Whoever thinks that Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” novel ends with the unhappy heroine falling under a train, he, be sure, has not read the work, but has watched only the film. After the suicide there is a whole part in the book, about 50 pages, in which the writer not only sums up the fate of the main characters (1-2 pages would be enough of it), but also recommends the so-called solutions. These solutions, according to Tolstoy, are not in the public life, although this last part is just beginning from a significant event, “Slavonic question”, the Serbs again felt alarm, and a movement began in Russia to support Orthodox brothers and send volunteers. Here is what Tolstoy wrote about the movement, viewing it from the point of one of the heroes: “He saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement. He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injury – generals without armies, ministers not in the ministry, and party leaders without followers. These lines were written about 140 years ago when there were no internet and “Facebook”, but the writer could grasp and describe the most important features of social psychology. It can be said that in the 70s of the 19th century (and, perhaps, always?) important and non-important, sincere and insincere, real concern and “conflict” are so mixed with each other that the society is unable to distinguish them. In particular, the sense of the scale gets lost in such a situation.
In today’s Armenia, paid parking, “slipping” Liska’s son and his bodyguard from responsibility, entering into the Customs Union are viewed on one plane. And even if we realize the importance of the last issue, people are shouting something trying to attract more of their attention and scream louder, they are writing something “unnecessary and exaggerated”, and as a result it is not clear what the very message is. What alternative do they offered?
As a matter of reflection, I am suggesting one questions, when was the fateful choice made? On September 3, 2013. Or, in the 90s, when we entered into the CIS and installed the Russian military base. Maybe in 1988, or on November 29, 1920. Or, perhaps, in 1828. During Israel Ori? Or, when we preferred Byzantine Empire.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
