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…
From all of us here at the Abovyan Group, merry Christmas and happy holidays! It should be noted that Armenian Christmas is typically celebrated on January 6, though New Year’s is generally a bigger deal in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and much of the former USSR. An annual viewing of the 1976 Soviet comedy film Ирония…
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 —…
“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…
“Making people laugh, even if it’s just a little, is a psychological need for comedians. I seek to satisfy this need.” When speaking about civil society, it is important to mention the people who help forge this environment in Armenia today. One such individual is Sergey Sargsyan, co-host of the ArmComedy Project (the Armenian version of…
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…
Here’s an interesting piece of Soviet Armenian history from my personal archive: an official NEP-era map of the Armenian SSR (then part of the Transcaucasian SFSR) from 1924, as printed on a Soviet-produced postcard: Some notes: 1) In this map, the Armenian SSR is comprised of nine raioni (or districts), some of which are so…
The Abovyan Group (Աբովյան խումբ) 