There are propaganda tales, which remain in people’s memories for decades, if not for centuries, and even though they obviously are contrary to the facts, anyway, it is almost impossible to dissuade people. These myths are usually concocted about the local authorities, first because the ordinary people are always interested in the life of the “world powerfuls”, and secondly, the goal thereof is usually to instill hatred against these authorities.
For example, allegedly, in 1770-80-ies, Queen Marie Antoinette when reported that the French people are dying from hunger and have no bread to eat, she has said, “Then, let them eat pastries (brioches).”
The only source of this myth is the French philosopher and in this case, the publicist (maybe a “political technologist”?) Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote in his book “The Confessions”, “Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: “Let them eat brioche and I began buying brioches.” It is similar to the modern Armenian journalism, isn’t it? It is good that he did not write, “according to our reliable information”. In later years, they began to resemble this “princess” with Marie Antoinette. But when Rousseau was making this “Facebook post” (1769), Marie Antoinette was living in her native Austria and went to Paris only the next year. It is clear, however, that in the second half of the 1880s, the French revolutionaries had extensively “shared” this post to infuriate people against the royal family and, after all, the Queen in 1793, as well as earlier against her husband to justify the decapitation of Louis XVI.
The propaganda tales, consequently, is spread out by the “opposition”, as well as the next government to discredit the previous one. For example, Russia’s nowadays propaganda claims that the last Czar Nicholas II was a scoundrel and a traitor to justify his, his wife’s and the five children’s, including 14-year-old Alexei’s execution. The problem is that the Bolsheviks are dearer to nowadays authorities than the czar’s family. Another story from the same series that during the Bolshevik Revolution, the Head of Russia’s temporary government, Alexander Kerensky, escaped from the Winter Palace dressed in women’s clothing.
In the 1990’s, such propaganda tales were spread out about the first president, the minister of internal relations and other leaders. For instances, the fact that allegedly Levon Ter-Petrosyan has advised the poor people of Armenia to borrow from one another very much resembles with the legend about Marie Antoinette. There are still similar stories. It perfectly affects the consciousness of the philistine, “Do you know that…?” It was and would be throughout the world. But …
Nero was not played a fiddle during the huge fire broke out in Rome. The contemporaries claim that he, on the contrary, was organizing an assistance to the victims of the fire. And most importantly, there was no violin in the 64 AD. What we now call a violin is created in the 16th century.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
