Հայաստանի Անկախության հռչակագրի գաղափարական հիմքերը. ազատական և ազգայնական խոսույթներ / The Ideological Foundations of the Armenian Declaration of Independence:Liberal and Nationalist Discourses

This article analyzes the ideological foundations of Armenian political discourse during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia by the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR. The liberalization of political life during the Perestroika period created favorable conditions for the development of nationalist ideology. The article argues that the prevailing anti-Soviet sentiment—driven by the Soviet leadership’s failure to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the concealment of crimes committed against Armenians in a neighboring Soviet republic, and the perception of the Soviet model as repressive and anti-national—combined with aspirations for independence and democratic governance, led to the merging of liberal and nationalist discourses into a unified liberation narrative. Through an analysis of political rhetoric and debates in the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR, held while the Soviet Union still formally existed, the article demonstrates the mechanism of ideological convergence that anticipated the formation of a new Armenian statehood. The study also offers a comparative analysis of declarations of independence adopted by other Soviet republics during the same period. The methodological basis of the research includes archival documents—verbatim transcripts of parliamentary sessions, texts of declarations of independence and sovereignty, as well as scholarly literature on the subject.