5

During the past 150 years, different political regimes have variously affected the making of national cultures in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Herein, focus is placed on the erection of monuments and creation of national pantheons. National cultures were promoted in the Russian Empire at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. This promotion took a radical turn under Communism, when Soviet authorities set up institutions for this purpose. The former elites, few in number before 1917, who were not “liquidated” were integrated within the new elites who, in larger numbers, were formed under Communism. Since the collapse of the USSR, the survivors who represent these elites determine cultural policies in the nations born from the breakup. An essential characteristic of both Soviet and post-Soviet policies for the making of a national culture is the determination to totally control the process, as in a totalitarian or authoritarian system.