Genocide Museum’s Demoyan Seeks to Chart Original Path

Leaving the Academy was one of Demoyan’s initiatives, he said.

Standing One’s Ground

Demoyan declared that he has been always able to maintain his independence in his post in Armenia despite all types of pressures. He said that he was able to do this for two reasons. First, he said, “It was my voluntary decision to take this position. Everybody in Armenia knows that. … I am not indebted to anyone. Secondly, my work was successful on a professional level.”

When asked about his interests in politics, Demoyan replied, “I am a person who has no political ambitions. I am an academician. The Armenian state can feel comfortable and relaxed concerning visiting VIP guests because I know how to deal with them. I know languages, but that is not the main thing.”

Demoyan said, “My case is very unique for the Armenian situation. Subordination and dependence are fixed in Armenia. … I realized that after I said my bold yes to accept my position, some people tried to control me and dictate to me their own rules. A schism or breaking point occurred after I recognized that I cannot realize my own ideas if I follow those restrictions. Unfortunately, the person who tried to convince me to hold the position of director of AGMI, after two years openly said to me: ‘You work hard and because of that you are always in the center of attention. Just weaken your zeal because you overshadow your colleagues from the other institutions.’ Yes, this was said to me, and I realized that the time to cut the ties with Academy of Science had come.”

Demoyan pointed out as an example of his resistance to political interference the attempts to sell the 100 acres of land the AGMI controls, which is one of the largest green areas in Yerevan. He said, “It would have been easy for me to say I do not want a headache with this green area — irrigation, trees, animals, garbage and so forth — let someone else deal with it. But my understanding of environmental security and maintenance led to me conclude that it could be a dangerous decision to abandon it, so I permanently am in a fight with people who have plans on for this territory.”

A final point of no return for Demoyan took place in 2012. He said, “The presidium of the Academy of Science targeted me to destroy my doctoral dissertation in order to open the way for others who are more obedient and tranquil. In my opinion, it was one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the Academy of Science. In short it was a clear case of corruption with the involvement of many high-ranking officials, who had their own calculations and intentions before the Genocide centennial.” He added that more recently, AGMI critiqued the eight-volume history of Armenia series being published by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences, focusing on the volume which deals with the Armenian Genocide and related matters, but a head of the Department of the Armenological studies of the National Academy tried to convince him not to publish this review. Afterwards Demoyan himself was criticized for his criticism. The critical review of the AGMI was printed as a 110-page publication with an ISBN, but his opponents refrained from publishing their own response officially so that it could be easily found.

Despite, or perhaps because of such issues, Demoyan participated in several public bodies. He was appointed by President Serzh Sargsyan as a member of the 36-person advisory Public Council of the Republic of Armenia in 2009, and was elected in 2013 to the 65-person Yerevan City Council of Elders as part of the Republican Party faction.

Concerning these two positions, Demoyan said, “I had only one motivation — to change something if I can, alone or with my friends.” He wanted to work closely with the city council on the preparations for the Armenian Genocide centennial, which, he said, “was very productive.” The second reason for his participation was to take care of the issues concerning the Tsitsernakaberd park around the memorial, and the third was in order to raise the issue of seismic security in Yerevan. Demoyan felt he was not successful in the latter, and bewailed the fact that the lessons from the 1988 earthquake have not been learned.

He said, “I survived that earthquake. I know what it is to feel it and have it pass through it. It is for your whole life. And now it is horrible that multilevel buildings still appear in Yerevan close to each other.”

This year he did not renew his candidacy because of his research plans.

Demoyan said that the Public Council is not a politically-based body. It was founded with 12 initial members in 2009, including himself, and then broadened to 36. He said, “When I was elected, I was in Providence, and the telephone call was a surprise to me. There was a lot of hope. After the March 2008 events [the violent crushing of protests about the presidential election, leading to at least 10 deaths and many arrests], society was in a desperate situation. Everybody tried to find a solution. … The Council was regarded as a place where people can discuss and try to solve issues.”

However, Demoyan said, he was disappointed overall with the quite modest impact of that advisory body.

No Politics, Please

Demoyan stressed his lack of affiliation with any political group in Armenia (or abroad). He said, “I have never been a member of any political group, and I am not going to be a member of any political party in the near future. A non-partisan status makes your life both interesting and complicated in Armenia. If you want to solve personal issues, concerning business, personal or reputation, you have to be a part of certain groups. But I did not find a milieu I can be part of. My personal, subjective thinking is that political parties make more wrongs and are harmful in the Armenian world than bring benefits.”

As an intellectual, he said, “I hate being a conformist. One of the dangers of Armenian society is being conformist and cautious to speak out. A lot of people know what is wrong but they keep calm and shut their mouths. Why make trouble [they think]; people can then make trouble for you.”

He added that he did not like mindless criticism. “Criticism must not be just for the sake of criticism. In other words, you have to be constructive with your criticism, not destructive. I call this intellectual, not political, opposition.”

He added, “Everyone knows I can vote against the majority. If someone wants to label me as opposition, I can accept that term for me as an intellectual. I think the person who is thinking and writing must be free. The intellectual is an internally free person, not biased or conformist. In terms of opposition, I think that every intellectual by default is an oppositionist — not only against the government but against anything that is wrong in his or her opinion, and for the common benefit or state security.”

Demoyan said, “Some circles of the government label me as a troublemaker, a person who is not calm, who is not obedient. Some of them try to explain to me that as a public person I should refrain from making public declarations and statements. Isn’t it funny? My intent is not to call attention to my person. I do not need additional attention. I am not going to apply to be a member of parliament or another public position. I want to direct the attention of the public and the government to issues which touch everyone, to problems which harm the overall security of the country.”

He gave several examples when he spoke out. First, he was upset with the prominent advertisements of casinos at Yerevan’s airport, which led him to write “Pari Yegak Casinoland” [Welcome to Casinoland]. This led to change, and now there are no such advertisements, which, incidentally, were not even in Armenian but in Russian. A second episode was his personal vote against the erection of a monument to Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet leader, whom many considered an important political figure because he is an Armenian.

On the other hand, there are eight advertisements of vodka on Mashtots Avenue when you come to Yerevan. Demoyan said, “My eyes see this and I have to speak. I criticized this, but those 8 modern advertisement panels with illumination are still there. If I say I am Armenian, and I respect my culture and heritage, but when the main avenue which carries the name of the creator of the Armenian alphabet, starts with vodka ads and ends with the Matenadaran, I cannot stand it!”

He added: “Believe me, when you work in a place called the Armenian Genocide Museum, when nearly every day you deal with episodes of the tragedy which happened to your nation, your sense of justice and motivations to cope with injustice are different than others, especially when you witness how injustice is committed by your compatriots against other compatriots.”

Demoyan’s Harvard research, which examines attempts to bring back Soviet values and ways of thinking emanating from Russia to parts of the former Soviet Union, leads him to wonder what will happen in the next 10-15 years, when the generation with a Soviet way of thinking and nostalgia will no longer be the main decision makers for society due to age and the passage of time. He said that a lack of dialogue and attempts to re-Sovietize might lead to new polarization in Armenian society, as there is “a deepening gap between the authorities and citizens of the Republic” (see more in the summary of his 2016 lecture in the Mirror-Spectator, https://mirrorspectator.com /2016/10/20/demoyan-warns-of-dire-situation-in-armenia/).

He added that a related problem was that in Armenia, “this is a society of forgetting, of oblivion. It is planned that you should not remember what happened last week, a year ago, or ten years ago.”

Demoyan wants to avoid revolutionary change, but finds that evolutionary change is too slow. He said, “I am a critical optimist,” and concluded, “Our only hope is that the current government will understand that the situation is in a deadlock…and the deadlock cannot continue as it will lead to the collapse of the state. The peaceful rotation of elites, enabling others from the generation of independence to be involved in the government, is one of the crucial solutions but not the main one.”

Demoyan, while in the United States, is also focusing on a different set of Armenian-American issues, though connected with his research on identity transformations. Next year is the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Martin the Armenian to the New World, to Virginia back in 1618. He said that “unfortunately, we have no museum on American Armenians or illustrated volumes to show that rich history, though some academic works exist. As there are no high-profile exhibitions, having gathered a lot of visual materials, I started to work two years ago on an illustrated catalogue, which will be completed early next spring: The Armenian Legacy in America: The 400-Year Heritage.” This work will be some 600 pages long with 2,000 illustrations, mostly previously unknown.

(All opinions expressed in the above article by Hayk Demoyan are his alone and have no connection to the US Fulbright Visiting Scholar program.)