Modernism, Enlightenment (in particular, in the form of rejection of religion), and conservatism (in the logic of “rejecting” that rejection) are somewhat complementary phenomena, like “hitting the gas” and braking to a car engine. This is how it happened in Europe at the end of the 18th century, when these ideologies crystallized and were called, on the one hand, liberalism (also socialism) and on the other hand, conservatism.
But the same thing happened in different countries before and after that. From time to time, a desire to “gather momentum” arises in this or that society, which often leads to revolutions, wars, and other similar cataclysms. As a rule, after these disasters, there is a greater demand for conservatism to “slam on the brakes.”
After the tumultuous events of the 1990s in the post-Soviet countries, nostalgia for a period of stability and stagnation naturally arose in some circles. After the chaos of Germany’s Weimar Republic, people had a strong demand for order. After the sensibility of the Romantic period, there was a desire to return to classical “organization,” neoclassicism. For example, after Wagner’s complex, saturated scores, the 20th century saw the emergence of composers (eg, Stravinsky, the French Six) who sought simple, “unburdened” music.
If we try to extend this pattern to the political developments of Armenia, then, in my opinion, we can record that the demand for moderate nationalist conservatism is maturing in our country as well. It will certainly not be a return to the “conservatism” of the RPA.
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I don’t think the Republicans had anything like that. In fact, the official ideology of 1998-2008 was nationalism, which can rule the hearts of citizens when the heads of the government are abstinent devotees who renounce material goods, which you can’t say about the RPA members in any way.
Unfortunately, the “rejection” of 2018 also extended to nationalism and the Armenian Apostolic Church. In the next phase, Christian democracy is likely to be in demand. And what that current is- I will write about it in the next editorial.
Aram Abrahamyan
