Month: December 2020

Armenian officials report new clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh

Lara Chatinian
The Siasat Daily, Iran
Dec 13 2020
Mansoor
Published: 13th December 2020 3:46 pm IST

Yerevan: Armenian officials on Saturday accused Azerbaijan of breaching a peace deal that ended six weeks of fierce fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Separatist officials in Nagorno-Karabakh said the Azerbaijani military launched an attack late Friday that left three local ethnic Armenian servicemen wounded.

Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region to monitor the peace deal reported a violation of the cease-fire in the Gadrut region on Friday. The report issued Saturday by the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t assign blame.

Later in the day, the Armenian Defense Ministry also charged that the Azerbaijani army mounted an attack in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday.

Azerbaijani authorities had no immediate comment to the Armenian statements claiming the first significant breaches of the peace deal brokered by Russia on Nov 10 that saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over broad swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding lands which were held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century.

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Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. 

That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

In 44 days of fighting that began in late September and left more than 5,600 people killed on both sides, the Azerbaijani army pushed deep into Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing Armenia to accept last month’s peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim much of the separatist region along with surrounding areas.

Azerbaijan marked its victory with a military parade on Thursday that was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and involved more than 3,000 troops, dozens of military vehicles, and a flyby of combat aircraft.

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The peace deal was a major shock for Armenians, triggering protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikola Pashinyan, who has refused to step down. He described the peace agreement as a bitter but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from taking over all of Nagorno-Karabakh.

De-occupation of Artsakh territories an imperative: Armenia condemns Azerbaijan’s violation of ceasefire

Tambiyan Samvel
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 13 2020

The Armenian Foreign Ministry has condemned the gross violation of the trilateral statement by Azerbaijan.

On December 11, at around 8:40 pm, taking advantage of the fact that no peacekeeping forces were deployed in this part of the Artsakh Republic, the special detachments of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces attacked the Artsakh-Azerbaijani line of contact in the direction of Old Tagher and Khtsaberd settlements of the Hadrut region.

As a result, six servicemen of the Defense Army received gunshot wounds of various degrees. Azerbaijani forces continued their provocative actions today in the direction of Mets Shen-Hin Shen settlements in Hadrut region.

“Strongly condemning this gross violation of the commitments made by the top military-political leadership of Azerbaijan in the trilateral statement on the cessation of hostilities and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, we emphasize that these actions are aimed at devaluing the presence of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict zone,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Adhering to its traditional way of acting, the Azerbaijani side resorted to the provocation during the visit of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to the region. In fact, this challenge to the efforts of the Co-Chairs is a continuation of the belligerent and unacceptable statements made by the leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan during the recent parade in Baku. Such a policy once again demonstrates the Turkish-Azerbaijani expansionist policy, which continues to undermine regional security and stability, and is fraught with expansion into neighboring regions, the Ministry added.

It stressed that these actions of official Baku make it more imperative to eliminate the consequences of the recent Azerbaijani aggression, including the de-occupation of the territories of Artsakh and the return of the Armenians of Artsakh to their places of residence.

“Given the impunity of Azerbaijan for violating its international obligations through force and its aftermath, we call on the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to respond unequivocally and clearly to the Azerbaijani side’s actions aimed at violating the ceasefire, ethnic cleansing and occupation of Armenian settlements,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

https://en.armradio.am/2020/12/13/de-occupation-of-artsakh-territories-an-imperative-armenia-condemns-azerbaijans-violation-of-ceasefire/

The Future of Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan Requires a Major Revision of Approaches

Eduard Nalbandian
The National Interest
Dec 13 2020

Future peace should be based upon a sustainable agreement rooted in coexistence and cooperation. However, the main challenge is not the status of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the lack of will of Armenians to live with Azerbaijanis—either in Azerbaijan or even in Armenia.

by Farid Shafiyev
On Nov. 10, 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire agreement, mediated by Russia, that ended what can now be recognized as the Second Karabakh War. Azerbaijan liberated the strategic city of Shusha in the heart of the Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as seven Armenian-occupied adjacent regions. Russia deployed peacekeeping troops inside Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin Corridor, which connects the region with Armenia. Azerbaijan also secured, on paper at least, a corridor between Azerbaijan’s main territory and its Nakhichevan autonomous region. With this agreement, the almost thirty-year-long occupation of the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, reconfirmed by the relevant UN Security Council resolutions of 1993, ended. However, further diplomatic efforts, both between Armenia and Azerbaijan and involving other international actors, will be required to create a durable peace.

While there has been a plethora of articles in the Western media about the geopolitical consequences of this conflict, mainly focusing on the roles of Russia and Turkey, the overwhelming majority of journalists and experts have concentrated on profiling the interests of the regional powers or the Western bloc, rather than discussing what might constitute a sustainable peace in the South Caucasus. To be overlooked—owing to religious and cultural bias, historical predispositions, and geopolitical interests—has been the fate of both the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, who have suffered from ethnic cleansing and the losses of war.

The history of the conflict shows the pernicious influence of political elites and the expert community. When, in February 1988, Armenian nationalists for the first time chanted the slogan miatsum, demanding the unification of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy of Azerbaijan with Armenia, they voiced a xenophobic project for the recreation of Great Armenia. Yet, through a network of Armenian lobbyists and influencers, this concept was presented as a fight for self-determination. Western policymakers and experts saw in this movement an opportunity to challenge the Soviet system. Without going into detail about the history of the conflict, which is closely related to the Russian imperial legacy of managing the peripheries—especially in what was regarded as the Muslim borderland—the West expressed sympathy for the Armenian project in the same way as, one hundred years ago, the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and Russia) promoted the Armenian Question to dismantle the Ottoman empire. Soviet authorities tended to support the Soviet Azerbaijani border to prevent the revision of other republics’ boundaries and thus maintain what the communist state had forged over its seventy-year rule. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow chose to support its traditional ally, Armenia, to prevent Azerbaijan from leaning westward during 1992–93. This policy enabled Yerevan to occupy the ex-Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy and seven regions outside of it. However, to maintain its grip, Armenia became heavily dependent on Moscow’s political, military, and economic support. Overall, Russia’s strategy was to freeze the conflict in a state of limbo in order to exercise effective control over both countries.

The West realized that Russia’s policy in this and other conflicts during the post-Soviet era aimed at institutionalizing uncertainty. Western policymakers tried to convince Azerbaijani officials that they should yield Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. (I myself witnessed closed official meetings where Westerners spoke about the need to accept as a fait-accompli the results of the 1988–94 First Karabakh War). In their opinion, such a resolution would enable both countries to remove Moscow’s control, even though this proposal envisaged it at the expense of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory. 

Various Western experts and scholars, funded by both European and American institutions and foundations, through numerous programs and projects, attempted to reconcile Armenians and Azerbaijanis. But, every time, Nagorno-Karabakh was presented as historically Armenian territory. Azerbaijan maintained that the entire internationally recognized territory should be returned to the control of Baku, which would grant a high degree of autonomy to Nagorno-Karabakh. Enjoying full impunity due to the tacit support of the major powers, during the negotiation process, Armenians rejected handing over any territory to Azerbaijan.

In 2007–9, France, Russia, and the United States proposed the so-called Madrid Principles, which recommended that the seven regions be returned to Azerbaijani control and that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh be postponed to some later time when more reconciliatory conditions might enable the resolution of this issue through a “legally binding _expression_ of will.” Both Armenia and Azerbaijan accepted the Madrid Principles, but Yerevan received no international pressure to move forward with their implementation. 

More recently, Moscow responded more favorably toward addressing Baku’s demands, perhaps in acknowledgment of Azerbaijan’s growing military and economic power. In the 2010s, Russia began reassessing its relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia as, in both countries, discontent toward Moscow became more visible, especially after the revolution in Armenia in 2018.

In 2011, Russia proposed the Kazan formula, which stipulated the immediate return of five occupied regions outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, thus excluding Lachin and Kelbajar, which lie between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. However, still shielded by Russia’s military and with international support from Western powers with influential Armenian diasporas such as in France and the United States, among others, Yerevan continued its policy of flouting international norms. Events in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, and developments around the independence of Kosovo, created a false perception that Armenia was winning by ignoring successive proposed settlements and international resolutions.

Azerbaijan’s incumbent president Ilham Aliyev, unlike many other post-Soviet leaders, managed to build a constructive relationship with Moscow and avoided antagonizing rhetoric. The result is that, during the Second Karabakh War, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly acknowledged that the occupied territories of Azerbaijan had straightforward, internationally recognized status and Russia’s obligation to Armenia did not extend beyond Armenia’s borders. In other conflicts, Moscow has not hesitated to interfere on foreign soil.

The Second Karabakh War should be a reminder to the international community, and especially to America, Europe, and Russia, the principal mediators of the original conflict, that a ceasefire, no matter how long in duration, remains only a temporary solution. Furthermore, ignoring international law does not bring stability in any given region, despite whatever short-term benefits global and regional powers might gain from freezing a conflict—or leaving it unresolved. This is equally applicable to both the past twenty-seven years since the adoption of the UN Security Council resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh and the expiration of the five-year Russian peacekeeping mandate under the ceasefire terms.

Since the cessation of military operations after the Armenian defeat, there have been numerous calls for a lasting solution to the conflict. At present, however, the familiar and unhelpful rhetoric that has been voiced not only in Yerevan but internationally in Paris and other Western capitals, which does not give grounds for optimism. 

Armenia needs a new approach to its future, which requires improving relations with its neighbors. If official Yerevan continues to insist on the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh and other xenophobic narratives, the country will be trapped in further isolation without an independent foreign and economic policy. Gerard Libaridian, an ex-advisor to former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian, considers it essential to abandon this policy, which has been pursued for the past twenty-two years. Svante Cornell, Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, believes that the future of Armenia does not depend on the fact of whether the current Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, stays or goes; rather, it remains to be seen whether Armenia will learn from this misadventure and embark upon a serious attempt to negotiate a peace. As Russian expert Maxim Artemiev stresses, the ceasefire agreement “opens the way for Armenia to revival, the opportunity to become a normal country without historical complexes, phobias and myths.”

So far, nothing promising has come out of Yerevan. But even more troubling is that those in the West who decry the current miserable situation in Armenia often voice the same position that brought Yerevan to its current predicament. French president Emmanuel Macron expressed an anti-Azerbaijani position and France’s Senate adopted a declaration calling for the recognition of an independent Nagorno-Karabakh. France’s stance is the _expression_ of its anti-Turkish sentiment and pandering to the Armenian lobby. It will not help Armenia to recover from its wounds caused by a discredited policy based on territorial claims. The Armenian diaspora lobby, detached from the realities of the home country, denies the geography of Armenia by perpetuating animosity against Armenia’s neighbors.

Western policymakers appear more concerned, for the time being, with Turkey’s assertive role, rather than the fate of the peoples of the South Caucasus. The cohort of Western experts is looking for new grants, and for this conflict to reach its endgame is not in their interests.

News about the conflict has also focused on geopolitics, owing to trending news from Russia and Turkey. This approach ignores the real problem, which is between two countries in the region—Azerbaijan and Armenia. The latter hosts a Russian military base and receives military support from Moscow, whereas the former has strong ties with Ankara. However, as experts know, the region was, for two centuries, under Russian rule, and any new actor should be considered as a balance to future Russian ambitions. Instead, the intellectual discussion quickly turns into a primitive, black-and-white picture. 

Russia hopes to create a new status quo that makes both countries further dependent on Moscow, thereby ignoring the reality of its declining power. Even the populations of other traditional partner countries, such as Belarus and Armenia, have begun looking in other directions. 

The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict represents a rare case in which—for the time being—the Russian and Western positions converge. On the surface, this can be explained by factors such as the Armenian diaspora, and even Christian solidarity, but deeper down, perhaps Turkophobic sentiments echo the old imperial rivalries.

The South Caucasus requires a new vision of security. There is no consensus about a solid future peace based on the principle of territorial integrity in accordance with international law and allow all regional countries to be free from the yokes of past grievances and free to develop economic opportunities similar to the European experience manifested after the Second World War. Minority rights, agreed upon with the consent of the concerned parties, might secure safety and maintain the diverse ethnic profiles of the populations in question without the madness of territorial nationalism. In the end, that will benefit Russia, Turkey, Iran, the European Union, and the United States.

However, Russian-Turkish cooperation causes jealousy among Western powers, which ultimately failed to engage effectively in the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Moscow and Ankara can work in tandem to bring together the two ethnic groups in the Caucasus, and such efforts should be supported.

It seems that only the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh ignore the inconvenient facts. The Armenian capital, Yerevan, hosted a large Azerbaijani population, which became a minority only in the twentieth century and then completely disappeared. To create a durable peace, policymakers should speak about all displaced peoples, including Azerbaijanis in Armenia and Armenians in the rest of Azerbaijan (250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and 360,000 Armenians left Azerbaijan in 1988–90). True reconciliation is not possible without efforts to return to more integrated populations such as were prevalent in pre-conflict days.

Unfortunately, the signals thus far give little hope for the radical changes necessary to create a future sustainable peace. However, some voices have spoken out about a vision of future cooperation. Thus, Armenia’s new Minister of Economy, Vahan Kerobyan, in an interview with Public TV of Armenia, discussed the benefits of opening the country’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey; they “will open and many vast opportunities will be provided. Perhaps the Azerbaijani market will open for us, and our market for Azerbaijan.”

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, in his address to the nation on Dec. 1, highlighted that the transit corridor between the main territory of Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan, running through the Armenian Megri region, will open up vast opportunities for all regional countries.

Dr. Farid Shafiyev is the chairman of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations and Adjunct Lecturer at ADA University, Azerbaijan.

PM post candidate: We call on Armenia, Artsakh armed forces to take necessary decisions with Russian

Jirair Kafian
News.am, Armenia
Dec 13 2020
peacekeepers

The single candidate for the post of Prime Minister of Armenia from the Homeland Salvation Movement Vazgen Manukyan has issued a statement.

"We call on the leadership of the armed forces of Armenia and Artsakh to make the necessary decisions in cooperation with the Russian peacekeepers," he said.

"We highly appreciate the implementation of the mission of the Russian peacekeeping troops in Artsakh, but the peacekeeping troops of no country can single-handedly provide full protection and security of borders and the population without local armed forces. This is evidenced by the developments in Artsakh yesterday, which cause deep concern."

"The suspicious indifference of the current political power of Armenia, and in some cases deliberate behavior, does not allow the Armenian armed forces to fulfill their duty to the Motherland."

"We also expect from the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group that they will make active efforts and fulfill their mission."


Armenia PM: We should take decision on Kubatlu and Zangelan regions

Vicken Chmshkian
News.am, Armenia
Dec 13 2020

An extraordinary meeting of the Security Council was held in the government under the leadership of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

During the meeting, Pashinyan made a statement.

"Since yesterday, we have had a certain tension in Artsakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I would like to inform you about the situation and certain decisions. First, yesterday our positions in the Khtsaberd, Hin Tagher area were attacked by Azerbaijani units. And according to some information, Turkish special forces also participated in the attack.

The attack took place in conditions when the Russian peacekeepers had not yet had time to settle in this area, and an assault took place. Subdivisions of our Armed Forces, the Artsakh Defense Army entered the battle and resisted. We have at least 6 wounded, there are other victims, information about which is being specified.

Yesterday, sometime after the outbreak of hostilities, a small subdivision of Russian peacekeepers approached the combat zone, as a result of which the fighting ceased, but some of the villages of Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd came under the control of Azerbaijani special forces.

Since this morning, Russian peacekeepers with more numerous forces have entered the area, and at the moment the situation is relatively stable, at least the presence of peacekeepers gives some confidence that there is a high probability of avoiding further escalation.

Naturally, we have a task before us: to achieve full-fledged compliance in this sector with the provisions of the joint statement of November 9, which clearly states that since the adoption of the statement, the troops remain in their positions along the entire line of contact. That is, the nuance here is that the Khtsaberd, Hin Tagher section is located within the administrative boundaries of the former autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and, therefore, it fully follows from the logic of the agreements that it should be under the control of the Armenian forces, because according to the position of November 9 these territories were Armenian, under the control of the Defense Army.

Regardless of the presence of Russian peacekeepers, yesterday's actions by Azerbaijani forces clearly violate the provisions of the joint statement of November 9, and today the Foreign Ministry has clearly stated this with its statement."

"The next task, over which we must take a decision in the near future, is related to the situation around the Kubatlu and Zangelan regions. Of course, there is no mention of these areas in the joint statement, because at the time of signing the statement, these territories, unfortunately, were mainly under the control of Azerbaijani forces, that is, only small areas remained. During these negotiations, there was an understanding that the boundaries should be clarified in these areas. The next situation, around which a certain tension may arise, refers precisely to this area. The nuance here is that this section is crossed by a road that is of strategic importance for us, there are certain issues related to borders and coordinates. Yesterday, until late at night, discussions were held in Moscow with the participation of the Minister of Defense. There are several proposals and options for resolving the situation, and in the near future, we must make a decision on one of these options.

The process of exchange of prisoners is also very important, and here we have some progress or a serious opportunity for progress, and today or tomorrow we must make concrete decisions."


Armenia, Azerbaijan blame each other for deadly post-ceasefire clashes

Yeghisabet Vorskanian
Reuters
Dec 13 2020

By Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

BAKU/YEREVAN (Reuters) – Clashes in the Nagorno-Karabakh region have killed four Azeri servicemen in recent weeks, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said on Sunday, in the first report of casualties since a Russian-brokered ceasefire accord.

Separately, authorities in Armenia said six of their servicemen had been wounded in what they described as an Azeri military offensive that took place on Saturday.

The Baku government said the clashes, which also left two Azeri servicemen wounded, had taken place in an area that fell under its control when the fighting ended on Nov. 10 and territory in Nagorno-Karabakh previously controlled by ethnic Armenians was handed over to Azerbaijan.

It said the military operation on Friday and Saturday aimed to destroy or drive out enemy forces responsible for the deadly attacks on Azeri servicemen.

Yerevan said Armenian forces had repelled attempted intrusions into territories supposed to remain under the control of the rebel province’s government, namely the Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd villages.

“The provocations of Azerbaijan continued today in the direction of the villages of Mets Shen and Hin Shen in the Hadrut region,” Armenia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

In another statement, Armenia’s defence ministry said: “negotiations between Armenian, Russian and Azerbaijani servicemen are underway to resolve the situation in Hadrut and ensure the return of the parties to their former positions”.

Russian peacekeepers deployed in the conflict area have reported no major clashes but said at the weekend there had been one ceasefire violation.

Azerbaijan’s State Security Service said that “unfounded accusations against the Azeri side and the Russian peacekeepers by some Armenian leaders and media” were unacceptable.

The Armenian foreign ministry said Russian forces were not deployed in the area where the clashes broke out.

Reporting by Nailia Bagirova in Baku and Nvard Hovhannisyan in Yerevan; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Gareth Jones and Barbara Lewis

Armenian soldier cuts ear off Azeri enemy in shocking footage amid claims Yerevan behind war crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh (GRAPHIC)

Ara Felekian
RT- Russia Today
Dec 12 2020

12 Dec, 2020 15:53 

More disturbing allegations of human rights abuses in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have come to light, with Armenia and Azerbaijan accusing each other of war crimes during bloody fighting over the disputed region.

News channels on the Telegram messaging service allege that an unverified video shows Armenian soldiers cutting an ear off a fallen Azeri soldier, before holding it up to the camera as a grizly trophy.

A number of disturbing images and clips have emerged from the violent conflict, with Azerbaijani and Armenian social media users taking to the internet to argue that the other side is responsible for atrocities.

Amnesty International, a human rights NGO, announced on Thursday that it had authenticated 22 videos arising from the conflict, which show executions, abuse of prisoners and desecration of the bodies of those who have died.

Of the 22 potential war crimes verified, 14 were said to have been perpetrated by Armenian soldiers, including videos involving the severing of ears from corpses. In another, a man speaking Armenian cut the throat of a gagged and bound Azeri border guard.

"The depravity and lack of humanity captured in these videos shows the deliberate intention to cause ultimate harm and humiliation to victims, in clear violation of international humanitarian law," said Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International's head of research in Central Asia.


ANN/Armenian News On The Role of Humanities & Social Sciences in Armenian Life

Varazdat Torgomian

Armenian News Network / Armenian News

Conversation on Armenian News: The Role of The Humanities and Social Studies in Armenian Life

ANN/Armenian News


Guest

  • Angela Harutyunyan

  • Asbed Kotchikian

  • Asbed Bedrossian

  • Hovik Manucharyan

Hello and welcome to Armenian News Network, Armenian News.

In this Conversation on Armenian News episode, we’ll be talking about the role of the humanities and social sciences in Armenian life. Our host for this discussion is:

Dr. Asbed Kotchikian, who is a senior lecturer of political science and international relations at Bentley University in Massachusetts.

This episode was recorded on Thursday, December 3rd, 2020.

Academia and academic work, especially in the fields of humanities and social sciences, has always been instrumentalized by various ideologies and/or political regimes. Moreover, various disciplines within each of those fields such as anthropology, art history, literature, etc., have a long tradition of being the middle children of academia and are rarely considered to have a role in shaping minds and trends in society. In Armenia the roles of humanities and social science have undergone changes since soviet and immediate post-soviet times. At a time where both these fields were viewed as instruments of legitimization of Communism and later nationalism, academics in these fields had to navigate the murky waters of ideology less they were willing to be labeled “pseudo-academics” or even worse as traitors.

The challenge of having robust disciplines in humanities and social sciences in Armenia is manifold. These include encouraging critical thinking void of ideology, the role of individuals with degrees in humanities and social sciences in the larger society, challenging pre-existing paradigms and many more. 

To talk about these issues, we are joined by:

Dr. Angela Harutyunyan, who is Associate Professor of Art History and the chair of the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at the American University of Beirut. She is founding member of BICAR (Beirut Institute for Critical Analysis and Research) and the Johannissyan Research Institute in the Humanities in Yerevan, Armenia. She is editor of ARTMargins peer-reviewed journal (MIT Press). Her monograph The Political Aesthetics of the Armenian Avant-garde: The Journey of the “Painterly Real'" was published by Manchester University Press in 2017 and 2019.

How would you justify the role of humanities in the world today?

The humanities deal with a different temporality than the expediency that the social and political world demands. To ask the humanities to respond in those terms means to subsume them under a different temporal regime and logic, which is one of immediate practical life. 

 It is already noteworthy that we are asked to “justify” the humanities. What are the conditions that require such justification? What are the modes of justification? Justification normally is made according to this regime of emergency or instrumentalization for expedient needs – ethics for engineers, art history for doctors, etc. (the late capitalist regime of catastrophes piling up upon each other).

The arts and humanities in moments of “historical danger” -1930s, 1960s-70s. The autonomous pursuit of humanistic scholarship through the means and tools provided by the internal laws of the humanities’ disciplines a posteriori rather than their politicization Avant le lettre. The Marxian debates of the disciplines’ relative autonomy but also the transformation of their spheres through the material world they are embedded in.  Today, we have vulgar instrumentalisation, without either the nuanced politics of humanist thinkers or the dialectical thought of the good Marxists. 

A brief overview of the place and role of humanities in Soviet Russia.

The fellow-travelers of the 1920s, critical philosophical discourses forming the armature of institutionalizing the humanities in the Soviet Union: how to deal with tradition, and especially with the bourgeois tradition of humanistic heritage (both European and Russian)?

Lenin vs. Bogdanov, the importance of discovering Marx’s EPM, the move of the Marx and Engels archives to Moscow (Marx-Engels Institute), discussions in aesthetic and literary theory while discovering “young Marx”; Deborinites vs. mechanists (Marxism as a positivist science to explain the mechanics of the world vs. philosophy as an autonomous discipline. Dialectics is not a law of philosophy but is in nature.). 

1930s-Stalinization of the humanities, Zhdanovschina (culminating in the 1947 publication of the textbook 

A History of Western Philosophy), the Thaw – relative liberalization and revisiting the legacy of the 1920s, partial de-Stalinization of philosophical thought as well as history, literature, aesthetics, but in its ESSENTIAL outlines the Soviet humanities is largely the heir of the Stalin-era scholarship (abolition of class for the sake of the nation understood in terms of ethnicity).

The specific nature of philosophy as sublated within the State and the Party to justify its historical-transhistorical necessity. We could call this an ideocracy – philosophy becoming the ultimate criterion of social reality itself, and in a way, replacing it.  Social reality reduced to the sphere of ideation. Our own “Armenian ideocracy” – intellectuals standing above the quotidian life and its discontent and issuing verdicts from the purity of their thought.

Where does the field operate today? What are the pulls and pushes that influence these two fields?

The legacy of Soviet scholarship: tradition as doxa (unquestionable); knowledge as a weapon (especially in history, philosophy, art history), etc. on the one hand, and on the other hand, uncritical and schematic application of post-Marxist “Western” theory (Susan Buck-Morss’s story about the meetings of the philosophers from the East and West in the early 1990s).

Respectively, on the one hand, we have official academic disciplines in YSU, Academy of Sciences where the main ideological trajectory geared towards nationalism is a straitjacket for any scholarly inquiry (for instance, in the Academy’s newly developed textbook of the History of Armenian People the authors state that they have radically revisited the flawed and politically dangerous thesis that for centuries Armenian people were deprived of statehood. They claim that, in reality, the Armenian statehood that has a history of 5000 years (!) and was barely ever interrupted. Or the department of Philosophy at YSU mainly studies Garegin Nzhdeh (as the most significant philosopher.)

And on the other hand, we have independent centers, critically minded scholars who subject the tradition that they take for granted to radical revisionism (for example, viewing through the glance of Western feminist theory “the sexuality of queen Satenik” – volume published last year by Socioscope where most of the research articles examining gender and sexuality from the pre-Christian age to the post-Soviet era, apply the Foucaultian theoretical language to varied historical examples) without historicizing the constitution of the tradition that they deconstruct. The tradition is assumed to be heteronormative, patriarchal and so on, but the actual historical work with that tradition that is subsumed under these labels is not done. Here, western theory as a critical “toolbox” for revisionism becomes a schemata that is applied (anachronistically and uncritically) to the local historical tradition. In addition, these revisionist attempts are caught up within the political regime of urgency.

As different as these two dominating trends are, what they share is that they operate with schemas and ready-made theories, they both accept “tradition” as an unquestioned phenomenon, and they subject scholarship to moral and political imperatives. 

Discuss the importance of the historical and critical work to understand the nature of this “tradition”, how it is constituted historically, how it informs our present, the courage to confront the nature of “tradition” as distorted, falsified, erased (Missak Khostikyan’s example).

Another important point is to understand ourselves not in isolation but as part and parcel of a diverse and complex region of nations, ethnicities and cultures, something we have not done because of the orientation of our humanities and historical intellectual thought towards the West, through Russian. The slow work of cultural transformation through developing a self-understanding in our complex historical present. And this is not about intercultural dialogue, reconciliation and so on – but about understanding those forces – cultural, political that were formative of our identity and yet have been disavowed as such.

The problem with critical thinking is that when you question existing entrenched myths and narratives, there is bound to be a backlash.  How have those backlashes manifested themselves in post-Soviet Armenia?

Proper critical thinking that engages with its object of critique imminently stops at dispelling myths and narratives but tries to understand the reality of these myths, what is the social basis of their historical constitution. How and why do they come to replace “reality”? Mythology, in a Marxian sense is a mediating link between social relations and ideology: Marx- “natural and social phenomena are assimilated in an unintentionally artistic manner by the imagination of the people.” – dichtung. Or a mythology produced by a special caste, in our case, the Church Fathers. What is the nature of these myths produced by the scholarly caste and the people? How do they clash and contradict each other? Ashot Hovhannissyan’s work in this context – how the wishes and desires of the people that produce myths, belief in miracles crystalize the very social contradictions, their unfulfilled dreams for liberation. And the idea of liberation as a political ideal serves as a cornerstone for Armenian modernity. Here the real world of struggle for liberation appears through reflection, which is ultimately a refraction – these myths show reality upside down. 

 The backlashes in post-Soviet Armenia normally take place at the moral and political level – you may be called a traitor or given other labels, but you can rarely expect an imminent critical engagement with your scholarship. 

This is best crystalized in the inability to implement educational reforms in the past 30 years. The recent backlash against the criteria for school curriculum proposed by the Ministry of Culture and Education, especially in History and Literature. Especially the former is viewed as the disciplinary branch of the National Security Services. The criteria for the subject of History are criticized because of their supposed anti-Armenian orientation with the essential argument that the chair of the task force Lilit Mkrtchyan had participated in a workshop organised by the NGO Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation during which the teaching of History in Turkey and Armenia was discussed. The former late chair of the History Department at YSU Artak Movsisyan criticizes that Urartu is not presented as a kingdom of Armenians, a view that he had been advancing for decades without any historical evidence that could withstand critical scrutiny. The National Academy of Sciences went as far as declaring that these criteria are a “threat to national security”. Their justification? The concept of “patriotism” is absent from the proposal; the omission of 3000-1000 B.C. from “Armenian” history; and of course, Lilit Mkrtchyan’s participation in the mentioned workshop and publication of the proceedings is brought up as the main argument. These reactions contain no scholarly or critical substantial engagement with the proposal and focus on discrediting it via a character assassination.

History, as formed through persons: heroic and sacrificial deeds of individuals vs. the traitors of the nation. The recent “capitulation” and attribution of all guilt to one individual, the national shock, reality appearing as disintegrated, but the historical materialist knows that the world is always already broken. We are nowadays confronted with our naked reality without the possibility to further fictionalize it. 

The importance of the autonomous pursuit for truth; not doing work politically and ideologically avant le lettre but how one’s critical historical work might have unforeseen political effects; the untimeliness of the scholarly pursuit for truth, not in the presentist regime of political expediency but within an unpredictable temporality of historical transformation.

That concludes this week’s Conversation On Armenian News on Armenia’s debate on Armenia’s IT Industry. We’ll continue following this discussion and keep you abreast on the topic as it progresses.

We hope this Conversation has helped your understanding of some of the issues involved. We look forward to your feedback, including your suggestions for Conversation topics in the future. Contact us on our website, at groong.org, or on our Facebook Page “ANN – Armenian News”, or in our Facebook Group “Armenian News – Armenian News Network”.

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Armenia, Armenian, Soviet, Humanities, Social Studies, Arts, Education, Stalinism, Marxism, Modernity, Yerevan State University

Additional: Democratization, liberalization, YSU


CivilNet: Nikol Pashinyan: An Elected Catastrophe

Emma Jilavian
CIVILNET.AM

00:12

By Tatul Hakobyan

Nikol Pashinyan is a catastrophe that was elected by 70% of Armenia’s population.

It is painful and dangerous especially when those who elected the prime minister – the parliamentary Civil Contract Party and the My Step majority faction – do not recognize this. They continue to live in the "Velvet Armenia" of 2018. But that Armenia no longer exists. They continue to admire and be inspired by a version of Pashinyan that doesn't exist.

Pashinyan is not Transcaucasia's first disaster.

In the early 1990s, Georgia and Azerbaijan had their own philosophically driven leaders – Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Abulfaz Elchibey, respectively – and both brought forth disasters to their countries. Both were elected by the people, just like Pashinyan.

Georgia, and to some extent Azerbaijan, became involved in a catastrophic civil war, and suffered crushing defeats in Abkhazia, Ossetia and Artsakh / Karabakh.

But Armenia, while in a blockade, under the rubbles of the 1988 earthquake, with 300,000 refugees, somehow avoided internal political unrest, and won an incredible and unbelievable victory in a war that was forced upon it from 1991 to 1994. Armenia has not remained without internal political crises, but none have led to a civil war.

But Pashinyan, who came to power on the wave that saw the public rejection of former President Serzh Sargsyan, was not able to use the historic opportunity.

His first signs of failure were his approach to politics based on personal affiliation, and his incomprehensible abandonment of institutional reform.

The call to block the entrance to courts was a serious sign that Pashinyan is ignoring the principle of separation of the judicial, executive and legislative branches n, which is at the core  of the rule of law.

When he called on the people to blockade the National Assembly, it became clear that he was rejecting the opportunity to transform from a populist politician to a state leader.

In a squabble with Ilham Aliyev in Munich, which resembled a grade-school spat, Pashinyan demonstrated his provincial mentality.

Ignoring the coronavirus, Pashinyan initiated the “YES” campaign to hold a referendum on dissolving the country's constitutional court.

Then, when the infection was raging in Armenia, the Armenian authorities gave the green light to elections in Artsakh, and the election of Arayik Harutyunyan.

Pashinyan and his team can be forgiven for these and many other misdeeds since he in fact did receive the people's vote, and he was able to bring hope to Armenia with the wave that rejected Serzh Sargsyan.

But the catastrophic 44-day war, which resulted in enormous human and territorial losses, as well as a decline in Armenia's sovereignty, showed that Pashinyan and his team were incapable of governing the state.

Unaware or unwilling to accept that the situation in the country has changed since the 2018 "velvet revolution", Pashinyan indirectly gives legitimacy to those who have taken to the streets, who by and large are not trusted by the people. They are the rejected opposition, the former government.

On the first day of the war on September 27, Pashinyan announced that he was ready to die for Armenia. It turns out, however, that he is not even ready to sacrifice his seat for the sake of the homeland.

It should not be ruled out that Pashinyan and his team will be able to hold on to power. But at what cost? It doesn't matter what price Pashinyan and his team pay. What matters is Armenia.

Each day that Pashinyan remains in his position as prime minister is at the expense of the nation. At the expense of the sovereignty, the dignity and the future of this country.

Tatul Hakobyan is a reporter for CivilNet.am.