The current, future and life-long president of Russia, and at the moment the presidential candidate Vladimir Putin has Armenian proxies: fencer Yana Yegoryan, Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of Russia Today and Sputnik, film-director Karen Shahnazarov, comedians Evgeny Petrosyan and Mikhail Galustyan, scientist Aleksander Chubaryan, swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan. In such cases, questions arise in Armenia: And to what extent are they Armenian? Should we be proud of such people? In general, should we be interested in the activity of these people more than of other citizens of Russia? First of all, we have no universal and 10 million acceptable answer to the question of what it means to be an Armenian. In this we differ from the Jews who have solved the issue in the religious-ideological plane.
The form of our unity cannot be religious, because there were and are, in particular, Catholics, Protestants and atheists who are worthy sons of our nation. Therefore, we must look for other criteria. For example, one may ask whether those people accept their Armenian identity. Putin’s proxies do not seem to have any problems in this regard. From above mentioned figures I personally have spoken to Margarita Simonyan, who spoke very warmly about her ethnicity. And, for example, political scientist Sergey Kurghinyan or singer Philip Kirkorov do not consider themselves Armenian. It is absolutely worthless to be concerned with such people from this point of view.
The second question that can be asked is whether those people have command of the Armenian language. Besides Shavarsh Karapetyan, from the those seven figures, I think no one can state that. And, for example, Andranik Mihranyan, another political analyst of Putin regime, freely communicates in Armenian, and when he visits Yerevan, in his interviews and press conferences he speaks in his native language. Does it bring him closer to the interests of Armenia? I think no, because his job is to serve the interests of the Kremlin. And, for example, Kirk Kerkorian did not speak Armenian, but will dare to say that he was not Armenian?
Nevertheless, I think, except for the “Kurghinyan” cases, people should not be rejected, and there is no need to “interrogate” them on the topic of being Armenian. Armenian origin of famous figures should be used as far as possible. To use for the sake of the Republic of Armenia. Sometimes it is possible to try to awaken national feelings in them without going too far. Just as it was the case with Cherilyn Sarkisian and Kim Kardashian.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
