Groong Links:
Guest(s):
Topics:
- Erasing memory across Yerevan
- Great Purge in Soviet Armenia
- Khanjyan’s assassination and Beria
- Repression of Armenia’s national institutions
- Remembering Stalinist repression
- Historical parallels with modern Armenia
- Attacks on memory and Church
- Opposition strategy after the election
Episode 573 | Recorded: July 31, 2026
#Armenia #GreatPurge #AghasiKhanjyan #PietroShakarian #Artsakh #ArmenianChurch #PoliticalRepression #MemoryUnderSiege #Authoritarianism #SovietArmenia
Show Notes
Summary
In this episode of Conversations on Groong, we speak with Dr. Pietro Shakarian about memory, repression, and state power in Armenia across Soviet and contemporary periods. We discuss the Great Purge in Soviet Armenia, the assassination of Aghasi Khanjyan, the suppression of Armenian national institutions under Stalin and Beria, and the parallels between Stalinist erasure and current efforts to control public memory, symbols, and mourning in post-Artsakh Armenia under the Civil Contract regime.Topics Covered
- Erasing memory across Yerevan
- Great Purge in Soviet Armenia
- Khanjyan’s assassination and Beria
- Repression of national institutions
- Armenia’s incomplete historical reckoning
- Modern patterns of authoritarian control
- Attacks on the Armenian Church
- Post-election opposition strategy
Key Questions Discussed
- Is control over public memory becoming a form of political control in Armenia?
- What does the removal of Artsakh imagery reveal about the present political climate?
- Why is the Artsakh Movement central to the history of Armenia ’s Third Republic?
- What distinguished the Great Purge in Soviet Armenia from repression elsewhere in the USSR?
- Why did Aghasi Khanjyan and Armenian intellectuals come into conflict with Lavrentiy Beria?
- How directly did Stalin and Moscow control the Armenian purges?
- How were Armenian writers, officials, clergy, and Church institutions targeted?
- How did de-Stalinization develop under Khrushchev and Gorbachev?
- Why did independent Armenia never complete a full public reckoning with Stalinist repression?
- What role did local denunciations and personal rivalries play during the purges?
- Which comparisons between Stalinist repression and modern Armenia are useful?
- Where does the comparison with the Great Purge become misleading?
- Can detention, prosecution, asset seizures, and institutional pressure serve as modern tools of authoritarian control?
- Are attacks on the Church, opposition, business leaders, and Artsakh memory part of one broader political project?
- Can Strong Armenia and the Armenia Alliance combine parliamentary activity with public mobilization?
- What must Armenia’s opposition do to present a credible governing alternative?
Links Referenced During the Show
- Displaced Artsakh child’s painting removed as “anti-state”
- Murals of fallen Armenian soldiers removed from Yerevan streets
Books and Cultural Works Mentioned
- Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev’s Kremlin , by Pietro Shakarian
- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
- Repentance , directed by Tengiz Abuladze
- Karot (Yearning)
Wrap-up
Links and Resources
That’s our show , we hope you found it helpful. We invite your feedback and your suggestions, you can find us on most social media and podcast platforms.
Thanks to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts.
Guests
Pietro Shakarian
Dr. Pietro Shakarian is a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of the book Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev’s Kremlin. Dr. Shakarian’s analyses on Russian and post-Soviet affairs have appeared in The Nation, The Plain Dealer, and various other publications. He was previously a lecturer in history at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan.
Hosts
Hovik Manucharyan
Hovik Manucharyan is an information security engineer who moved from Seattle to Armenia in 2022. He co-founded the ANN/Groong podcast in 2020 and has been a contributor to Groong News since the late 1990s.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Hovik Manucharyan on the ANN/Groong podcast are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of his employer or any other organization.
Asbed Bedrossian
Asbed Bedrossian is an IT professional, and for years oversaw the central IT enterprise infrastructure and services at USC. His decades of experience spanned across IT strategy, enterprise architecture, infrastructure, cybersecurity, enterprise applications, data center operations, high performance computing, ITSM, ITPM, and more.
Asbed founded the Armenian News Network Groong circa 1989/1990, and co-founded the ANN/Groong podcast in 2020.
