Generation Z

Conversation with (grand)parents

Source of the picture: Mediamax

Student: Anna Grigoryan

Introduction

The collapse of the Soviet Union (SU) left the world with sole superpower USA. The modern generation of the post-Soviet countries can hardly imagine their already independent states to be a part of a Union as powerful as United States. None of the nowadays developed countries or the Union of such countries are considered to be powerful enough to be compared with the US. It means no one can question the power of the economy of the Union or its influence and role in the global politics, especially during the WW2. Meanwhile, its sociocultural and sociopolitical system, violations of human rights are the topics of the endless discourse between generations.

Several generations witnessed the system, experiencing different interpretation of the communist ideas, under the control of different communist leaders. The opinions of the people differ as much as the stages of the SU, from severe dictatorship to golden age, later instability and final collapse. In the frames of this research we are going to interview two representatives of the SU generation. With several questions on the topics of SU system and Karabakh movement we will find out their personal experience of living in SU and their opinions on its advantages and disadvantages. We will learn two different interpretations of the same period of the past century.

As the interviewees I have chosen to be my grandparents. They are almost the same age and have lived the major part of their life in the SU. Both were born in village. My grandmother was born in a family of peasants without higher education. None of the family members was involved in politics. His father was a war veteran. She moved to Yerevan to get education in a technicum, got married to a man from Karabakh, got a job and settled in Yerevan. My grandfather was born in a family of former kulaks. Both her mother and father had higher education, but the father died in the WW2. Her mother, who was a devoted member of the Communist Party raised her two sons alone. My grandfather also came to Yerevan to get education, got married and settled in Yerevan.

Interview 1st

the date and time of the interview: 09/03/2020 15:00

the place of the interview: Yerevan

Interviewee: Anzhik Ghukasyan (grandmother on the father’s side)

the date of birth of the interviewee: 05/07/1946 (always celebrated on May 9th in honor of the

Victory Day)

place of birth of the interviewee: Oshakan Village

political views: none

Were you a member of the Komsomol/Community Party? Can you recall how the membership began and why it was significant to become a party member?

I was a member of the Komsomol. It was mandatory, and the school automatically made me a member of it. I was not a member of the Party. It was important to be a Party member for your future career and promotions.

Are there any family experiences with the Stalinist exterminations, repressions, concentration camps?

No, none of my family had such an experience. We were not kulaks.

What was it like to live in Soviet Armenia (SU)?

I don’t remember any bad day living in Oshakan during the SU. My father had job, our income was from Kolkhoz, we also had our garden to harvest. We had a good life and were satisfied. Right after my graduation from school I was admitted to a tekhnikum in Yerevan for free, we even got pension for studying.

4.What was your experience with the Soviet control over individuals/freedom of expressions.

I didn’t encounter control over my freedom. None of my family members was involved in politics or had a high position to face such actions.

Were you employed? What was it like working in the SU? What were the benefits and downsides of working in the soviet system?

I worked in the SU for 35 years. There were no downsides, there were benefits. I worked for eight hours a day with one-hour break, everybody had a normal job and got a normal salary.

Did you support the Soviet system? Explain the answer.

SU had a full control over the people, never allowed to have their own businesses. This is why I can’t say I fully supported the system. The rest of it was good.

Did you feel victim of the Soviet system? Explain the answer.

I didn’t feel. Now me and my family live in the same way we lived in the SU as an average family.

Have you traveled outside of the SU? If yes, can you recall how the system worked for letting you out of the country?
If you traveled outside of the SU, have your opinions of the SU changed?

No, I travelled a lot inside the SU, but not outside of it.

What were the 5 key turning points in Armenia’s social and political life that you remember the best?

I don’t recall any exact turning points in social and political life. I remember there were always calls for independence and constant arrests of the intellectuals, like Shiraz.

What is your recollection of the Karabakh movement?

I have bitter memories of those days, we lost our home in Maragha (husband’s birthplace, a village, were mass killings of Armenians were carried out during 1990s, which is called Maragha massacres). My husband was the commander of the Maragha division, I remember the 27 guns he received for his soldiers. We lost Maragha, people were massacred, we didn’t even know if the Soviet army was against us or against Azeirbaijan.

What was it like to see the collapse of the SU?

I was happy to see all the Armenians around the world united, to see that Armenia finally got rid of Azeirbaijanis. They were settled in all the sides of the airport (EVN), in the border areas of Armenia, had a plan to peacefully block Armenia from all the sides and take it without war. The period of the collapse was cruel, we faced a lot of difficulties, but I was happy it happened. That was a change for good.

What is your opinion of Gorbachev?

Very bad. He was a spy meant to destroy the SU. But at the same time, thanks to it we gained our independence.

What was the reason of massive urbanization?

There were no institutes or technicums in the villages. People went to study in the cities, got a job and settled there. Our nation always seeks for education. Even in old scripts it’s written that people send their children to different parts of the world to get education. The elder’s occupation was agriculture and the youngsters went to study and work for factories.

What is your recollection of the 1965 demonstration?

I don’t remember anything of those days, I didn’t hear anything from the media either.

Mention several advantages of the SU.

free apartments and cars people got for working in the factories
employment
eight our working day
stay funded vacations
free tickets to different resorts

Mention several downsides of the SU.

I can’t mention any. Your father would have killed me if he heard this (joking). The only one I can mention is the control over people, over the freedom of speech, e.i. the dictatorship.

Interview 2nd

the date and time of the interview: 09/04/2020 12:40

the place of the interview: Yerevan

Interviewee: Alfred Aghajanyan (grandfather on the mother’s side)

the date of birth of the interviewee: 11/15/1941

place of birth of the interviewee: Vardablur Village (Lori Province)

political views: communism

Were you a member of the Komsomol/Community Party? Can you recall how the membership began and why it was significant to become a party member?

I was a member of the Komsomol, I even worked as a secretary at a Komsomol factory. Later I became a member of Communist Party. I think it was a party of high values. I respected the ideas of the Party and it was important to follow them, as they were pure, meant for equality.

Are there any family experiences with the Stalinist exterminations, repressions, concentration camps?

Yes, my uncle was arrested as a son of a kulak and he never came back from the prison. My grandfather didn’t have right to speak, as he also had been a kulak. My mother, who was a teacher and the Party secretary became the head of their family in order to have rights in the village. Although I am from that former rich family, I think the communists were right. I think the arrests were not the decision of the leaders, but had personal reasons and were organized in the small groups. The leaders didn’t know my grandfather or uncle personally in order to order to arrest them. Those were the simple villagers who organized the imprisonments in order to harm the family members.

What was it like to live in Soviet Armenia (SU)?

The life in SU was good enough. People lived well, even the people of villages were satisfied of their life, had jobs, no one complained.

4.What was your experience with the Soviet control over individuals/freedom of expressions.

I never understood that, no one controlled us. Although a lot of people now say that people were forced to become a party member, that’s not true. Everybody became a member voluntarily.

Were you employed? What was it like working in the SU? What were the benefits and downsides of working in the soviet system?

Of course, I worked. There were a lot of advantages. Everybody worked, the director and the simple laborer earned almost the same amount of money.

The theft inside the factories and the corruption were the downsides. There is no society without corruption, and I think now it’s more than it used to be in the SU. If the leaders knew about the corruptions, they would have punished and arrested those who did that.

Did you support the Soviet system? Explain the answer.

I did. Not only me, but the majority who I ask this question today confirm that they supported the Soviet system and miss those days. The simple laborer got a free apartment from the SU. Of course, there were falsifications, but that’s inevitable for any system. We were industrial country, everybody had job.

Did you feel victim of the Soviet system? Explain the answer.

No, I never felt that.

Have you traveled outside of the SU? If yes, can you recall how the system worked for letting you out of the country?
If you traveled outside of the SU, have your opinions of the SU changed?

No, I travelled only inside the SU.

What were the 5 key turning points in Armenia’s social and political life that you remember the best?

I don’t remember any significant day, there were regular days, good days, nothing special.

What is your recollection of the Karabakh movement?

I don’t remember much of those days. Honestly, I was not interested in the movement, how it happened. I remember the massacres of Armenians, the conflicts of Armenians and Azeirbaijanis, Muslims and Christians. I didn’t hear much weather we lost or didn’t lost the Karabakh, but mostly about how the Turks destroyed Armenian legacy and churches, proving that god (small “g” in purpose) is false and is lie. If it was true, he would have punished those who destroyed the churches, who murder the priests and religious people. The church of our village was a storage.

What was it like to see the collapse of the SU?

It was a sad experience to have, to see how Gorbachev destroyed the country.

What is your opinion of Gorbachev?

He was a villain.

What was the reason of massive urbanization?

There were few people leaving villages for cities then comparing with today. I remember even there were people settling in villages, there were a lot of akhpars, who came to live in Armenian villages. Those who left villages, went to work at factories, as the cities had become industrial. There were more jobs in the cities than in the villages.

What is your recollection of the 1965 demonstration?

I remember there were some demonstrations, but I don’t remember much now, because of my memory.

Mention several advantages of the SU.

free education, plus pension for education
free health care
open borders inside the SU

Mention several downsides of the SU.

the doctors were asking for and taking bribes for the surgeries
corruption
a lot of issues could be solved only by personal connections

Conclusion

We have done a research on the legacy of Soviet Armenia by interviewing our grandparents. Based on their personal experience they expressed their ideas on several issues of the SU, its system and Karabakh movement. Our interviewees are the representatives of the generation who witnessed the SU more than any other generation alive. It means they are nowadays “masters” of the SU system. Through above mentioned opinions we can decide which of the popular ideas on the communist system we can confirm or reject.

Both our interviewees confirmed that they were satisfied from the living conditions SU provided to its citizens. Apartment distribution was a fact mentioned by our interviewees (nothing mentioned weather they were or were not comfortable enough to live in). People got free cars, tickets to resorts, state paid vacations, etc. We can conclude that people lived in the present and appreciated what they had and got at that moment of their life. None of the interviewees were involved in politics, were not interested how the communists had taken the power and what it had cost. As we saw in case of my grandfather, even the background of the family hadn’t stopped him to be a devoted communist. Communists proved their righteousness by above mentioned equal distribution of apartments and other material goods.

Very little was spoken about the control over the freedom of speech, as none of my grandparents had such an experience. From one side we have my grandfather rejecting that there was any control over people, from the other side my grandmother remembers the arrests of the intellectuals. The latter is a fact proved by other researches. The rejection of it or lack of information on that topic confirms that the people were not well informed what was going on in the country, and that the media was also controlled by the leaders. This is also the reason why my grandparents knew very briefly or even didn’t know about the massive demonstrations of 1965, couldn’t mention several socio-political turning points of 70s-80s.

The employment rate and eight hour working day was another advantage mentioned several times in their answers. The system made you work. That fact shows that each individual was considered as a member of society and it was his/her duty to work for it. We learned that being a member of Komsomol was mandatory. We can say, that it was meant to put all the people on the same path from the very young ages, teach them the communist ideas of common society and keep the system sustainable. Those who fully accepted those ideas supported the system by becoming a member of the Communist party, as it was the case of my grandfather.

The opinions vary on the topic of Karabakh movement. My grandfather showed indifference toward that major political issue of our country, concentrating more on the people who died because of it. The global ideas such as nation, religion, sovereignty, independence, freedom didn’t interest the average people with communist ideas, and they were the majority of the society. My grandmother, from the other site, was well aware of the Karabakh conflict (mostly because her husband was from Maragha), mentioned the importance of independence and the importance to be united as a nation. Although she could hardly find a disadvantage of the SU, she prefers to live in an independent country, which is not the case of my grandfather. Both of them share the same opinion, that Gorbachev was a person, meant to destroy the country.

Soviet Union as any other state and system had its advantages and disadvantages. Different people argue bringing different points and facts about the SU. No one can argue that the economic situation of the Union is not even comparable with the economy of the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, no one can argue that people had freedom of speech in the SU as much as they have in the RA. None of the systems proved to be ideal. In the same way no one can prove whether it’s better to have an equal society with the same share of goods sacrificing the global concepts that have existed from the very beginning of homo sapience, or it’s better to be an independent, sovereign nation, with its own values struggling in the battles of the international politics and economies.