The Contradictory 60s: Empire and Cultural Resistance Hrach Bayadyan 1 The South Caucasus, formerly Transcaucasia, is a Russian-Soviet legacy in the sense that, the region began to take shape as a geographical unit simultaneously with the Russian empire’s southern expansionist drive; in the context of continuous and complex relations with Iran and especially Turkey, as well as with the West, albeit sometimes indirectly. During the entire 19th century, Russia’s relations with Turkey, often on the battlefield, were vital for the former. This was a time when the Russians sought to redefine their identity using Western concepts, to present themselves as a modernizing nation in the Western sense, as a country that was a part of Europe. In this case, a Westernizing Russia saw that “Orient” in Turkey, from which it wanted to distance itself. Thus, within Russia’s self-definition, Turkey was presented as Russia’s, and in general, the civilized world’s oriental “Other.”2 Russia looked at the Empire’s eastern and southern peoples with a Western perspective. Here, the Caucasus was viewed as an intermediate zone, a passageway between West and East, as a civilizing East through Russian mediation. Accordingly, the notion of Russia’s “civilizing mission” was established; a notion fully appropriate from the point of view of justifying the Empire’s expansionism and colonialism. This was the way a large segment of the Russian intelligentsia thought. They believed that Russia was bringing enlightenment and civilization to the Caucasus3. It must be added that there were people in the Caucasus who viewed the Russian presence in this way as well. This was also the case with the Armenian intellectual elite, including such pivotal figures of contemporary Eastern Armenian literature as Khachatur Abovyan and Hovhannes Tumanyan. During the first half of the 19th century, many saw the only possibility of liberating eastern Armenians from Persia, defending against Turkish threats, and coming into contact with the Western process of modernization, with the Russian empire. This means that from the very start, the idea of Eastern Armenia’s modernization was born and took shape within the parameters granted by the Russian civilizing mission; first as a Russian- Armenian and later, Soviet-Armenian project. Of course, the desire to become Westernized, already existing in the Caucasus, increased the possibility for the so-called “Russian orientation” to take hold, especially if the alternatives were Iran and Turkey. At the very least, Russian rule would be accepted by Armenians as their salvation, salvation via a certain kind of self- colonization. However, on the other hand, Russia itself was viewed in Europe as half-eastern, half-Western, as a transitional expanse between the West and East. Even though the status obtained by nations within the Soviet Union (S.U.) could be regarded as some sort of partial decolonization, nevertheless, Russian orientalism, modified and reshaped, continued to function, albeit in more subtle ways, in the S.U. as well. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia) as an “invented” region (“invented” during the process of Russia’s civilizing mission and later, during implementation of the Soviet modernizing project) gradually lost its distinctiveness. However, it seems that the first noticeable shifts began prior to this, in the 60s, and the transformations that occurred in those years are imparted with new meanings when viewed from the prism of current realities. 1 This article was written on the basis of a series of lectures I gave on the subject of “Russian-Soviet orientalism” during seminars sponsored by the “Art and cultural studies laboratory” (November, 2008). These lectures were subsequently published in a series of articles entitled “The question of cultural decolonization” (in Armenian) that appeared in “Hetq” (http://old.hetq.am/arm/culture/8665) 2 See, Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. 3 See, Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy, Cambridge: Cambridg University Press, 1994. Sayı Issue #2 1 The Contradictory 60s: Empire and Cultural Resistance Hrach Bayadyan The 60s: years of contradiction The terms “Thaw” and “the 60s generation” are the most well known expressions defining the cultural awakening that took place in the Soviet Union in the late 50s and continuing in the 60s. Despite the sharp ups and downs of Soviet cultural policy over the years, the comparative freedoms and renewed restrictions and repressions that followed one another, it was also a unique time for the Soviet national republics in terms of the development of national cultures and the formation of national consciousness. It was a process paradoxically accompanied by unprecedented efforts aimed at the Russification of nations and the shaping of a united Soviet people. Just as in the Russian empire, so too in the SU, the assumption held sway that Russian culture and the Russian language were superior to the cultures and languages of other nations. During the Stalinist era, the superiority of the Russian people took form within the “big brother – little brothers” context. This ensured the basis for the systematic and continuous Russification being carried out in the S.U. Some of the prerequisites for the expected fusion of Soviet nations and nationalities were a high level of education, where Russian was the lingua franca for all peoples, equal opportunities for economic development for all nationalities and regions, geographic and social mobility for the populace, etc. The other important defining characteristic of the Soviet empire was that there didn’t exist an insurmountable line of demarcation that in Western empires separated the colonizer from the colonized. Along with the implemented restrictions regarding ethnic identity, in contrast to classical colonial systems, real opportunities for participation and advancement were afforded to the Soviet peoples. In the implementation of similar policies, an important role was reserved for the native elites. The factor must be taken into account that the widespread collectivization carried out by the Soviet regime, and the industrialization and urbanization parallel with it, allowed for the severing of the Soviet peoples, all rural-based, from their traditions. At the same time, traditional local elites either broke down or were destroyed. Subsequently, the Soviet system prepared new native elites of professionals and intellectuals ready for collaboration in return for certain rewards and advancement possibilities. Being linked with official institutions and having the administrative-political apparatus at their disposal, they were more inclined to frame their demands and reach their goals (including national ones) within the Soviet system rather than aspire to separate themselves from it. Simultaneously, contacts within various professional circles (writers, scientists, etc) that violated ethnic borders were being supported, seeking to create supra-ethnic forms of cooperation. These communities both embodied and symbolized the concept of a unified Soviet people.4 Analysts claim that the nationalism manifested by certain Soviet titular nations in the 60s was not a rebirth of pre-Soviet nationalism but rather a new type of nationalism, although unpredicted, formed during the process of the Soviet modernizing project. The national tradition being reconstructed under Soviet rule and the cultural identity being formed, were unavoidably taking shape as a national-Soviet hybrid. A few issues will be discussed related to the period covered in this article taken from two texts written in the 60s – the Russian writer Andrei Bitov’s “Lessons of Armenia” and Armenian writer Hrant Matevosyan’s “Hangover” – read in tandem. Dialogue: two texts Matevosyan and Bitov came to the fore during the Khrushchev “Thaw” years. They became acquainted during the mid-60s when they participated in the two-year Advanced Course for Scriptwriters in Moscow. These works were written in the years that followed. “Hangover” was 4 See, Philip G. Roeder, “Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization” in Denber, Rachel. The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context, Oxford: Westview Press (1992), pp. 147-178. Issue #2 2 The Contradictory 60s: Empire and Cultural Resistance Hrach Bayadyan completed in 1969 and is based on the author’s impressions of that course. “Lessons of Armenia” was written from 1967-1969 and is a result of Bitov’s ten-day journalistic mission to Armenia (he was sent to write an essay about Armenia for a Russian journal). The book was first published in the monthly magazine Druzhba Narodov in 1969 and was later translated into a number of languages and became one of Bitov’s most noted works. Lessons of Armenia is not just a mere travelogue, as Andrei Bely’s impressions of Armenia, or a “semi-novella,” as Mandelstam describes his Journey to Armenia, but rather a real piece of artistic prose. What follows, in a nutshell, is the subject matter of Hangover. People from all national republics, basically writers, were to attend the Advanced Course for Scriptwriters organized at the Moscow Cinema House. The work portrays one day in the life of the attendees at the course; the conversations of Mnatsakanyan, the narrator, with various individuals, recollections of his native Armenia, especially village life, etc. Each of the participants was expected to write a screenplay to be eventually turned into a film. Mnatsakanyan writes a screenplay dealing with problems in the Armenian villages – industrialization, crumbling rural communities, etc. Vaksberg, the course director, proposes that changes be made to the screenplay, but Andrei Bitov and Hrant Matevosyan (photograph Mnatsakanyan refuses. Their conversation practically rises to the level of an kindly provided by the Hrant Matevosyan Foundation argument. In all likelihood, they’ll expel him from the class. The two texts are the result of the stimuli received by the authors from their experience attending the Advanced Course for Scriptwriters.