses of the elite and intelligent Armenians resided. As for your belief that folding under the rule of Soviets was the best option, it can be speculated. Armenians were promised an autonomous government and protection from Turks, but what they encountered was that it was just an empty promise to lure them under the Soviet rule. And it is Stalin who decided to simply award Karabakh to Azerbaijan without a fight, but somehow no one is angry with Russia for during that. And you are forgetting that hundreds of great Armenians were murdered because they represented a class of intelligence; the Soviet Union was very afraid of independent thinkers and feared that revolution that might endanger the Communist rule over Armenia. That was a minor slaughter of Armenians as well. Soviet Union also destroyed Armenia’s individualism and shattered their ability to be independent since, they arranged the countries of the Soviet Union such that each one is dependent on the other, for gas, production and trade. When Soviet Union fell apart many countries struggled with economic turmoil since their dependency on other countries previously established has been torn.

[xBaron Dants]

lol, are you trying to INTRODUCE me to Hakhverdian? My bloody signature is part of a Hakhverdian song.
But you'll notice that while Hakhverdian was singing about "yev lsvets krakots, ou vornootse lrets" (Kazananots, song about censorship), his more recent songs include lyrics like "yes hishoom em kaghakn im, yerb martik aproom eyin mardgants nman, yev tghanerid khend ou khelar im Yerevan, yev aghjiknerin ko annman" as well as "ko isgagan siraharnere kez lketsin im Yerevan, anter mooratsgannere dartsan kez ter ou tirakan"

If a hardcore independantist like Hakhverdian is able to recognize that times were ALRIGHT (not amazing) back then, I'll believe him.

Of course traditional music will unfortunately not compete with that damn ugly rabiz stuff, but nevertheless, it was reborn with quality during the soviet times. Heck, even now that we're independant, rabiz music is still preferred.

Your assessment of armenians not knowing of any of their authors is an exaggeration, I find. Remember my story about Shiraz and my dad? How did my dad recognize him? And no, we are not related.

Yeah, next time the Turks promise us independance while killing our children, we'll believe them. Please tell me you have read Raffi's "Khent".

I have always said that the Soviet Union's breakup was meant to be done peacefully, with a brief stint as CIS, before every country gained its independance. Of course, nationalism took over (Artsakh, yevayln) and it was no longer possible.


I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, el inch asem?

[anileve]

Deal! We’ll have to agree to disagree. Although I wish that you would've lived there during the Societ Era, I wonder if your opinion would have been different, but we will never know. At least we agree on our admiration towards Rouben’s music. I always wanted to meet him, my mother knew him and they traveled together. I don’t know many other musicians that strike me the way Rouben does. My all time favorite is Yerdjankutiun.

[xBaron Dants]

Hooray, we have agreed to disagree! Well, you did make valid points, and I think I did the same, so let's call it even...heh

Yea, Rouben kicks ass. We're quite a few to like him on this forum. I know that Jahannam's a fan, and I think anonymouse appreciates him too. Yerjangutyun is a good one. I honestly can't pick a favourite. Call it a tie between "digin Arous", "dzer Gnchoohin", "Ko Jampan", "Kazananots", "Oh, Sa Im Hin Poghotsn e", "Im antsyale" and of course "Sa Yerevann e". I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. When I was a kid (even more than today ), I met his wife at my uncle's house. Ok, useless story, as I don't even recall what was said. I think Rouben is coming to Montreal this year. I'll let you know about the concert, as I'll be attending without a doubt. I'll probably have an "I LOVE YOU ROUBEN" sign written on cardboard.

[Anonymouse]

Yea sucks huh, and if those sneaky Jews like Marx, or people like Trotsky or Lenin didn't decide to throw the shackles of the Red Cult upon the world, you two wouldn't be here talking about this would you, hell I might not even be here.