The ‘unprecedented’ success of the split ritual |

I recently had an interesting conversation with a cultural anthropologist about ritual. We discussed how new governments try to dilute, eliminate, or change rituals from the previous era and introduce new ones to replace them. In other words, their goal is to sanctify some things while “desecrating” others.

This brings me to the rituals, shrines and symbols that have come after 2018. One example is the statue of the “walking man” near the Ijevan entrance sign, who carries a backpack and wears a baseball cap and is often damaged. A more effective symbol is the statue of a brave girl in front of the administration building, which reads: “I am a citizen, I am not afraid of the authorities, I am a claimant.”

However, it is unlikely that the statue will become a shrine or site of “initiation” for young and proud citizens, just as the Lenin statue on Lenin Square was a shrine for the Young Pioneers during Soviet times.

There have been several attempts to sanctify the “Velvet Revolution”. For example, in the summer of 2018, it was planned to hold an exhibition dedicated to the revolution at the History Museum. The then Minister of Culture Lilit Makunts said: “Due to the course of the Velvet Revolution, there is currently a lot of interest in Armenia among the diaspora. Especially these realities attract foreigners to Armenia. So this exhibition will let them understand what happened.” But the idea was never implemented, and thousands of estimated diaspora Armenian pilgrims lost this “tourist attraction”.

What remains is Civic Day, a holiday designed to replace the Bolshevik 7th November, the annual anniversary of the Glorious Revolution. To say it has become a popular holiday, however, is an exaggeration.

People can be united not only by joy, but also by sorrow: April 24 has been a unifying factor for at least sixty years. For me personally, September 2023 is the new April 24, because we lost Artsakh, and 120,000 Artsakh people had to leave their homes. This was pure genocide. But it is clear that no government wants to mention the tragedy that happened during its term.

As a result, the current authorities have failed to create rituals around any unifying ideas. Instead, rituals of hatred and division are performed every day on the Internet. The targets are the “former”, the Russians and the “fifth column”. Of course, this is nothing new and is described in detail in George Orwell’s novel “1984”, which calls it the “Two Minutes Hate”.

Aram Abrahamyan