About a month ago, famous artists of the older generation met with the acting President of the Republic of Armenia, Alen Simonyan. It received a lot of attention on the Internet among users with oppositional views. I must say that the photos of that meeting did not make me very happy either. But for me, what these people did for our culture is a hundred times more important than when and with whom they had dinner. Such meetings are forgotten in a few days, and, say, the art of Chekidjian or Amirkhanyan will become a source of inspiration for the next generations of Armenians.
I remembered that episode because of the recent dispute in the National Assembly. The Civil Contract deputy spoke without respect about our famous athletes Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Levon Aronian. It is clear that a politician should speak in this way for political reasons: the world-class football player and chess player had good relations with the representatives of the “previous government.” The argument of the Civil Contract member is that when Mohamed Ali or Robert Fischer were tried in the United States, the Americans did not protest, asking why their champions were being tried. The parallel is not correct. If Aronian or Mkhitaryan commit an illegal act, no one in Armenia will protest against their trial.
But not performing under the Armenian flag is another matter. To say, “the more such people go, the sooner our country will be cleansed,” I think, is not a state approach. (Reminiscent of the pathos of Soviet preachers when no athlete or artist from that country “returned” to the homeland). The two aforementioned Armenian athletes did not pollute our country so that we could cleanse them; on the contrary, they brought glory and honor to Armenia. The reasons for Aronian’s departure, by the way, are directly related to the behavior of the state structure. Some KGB officials had decided that he had “no potential” as a chess player, which clearly contradicted the chess player’s high international rating. It seems to me that our state and society should be proud of any talented child of the nation, especially the Armenians who have developed in independent Armenia.
In 1962, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who had settled in Europe and then settled in the United States and was criticized by Soviet preachers in 1940-50, came to the Soviet Union on tour. Years after that event, I asked one of our conservatory professors what was the reason for this change in the attitude of the Soviet government. My lecturer’s answer was: “It’s their greatness, why should they give it to someone else?”
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Aram Abrahamyan
