It’s no secret that there is a huge flow of money coming into Armenia. A part of that money is given by the international organizations for the sake of the stabilization of democracy and civil society and it’s no secret that a considerable part of the money is spent on organizing boring seminars, discussions, conferences and other receptions.
As to how many more people are worried about democracy as a result of those seminars, only God knows. The other income is from the rich Armenians that give the money aimed towards national/cultural projects. Recently, I read in the press that Russian rich businessman Ara Abrahamyan wanted to contribute 50,000 dollars to the Writers’ Union of Armenia. There is no doubt that the administration of the Writers’ Union of Armenia will spend that money for organizing 50,000 seminars and discussions for the sake of solving national issues, they’ll talk about ethnic preservation, the possible assimilation of the Armenian Diaspora and will probably print a couple of books about the centuries-old Armenian culture, which even the Armenian Writers’ Union members won’t read. Tired of all this, the 500 members of the Writers’ Union of Armenia will go to Tsakhkadzor for a vacation and will wait for the next contribution.
As to what we mean by saying contemporary Armenian literature, we imagine the “Literary Newsletter”, which is not read that much, while the high school gradates of Armenia don’t even know the classic Armenian writers; it’s good because the challenges for the Writers’ Union are increasing. So, there won’t be a lack of money.
P.S. I think it would be very interesting to find out the opinions of Levon Ananyan, Garnik Ananyan and the opinions of the Armenian intellectuals about Armenian society and the social/psychological works of Zhak Derrida, Yurgen Habermas and Alexander Zinoveyev, who died recently. I expect a discussion with subjective opinions.