Conversations by the Tree»: «Magic Realism» in the Soviet Ethnography

Abstract

The essay considers Levon Abrahamian’s work «Conversations by the Tree» as an alternative approach to the Soviet academic mainstream in 1970–80s ethnography. The work is interesting due to its unusual form of presentation (combination of text, drawing, empty paragraphs) and the issues raised by the positioning of the researcher, ahead of some of the tasks that have become the subject of discussion in postmodern cultural anthropology. Responding to them, the author invents a special genre, where scientific and artistic narratives are so intertwined that such an approach is compared with «magic realism», where reality and legend are intertwined, the incredible becomes plausible and vice versa. The author of the Conversations is also trying to connect the disintegrated and isolated worlds, but modern and ancient man, ethnographer and native, mixing them up so that the border between them becomes elusive. Such a prospect, it seemed, was bound to evoke opposition from positivist Soviet science. However, Levon Abrahamian not only was not rejected by academic institutions, but this work was published in academic publications and discussed at conferences. The purpose of this article is to show how such works could be created in late Soviet Armenia, what educational, cultural, leisure practices they could have resulted from, and how informal scolar ties were built, allowing such works to break into academic publications.