Armenian parliament committee approves bill to amend national anthem

YEREVAN, 10 January. /ARKA/. The Armenian Parliament's Committee on State and Legal Affairs approved Friday a bill to amend the national anthem, proposed by a group of deputies headed by Speaker Alen Simonyan.

The bill proposes to establish a single official version of the anthem (the text, melody and tempo). According to the current legislation the singing of the anthem is mandatory during some events in schools and universitiesю After the introduction of relevant amendments it will become mandatory for colleges, as well as kindergartens.

‘If now the singing of the anthem is mandatory at the opening and closing of official sporting events, according to the draft law, this requirement will be extended to the awarding ceremonies at the end of tournaments,’ co-author Sisak Gabrielyan, MP from the ruling Civil Contract faction, said during the discussion of the draft law.

According to him, insufficient attention has been paid to this issue in Armenia. Thus, in some cases the anthem was sung in fast tempo, in other cases - in slow tempo. Moreover, different notes were often used when singing the anthem, and sometimes the last two lines were repeated.

The government will also be authorised to determine the short version of the national anthem.

In addition, it is planned to change the order of the quatrains - the last one will become the second, and the second and third will become the third and fourth quatrains, respectively.

‘We believe that it is more appropriate to start and end the national anthem with words about Armenia,’ the MP explained.

According to the authors of the draft law, the end of the anthem should be more life-affirming - it is proposed to add ‘May Armenia always be glorious’ at the end instead of the current ‘Blessed is he who dies for the freedom of his people’. -0-