Tag: post soviet

Estonia, Ukraine and Armenia inherited an appreciation for the hard sciences from the Soviet Union, helping to leave their mark on the global tech map. While Estonia is considered the rising star, Ukraine and Armenia still face challenges despite significant achievements in the field.

How a black evening handbag found among countless items in Yerevan’s largest flea market revealed a paradigmatic shift from the egalitarian criteria of Soviet ideology, which accorded functional objects with purely practical properties.

Although performance art has practically disappeared from the contemporary art scene as an autonomous medium, early practitioners had a profound impact in changing perceptions of the body in Armenia’s post-independence culture.

The current state and future direction of science in Armenia has been discussed on various platforms recently. Gagik Tovmasian writes about the need to elevate the status of national institutes and willingness to open up to the world.

The Armenian love for following trends is something that is a part of the collective cultural and political history. And that tendency became stronger after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Harout Manougian presents a comprehensive overview of the different alliances and government coalitions in parliamentary elections since Armenia’s independence in 1991.

From widespread collectivization of farms during the Soviet era to privatization after independence in 1991, the state of agriculture in the three countries of the South Caucasus.

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.

Professor Don Fuller examines how post-Soviet states have had difficulty in breaking normative behavior originating in Soviet times and how corruption is manifested in anti-democratic decision-making practices. He writes that Armenia’s new revolutionary government will be watched for evidence of competent innovation and justice.

Dr. Donald Fuller writes that there is an observable pattern that small state characteristics differ from larger states, particularly those that are not afflicted by the ‘resource curse.’ Institutions appear to be critical, trade can burnish the lack of natural resources and human capital offers a level of comparative advantage if carefully nurtured.

For decades, production of historical texts in Armenia was in the tight grip of Soviet state ideology. Post-independence, some topics previously repressed or omitted found their way back into Armenian history textbooks, however “memory gaps” remain.