For the Soviet empire the “historical victory” it registered in World War II (or the Great Patriotic War in the accepted parlance of the Soviet Union), became a powerful tool by which to breathe new life and impetus into the fading ideals of socialism.

This was to be confirmed by the grand historical mission of the nation that “saved humanity from the evils of fascism”. Of the varied commemorative monuments erected to eternalize the glory of this victory, Victory Park in Yerevan is essentially the result of the unending work performed on a wide-scale during the Soviet period built with this objective in mind. Most likely it received its unofficial name of “The Monument” due to the fact a statue of Stalin was stood on this spot (on a pedestal of similar monumental scope). Years after Stalin’s death and after the famous Party Congress of the time, statues of Stalin were removed all throughout the socialist camp.

In future years the ideological exploitation of the war and its cultural representation became greater in scope, transforming the war into an inexhaustible resource with which to build soviet identity. Also serving the same purpose were other various cultural monuments and commemorative complexes (including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Eternal Flame), as well as celebrations on Victory Day. From the 1960’s onwards however, the consolidation of the Soviet peoples took place not only through the continual mythologizing of the victory achieved in the war but with new pretentious innovations and victories. The space race and programs designed to assimilate virgin lands are the most notable examples of this.

At the same time these were years when waves of change in Soviet national politics and the awakening of soviet peoples and modernization of the national republics occurred. As a result, Mother Armenia appeared on the vacant pedestal once held by the leader of the peoples, located in the heart of “holy land” and in close proximity to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Thus, it was assumed that the inclusion of monuments dedicated to war victory in an expansive cultural space, where people would go for rest and leisure, would serve to exert an ideological influence upon them even reaching into aspects of everyday activities and practices. In this sense, Victory Park was a novelty not only for Yerevan. Similar parks were built in other soviet cities as well.

Now, let’s try to clarify what meaning can be attributed to these two monuments - Mother Armenia and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, keeping in mind that in the case of the statue of Stalin the ideological unity of the complex of monuments was comprehensible. 

According to Benedict Anderson modern nationalist culture doesn’t have more seductive symbols than those of the Unknown Soldier’s tomb or statues. He underlines that fact that there is no precedent in history for the ritualistic public piety displayed to these monuments for the very reason that they are purposefully kept empty or that no one knows whom exactly lies buried within. Being anonymous and unknown conveys an absolute verification of the qualities attributed to a soldier of the fatherland - unwavering patriotism, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the fatherland, unconditional virtue and heroism. Every person can identify with that soldier by giving him their name and in return learning lessons of patriotism and the principles of freedom. It is untreatable that in the case of the Soviet Union nationalism either had to be replaced with other terms or comprehended in other ways. In any event, the essential quality attributed to the Unknown Soldier's monument remains in effect which is to symbolize the continuity of the soviet people, and to link people to the ritualistic experience of a collective existence.

When viewed from a national perspective of the soviet Armenian people this monument, being an influential symbol of soviet identity, is anti-nationalist from the outset. Given this, what is it that Mother Armenia conveys? Is it in fact an embodiment of various national qualities and values? If we assume for the moment that its directive is muddled or forgotten did it at any time possess an articulated national message? I think not. This is not an instance where it would be possible, by way of an acrostic or other implicit methods, to send nationalist addresses to the Armenian people (such as -«Oh, Armenian people, your only salvation...»).

Mother Armenia was erected in a park that from end to end was intended to embody and encompass the memory of the Great Patriotic War and that symbolizes the participation of the Armenian people in the war along with the others in the soviet brotherhood of nations. As to the architectural conception of the pedestal and its decorative ornamentation, the scale of the statue and its base, the imperial gesture of threat and warning conveyed by the handheld sword, the military hardware from the era of the Great Patriotic War surrounding the statue, and the aforementioned Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, together leave little room for nationalist interpretations. On the contrary, the imperial scale of all this and the density of pure soviet ideology in this location define the national as unavoidably soviet. Nevertheless, as we see, this does not prevent Mother Armenia from being one of the most recognized symbols in Yerevan today.

The Present Condition of the Park

The reconstruction of urban space in Yerevan taking place in the post-soviet era and the baseless process of physical/spatial changes and changes in meanings have not bypassed this park. Here the essential attraction remains the vast communal spaces left over from soviet times; spaces that Armenian officials and entrepreneurs are clamoring to more «efficiently»utilize. Already a hotel called the «Golden Palace» has been operating on park grounds for the past few years (even though one would be hard-pressed to see signs of such active operation). Private homes have been built in close proximity to park grounds. The hillside at the lower end of the park has been completely razed for the roadway now being built in its place. Local officials utilize the area neighboring the statue as paid parking spaces. And the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has long since gone out. In the base of the statue is located the Mother Armenia Museum whose visitors are mostly foreign tourists. There's been an increase in the number of kiddy attractions in the park. The lake is still there with a small rest area surrounding it full of rides and cafes. During the early hours of the day, hundreds of people can be seen strolling through the park or performing their morning exercises.

While some attention is being paid to the park's walkways, the wooded areas are mostly garbage dumps. For the present, there s no talk of plans to rebuild the park as an place of leisure. Let us remember the incident surrounding the removal of the Unknown Soldier’s monument from the center of Tallinn when relations between Russia and Estonia had soured. Nothing similar threatens to happen in Armenia but it is not because the statue is out of eyesight or “forgotten”.

We have seen that due to new construction and new methods of land utilization that the park’s social space is being reduced little by little. However, all this has not impacted on the nearly absurdly large and unimaginably monumental proportions of Mother Armenia (statue and base) when measured against the scale of present-day Yerevan. The statue’s physical dimensions were in harmony with the vast stretches of the soviet empire and its continuous pretensions to expand. However, in the words of Anthony Smith regarding nationalism, this site was one of the “sacred centers” of historical pilgrimage for the Soviet people and that it displayed the uniqueness of socialist “moral geography”. Its monumental proportions weren’t intended to connote the vastness of the empire as much as to continuously mark the connection between the present and glorious future of Communism. Such “sacred sites” were imbued with a radiant light of the glorious future to come.

It is the disappearance of the soviet utopia, an integral component of soviet (socialist) rhetoric and discourse that strips these material monuments from any type of attraction or allure. They can no longer be perceived according to former modes of thought; their essential messages have either since lost their immediacy or are simply no longer intelligible. However, the fact that these soviet monuments no longer “speak” to us or that there meaning is questionable isn’t merely a consequence of the disappearance of the field of discourse, but rather our inability to rearrange and reinterpret the post-soviet jumbled field of meanings and thus continue the work of cultural reinterpretation along new lines.