Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan: To save the national type means to hinder development

To save the national type means to hinder development. The word "save" is quite dangerous. "To save" in the sense of being locked up and canned. Instead of this word ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan suggests an alternative, “For example, the ways of development of Armenia, Armenians. From my point of view, it is necessary to give the opportunity to inherit priority cultural values actualizing them,” the ethnographer explains.

The ethnographer refers to the hackneyed expression "Armenian type". "I think we all have a contoured image of an Armenian. Ethnicity is a dynamic, progressive process. We are different from the Armenians who lived 2,000 years ago, from the Armenians who adopted Christianity, we even differ from the Armenians who lived 100 years ago,” Kharatyan says.

Hranush Kharatyan considers this dynamics neither as a positive nor as a negative phenomenon: this is a natural course of life. “And we should be glad that values are constantly transferred in the course of this process,” Hranush Kharatyan emphasizes. And as a transferred value, Kharatyan singles out a language that is constantly evolving. “Today's language, of course, is very different. And if today the "Armenian type" is characterized by the native Armenian language, then one of our missions is its preservation, which is welcomed,” the ethnographer notes.

Details and a peculiar interpretation of the concept of "national identity" in the program "Paradigm".