Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / Soviet Armenia: Stalin, Spitak, and the Karabakh Movement
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to The Story of Armenia. I'm Lucas, and as always, I'm here with Luna. We've covered a lot of ground in this series — from ancient kingdoms to the genocide and the brief independence after World War I. But today, we're diving into a period that's often overshadowed: Armenia under Soviet rule. It's a story of destruction and creation, of cultural survival under an empire that was both oppressive and modernizing. Luna: That sounds like a huge shift from the earlier episodes. Lucas: It really is. When the First Armenian Republic collapsed in 1920, Armenia was devastated — refugees, famine, disease. The Bolsheviks offered a kind of salvation: land reform, industrialization, protection from Turkey. But the price was total submission to Moscow. By 1922, Armenia was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR, later a full Soviet republic. And almost immediately, the Stalinist purges began. Lucas: The terror hit Armenia hard. The Armenian Apostolic Church was nearly destroyed — hundreds of churches closed, clergy executed. Intellectuals were arrested or shot. The famous composer Komitas, who had survived the genocide, died in a psychiatric hospital in Paris in 1935, broken by what he'd witnessed. But one figure who rose through the Soviet system was Anastas Mikoyan — a Bolshevik from Armenia who became Stalin's right-hand man. Luna: Wait, an Armenian in Stalin's inner circle? How did that work? Lucas: Mikoyan was a master survivor. He served as People's Commissar for Trade and later as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. He was deeply involved in the Great Terror, but he also saved some Armenians from execution. He operated in that gray zone — complicit in the system but also using his position to protect his people when he could. It's a morally complicated legacy. Lucas: Despite the repression, the Soviet period brought dramatic modernization. Yerevan was transformed from a dusty provincial town into a major city, with grand pink tuff buildings designed by architect Alexander Tamanian. The Matenadaran — the ancient manuscript repository — was established as a research institute. Literacy rates soared, women gained access to education and careers. By the 1960s, Armenia had one of the highest standards of living in the USSR. Luna: So there was a genuine cultural renaissance under Soviet rule? Lucas: In some ways, yes. But it was a controlled renaissance. The state promoted Armenian culture as long as it was socialist in content. The film industry produced classics like Ararat and The Color of Pomegranates. But the genocide was a forbidden topic — you couldn't discuss it openly. That silence created a simmering resentment. And then, in 1988, everything changed. Luna: You mean the Spitak earthquake? Lucas: Exactly. On December 7, 1988, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the Spitak region in northern Armenia. It killed at least 25,000 people, left half a million homeless, and devastated cities like Leninakan — now Gyumri. The Soviet response was slow and inadequate. Gorbachev cut short a visit to the US to come, but the damage was done. The disaster exposed the cracks in the system. Lucas: But even before the earth shook, another tremor was building: the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In February 1988, the regional council of Nagorno-Karabakh — an Armenian-majority enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan — voted to transfer to Armenia. That sparked pogroms against Armenians in Sumgait and Baku. Hundreds were killed. Moscow vacillated, and the Karabakh movement became the rallying cry for Armenian nationalism. Luna: So the earthquake and the Karabakh movement happened in the same year? Lucas: Yes, and they fed into each other. The earthquake relief efforts were hampered by the chaos. The diaspora poured in aid, but also political support for Karabakh. The movement was led by a group of intellectuals and activists — people like the writer Zori Balayan and the historian Silva Kaputikyan. They demanded justice for the genocide, political reform, and self-determination for Karabakh. Luna: It sounds like the Soviet Union was already coming apart at the seams. Lucas: Exactly. Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost had opened the door, and Armenians walked through it. In 1990, there were violent clashes between Armenians and Soviet troops in Yerevan. By 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Armenia declared independence — for the second time in the 20th century. But the war with Azerbaijan over Karabakh continued, and it would consume the first years of independence. Lucas: The Soviet legacy in Armenia is deeply ambivalent. On one hand, it gave Armenians a modern state, education, and a platform for culture. On the other, it suppressed freedom, imposed atheism, and left a toxic environmental and political legacy. The 1988 earthquake and the Karabakh movement were the turning points that ended one era and began another. Luna: And the genocide memory played a big role in all this, didn't it? Lucas: Absolutely. The unspoken trauma of 1915 fueled the Karabakh movement. Many Armenians felt that if they didn't fight for Karabakh, they would be erased again. The slogan 'Karabakh is the continuation of the genocide' was common. So the Soviet period, in the end, didn't resolve the existential questions Armenia faced — it just postponed them. Lucas: So that's the story of Soviet Armenia — a chapter of survival, achievement, and tragedy. Next time, we'll pick up with the independent republic and the Karabakh war. Thanks for listening. Luna: Thanks, Lucas.