Abstract
This article is about the practices of family business in the Armenian politico-economic system in the period of 1991–2018, that is, from gaining independence until the Velvet Revolution of 2018. Family business structures had been one of the main pillars of the parallel ‘oligarchic’ economy, monopolized by oligarchs to illegally leach off the state budget and infrastructures since Armenia ushered in the post-socialist capitalism era. Why did this system exist? In order to tackle that question I will emphasize cultural specifics, functions and roles of family, kinship and relatedness networks in Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia. Although the principles of strong paternalism, solidarity, reciprocity and loyalty may be widespread in kinship structures in general, they are particularly salient in the economic and political spheres in Armenia. In Armenia, family and kinship networks were important factors of survival/prosperity under socialist economic conditions, and they appeared to function quite well in the informal systems that remained closed and impermeable for outsiders and the law. The author will try to demonstrate how some extended families gradually turned into political and business ‘organizations’ and how traditional perceptions and practices of reciprocity, matrimonial ties and cooperation between the families could help them resolve serious inner disputes, as well as business and political conflicts that emerged periodically. At the same time, the article is an attempt to investigate some cultural and gender-specific practices and values that were underpinning the functionalism of illegal or semi-legal structures of big family economy and politics. Matrimonial alliances, blood kinship, affinal kinship and agnatic networks were fully involved in the process of building a specific social and economic environment that would be reciprocally supported by political forces in power. The basis of reciprocity was the exchange of business privileges and legal coverage ensured by the government for political support and a guaranteed number of votes (both real and falsified) during local and national elections, which were usually provided through the same family and kinship networks. Although the whole system of oligarchic economy and falsified democracy had been perceived negatively by the population in general, traditional big family values such as loyalty, reciprocity and paternalism were effectively working for it in many individual cases.
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Notes
- 1.
For a theoretical analysis of the Velvet Revolution, see Derluguian and Hovhannisyan (2018).
- 2.
By 1970, more than 70% of the population of Armenia were living in the cities (Karapetyan, 2014: 77).
- 3.
Family interviews conducted in 2019 during the short research in one of the small industrial cities in Armenia (city of Charentsavan) are very illustrative in this context.
- 4.
Nomenklatura is the system of top positions in government and industry that should be filled exclusively by party members.
- 5.
In one of the items of media coverage of local elections in 2015 in the city of Artashat, journalists saw a large group of young men dressed in a similar way and driving cars with similar numbers belonging to associates of a son of an oligarch, who was the only balloted candidate for the position of mayor. They asked him who all the young men were. He answered: ‘These are all “my people”, my mates, friends and brothers’ (Argam Abrahamyan, Radio ‘Freedom’, 2015).
- 6.
Tsekh literally means workshop, a structural unit of a Soviet plant or factory.
- 7.
The institute of godfather in Armenia is very significant, and relationships between godfather and godchildren are based on principles of mutual responsibilities, obedience and support. Families that are interested in each other often enter into godfather-godchildren relationships.
- 8.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, small plots of lands (500 s.m.) for private cultivation were distributed among employees of state enterprises. Everyone started the construction of small country houses (dachas), and the construction materials appeared to be in great demand.
- 9.
They are usually represented by loosely organized groups and may be known by different names such as kucha, taifa, akhperutyun and be based on different types of affiliation (street and neighbourhood groups, classmates, army mates, criminal or subcriminal circles, etc.).
- 10.
I borrowed the term from Stewart (2010: 5).
- 11.
Marz—the biggest territorial and administrative unit in Armenia.
- 12.
This could be done by bribing or intimidating voters, but more often than not members of an extended family and relatedness networks would outnumber the voters for another candidate.
- 13.
- 14.
The corresponding statements can be found in the Constitution of R.A. and the Law on Civil Service (Ch. 5, paragraph 31).
- 15.
The photos of those letters were informally spread out throughout the Internet, but I have not been successful in finding the original source. However, I have no doubts about their authenticity, because the authors later made public comments to justify their activities. See, e.g., Armtimes, 2017.
- 16.
In the social networks and tabloids, one can find a lot of photo and video coverage of such kind of events.
- 17.
- 18.
There were photos of the baptism of Samvel Karapetyan’s grandchildren on news.am and zham.am, where one could clearly see all the details, including guest arrivals and the closing of the church for uninvited visitors.
- 19.
Thus, I witnessed a number of such feasts and perhaps, and especially, the most outstanding one, held on the occasion of the opening of Abovyan Cathedral, by Tsarukyan.
- 20.
According to biographical data, almost all oligarchs have life-long marriage partners and numbers of children sometimes far beyond the average. This makes a great contrast with, say, Russian oligarchs, who are known for their scandalous divorces, remarriages and mistresses.
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Antonyan, Y. (2023). Power, Family and Business: Practices of Oligarchic Economy in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Armenia (Before 2018). In: Koellner, T. (eds) Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20525-5_4
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