“Civilizing the city center”: symbolic spaces and narratives of the nation in Yerevan's post-Soviet landscape

Abstract

In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the landscape of Armenia's capital has transformed tremendously. Promoting a new vision for the city, Armenia's political elites have imbued the urban landscape of Yerevan with narratives of modernization, progress and a renewed sense of nationalism. While this new vision is noticeable throughout Yerevan's landscape, it is most apparent in three places in the center of Yerevan – Opera Square, Northern Avenue and Republic Square. These three prominent places represent the vision that the Armenian elites have for the city of Yerevan, while at the same time serving as backdrops for the expression of a critical voice regarding the changing urban landscape from the local residents. These three places are compelling representations of the tensions and struggles that are present in contemporary Armenian society. In this article, I examine the symbols and narratives that Armenia's elites produce and promote in and via these places, and consider the complicated set of reactions from residents that have formed in response.

Keywords:

• post-Soviet
• landscape and identity
• cultural geography

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Joshua Hagen and Alexander Diener for inviting me to contribute an article to this special issue, as well as Roderick Neumann for suggestions on an early draft. In addition, many thanks to the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions helped me think through some important issues in the article. This article is based on research I conducted for my doctoral dissertation, which was supported in part by Florida International University's Dissertation Year Fellowship.

Notes

For a comprehensive account of renaming of streets and re-inscription of meanings in the post-Soviet landscape of Yerevan, see Abrahamian's “Yerevan: Memory and Forgetting in the Organisation of Space of a Post-Soviet City”(2010).

This article is based on research conducted for my dissertation, “Re-imagining Yerevan in the Post-Soviet Era: Urban Symbolism and Narratives of the Nation in the Landscape of Armenia's Capital”, Florida International University, 2010.

With the exception of elected officials and other public figures, the names of interviewees have been changed to protect their identities.

The construction of Yerevan as a Soviet city and capital is thoroughly described in Ter Minassian's 2007 book titled Erevan: La construction d'une capital a l'epoque Sovietique [Yerevan: the construction of a capital in the Soviet era].

Donald Miller and Lorna Touryan Miller describe the “Dark Years” in their poignant ethnographic account titled Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope (2003).

Abrahamian (2010) describes Opera Square and Northern Avenue as places of protest, and adds the plaza in front of the Matenadaran Museum of Ancient Manuscripts to this list, focusing on the latter's role as a key place of gathering for those opposing the results of the 2008 presidential elections.

This small artificial lake, shaped like Lake Sevan (a fresh-water lake in northeastern Armenia), is known as Swan Lake because for some years it was home to black and white swans who lived on the island created in it. “Swan Lake” is also a nod to the famous ballet by the same name composed by famed Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. In the years since 2007, in winter Swan Lake has turned into a skating rink, providing for a new space for interaction on Opera Square.

Similar acts of protest and civic activism have taken place in Yerevan, most recently in Mashtots Park – an urban green park, most of which is slated for construction of a shopping center. Environmental and civic activists have held vigil and waged a bitter struggle to prevent the construction from commencing.

The struggle for Nagorno Karabakh refers to the armed conflict between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan over the ethnically Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The war was fought in the early 1990s, and while a ceasefire was announced in 1994, the conflict has not been resolved and peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue.

Mount Ararat, though not within Armenia's current geographic boundaries, serves as a powerful symbol of national identification and belonging for Armenians.

This continued disinvestment became partially responsible for the low prices paid to former residents of Northern Avenue by the developers of buildings on the avenue.

Abrahamian (2010) points out the problematic process of construction of Northern Avenue, and the ways in which the elites resurrected and appropriated Tamanian's preliminary sketches of Northern Avenue.

Hayastan All-Armenian Fund is a not-for-profit organization, endorsed by the government of Armenia, which solicits donations, mainly from diaspora Armenians, for development projects in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. One of the most important avenues of fund-raising is the annual telethon that the Fund holds in the USA on Thanksgiving Day.

“Black buildings” are those built in Yerevan during the Russian Imperial Period and the brief period of independence in 1918–1920. They are known as “black buildings” because their facades are built out of black and dark red volcanic tuff, which was locally quarried and readily available at the time. Usually no taller than two stories, many were built for wealthy families, as residences and rental properties. Upon the dawn of Soviet power in Armenia they were nationalized by the state and later repurposed as government offices, museum space, or, in some cases, partitioned into several smaller residences.

In his article Abrahamian (2010) describes the symbolic competition between the Lenin Statue and the building which housed the National Gallery of Arts, and three other museums during the Soviet years.

The systematic killings of Armenians who lived in the territories of the Ottoman Empire in 1915–1918 are known as the Armenian Genocide. While many countries have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and passed laws criminalizing its denial (most recently and notably France), it remains unrecognized by modern Turkey.