Armenian government approves changes in national anthem

ArmInfo.  On November 28, the Armenian government approved the draft amendments to the country's  anthem.

Earlier, the Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen  Simonyan and the deputies of the ruling Civil Contract faction Sisak  Gabrielyan and Taguhi Ghazaryan initiated amendments to the law on  the anthem of the Republic of Armenia, the purpose of which is to  create a single and shortened version of the anthem. The deputies  proposed removing the following quatrain: "There is only one death  everywhere, a person dies only once, but blessed is he who dies for  the freedom of his people." 

The draft also proposes placing the last verse of the anthem after  the first verse, so that the text of the anthem ends not with the  words "Blessed is he who dies for the freedom of his people," but  with the words "Let Armenia always be glorified." As Deputy Minister  of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MONKS) Daniel Danielyan  noted while presenting the draft resolution, according to the current  legislation, the performance of the anthem is mandatory only in  schools and universities; now colleges and kindergartens will be  added to these institutions.

In addition, if according to the current law, the performance of the  anthem is mandatory during the official opening and closing of sports  events, then the draft also makes it mandatory during award  ceremonies.

In order to apply a unified standard for the performance of the  anthem, the Armenian government will be authorized to develop a  shortened version of the anthem, mainly for performance at sports and  cultural events and due to the limited airtime. This will be  entrusted to the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the  Republic of Armenia.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in turn, noted that he had a certain  participation . Sharing , he said that during his  premiership he had never seen the anthem performed the same way -  there is no uniform rhythm, tempo. At the same time, Pashinyan noted,  this draft does not imply making changes to the text, only changing  quatrains here and there.

, he said. This is a  fundamental problem that needs to be solved with the help of this  project, the prime minister added. Now, at all events with  Pashinyan's participation, the anthem must be performed live with  certain quality standards.