ArmInfo.Objective historical memory is the foundation that predetermines the development of society in accordance with its civilizational and spiritual aspirations. Director of the Noravank Foundation, member of the Eurasian Expert Club Gagik Harutyunyan expressed this opinion at the round table "30 years after the Spitak earthquake: history, experience and lessons of the tragedy".
"It is known that the deformation of historical memory leads to serious consequences for the country and its society. It is not by chance that modern technologies implemented in the" soft power "mode of falsifying or erasing historical memory (which is sometimes called" historical politics ") have become the most important element of permanent "hybrid" wars. A vivid example of the results of such an impact are the processes observed today in Ukraine and in other countries in which "color revolutions" were committed, Harutyunyan said.
At the same time, he stressed that such technologies are used in almost all those countries that are to some extent involved in competitive geopolitical developments. "Armenia is among such countries, as the Armenian society today is in a state of ideological and informational-psychological split between two geopolitical integration projects competing with each other, which can be conditionally called "Eurasian" and "Western ". In this context holding discussions on the occasion of the regular date of the Spitak tragedy seems to be highly relevant, especially since even in this tragic event, there are manipulative technologies of "historical politics" such as statement that the earthquake was artificial, and the Soviet armed forces had organized it, "the expert concluded.
In turn, the deputy director of ''Noravank'' Ara Marjanyan focused on one of these manipulations - the myth of the testing or use of nuclear "seismic" weapons in the USSR, which caused the Spitak earthquake. "Today, taught by the bitter experience of the past decades, we can confidently assert that this myth is one of the first examples of information and psychological sabotage used (and still being used) in the post- Soviet space. After the Spitak earthquake in Armenia, rumors began to spread that an atomic bomb was detonated to intimidate the warring Armenians and Azerbaijanis, or (as an option) to prevent the Armenian national movement for independence. These rumors began to spread in abroad as well, but in a slightly different context - as an example of the villainous and inhuman experiments of the USSR over its own population. A rumor began to spread that the Spitak disaster occurred because of a strictly secret test in the Soviet Union. "First, I consider it necessary to emphasize the universality of this myth and its socio- psychological significance for the unfolding political and geopolitical processes in our region. More precisely its instrumental significance for spurring on early anti-Soviet and then after the collapse of the USSR anti-Russian public sentiment'.
According to him, it is important to be aware of the geopolitical background of this myth. The fact is, according to the expert that it is not the first time that Armenia has been involved in the mechanisms for spreading rumors about atomic weapons. "Thus, in January 2017, about 800 thousand so-called" raw "intelligence documents of the CIA of the United States, previously declassified, were posted on the Internet. One of them, dated January 20th 1950, was a reprint of the article "Atomic Bomb Plant in Soviet Armenia "from the Stockholm magazine" Obs! " dated January 18, 1950. The very informed author of the article cited many details of the USSR's atomic project, which, as we know today, turned out to be true. But he also claimed that in Soviet Armenia, in the gorge of the river Zangu (Hrazdan) huge construction was underway, drilling equipment delivered from Saxony and Thuringia. Concrete plants, mechanical workshops, barracks for workers and German prisoners of war are being built. All this and much more, including the developed hydropower industry in Armenia, is interpreted by the author as preparation for the construction of an enrichment plant of uranium and assembling atomic bombs, "he writes, adding that the unnamed author of the article considered the real large-scale work for the construction of Arzni HPP on Sevan-Hrazdan hydrocascade as the construction of a mythical nuclear plant in Armenia. According to the expert, the industrial, scientific, engineering, technical and organizational power of the 2nd Republic of Armenia, and indeed of the entire Armenian community, was such that it was actually considered and partly became an integral element of the most ambitious of world projects implemented by the USSR in the 20th century. That is why, Armenia (and Armenians) was often used as a screen, a field for disinformation in the great global confrontation between two ideological systems and their intelligence services.
"I want to bring an important example to emphasize the geopolitical background of the whole range of issues raised by us. The matter concerns the so-called " Exchange strategies " of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and, as we shall see, Azerbaijan, in the framework of the so-called" Big Bargain 1994 ". One of the former US ambassadors in Kazakhstan gave such a name to complex, multilateral and multi-layered bargaining over the division of the nuclear inheritance of the USSR between these republics and its exchange for Western investments, which took place in 1992-1994 and led to the signing of the Bishkek Protocol on a ceasefire in Artsakh ( 1994), Azerbaijan's "Deal of the Century" on the annexation of Caspian oil and gas fields (September 1994), to the signing of the Budapest Memorandum (December 1994) and many other things that shaped the geopolitical reality we are in today, including the blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan, or another failure to create a unified air defense and missile defense system of the CSTO, which we observed recently in Astana, at a meeting of the CSTO leaders, "concluded the expert.