By dissolving the very notion of eternal values in an ever-changing world, postmodernity paved the way not only for irony and eclecticism, but also for cheap populism. One might fairly object that populists have existed in every age and in every part of the globe, with one important qualification however: theirs was ‘luxury’ populism, because those who practised it believed in something greater than themselves. Let us ask history where the difference lies. Abraham Lincoln, running for president of the United States at one of the most difficult moments in its history, put forward a distinctly progressive programme. It had the air of populism about it, since it seemed almost fantastical to imagine that it could ever be realised. Resistance to the abolition of slavery was enormous, not only among his opponents but within his own party as well. After several failed attempts, Lincoln could have declared that he had done all he could and hung his principles on the wall.
Yet he blamed no one for the burdens he carried or the difficulties he faced – not even the ‘old guard’, represented by the founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, who had left him such an inheritance. Many of today’s logrollers find this difficult to grasp, let alone accept, but statesmanship is not about endlessly searching for excuses and scapegoats. It is about consistency, responsibility, and principles for which one must sometimes be prepared to sacrifice a great deal – life itself included. Today, we know that Abraham Lincoln saved his country, transformed his nation, and brought it through the jaws of historical death. But we forget that all of this came at a price. He was denied the chance to see his family; he lived to witness the deaths of three of his four sons; and he made thousands of enemies who waited for his downfall – even though he could easily have spent his days in idle society, sheltered by his unprecedented popularity with the people.
We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. […] It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, 1863
Yet Lincoln deliberately chose the difficult and dangerous path of the conscious statesman and guardian, giving his life to save and preserve that for which thousands of his compatriots had laid down their own. In the end, he paid with his life for something the overwhelming majority were incapable of grasping then and remain incapable of grasping now. They may never even realise that they are alive today, carrying the passport of a superpower in their pockets, only because figures like Lincoln once made choices that were not in their own interests or conducive to their own comfortable lives. But perhaps the majority does not even need to know. People go about their ordinary lives and, in doing so, contribute to the strength of their country and nation. What matters is that Abraham Lincoln is remembered by that stratum of statesmen who, having read his Gettysburg Address, consciously chose to become custodians of the heritage and guardians of nation’s and state’s immune system. That is precisely why Lincoln’s likeness is today carved into Mount Rushmore, a mountain sacred to American statesmen, alongside titans of the same order – figures thanks to whom one of the greatest political nations in human history was forged into being.
On yet another anniversary of Armenia’s ‘independence’, we are once again confronted with a lamentable but exceedingly important fact: the failure to establish an institution of statesmanship. We still do not see generals carrying portraits of Tigran the Great, King Pap, Garegin Nzhdeh, Christophor Araratov, Andranik Ozanian, Monte Melkonian, Vazgen Sargsyan, or Robert Abajyan. On the contrary, what we behold are hedonists and careerists in epaulettes who have stripped themselves of every Artsakh medal and decoration — and all of it for the ‘honour’ of shaking the hand with a man who will not even hear Artsakh mentioned and who demands the immediate consignment to oblivion of those who spent millennia building one of the most ancient and distinctive civilisations on earth, a civilisation whose heritage long ago spread beyond the bounds of the Armenian Highlands.
The blacksmith of a people’s fate is its intelligentsia. It is the intellectuals, the leading elements of peoples, that are truly measured against one another in the person of their peoples, whether in clashes of principle or in clashes of arms. One and the same people, one and the same army, may — depending on its leaders — both work wonders and fall shamefully to its knees before the adversary. An army, a people, is psychologically only what its leaders have placed in its collective soul; it is what its leaders are.
Garegin Nzhdeh, ‘Pages from My Diary’, 1924
The voice of the intelligentsia is growing ever fainter. It can speak clearly and forcefully when it chooses to, but now does so only in a whisper, afraid of sharing Armen Grigoryan’s fate. We see a grandiloquent ‘Independence Day’ greeting from a man who used that independence for his own ends, only to cravenly abandon it at the decisive moment and flee to London on a direct flight from the Emirates. And now, from Republic Square, where the earth once trembled beneath the mighty tread of the warriors of the Armenian world, come the third-rate ‘hits’ of clowns who have agreed to entertain the local philistines for thirty pieces of silver.
Yet we remain convinced that, on this very day, our captives, sitting in cold cells beneath the gaze of a smugly smiling Azerbaijani guard, close their eyes and hear the wild sound of the zurna ringing out from Khustup to Shushi, beneath the Armenian tricolour. On this day, the spirits of our titans lean down towards us and tell us that Armenian history has not ended – so long as we have not surrendered…
