Resonating the Soviet Past in Armenian Cultural Memory

• In Event: Remembering the Soviet: Un(Mixing) Trauma and Nostalgia

Abstract

During the thirty-five years after the end of the Soviet Union, Armenia went through - somewhat in a similar order as other post-Soviet societies - a few stages of its remembering/forgetting: from its fervent yet chaotic rejection while continuing to be in (the 1990s-early 2000s); to its acknowledgment but with controversial reinterpretation of its legacy (2000s-2010s); to playing with its nostalgic reconstructions, on the verge of parody and kitsch, while also dissolving its traces within new memorial and identitarian perspectives (late 2010s-2020s). These trends can be traced through studying changes in museums, education, cultural landscape and public discourse.

Author

• Alexander Agadjanian, Yerevan State U (Armenia)