From this viewpoint, we should consider whether or not to set up his statue
“What is the essential difference between Cromwell and Stalin, can you tell me? No difference. From the viewpoint of liberal spectrum of our political establishment, he is just as much of a bloody dictator as Stalin. In fact, he was a very treacherous man, and had played quite a controversial role in the history of the Great Britain. However, his monument is standing, and no one seeks to knock it down.” These are the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on December 19, last year, referring to the statues of the Soviet figures. He does not particularly welcome the idea of reconstructing new statues of these figures; he is against the idea of disassembling the existing ones.
The comparison between Stalin and Cromwell is not particularly successful. It would be more correct to compare the British revolutionist with Russian revolutionist Trotsky, to whom, as far as I know, there is no statue in Russia, again, thanks to the efforts of Stalin. On the other hand, Cromwell, coming to power through a bloody revolution, later felt its “bliss”, betrayed his republican ideals, and became a kind of king. Hence, there are no statues to real revolutionists set up in the world, usually the statues of statesmen from political figures who had conducted good and bad deeds are built.
Anastas Mikoyan was a Soviet statesman. As far as I understand, he was not an ill-tempered person, but being in high positions during the Stalin years, he was playing by the rules of that regime, also contributing to repressions against all the peoples, including Armenians, and mass execution of innocent people. During the Khrushchev era, he proved himself to be a brilliant diplomat, especially during the Caribbean crisis.
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When it is said that due to ambiguous biography of Mikoyan, his statue cannot be set up in Armenia, it is not an argument for me, because Dro, Andranik or Nzhdeh also had “black holes” in their biographies. Anyway, their activities were related to Armenia, its history, and despite their ambiguous role, they are worth of having their statues in Armenia. In fact, the same can be said of the Soviet Armenia’s leaders, first of all, Kochinyan and Demirchyan.
Anastas Mikoyan is not our national figure, he by ethnic is a statesman of Soviet Armenia. If there was a statue to him in Yerevan, it, naturally, would not be disassembled. To set up a new one… I do not know, I do not particularly see any sense, but raising too much noise is also not so logical. I, however, will not put flowers at his statue.
In the same press conference, Putin developing the topic of statues, said that we should treat every period of our history with care, but, on the other hand, we should not create any commotion in people with the help of this history. The President of Russian Federation is true on this issue.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
