In the spring of 2013, major news outlets in Russia, the Caucasus, and the U.S. were abuzz with the news about “Stalin’s long shadow” (NYT), alarmed that “Stalin lives on” (Tert), and that he is “more popular in Russia now than at the end of the Soviet Union” (HuffPost). These articles referred to a survey,…
by Sergey Sargsyan There is theory that the nations that have gone through relatively harder times like genocide and exile have shaped a deeper sense of humor in response to their tragedy. This is often applied to Jews and Armenians as the two nations with a history of much pain. I think that this theory…
– How did you find out that you are a good man? – Good man? Others told me and I quickly agreed! The 29th of April is the birthday of Valentin Podpomogov, an art director, painter, actor, operator and honored artist of the Armenian SSR. Recently there was a memorable evening devoted to Podpomogov’s 90th…
The culture of Soviet Armenia and the Soviet Caucasus was more than just a culture of film, literature, posters, and agitprop. It was also a culture of sound and music. The renown Aram Khachaturyan was Soviet Armenia’s most famous composer, sharing the position as one of the USSR’s top composers alongside Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri…
During Soviet times, the cinema industries of Georgia and Armenia proved to be veritable powerhouses not only within the USSR but internationally as well. Great filmmakers such as Tengiz Abuladze, Sergei Parajanov, Artavazd Peleshyan, and Otar Iosseliani and performers like Sofiko Chiaureli and Frunzik Mkrtchyan effectively put the Caucasus on the map as a major…
On the last day of 2013, I would like to raise my glass to a few groups of people, comrades sans arms, who cross the borders of the South Caucasus to facilitate an invaluable, irreplaceable process: peace dialogue. Open dialogue, built of open minds, is essential to any peace process; after the peace process —…
The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, founded in 1959 on Herbert Hoover’s ideas on American government and enterprise, is a remarkable resource for giddy scholars everywhere. Besides enabling research in the social sciences, the Institution also has a rich archive, the gem of which (to me!) is a collection of more than one hundred thousand…
“Heavy Metal Motherland.” Historian Nina Tumarkin coined this term in The Living and the Dead to describe the woman-as-nation statues that rose across Soviet republics during and after World War II. Best known and often recalled are Kiev’s “Mother Motherland” (1981) and Volgograd’s “Motherland Calls” (1967), two gargantuan figures crowning memorial centers to the Great…
40 years ago today in 1973, history was made in Armenian soccer/football. On that day, in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the Armenian football team Ararat smashed one of the strongest teams in the entire USSR – Dynamo Kiev from Ukraine. Levon Ishtoyan kicked two goals and Armenia won the Soviet Cup 2:1. The monumental…
Within the past year, I have come across several Soviet Armenian political posters online. They seem unique and possess a sort of style all their own, reflecting the distinct culture and atmosphere of Armenia and the region in agitprop art. These are fascinating pieces of history that shed light on life inside the Soviet Armenian…
The Abovyan Group (Աբովյան խումբ) 