Dances with oligarchs: performing the nation in Armenian civic activism

Abstract

Among the cultured classes of Armenia, the country’s system of governance through oligarchic patron–client networks is widely believed to reflect negatively on cultural fields such as architecture, music and folklore. In particular, the concept of rabiz, in earlier times referring primarily to a genre of “oriental” music, has emerged as a ubiquitous term signifying moral corruption, backwardness and passive complacency. This paper examines this perceived decay through an ethnographic study of the transformation of Yerevan’s monumental Covered Market into a shopping mall after it was acquired by an enterprising member of parliament. Bringing together militant intelligentsia and young activists, a civic initiative emerged that framed the events as a conquest of the city centre by its semi-rural margins and propagated a boycott of the oligarch’s businesses with a repertoire of protest marches, folk dances and choir performances. The initiative was soon countered by spectacular mobilizations in favour of the oligarch that foregrounded the values of kinship and work, contesting the activists’ claims to represent the grassroots of the nation. The paper locates the contention in the contradictory legacies of Soviet-era urbanization, economic restructuring and the Karabakh Movement, and illustrates how oligarchic power is expressed through the cooptation of activist repertoires.