An Alternative to the Dissident Paradigm and Intersecting Civil Protests in Soviet Armenia: Equal but Different?

Abstract

The article analyzes alternative dimensions of dissidence and civil protests in Soviet Armenia, which covers the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, from the Khrushchev Thaw to Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Comparative study of the dissident paradigm has political and civilizational significance. The dissident paradigm is precisely associated with the entire human rights movement, and human rights activists were those who were called dissidents. Thanks to them, ideas of an alternative development of Soviet society and public authorities emerged.
 At the present stage, the democratic rights of citizens, for which the intelligentsia and human rights activists fought in the 1960s-1980s, are proclaimed and enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. But this does not mean that the issue of human rights has been resolved in reality, since in reality human rights are often violated, first of all, by the public authorities themselves. The experience of the first generation of human rights defenders continues to be of interest to numerous committees and commissions advocating respect for the constitutional and legal rights of citizens.
 The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that the processes of formation of a democratic society and the rule of law in modern Armenia put forward the task of effectively protecting human rights and freedoms. Given the fact that the recognition of human rights as a basic value was the result of a long evolution of society, it is important to see that their prerequisite was the struggle of the most socially active people for the possibility of civilizational development.