Pashinyan bashes Soviet Union amidst troubled relations with Russia

In his speech on the occasion of Republic Day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticised the Soviet Union, which took control of Armenia and brought the First Republic to an end in 1920.

Praising the role of the First Republic despite its short existence of less than three years, Pashinyan called its establishment ‘truly [a] turning point in our thousand-year history’. He emphasised that after being a stateless nation for four and a half centuries, its establishment turned Armenians ‘into a state-forming people’.

‘And for the first time in our history, a state system was outlined — a republic, where the people of Armenia are the ones who hold power and decide through elections who and how to govern the state’, Pashinyan said.

Amidst strained relations with Russia in recent years, Pashinyan expressed critical views of the Soviet Union and its lingering propaganda, which he argued still influences people’s perceptions of independence.

Pashinyan said that for almost the entire duration of the Soviet Union, ‘the First Republic was targeted as evil’, adding that it ‘became an object of ridicule and contempt’. According to him, that way ‘the Empire [referring to the Soviet Union] thereby pursued the goal of destroying those sprouts of an independent state’.

In 1991, when Armenia regained independence, ‘it seemed that the 70-year-old propaganda had not left a deep mark on us’, Pashinyan said, noting that a ‘retrospective analysis of the history’ of Armenia’s Third Republic suggests the opposite.

‘The disdain for statehood, our fears of sovereignty and independence have not been fully overcome’, Pashinyan said, adding that ‘we often continue to perceive history and the world with the formulas that the imperial propaganda of the USSR consistently instilled in us’.

He expressed his belief that ensuring the sustainability of the state and identity requires overcoming the remnants of the propaganda.

Since the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, Armenia has gone through ‘severe trials’, Pashinyan said, adding that ‘at the cost of the lives of our martyrs’, a historic opportunity was created to strengthen sovereignty and statehood, and secure its long-term permanence.

‘Today we are more of a state than ever, we are more sovereign than ever, we are more independent than ever’, Pashinyan insisted.

Additionally, he called any sense of security guaranteed by external forces ‘deceptive’ and reiterated his government’s policy of seeking to normalise relations with all neighbours, and conduct a balanced foreign policy.

‘We have overcome the period of the history of losses and have entered a promising era of the history of achievements’, Pashinyan claimed, additionally reiterating his statement that ‘there will be no war, there will be peace’.

Despite his insistence that ‘democracy [is] a reality’ in Armenia, the ceremony held at the Sardarapat Memorial Complex, where the decisive Battle of Sardarapat took place in May 1918 against the Ottoman Army that enabled the creation of the First Republic, saw only officials in attendance.

As reported by RFE/RL, journalists and the general public were not allowed to approach the memorial during the official ceremony and subsequent parade.

Karekin II, the head of the Armenian church, with whom Pashinyan’s government has strained relations, was not present during the ceremony either.

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OC MediaYousef Bardouka