After graduating from the Conservatory in 1983, I was documented as a formulated an applicant for the scientific degree of candidate in Arts, afterwards I working on my thesis for 4 years, in the meantime I passed three exams in English, philosophy and vocational. After writing the thesis, I waited for a year until it was put for defense in respective scientific council of the Institute in Tbilisi, there was no scientific council in Yerevan for this specialty.
An opponent was invited from Moscow to attend the defense of the thesis scheduled in the fall of 1988. This person should certainly be a Master of Science. After defending the thesis, I waited for half a year for the HQC to approve my thesis. Nowadays, being а Ph.D. is not a matter to be proud of at all, and, naturally, it is not for boasting that I recall it. I just want to say that in the previous society, with all of its drawbacks, achieving a scientific degree was hard, it required some efforts. Although, in those years, the “false” candidates and doctors were not also few. However, we must admit that nothing can be compared with devaluation of those degrees.
The reasons are numerous, and one of them is our officials’ irresistible inclination to science. Scientific degree is necessary for them to prove that they are not robbers, nor criminals and illiterate. I have bad news for our officials: nowadays the degree does not prove anything, because achieving it has become very easy. Give money to your subordinate “scientific creators” and they will copy a scientific text for you, and the rest is a matter of technique. But it will not change anything. The public doubts on officials’ being a robber, criminal and illiterate are maintained.
In these conditions, of course, it is not so essential whether you have the piece of paper certifying your academic degree or not. Syunik Governor, Surik Khachatryan, being convicted for three time and suspected of many crimes, I’m sure, does not know whether he has this paper or not. HQC of Armenia says that he does not have it, but it is not important for Surik Khachatryan. Not being able even to write a 4th grade dictation (who doubts, let him check), he declared himself a “Ph.D. in historical and philosophical sciences.” None of the “intellectual” advisors of the Governor could prompt him that a “historical and philosophical” profession does not exist, there are doctors and candidates of sciences and philosophy. Probably, S. Khachatryan thought that more he attributes scientific specialties, better. The nearby “intellectuals”, probably, “encouraged” him.
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Having such universal knowledge, S. Khachatryan’s place, I think, is not in Syunik Marzpetaran. He must become a president of the Academy of Sciences.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
