Months ago, when honorary titles were abolished by law, and an ignorant deputy minister of justice announced from the chair of the National Assembly with all conviction who Vladilen Balyan is, no one knows him, the cultural figures remained silent. Lilit Galstyan, deputy of the Armenia faction of the National Assembly, wrote about this on her Facebook page.
"Culture figures kept silent and left historians alone when history and literature textbooks were "revised" with new educational standards, undermining historical realities, the key foundations of our identity.
The figures of culture continue to remain silent when the Motherland and the state, the national and the state, are opposed every day with false, anti-scientific arguments.
They are silent when they disrespect the Armenian Apostolic Church and try to target its Patriarch, but they ambitiously appear in the front rows of the death blessing ceremony...
They are silent and continue to stage "Arshak 2nd", "Princess of the Fallen Fortress" or "40 Days of Musa Mountain", sing "Cilicia" or "Adana's Lament", paint "Ararat"...
They are silent... Some of them talking under the walls, but taking advantage of the royal feeding trough.
And here, our cultural heritage, the same as the struggle against us reached the cultural organizations.
Without an articulate justification, the CP, with a single blind conviction, on the recommendation of Nikol Pashinyan, on the presentation of an inadequate deputy minister of the KGS, all cultural organizations with national status were deprived of that status by law.
The national status was awarded to them for decades of cultural mission and activity, emphasizing their exceptional merit and special appreciation by the state itself. National Opera, National Philharmonic Orchestra, National Academic Choir, named after Sundukyan. National Academic Theater, National Library, National Gallery, National Library, National Aesthetic Center, National Chamber Music Center...
When I sent an official letter to the artistic directors and directors of these organizations two months ago to invite the National Assembly to discuss, oppose, and justify this demeaning, hostile move with the KGMS, the vast majority of them were afraid, even in the case of the promised closed discussion. He did not come for various reasons.
Some of them frankly admitted that later they will take revenge, they will be persecuted, they will be blacklisted, they will be deprived of money...
You don't even know whether to sympathize or not, how to treat this self-deprecating type, this faceless type that is eternally present and tolerable, that has changed several owners and parties over the past twenty-thirty years, toasted and been a faithful servant of the regime of the day...
Actually, as sad as it is, there is nothing unexpected. this fits perfectly into the logic and "culture" of our days.
Official Armenia is silent, forgetting the Armenian prisoners of war being tortured in Baku prisons, "so as not to disturb and make things worse."
Alen Simonyan does not use the word Artsakh so as not to harm the "peace" during which Armenia is declared fascist, and Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises are taking place under Armenia's nose.
Well, the figures of "national" culture are also silent and lose the legacy they received from their predecessors, because they don't want to go out of their comfort zone...
"We keep at home or I don't engage in politics" the domestic, non-existent philosophy has eaten everyone. And many people were naively convinced that they keep the border, the internal border, with identity and continued to ask, where is the national cultural elite? Where is...
And this is how we lose the outer and also the inner border, removing ourselves from ourselves...
It is hard to imagine that France would give up its National Opera, Britain its National Gallery, or Vienna its National History Museum... and the French, the English or the Austrian would be silent," Galstyan wrote.
