V.  CONCLUSION

 The world today develops in two, seemingly and completely opposite directions, becoming uniform, universal, informational, open and, on the other hand, continuing to be divided into parts, to smash to pieces, to break into atoms. Even such steady political and socio-cultural units as the nation and the nation state find out that their homogeneity is only seemingly present, and with a strong historic push they can fall to pieces.

There is no point in arguing whether these processes are positive or negative, since it is impossible to resist them. Just as in all similar cases, human forces are only capable of ensuring their psychological switching during which opposite tendencies would be not destructive but would be transformed into theses with the aid of which a person is able to keep the balance with the world, not causing serious traumas either to his consciousness, or the reality which the person constantly recreates. In this case, universality will be counterbalanced by the world cultural ethnic variety kept and reconstructed again and again. After all, the ideal of planetary thinking should become a person perceived as unique space, i.e. atomization should not become a synonym of dehumanization. At the same time, the processes of globalization will be able to destroy not an original cultural ethnic variety, but its artificial imitations, fakes and furious, uncontrollable, violent, destructive nationalism very frequently proves to be such.

Unfortunately one has to admit that today, inter-civilization (inter-religious) collisions, regional conflicts, international wars have led the world to a blind alley as they do not comprise planetary consciousness, and virtually exclude the existence of  “another, something different”. The matter, as a rule, does not concern a conflict in which positions are articulated and it is supposed to find a certain agreement acceptable to the parties, but about an absolute confrontation of initial total mythologies. Here the compromise is initially impossible as any degree of compromise immediately destroys the totality of such a myth (“another” is the enemy in all times and till the end of time). Practically, today we have in the world various forms of national or religious collective hysteria which prefer the philosophy of terrorism or, what is the same, the psychology of zombie behavior (“I shall die, but you will die to”, “first I shall destroy, shall crush and then we shall talk”) to the rational reasons which go beyond the boundaries of a national myth. But, on the other hand, the countries which are among the world elite and appear to be worthy of being carriers of planetary consciousness, today show their total incompetence to resolve regional conflicts as they have not formulated the precise philosophy of globalism defining the borders and methods of allowable influence in disputed regions of the world. Therefore, their actions are reduced to the direct or latent coercive influence or to behind-the-scenes maneuvering behind which there is also a threat of coercive decisions. In fact, today we have a strongly polarized world, in which contrasts do not mutually get balanced, but mutually exclude each other. Globalists have to undertake unprecedented security measures to construct a powerful barrier from the other world, and on the other pole there is a motley discordance, including such different forces as romantic-rebellious anti-globalists, fanatical fundamentalists of all possible colors and shades, and a huge mass of tired, disappointed people who have lost serious interest in life.

All this, to a greater or lesser extent, has a direct relation to the situation in the South Caucasus. In fact, during the last 10-12 years, not only has no conflict here been settled, but all of them leave the feeling of a full deadlock from which there is no advance. One can put it even in a tougher way, that the process of settlement has not yet started, as in the case of the the psychological mechanism, when the parties startto listen to (and to hear) each other, and the supposed settlement does not take into consideration searches of rapprochement between peoples that are not capable of escaping from the grip of own historical myths, is not started. The international institutions, international law and intermediaries have made no headway for years by even not trying to understand the most initial, and the most general, causes of their permanent failures. And for some reason it does not occur to anyone that if the most inventive and quite often very witty technological decisions produce no effect then there is no point in seeking such new decisions. If one of the parties, and quite often both parties, is not oriented to agreement, but to beating the other party at any price,and information space, international law, international pacts, international intermediaries and even democratic rhetoric are used only for these purposes, then how is it possible to expect that acceptable decisions will be finally found? Modern political technologies do not concern in any way nationalist myths, they sort of do not take them into consideration. But in fact, the efficiency of political technologies for modern regional conflicts should mean that acceptable solutions are found not for the presidents (in general, not for the political elite), but for the excited mass consciousness impregnated with nationalist myths (for “revolted masses” if we speak in H. Ortega-i-Gasset's terms).

It is possible to name it bad infinity of “erudition” (or, speaking with a modern metaphor, “new songs about the old”) when phenomena of interstate cooperation which have naturally arisen in the world are used only as an instrument for full suppression of the opponent. In these conditions nobody is surprised that practically all political structures of the region openly appeal to forces outside the region, search for support of powerful countries, and inside their own borders, forgetting it all, with confidence prove their adherence to national myths. In other words, practically in all the three countries they recognize that little depends on them, that they only the blind executors of others’ will, the victims of geopolitics, etc. (the factual recognition of globalism), but at the same time continue to cherish national histories heavily mingled with myths and call the atavistic feeling of an ethnic enemy patriotism. And nobody wants to think about the fact that in the remote past to beat “the ethnic enemy” was an ultimate goal of the statement of one’s own mythological way of life, but today after a similar “victory” it is necessary to adjust peaceful life and cooperation, which excludes the philosophy of “ethnic enemies”.

Perhaps, to some extent such a position should be recognized as natural. Whether it was possible to expect that yesterday's “Soviet peoples”, and in our concrete case – the peoples of the South Caucasus, could suddenly overcome their slavery and organically join the modern world where the western standards are applied in many respects? Certainly, it was not possible for many reasons. We shall try to name only two of them:

- Many of these peoples were “enslaved” still in the pre-Soviet period. During the Soviet period behind a demagogical veil of “sovereignty” of the socialist republics they in essence (a certain admissible formalism only emphasized the initial interdiction) had no right to be entities of the international law. This interdiction was not only legal and technological, but was also injected by the whole ideological system of life from history textbooks to universal Soviet standards of life for which the all-Soviet should prevail above both the national and the personal. And the national feeling with all its positive and negative overtones was driven deep down, generating a lot of latent complexes. In other words, we have nations which did not live in a real historical space for a long time, but today they try to restore historical life and historical consciousness with “one jump” with the help of “history textbooks”;

- it was revealed, meanwhile, that each of these peoples (not only three peoples but all the peoples of the South Caucasus, as it is possible to judge from a geographical map,) has its own ideas about “the providential nature of history” (in Soviet Marxism – “historical regularity”), and this “foresight” absolutely does not take into account a different thing, it does not matter if it is an Azeri or a Georgian, an Armenian or an Abkhazian, an Osset or a Lezghin. Such a strange “historical justice” for which one of participants of the Armenian-Azeri television debate stood up, stopping short of saying that such a “historical justice” is to end not in peace and mutual understanding, but in mutual hatred and blood.

The matrix of the insolvability of modern regional conflicts in terms and procedures of modern international law can be fully attributed to the conflict around NK between the Azeris and the Armenians. Actually, here we have a similar situation with the appeal to the international rhetoric not for the achievement of an agreement, but for an unconditional victory over the other, and a peculiar “game of beads” of the international structures (the OSCE, the Minsk Group) and their inability to understand the consciousness and the mythological opposition of the parties to the conflict and, in a powerful pressure, the excited mass consciousness which influences not only the press, but also the politicians, etc. The convulsive adaptation to the western standards in conditions when both peoples actually continue the Soviet way of life (and quite often reanimate it) should be added to this. The whole absurdity of the situation is easily shown in the figures of victims of the conflict which we cited earlier. Was it all really necessary that the residents of NK should have received “independence” – strictly speaking – external attributes of independence? The figures, of course, can be challenged, to challenge the madness of the situation is more difficult, no matter what historical (pseudo-historical) and patriotic (pseudo-patriotic) rhetoric one resorts to. National phobias have given birth to “black holes” in which everyone became, and in the future will become, victims, even those who managed to profit from the war. And no matter to what mimicry and cosmetic means the authorities of both countries resort, the chaos of law, lawlessness will be revealed behind the international standards for show, and all the best (clever and vigorous) people will run from these countries.

Meanwhile, it should be remembered that the conflict between the Azeris and the Armenians practically originates in the XIX century, and only further it is comprehended pseudo-historically as coming from antiquity, i.e. in essence starts to be mythologized. It has to be admitted that the two peoples for a short historical period have so thoroughly deepened mutual phobias that they have not only become  part of mass consciousness and subconsciousness, but have also spread among the elite of these peoples. How did this become possible? What has led the two peoples to such a deep opposition? In fact, any compromise is immediately perceived as national betrayal, and in essence the atavistic full negation of the opponent (“another” is not simply a barbarian, but he is deprived of typological human qualities at all) causes self-indulgence. Just as it always happens in cases of similar phobias, it is impossible to reveal their reasons to the full.

Paradoxical as it may seem, any unbiased person should recognize a certain degree of mutual penetration of the two peoples fixed in a great number of interethnic marriages (we shall add also folklore motives of love of “an Azeri–a Turkish man” and “an Armenian woman”), the known symbiosis of everyday life (disputes about who from whom “has stolen” a song, a tool, a national dish, an ornament, etc. are indicative) and in the whole close traditional way of life. The affinity and enmity have taken roots in consciousness and in subconsciousness, they provoke each other, and “phantoms of subconsciousness” in their turn are realized in the “black holes” of real life and burst every time in political fights, in meetings of various delegations, and simply in any of today's official meetings (in informal meetings of an Azeri and an Armenian the pressure of mass consciousness may not exist, and a normal human dialogue is possible). And “marginals” (Diaspora, the Karabakh Armenians, the Baku Armenians, the Armenian Azeris, etc.), who in some historical conditions, could promote rapprochement of the peoples, in conditions of enmity become carriers of insuperable insult and psychologically only deepen the conflict. We have in essence the absolute psychological deadlock reminding one of the theatre of absurdity: we declare a desire to agree, but internally far from being ready, we are even afraid to agree with the one who is “my eternal enemy”. It is difficult to offer something reasonable in this absurd situation, but it is necessary to search for a way-out, and without playing into the hand of the excited mass consciousness.

The joint life brought the Azeris and Armenians closer together – the difference in identities separated them (both by ethnic and religious lines). The fact that Armenians historically were frequently in minority but, as a rule, were more solvent probably played its role. Being Christians (and considering themselves the most ancient among the neighboring Christian peoples), they perceived themselves as more civilized (according to formal parameters it was really so), as a certain outpost of the civilized world (hence the special affinity to the Russians). In conditions of real everyday life, this ideological wrapper receded into the background; in conditions of historical cataclysms when it was necessary to raise one’s own self-importance, this affinity-difference became nutritious food for various phobias (especially on the part of Armenians). For the last 100-150 years, the semblance of well-being marked by the rhetorical formula of “friendship of peoples” became possible only for a short time under the patronage of Soviet Russia. The rhetorical formula proved to be pharisaic. Not in the sense that it was frankly false, but that it tabooed adverting to historical myths, and, on the contrary, authorized the creation of an ideology of “centuries-long friendship” and “general” enemies (as a rule, “the Turks” and other “capitalists”) without whom such friendship is impossible. And this “semblance” with inevitability blew up every time as soon as the “patron” intentionally did not carry out the functions or was not able to do it because of its internal problems. This took place, when the USSR disintegrated and all the union republics gained independence. Besides strictly political declarations and partly political subjective actions it meant the necessity of defining a place in the postindustrial, global-informational world.

So, let us draw the first conclusion: national consciousness which is fed by  national history in which, first of all, the genesis, the unity, victories, etc. are mythologized and it is foretold that they will be reproduced again and again in real historical time prevents mutual understanding in the South Caucasus. Does it follow from this that it is necessary to reject national histories as breeding-grounds of mutual intolerance and other things? Like in all similar cases, it is completely unreal, it is only a question of their switching. At least two assumptions are necessary for this purpose:

  A national history should be distanced from the present, it should be considered as not containing in itself direct outputs in the reality. It is necessary to realize that a similar history describes, first of all, mutual relations between “ours”, does not consider “others” and consequently cannot directly relate to the present;

  It should be recognized that modern international legal documents according to their axiomatics do not assume any historical preamble; any technology in principle is beyond science and history but is only operational.

The following group of questions answers to which we leave open in many respects arises from this. How is it possible to educate such a “technological” consciousness? How to introduce it into masses? Who should be engaged in it? Are there forces inside each people that are up to solving such problems? etc.

The second conclusion that can be drawn is connected to the necessity of forming various elites (political, analytical, humanitarian, etc.) which would gradually assume this work.

For similar elites it is possible to offer some declarative postulates:

  There is always another point of view, and it is equally true;

  There are no winners, but there are only losers;

  Planetary interests are above regional ones, regional interests are above the national ones;

  Interests of a person are above the interests of a collective;

  The priority is always on the side of communications, and not the points to which these communications lead;

  Not to come to an agreement means to fall victim to globalization in the worst variant, and one should not blame globalization for it;

  Cooperation of elites for which there are no nationalist myths is the guarantee that it will be possible to blow out ethnic-religious phobias and other manifestations of aggressive mass consciousness;

  A compromise is above victory.

But on second thought it is simply a question of formation of civil society in AR and RA.