Tag: bolshevik

This episode explores the “Lenin of the Caucasus” – Stepan Shahumyan. Originally from the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Shahumyan would forge his revolutionary legacy in Baku, as the leader of the Baku Commune during the Russian Revolution and Civil War. However, the story of Shahumyan is not only the story of the Baku Commune. He also played an instrumental role in developing the Bolshevik (and later Soviet) policy on nationalities. Executed by the British-aligned Socialist Revolutionaries in the Turkmen desert, Shahumyan continues to live on in the monuments and memories of Armenia today. The series is hosted by historian Pietro A. Shakarian and produced by Sona Nersesyan.

The first episode in the series focuses on Soviet Armenian statesman Aleksandr Myasnikyan. An Armenian from Nor Nakhijevan (Rostov-on-Don), Myasnikyan was sent to Armenia by Lenin in 1921. His mission was to implement a more moderate approach toward governance, in line with Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP). Myasnikyan inaugurated the NEP era in Armenia, allowing the republic to rebuild and stabilize after the 1915 Genocide and the experience of the First Republic. The series is hosted by historian Pietro A. Shakarian and produced by Sona Nersesyan.

A prominent Armenian Bolshevik activist and head of the Baku Commune Stepan Shahumyan’s ghost now wanders through his native Caucasus. Armenians have largely forgotten his century-old verbal attacks on nationalism and insistence on internationalist fraternity of peoples, yet his statues remain and streets, villages and towns are named after him in Armenia and Artsakh.

Born in Gyumri in the late 19th century, Sergey Merkurov is considered the greatest Soviet master of death masks. He was highly sought after to take the death masks of various Soviet luminaries and leaders, as well as prominent cultural figures of the era.