In his notebook, Hrach Bayadyan, one of Armenia’s leading cultural critics, re-conceptualizes the “post-Soviet.” Following the sociologist Manuel Castell, he reminds us that the term alone means nothing but being “ex-” and expressive of a distance from the Soviet past. Beyond the specific history of Armenia’s century-long colonization, Bayadyan looks at the Armenian situation through the lens of postcolonial theory. Due to the lack of dialogue with the past, the relationships between East and West Armenia, and the differences between Soviet and diaspora Armenia, have until today been neglected. “Becoming Post-Soviet” constitutes the beginning of a project to write and speak “from the inside” of this entanglement.

 

Cultural critic Hrach Bayadan (*1957) lives and works in Yerevan, Armenia; he teaches Media and Cultural Studies at the Yerevan State University.

 

Language: German/English