Saturday, September 16, 2006

Goodbye "Mer Hyrenik"??

Wow. I didn't know about this one. Apparently there's a heated debate "over whether Armenia should ditch its current national anthem and adopt something more modern, more attuned to today's national aspirations. There have been complaints that the song is too wimpy and gloomy." Ha! And it's more than just a debate- there's a commison already in full swing that has reduced the choices down to 5 finalists! I'll have to thank William in Tblisi for even calling my attention to it.

On an initial level I think it's an absurd idea, and will have to agree with
Felix Bakhchinian, director of the Charents Literature and Art Museum in Yerevan. In this RFE/RFL article he is quoted as saying: "We need to solve more pressing problems before we begin talking about the anthem and other state attributes. Right now we have higher priorities to meet."

Though, the meat of that article is enlightening as I never realized that other post-soviets have also gone through the same nationalistic face-lift debacle. In the end though, i'm not budging on this one, so I guess you should just call me a Dashnak.

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