An Alternative to the Dissident Paradigm and Intersecting Civil Protests in Soviet Armenia: Equal but Different?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/JOPS/2022.1.3.073Keywords:
dissident paradigm, totalitarian ideology, Soviet Armenia, Soviet power, socialism, intelligentsia, anti-Soviet organizations, Armenian diasporaAbstract
The article analyzes alternative dimensions of dissidence and civil protests in Soviet Armenia, which covers the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, from the Khrushchev Thaw to Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Comparative study of the dissident paradigm has political and civilizational significance. The dissident paradigm is precisely associated with the entire human rights movement, and human rights activists were those who were called dissidents. Thanks to them, ideas of an alternative development of Soviet society and public authorities emerged.
At the present stage, the democratic rights of citizens, for which the intelligentsia and human rights activists fought in the 1960s-1980s, are proclaimed and enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. But this does not mean that the issue of human rights has been resolved in reality, since in reality human rights are often violated, first of all, by the public authorities themselves. The experience of the first generation of human rights defenders continues to be of interest to numerous committees and commissions advocating respect for the constitutional and legal rights of citizens.
The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that the processes of formation of a democratic society and the rule of law in modern Armenia put forward the task of effectively protecting human rights and freedoms. Given the fact that the recognition of human rights as a basic value was the result of a long evolution of society, it is important to see that their prerequisite was the struggle of the most socially active people for the possibility of civilizational development.
References
Aleksanyan, Ashot. 2016. “The impact of the Armenian genocide on the formation of national statehood and political identity.” Journal of Armenian Studies 2 (8): 22-43.
Alexeyeva, Ludmilla, and Paul Goldberg. 1990. The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the Post-Stalin Era. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Alexeyeva, Ludmilla. 1985. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious and Human Rights. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Amalrik, Andrei. 1971. Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press. [Амальрик, Андрей. 1970. Просуществует ли Советский Союз до 1984 года? Амстердам: Фонд имени Герцена].
Amalrik, Andrei. 1978. The USSR and the West in one boat. London: Overseas Publicutions Interchange Ltd. [Амальрик, Андрей. 1978. СССР и Запад в одной лодке. Лондон: Overseas Publicutions Interchange Ltd].
Bacon, Edwin. 1992. “Glasnost’ and the Gulag: New Information on Soviet Forced Labour around World War II.” Soviet Studies 44 (6): 1069-1086.
Bergman, Jay. 1992. “Soviet Dissidents on the Russian Intelligentsia, 1956-1985: The Search for a Usable Past.” The Russian Review 51 (1): 16-35. https://doi.org/10.2307/131244.
Bergman, Jay. 1998. “Was the Soviet Union Totalitarian? The View of Soviet Dissidents and the Reformers of the Gorbachev Era.” Studies in East European Thought 50 (4): 247-281.
Boffa, Giuseppe. 1996. From the USSR to Russia. History of the unfinished crisis. 1964-1994. Moscow: International relationships. [Боффа, Джузеппе. 1996. От СССР к России. История неоконченного кризиса. 1964-1994. Москва: Международные отношения].
Caute, David. 2010. Politics and the Novel During the Cold War. Routledge.
Chatterjee, Choi. 2017. “Imperial Subjects in the Soviet Union: M.N. Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, and Re-Thinking Freedom and Authoritarianism.” Journal of Contemporary History 52 (4): 913-934.
Edelman, Marc. 2001. “Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 285-317.
Ellman, Michael. 2002. “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments.” Europe-Asia Studies 54 (7): 1151-1172.
Fairbanks Jr., Charles H. 1989. “Soviet Bureaucratic Politics: The Role of Leaders and of Lower Officials.” In: Politics and the Soviet System, edited by Thomas F. Remington, 83-118. Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09820-0_5.
Fireside, Harvey. 1989. “Dissident Visions of the USSR: Medvedev, Sakharov & Solzhenitsyn.” Polity 22 (2): 213-229. https://doi.org/10.2307/3234832.
Ginzburg, Aleksandr. 1967. Belaia kniga po delu Siniavskogo-Daniėlia [White Book on the Siniavskii-Daniėl’ case]. Frankfurt am Main: Possev-Verlag.
Harutyunyan, Avag. 2015. The 50th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the Second Republic. Yerevan: “Noravank” Scientific and Educational Foundation [Հարությունյան, Ավագ. 2015. Հայոց ցեղասպանության 50-րդ տարելիցը և Երկրորդ Հանրապետությունը: Երևան։ «Նորավանք» գիտակրթական հիմնադրամ].
Ilic, Melanie, and Jeremy Smith, eds. 2009. Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev. London: Routledge.
Jhabvala, Farrokh. 1985. “The Soviet-Bloc’s View of the Implementation of Human Rights Accords.” Human Rights Quarterly 7 (4): 461-491. https://doi.org/10.2307/762150.
Johnston, Gordon. 2004. “What Is the History of Samizdat?” Social History 24 (2): 115-133.
Kneen, Peter. 1998. “Reconceptualizing the Soviet system: Pluralism, totalitarianism and science.” The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 14 (4): 28-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523279808415389.
Komaromi, Ann. 2004. “The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat.” Slavic Review 63 (3): 597-618. https://doi.org/10.2307/1520346.
Komaromi, Ann. 2012. “Samizdat and Soviet Dissident Publics.” Slavic Review 71 (1): 70-90. https://doi.org/10.5612/slavicreview.71.1.0070.
Kukulin, l’ia. 2011. “Alternative Social Blueprinting in Soviet Society of the 1960s and the 1970s, or Why Left-Wing Political Practices Have Not Caught on in Contemporary Russia.” Russian Studies in History 49 (4): 51-92. https://doi.org/10.2753/RSH1061-1983490403.
Laycock, Jo. 2016. “Survivor or Soviet Stories? Repatriate Narratives in Armenian Histories, Memories and Identities.” History and Memory 28 (2): 123-151.
Litvinov, Pavel. 1969. The Demonstration in Pushkin Square. London: Harvill Press.
Martin, Barbara. 2019. “Roy Medvedev’s Political Diary: An Experiment in Free Socialist Press.” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas 67 (4): 601-626.
Medvedev, Roy, eds. 1972b. Political diary 1964-1970 and 1965-1970. Amsterdam: Herzen Foundation. [Медведев, Рой (ред.). 1972b. Политический дневник 1964-1970 и 1965-1970. Амстердам: Фонд имени Герцена].
Medvedev, Roy. 1972a. A book about socialist democracy. Amsterdam/Paris: Alexander Herzen Foundation: Editions Grasset & Fasquelle. [Медведев, Рой. 1972a. Книга о социалистической демократии. Амстердам-Париж: Фонд имени Герцена; Издательство Грассе&Фаскель].
Monshipouri, Mahmood, eds. 2016. “Part II - Digital dissidence and grassroots politics.” In: Information Politics, Protests, and Human Rights in the Digital Age, 99-174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nathans, Benjamin. 2015. “Talking Fish: On Soviet Dissident Memoirs.” The Journal of Modern History 87 (3): 579-614. https://doi.org/10.1086/682413.
Pieralli, Claudia. 2021. “White Book on the Siniavskii-Daniėl’ case (A. Ginzburg).” In: Voci libere in URSS. Letteratura, pensiero, arti indipendenti in Unione Sovietica e gli echi in Occidente (1953-1991), edited by Claudia Pieralli, and Marco Sabbatini. Florence: Firenze University Press.
Remington, Thomas F. 1985. “Politics and Professionalism in Soviet Journalism.” Slavic Review 44 (3): 489-503. https://doi:10.2307/2498016.
Remington, Thomas F. 1989. “Gorbachev and the Strategy of Glasnost.” In: Politics and the Soviet System, edited by Thomas F. Remington, 56-82. Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09820-0_4.
Rhéaume, Charles. 2008. “Western Scientists’ Reactions to Andrei Sakharov’s Human Rights Struggle in the Soviet Union, 1968-1989.” Human Rights Quarterly 30 (1): 1-20.
Sakharov, Andrei. 1990. Peace, Progress, Human Rights: Articles and Speeches. Leningrad: Soviet writer. [Сахаров, Андрей. 1990. Мир, прогресс, права человека: Статьи и выступления. Ленинград: Советский писатель].
Sharlet, Robert. 1977. “Dissent and Repression in the Soviet Union.” Current History 73 (430): 112-130.
Sharlet, Robert. 1978. “Dissent and Repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: Changing Patterns since Khrushchev.” International Journal 33 (4): 763-795. https://doi.org/10.2307/40201689.
Shtromas, Alexander Y. 1979. “Dissent and Political Change in the Soviet Union.” Studies in Comparative Communism 12 (2/3): 212-244.
Simmons, Ernest J. 1966. “The Trial Begins for Soviet Literature.” The Massachusetts Review 7 (4): 714-724.
Skilling, H. Gordon. 1989. Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09284-0.
Talvoja, Kädi. 2018. “The official art of the Khrushchev Thaw: The Severe Style as an ambassador of the Estonian national school at Baltic art exhibitions in Moscow.” Journal of Baltic Studies 49 (3): 333-350. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1459756.
Virabyan, Amatuni. 2001. Armenia from Stalin to Khrushchev. Yerevan: “Gitutyun” Publishing House of NAS RA [Վիրաբյան, Ամատունի. 2001. Հայաստանը Ստալինից մինչև Խրուշչով: Երևան։ ՀՀ ԳԱԱ «Գիտություն» հրատ.].
Warth, Robert D. 1960. “Stalin’s Ghost and the Khrushchev Thaw: Soviet Historians in the Crucible.” The Antioch Review 20 (4): 417-425. https://doi.org/10.2307/4610281.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Armenak Manukyan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
