In late 1987 public rallies began against the Soviet Union’s destructive environmental policies in Armenia. Within a year, protests engulfed most of the population, and by February 1988, other latent grievances surfaced and now, the demonstrators were demanding Armenians’ right to self-determination in neighboring Azerbaijani-controlled Karabakh. The success of this movement was based on its ability to present coherent critiques of the existing order, bring about a sense of credibility in legitimate politics and authority, and appeal to the masses’ ability to logically see the argumentation in their policies and strategy. At that time, some argued that lack of independence and democracy had to be accepted in return for the physical protection of Armenians from imminent or potential threat from neighbors and from Pan-Turkism. Can Armenia be an independent state, apart from the Soviet empire and apart from Russia? Will Armenia be able to achieve strategic and political viability as a sovereign state? What was the West’s narrative and expectations from former soviet countries once the empire fell? And, what were the consequences of the West’s inability to grasp the difference between independence as an ideology and independence as a daily reality? To investigate these and other questions, in 2017, the Institute of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California began an oral history and documentation project involving the direct participants of Armenia’s independence movement. Based on the perspectives of persons observing or active in political processes in Armenia from 1988 to 1996, the project, which is called UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENCE, attempts to look at “What went wrong?” and “What went right?” immediately prior to and immediately following the Soviet collapse. The interviewees, or “narrators”, are chosen through purposive and chain sampling. The methodology of these interviews combines both topical and biographical approaches in order to contextualize the time period. With the topical approach narrators share memories about one subject of interest such as a specific time period, a place, or an issue. In the biographical approach, narrators share details about their life and experiences as they reflect on different historical periods. Using the oral history interviews conducted in the first phase of the project, this paper will examine the nuanced experiences and the processes that led to Armenia’s independence movement. The study will analyze the perceptions that re-defined statehood, neighborhood, institutions, and shed light on how these personal memories challenge mainstream understanding of that period.