Epress.am News from Armenia
“Juliet was an Armenian from Tbilisi, Romeo was Mingrelian [a subethnic group of Georgians] — and here you have the saddest story in the world,” very convincingly joked a taxi driver by the name of Marlen. “Of course, their parents would never allow them to marry… nationality is like an aircraft: it has to be preserved and developed.” The conversation with the taxi driver was cited by Moskovsky Komsomolets correspondent Aslizhan Orshogdugova, who addressed mixed marriages and their impact on societal developments in his article.
“It turned out that Marlen, who was of a respectable age and Armenian by ethnicity, has been married for already 40 years to woman not of his ethnicity. Children, grandchildren — it seems that it’s a happy marriage. However, for the younger generation brides and grooms ‘will search only among their own,’ the driver confidently stated. I didn’t argue… First, it seemed that his statement was based on bitter experience. Second, I agreed with him in many ways. And in my current intolerant environment, I would sign under every word.
“Criticize or don’t criticize the Soviet Union, but those times were a ‘vacuum’ [that is, filled with positive energy]. Either the shortcomings in society were well-disguised or people truly lived by right principles, were capable of respect. The language, culture, customs and traditions of others were respected by all. They didn’t touch upon the national question, but if they did, it was done without insulting or cursing and all this without bloodshed. With regard to mixed marriages, they were a fairly frequent occurrence, quite common and not at all shameful.
“In the former Soviet Union, by the end of the 80s, nearly one in six families was comprised of individuals of various ethnicities. It’s clear that this is quite a significant layer of society, largely influencing the development of important processes in society: demographic, ethnic, social and so on. Evidence suggests that in the Soviet era, the number of ethnically mixed families grew. In 1959, it was 5.2 million or 10.2% of all marriages in the country, while in 1979, it was 9.9 million or 14.9%, and in 1989, 12.8 million or 17.5%.
“Today, mixed marriages are somewhat tolerable for some, but for others, they are a world of endless possibilities and promising prospects,” writes the Moscow-based reporter.