C. 340 years ago Moliere wrote his The Bourgeois Gentleman comédie-ballet. The basis for funny events was the fact that, along with the development of market economy, in 17th century, many rich people emerged, who weren’t less and sometimes were even more wealthy than aristocrats, but they did not correspond to the standards of the upper-class by their mental and cultural qualities. It seemed that those newly-emerged rich people could live without those ambitions. However, those who think like that don’t know the human nature. Man usually cannot be satisfied by palaces and gold he has got, he wants to gain, buy respect, in order that he is perceived not only rich and philanthropic, but also educated, just and even philosophical. Or, as leader of the world’s Armenians Ara Abrahamyan would say, “philos”. It seems there is no problem, live in yourMoscow and enjoy your millions, if it occurs to you, do good, but no, that businessman wants to be also a “philos”, he writes books about cosmic issues. If someone asks what is written in those books, he will hardly be able to retell the content of those in any language. He just needs to have his name written on the book – it strokes his ego.
Becoming an MP and generally being engaged in “politics” is of that kind for our oligarchs. Certainly, there is a pragmatic component here too – the MP seat contributes to their shadow business. However, there is also a demand for respect, being an MP, is a sort of “elite” thing for them, like “gold” numbers and a pointless apartment in theNorthern Avenue.
Naturally, our officials are the same rich men – office, as we know, is a source of wealth. And the more their reputation and image are incompatible with perceptions of intellectual, the more they long for representing themselves as intellectuals. A few years ago, they made an academician of some academy out of mayor of Gyumri Vardan Ghukasyan. Now he expresses his readiness to buy Hovhannes Tumanyan’s house inTbilisiprobably with the money saved from his salary of a mayor. If Vardanik buys that house, then, sorry, I personally will not need that house anymore.
It has come out lately that governor of Syunik Surik Khachatryan decided to study science. In all likelihood, he cannot imagine further development of Armenian historiography without his mighty mind and interdisciplinary knowledge. He tries to “whitewash” his image a bit, along with that.
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…As far as I know, Koval, the governor of Kotayk, doesn’t have any academic degree. As a resident of that region, I am ready to help him absolutely free, in order that he defends a PhD thesis in musicology.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
