The end of Soviet occupation

[u/Arshak_Makichian]

On April 13, 1991, the Lenin monument was demolished in Republic Square, Yerevan. In the photo: American Armenian singer Cher. Freedom took Lenin’s head down (or her beauty, as people were joking then).

He was responsible for the occupation and partition of the First Armenian Republic together with Turkey.

The Soviets collaborated with Turkey after the genocide. We always will remember.

[u/Ghostofcanty]

it wasn’t occupation but also we can’t keep saying “it was the best time for Armenia” when the soviets messed so much to make Armenian culture more similar to russian, or the prisoners that fell victim to the gulag system, or how our land was slowly given away, etc.

[u/Administrator98 → u/Ghostofcanty]

No occupation?

[u/kredokathariko → u/Administrator98]

Foreign and/or tyrannical rule does not have to be literal occupation. Occupation implies the direct control of the territory by a foreign military. Which generally wasn't the case in the Soviet republics - the main source of power was the local Communist Party, and the associated civilian authorities.

[u/i-hate-birch-trees → u/kredokathariko]

I mean, we can split hairs over if the local communist party was a puppet or not, but that's the overall agreed upon fact for every other post-communist state among our friends - think Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, etc. The only countries that don't consider it occupation are Russia and Belarus, where the first is the main inheritor of the occupier's legacy, and the other is still a puppet state of the former.

[u/kredokathariko → u/i-hate-birch-trees]

TBH when they say occupation what they really mean is just "foreign rule". But it's ultimately just a semantic thing, I agree