This project inquires about the negotiation of social order and national self-conceptions in the Republic of Armenia since 1945. Combining historical and ethnographical material, the analysis looks at how national identities became represented in a Soviet environment, how these representations changed in the course of time and still shape today’s, post-Soviet conceptions of ‘order’ and ‘nation’.
How did different actors within the borders of the (Soviet) Republic of Armenia formulate and practice their ideas of being Armenian? In which ways did a society that not only cherished its traditional culture but also had to come to terms with the experience and memories of violent displacement perceive and adapt the Soviet vision of the future and the Bolsheviks’ effort to create the ‘New Man’? Which symbols, topoi and narratives were used in the Soviet context in order to define Armenian identity and which aspects of the cultural heritage were involved, excluded or altered in the process?
Concerning the Soviet period, one could ask how the Soviet formula “National in form, socialist in content” was interpreted, lived and acted out. And bridging the watershed of independence: how did Soviet conceptions of national identity change in the course and aftermath of the Karabakh movement and war as Armenians voiced their relationship not only to neighbouring Azerbaidshan and Turkey, but to their fellow countrymen in a changed social and political environment?
The project aims at an analysis of the polyphone dialogue on social order and national identity over a period of 60 years. It focuses on the negotiation between different groups over issues such as religion, genocide, war, history or the role of the Diaspora. Thus, this project looks not only at the public staging of nationhood and social order. The translation of public representations into the everyday practices in a Soviet and post-Soviet environment as well as popular counter concepts are core issue of this project.