Asya Darbinyan of Clark University visited campus to deliver a lecture on the peaceful grassroots revolution that disrupted established power structures in Armenia from April to May 2018. This lunchtime talk on Thursday, Sept. 13, was hosted by the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and the Fries Center for Global Studies and was sponsored by the the Nazar and Artemis Nazarian Family Foundation.

Darbinyan, a Ph.D. candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark, presented a narrative of the “Velvet Revolution” with emphasis on how Armenian women and youth shaped the movement. After a month of peaceful protests, the movement was successful in removing two-term president Serzh Sargsyan from power.

“This was the movement of ordinary Armenian people who mobilized for establishment of transparent government,” Darbinyan said. “This was a grassroots-level movement and eventually won against almost impossible odds.”

In 2015, then-President Sargsyan initiated a constitutional referendum to change the country’s government from a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary republic in the 2017-18 presidential cycle. Making the amendment effectively removed term limits and allowed Sargsyan to run again for office, although he had pledged not to.

“When the referendum was happening, Serzh Sargsyan promised not to attempt to stay in power,” Darbinyan said. “He promised on camera to the entire nation that he was not going to be a candidate for prime minister. When the time came, however, in March 2018, it became clear that that was a lie.”

The election of Sargsyan, which was also marred by allegations of electoral fraud, sparked the Velvet Revolution. Within two months, Sargsyan conceded and resigned.  

Darbinyan, who recently returned from spending time in Armenia, said that even organizers of the Reject Serzh movement—as the revolution was also called—did not fully believe that change would come about so smoothly.

“Such changes do not happen frequently in post-Soviet regions, especially peacefully,” Darbinyan said.

While the official revolution lasted merely from April to May 2018, Darbinyan explained that a series of peaceful protests starting in 2012 had primed the Armenian people for this moment.

“Acts of peaceful disobedience and protest were becoming more and more common in Armenia in the last decade,” she said.

One protest in 2012 prevented the destruction of a cherished park which was slated to become a major construction site in the capital of Yerevan; in 2013, Armenians rallied against government plans to impose a higher bus fare.

“People were against it because nothing else had changed,” Darbinyan said. “Salaries hadn’t changed, scholarships hadn’t changed, but suddenly they were going to pay more for public transportation.”

This protest included individuals with cars driving to bus stops and offering free rides to those who refused to pay the new bus fare, largely students and young professionals.

“All of these young people later were going to be the basis for the major revolution that happened in April,” Darbinyan said as she projected an image of a massive crowd at a Velvet Revolution protest.

Sanya Bery ’21 attended the lecture for Professor of Government Peter Rutland’s “Evolution of War” class. Rutland is also the director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life.

“I didn’t even really know what was happening in Armenia,” Bery said. “I thought it was really interesting how everyone kind of came together to accomplish a goal. Usually what causes internal turmoil is very split.”

The unprecedented nature of this revolution manifested itself in not just the peacefulness of the protests, but also the influence of women in the movement. Images of the protests showed mothers with their children in strollers marching through the streets of the capital.

During her time in Armenia, Darbinyan spoke to women involved in the protests. One of the messages she relayed from those conversations was that the patriarchal structure of society actually helped women stay out and fight more. Since most providers for families are men, women were more free to take to the streets. She also added that they were less likely to be bothered by police because of the societal mindset that women were less dangerous or threatening.

“Because it was not seen as bad behavior to go out to the streets anymore, these women could go out and participate in demonstrations during the daytime when the men were at work,” Darbinyan said.

The Velvet Revolution drew from protests in other countries for inspiration. For example, in what Darbinyan called a pots and pans rally, organizers called on women to go home, get their pots and pans, hold them out their windows, and make a racket. This act accentuated how despite overwhelming support and involvement, some women and others were not able to get to the streets and protest.

“Armenian women had vowed to continue their kitchenware rally until Serzh Sargsyan would resign,” Darbinyan said. “Fun fact, in 20 hours he did resign. Of course not only because of pots and pans.”

Darbinyan highlighted how the movement fostered more than just political change; it also transformed many Armenians’ mindsets about concepts like justice, solidarity, and even attitudes towards each other.

“Those couple of weeks in April had a revolutionary impact on Armenians,” Darbinyan said.

Darbinyan’s speech concluded on an uplifting note, as her optimistic words were coupled with final images of celebration in the streets of Yerevan.

“What I myself saw in my time in so-called ‘New Armenia’ was the trust that people have in new possibilities and potentials,” Darbinyan said. “There is a firm belief that together they can be the change they so hoped to see in Armenia.”

Darbinyan was just one speaker in a lecture series presented each semester by Allbritton regarding topics of public concern, including contemporary, foreign, and domestic issues.

“The Armenian revolution was a major event of the year,” Rutland said. “It’s recent, it’s still unfolding, and we don’t hear much about it at all. It’s a small country, as [Asya] said, of three million people in the middle of Eurasia…. She brought a lot of issues out that I hadn’t heard in the press coverage, like the role of women in particular.”

 

Spencer Dean can be reached at srdean@wesleyan.edu.