SUMMARY:

The article is based upon the narratives collected by the author, and analyzes social transformations during the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh – when tendencies of de-modernization of the economic life became obvious, while return to old patriarchal models turned into a strategy of resistance and survival. In the social context during and after the war, the traditionalist discourse acquired an official and dominant status. The ethics of survival dictates such models of adaptation that minimally guarantee existence through mechanisms of re-distribution. Despite the everyday life discourse of the idealization of solidarity, the moral economy of survival is characteristic of poor and stagnating societies. In these societies, the space of female activity (i.e., household) and passivity is clearly demarcated from the male space of articulation and the defense of the nation.