The Armenians
The Armenians considers how the Armenian people have constructed their identity through the accumulation of historical experience and shared collective memory. The book takes the reader through the complex and often bloody historical events that the people of Armenia have experienced and tracks the evolution of their culture and politics up to their current situation as a small post-communist country poised between Europe and the Middle East and linked to a kaleidoscope of emigrant Armenian communities spread across the globe.
The Armenians are one of the oldest nations in existence, privileged to have one of the world’s most stable and persistent identities. The quality of ‘Armenianness’ has proved to be so resilient that it has endured for 2,000 years, even though in that time the Armenian people have been compelled to resist invasion, suffer persecution, tolerate alien rule and take desperate measures to escape, including several mass emigrations that led to global dispersion. They even managed to survive the twentieth century’s first large-scale genocide. In The Armenians a distinguished international team of social scientists seeks to explain how such confidence in a national identity came about, how it crystallized, and what Armenians today feel that they have derived from their spectacular past. The book pays considerable attention to the 1990s and 2000s, when post-Soviet Armenia has been building its independence, its political system, and its new economy and society. The book ends with an analysis of how the Armenian self-image has responded to the many challenges and contradictions thrown up by this rich store of experience.
The Armenians provides a comprehensive introduction to both the historical forces and the recent social and political developments that have shaped today’s Armenian people. With contributions from leading Armenian, American and European specialists, it sets out the themes and issues of contemporary research in the history and social science of this distinctive people. The authors include Richard G. Hovannisian, James R. Russell and Ronald G. Suny.
The editors: Edmund Herzig is a Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on the history and politics of Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasian region. His many writings include a book on contemporary Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, The New Caucasus, and a number of articles and book chapters on Armenian history and politics. Marina Kurkchiyan is a Fellow in Socio-legal Studies at the University of Oxford, specializing in the postcommunist transition in Armenia, Russia and Ukraine. Her research focuses on post-communist legal culture, social policy and the second economy. Her publications include works on economic crime in Russia, the interplay between law and informal practices, welfare reforms and research methodology.
11111
2Caucasus World: Peoples of the Caucasus
3Series editor: Nicholas Awde
4
51111 This series of handbooks provides a ready introduction and practical guide to
6the many peoples and languages of the Caucasus. Each handbook includes
7chapters written by experts in the field, covering all aspects of the people,
8including their history, religion, politics, economy, culture, literature and
9
10111
11
12
13111
14
15
16
17
18
19
20111
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30111
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40111
41
42
43
44
45111
media, plus pictures, chronologies and appendices of up-to-date statistics, maps and bibliographies. Each volume in the Peoples of the Caucasus series will be an indispensable resource to all those with an interest in the Caucasus.
The Abkhazians |
The Armenians |
Edited by George Hewitt |
Edited by Edmund Herzig and Marina |
|
Kurkchiyan |
The Circassians |
|
Amjad Jaimoukha |
The Hemshin |
|
Edited by Hovann Simonian |
The Chechens |
|
Edited by Amjad Jaimoukha |
The Kalmyks |
|
David Lewis |
Other books in Caucasus World include: |
|
The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus |
Azerbaijan |
J. F. Baddeley, with a Preface by Moshe |
Charles van der Leeuw |
Gammer |
|
|
Georgia: In the Mountains of Poetry |
Small Nations and Great Powers |
Peter Nasmyth |
Svante E. Cornell |
|
|
The Literature of Georgia |
Storm Over the Caucasus |
Donald Rayfield |
Charles van der Leeuw |
|
|
The Russo-Caucasians of the Iranian Left |
Oil and Gas in the Caucasus and Caspian |
Cosroe Chaqueri |
Charles van der Leeuw |
|
|
Society, Politics and Eonomics in |
After Atheism |
Mazadaran |
David C. Lewis |
M. A. Kazembeyki |
Daghestan |
The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia during |
Robert Chenciner |
the Crusades |
|
Jacob G. Ghazarian |
Madder Red |
|
Robert Chenciner |
The Kingdom of Armenia |
M. Chahin
A Bibliography of Articles on Armenian |
Pilgrimage |
Studies in Western Journals 1869–1995 |
Edited by Mzia Ebaoizide and John |
V. N. Neressian |
Wilkinson |
Armenian Perspectives |
The Man in the Panther’s Skin |
Edited by Nick Awde |
Shot'ha Rust'haveli, translated by Marjory |
|
Scott Wardrop |
Armenian Sacred and Folk Music Komitas |
|
Soghomon Soghomonian, translated by |
Chechen Dictionary and Phrasebook |
Edward Gulbekian |
Nicholas Awde and Muhammed Galaev |
The Armenian Neume System of Notation |
Azerbaijani Dictionary and Phrasebook |
R. A. Atayan, translated by V. N. Neressian |
Nicholas Awde and Famil Ismailov |
Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus |
|
Edited by Tamila Mgaloblishvili |
|
The Armenians
Past and present in the making of national identity
Edited by
Edmund Herzig and
Marina Kurkchiyan
11111
2
3
4
51111
6
7
8
9
10111
11
12
13111 |
First published 2005 |
14 |
by RoutledgeCurzon |
15 |
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN |
|
16Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon
17270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016
18This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
19
20111
21
22
23
24
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2005 Edmund Herzig and Marina Kurkchiyan for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their chapters
25All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
26mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
27invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
28information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
29
30111
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40111
41
42
43
44
45111
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied,
with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-00493-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–700–70639–9 (Print Edition)
Contents
|
Maps |
ix |
|
Contributors |
x |
|
Transliteration and names |
xi |
|
Acknowledgements |
xii |
1 |
Introduction: Armenia and the Armenians |
1 |
|
M A R I NA K U R KC H I YA N A N D E D M U N D H E R Z I G |
|
2 |
Early Armenian civilization |
23 |
|
JA M E S R . RU S S E L L |
|
3 |
Christianity to modernity |
41 |
|
B O G H O S L E VO N Z E K I YA N |
|
4 |
Into the modern age, 1800–1913 |
65 |
|
A R A M A R K U N |
|
5 |
Genocide and independence, 1914–21 |
89 |
|
R I C H A R D G. H OVA N N I S I A N |
|
6 |
Soviet Armenia, 1921–91 |
113 |
|
RO NA L D G R I G O R S U N Y |
|
7 |
Armenians in diaspora |
126 |
|
S U S A N P. PAT T I E |
|
8 |
The Karabagh conflict: from Soviet past to post-Soviet |
|
|
uncertainty |
147 |
|
M A R I NA K U R KC H I YA N |
|
9 |
Politics in independent Armenia |
166 |
E D M U N D H E R Z I G
11111
2
3
4
51111
6
7
8
9
10111
11
12
13111
14
15
16
17
18
19
20111
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30111
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40111
41
42
43
44
45111
viii |
Contents |
|
10 |
Media and democracy in Armenia |
180 |
|
M A R K G R I G O R I A N |
|
11 |
Economic and social development |
196 |
|
A S TG H I K M I R Z A K H A N YA N |
|
12 |
Society in transition |
211 |
|
M A R I NA K U R KC H I YA N |
|
13 |
Homeland–diaspora relations and identity differences |
229 |
|
R A Z M I K PA N O S S I A N |
|
|
Index |
244 |
Maps
2.1 |
Topography |
24 |
2.2 |
Urartu circa 750 BC |
32 |
2.3 |
Armenia circa first century BC |
37 |
3.1 |
Medieval Armenia |
44 |
3.2 |
The Ottoman and Safavid empires |
48 |
4.1 |
Iran and the Russian and Ottoman empires circa 1880 |
67 |
5.1 |
The First World War and the Republic of Armenia |
99 |
6.1 |
Soviet and post-Soviet Armenia and Mountainous Karabagh |
116 |
11111 |
Contributors |
2 |
|
3 |
|
4 |
|
51111 |
|
6 |
|
7 |
|
8 |
|
9 |
|
10111 |
|
11 |
|
12 |
|
13111 |
Aram Arkun is Coordinator of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information |
14 |
Center, New York. |
15 |
Mark Grigorian is a producer in the Central Asia and Caucasus Service of |
|
16 |
the BBC, London. |
|
17 |
||
|
18Edmund Herzig is a Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at the University of
19Manchester.
20111
21
22
23
Richard G. Hovannisian is Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History and holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles.
24Marina Kurkchiyan is the Paul Dodyk Fellow at the Centre for Socio-legal
25Studies and a Fellow of Wolfson College in the University of Oxford.
26
27
28
29
30111
31
32
Astghik Mirzakhanyan is a project co-ordinator to the United Nations Development Programme, Armenian Office.
Razmik Panossian is an independent researcher specializing in Armenia, the diaspora and the South Caucasus.
Susan P. Pattie is a Senior Research Fellow, University College London.
33James R. Russell is the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard
34University.
35
36
Ronald Grigor Suny is Professor of Political Science and History at the
37
University of Chicago.
38Boghos Levon Zekiyan is Professor of Armenian Language and Literature in
39the Eurasian Studies Department of the University of Venice and at the
40111 Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
41
42
43
44
45111
Transliteration and names
Except in chapter 2, ‘Early Armenian Civilization’, Armenian words are transliterated according to a simplified version of the Society for Armenian Studies system, with the diacritic accents omitted. Where accepted English forms of Armenian words and names exist, these are preferred to transliterated forms (e.g. Yerevan).
Many of the territories, towns and cities mentioned have undergone successive name changes over the centuries, often as a result of political changes such as conquests and revolutions. In general, we have used the names that will be most readily identifiable to the modern reader, while being appropriate to the context. In some cases, the name that was current (among Armenians) in the period under consideration is preferred, provided that does not obscure the identity of the place for the modern reader. Thus, for the nineteenth century we use Tiflis (Tbilisi, today the capital of Georgia) and Transcaucasia (today more commonly referred to as the South Caucasus). The more familiar (Mountainous) Karabagh, however, is used rather than Armenian (Lernayin) Gharabagh or Russian (Nagornyi) Karabakh. In some cases, for the sake of clarity, alternative versions or names of places are given in parentheses, e.g. Alexandropol (Leninakan, Kumayri, Gyumri). The forms Yerevan and Etchmiadzin are used throughout.
Personal names are given in transliterated forms, except where there is a generally accepted English spelling.
11111
2 Acknowledgements
3
4
51111
6
7
8
9
10111
11
12
13111 We wish to thank our fellow contributors, who responded so constructively
14to the idea of producing a book that would take the reader on a journey into
15the past and present of the Armenian nation. In keeping with the book’s
16subject, they are scattered across the world in small clusters in Armenia,
17Britain and the USA, but their willingness to respond to our editorial
18suggestions nevertheless converted them into a cooperative team. We are
19grateful for their contributions and for their patient collaboration through 20111 the various stages of preparation. If there is today such a thing as the
21Armenian mind, their collective efforts have helped us to move towards
22some understanding of it.
23Thanks are due also to Vrezh Nersessian, who offered valuable advice
24when the book was still at the planning stage. Our greatest debt is to Nick
25Awde, who encouraged us to work on the book in the first place and whose
26maps do so much to help make sense of the long, tortuous and often terrible
27history of the Armenian people. The book is much better for his assistance,
28and it would not have existed at all without his initiative and drive.
29We are grateful to Michael Banks for his steady insistence that the 30111 English language should never be knowingly abused. Whatever polish the
31book may now possess owes much to the professionalism of the publishing
32team at Routledge and in particular to Heidi Bagtazo and Emma Davis, who
33dealt briskly and successfully with a series of niggling practicalities over
34which we had done little more than fret. Finally, it is a pleasure to thank the
35members of the Saryan family, who gave us their permission to reproduce
36on the cover a beautiful drawing by Martiros Saryan, ‘The Blessing of Old
37Men’. The picture celebrates traditional Armenian community values with
38characteristic style and wit, and for us it epitomizes what we hoped to
39achieve in this book.
40111
41
42
43
44
45111
11111 |
1 Introduction |
|
2 |
||
3 |
Armenia and the Armenians |
|
4 |
||
51111 |
|
|
6 |
Marina Kurkchiyan and Edmund Herzig |
|
7 |
||
|
||
8 |
|
|
9 |
|
|
10111 |
|
|
11 |
|
|
12 |
|
|
13111 |
Once again, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the peoples of the |
14Caucasus have re-emerged into international affairs. This book is about one
15of them, the Armenians, of whom a minority live in the homeland state and
16the majority in one or another of a scattered series of communities across
17the world that are collectively known as the diaspora.1 The purpose here is
18to explain who these people are, where they come from, what has made them
19the way they are, what their concerns are, and how it feels to be Armenian at 20111 the beginning of the twenty-first century. The focus throughout is on the
21common thread that links these things together: identity. To explore this
22 theme, the editors brought together contributions by specialists from
23Armenia itself as well as from Europe and North America. Each author was
24encouraged to try to provide a readable, fresh and up-to-date account, so
25that descriptions of a variety of topics ranging from early civilization and
26religion to contemporary politics and social problems all blend into a single
27holistic discussion. The aim is that the finished volume should open a
28window on to the world of the Armenians.
29The world of the Armenians is unusually complex, and not only because 30111 they are one of the world’s oldest nations. They live in many different states
31and cultures across the world because their homeland has an exceptionally
32 troubled history of being repeatedly subjected to invasion, looting and
33massacre over a two-thousand-year period. The majority of the people now
34live far away from the lands between the Black Sea and the Caspian, in cities
35like Buenos Aires or Los Angeles, even though they continue to think of
36themselves as Armenians. Even those who still live in the ancient capital city,
37Yerevan, are cut off from the most emotive geographical symbol of the
38Armenian homeland, Mount Ararat. Any attempt at travel in that direction
39is stopped at a heavily guarded border with Turkey.
40111 |
The complexity of the Armenian world is matched by its contentiousness. |
|
41 |
It is impossible to study any aspect of it without having to deal with both |
|
42 |
|
|
43 |
|
|
|
|
|
44 |
1 For the geographical distribution of Armenians today and through history, see R.L. |
|
45111 |
Hewsen, A Historical Atlas of Armenia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). |
2 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 the conflicts aroused by its history and the clashing interpretations of them.
2Specific debates go all the way back to a set of unanswered questions about
3the ancient origins of the society and culture, and continue all the way down
4 |
to the present day through many centuries of difficult relations with each of |
51111 |
the three most prominent neighbouring states, Russia, Iran and Turkey. |
6Contested issues vary from the relatively minor, such as the current depen-
7dence of the entire economy upon the recent reactivation of a single nuclear
8 |
power station, built in the Soviet era and long defunct, to spectacular and |
9shocking episodes like the Genocide of 1915 or the Karabagh war with
10111 Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Controversies like these have provoked fierce
11academic exchanges between competing schools of thought. But this book
12makes no attempt to engage such partisan arguments in detail, preferring to
13111 stand away from them wherever possible in order to focus on what
14Armenians have in common rather than on their disagreements, and to iden-
15tify the ideas and experiences that are significant to all of them.
16 |
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there are generally believed |
17 |
to be approximately seven million Armenians in the world, linked in their |
18 |
shared identity by what sociologists call a ‘web of significance’. The |
19 |
Armenians is intended to draw a picture of how that unifying web came into |
20111 |
existence. It is not a history as such, although chapters 1–6 are arranged in |
21chronological order and deal with history. Rather, it is designed to explore
22the different strands of Armenian identity and to highlight features, contem-
23porary as well as historical, that might help an observer to see the world
24through Armenian eyes. As in all national communities, the Armenian web
25of significance is formed by the collective memory. Memory is not itself
26history; it is a ‘socially constructed’ selection from history that provides a
27shared account of where Armenians came from, the things that they did
28themselves and the things done to them by others, and how and why they
29came to be so widely dispersed today. Within the selection is a multiplicity of 30111 different strands, among them religion, language, culture, family, literature,
31music and art. For each member of the community, the single most tightly
32binding thread may be different from the one that links someone else into
33the weave, but the web as a whole is the stronger for its elaborateness.
34 |
Armenians have traditionally put the ancient period of their history at |
35the core of their self-image. A quick glance at the record helps to explain
36why. They can, and do, legitimately claim descent from the oldest cultures
37and most prominent civilizations of the region. The land that later came to
38be called Armenia is known to have been inhabited in the Palaeolithic and
39Mesolithic eras, and from the fourth millennium BC onwards it was home to 40111 people demonstrating inventiveness in technology and vitality in art. From
41the ninth to the sixth century BC the Urartean Empire flourished in the
42 |
region, and later Armenians inherited a great deal from Urartean culture. |
43 |
However, as James R. Russell argues in his chapter ‘Early Armenian |
44 |
Civilization’, the Armenian language was probably not indigenous, but |
45111 |
brought to the region some three millennia ago by migrants from southeast |
Introduction 3
11111 Europe. The earliest known use of the terms ‘Armenian’ and ‘the
2Armenians’ occurred in the late sixth century BC. Russell describes how
3 |
comparative linguistic analysis leads to the conclusion that present-day |
4 |
Armenian speakers are the descendants both of those migrants and of |
51111 |
various other ethnic groups. Some of those were present earlier, such as |
6Urarteans, while others such as the Parthians were later arrivals. After his
7scrutiny of ancient Armenian religion and mythology, Russell is able to
8expose the extraordinary heterogeneity of the people’s origins. What appears
9 |
today to be a uniform heritage was initially the product of cross-fertilization |
10111 |
with other peoples right across Eurasia from Western Europe to India, with |
11Iranian, Semitic and Caucasian peoples predominant among them.
12Russell’s chapter takes the reader through the sixth, fifth and fourth 13111 centuries BC, when Armenia was a part of the Medean and Achaemenian
14empires, and on to the reign of Tigran II the Great in the first century BC. In
15Armenian society ever since, that final century before the beginning of
16Christianity has been celebrated. Although it was brief compared to the
17much longer historical epochs in later history, it became crucially important
18to the national self-image. Under Tigran II Armenia enjoyed an indepen-
19dence that permitted the growth of wealth, culture and civilization, before 20111 the country became a long-term battleground for the Roman (later the
21Byzantine), Persian and, in the following millennium, the Russian and
22Turkish empires. But even as the Romans imposed their law and values on
23the country, the single most important turning point for the Armenian iden-
24tity was reached: the official conversion of the entire people to Christianity.
25This took place early in the fourth century, in the year 301 AD according to
26the tradition of the Armenian Church. In the sixth century the church
27 rejected the authority of the Council of Chalcedon and became the
28Armenian Apostolic (Gregorian) Church, an autonomous branch of the
29world church.
30111 The culture laid heavy stress on these historical facts, so that the words 31 ‘Christian’, ‘first’ and ‘unique’ are embedded in the core of Armenian 32 mentality. Living on the edge of the Christian world among Muslim
33communities, Armenians used religion to set themselves apart symbolically
34from their neighbours. As the centuries passed, it was the Church, according
35to the Armenians’ strong belief, that preserved the nation and its culture
36from assimilation into the societies of a succession of overbearing military
37conquerors. Within Armenia’s ‘web of significance’, the Church was the one
38social institution that could resist one alien rulership after another, thereby
39preserving the psychological identity and cultural integrity of the scattered 40111 local communities both inside the homeland and abroad.
41The chapter by Boghos Levon Zekiyan reflects upon the significance of
42Christianity in Armenian history for the formation of the national ideology
43and the integrated perception, world-wide, of a single identity. Armenians
44themselves tend to assume that their early conversion to Christianity deter- 45111 mined an irreversible, permanent orientation to the West. But as Zekiyan
4 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 points out, being between West and East is a more complex matter than one
2of merely choosing an affiliation in a bi-polar world, because everyone,
3everywhere, has to deal realistically with their neighbours. In practice, there-
4fore, the relationship has always been three-dimensional: Armenia and
51111 Armenians have continually functioned as a channel and intermediary,
6adapting, assimilating and transmitting among the great diversity of peoples
7and cultures with which they came into contact. The distinctive Armenian
8culture and identity emerged from that process of synthesis.
9 |
The adoption of Christianity was quickly followed by a second key |
10111 |
moment in the evolution of a distinct Armenian identity: the invention |
11(circa 400) of the Armenian alphabet and the subsequent development of an
12Armenian literary tradition. Even though the pivotal events took place a 13111 millennium and a half ago, Armenian society still recalls with pride the
14‘Golden Age’ of the fifth to the seventh centuries, with its ground-breaking
15contributions to religion, philosophy and the arts made at a very early stage.
16 |
The flowering of Armenia ended with the devastating Arab invasion in |
17 |
the seventh century. Despite alien rule over the following centuries, |
18Armenians recall the Bagratuni (from the ninth to the eleventh centuries)
19and the Cilician Armenian kingdoms (from the eleventh to the fourteenth 20111 centuries) as possessing limited political autonomy that permitted a second
21flowering of artistic and cultural expression. The result was the temporary
22emergence of splendid architecture and miniature painting encouraged by
23royal and ecclesiastical patronage. But with the loss of the last bastion of
24self-government in Cilicia, Armenia for many centuries ceased to function as
25a politically organized structure and survived in the homeland only as a
26cultural community. Living on territory divided between great powers that
27were frequently engaged in fighting each other and repeatedly smashing
28whatever stood in their way, Armenians were sustained by little more than
29their language, their religion and their memories. Not surprisingly, it became 30111 the custom to express Armenian identity in terms of conflict with foreign
31aggressors and struggle to preserve the nation’s character despite alien,
32 |
infidel domination. |
33 |
Invasions by the Seljuks (in the eleventh century), the Mongols (thir- |
34 |
teenth century) and the Emir Timur (fourteenth century) were followed |
35 |
by the Ottoman–Safavid wars of the sixteenth and early seventeenth |
36centuries. Caught up in the appalling conduct of the successive waves of
37marauding soldiers, many Armenians simply fled, became political
38refugees, and tried to build new lives wherever they could. Their global
39wanderings precipitated the formation of an Armenian diaspora, with
40111 colonies scattered, by the end of the seventeenth century, across the
41Mediterranean, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia
42and the Indian Ocean.
43 |
In the diaspora, Armenians were forced into a distinctive social situation. |
44 |
They lived locally, but they were not native; they belonged, but they were |
45111 |
also foreign. They acquired a status ‘betwixt and between’ nations and |
Introduction 5
11111 cultures, which meant that they were often called upon to act as cross-
2cultural brokers in economic and other dealings. Many of them became
3long-distance merchants. Of necessity they became mobile, adaptable and
4pragmatic. The effect was an early and successful encounter with modernity,
51111 |
in the form of the humanist and rationalist culture of the European |
6 |
Enlightenment. The early adoption of printing, the foundation of the |
7Uniate order of the Mekhitarists in Constantinople in 1700, and the publi-
8cation of the first Armenian periodical in India, where Armenian merchant
9 |
colonies were under strong British influence, all mark a decisive engagement |
10111 |
with West European intellectualism. As the new ideas spread around the |
11world during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, permeating one
12scattered pocket of Armenians after another, communities were first reinvig- 13111 orated and then inspired to build stronger mutual links both with one
14another and with the ancestral homeland. The cultural surge that followed is
15sometimes described as the veratznund, the rebirth.
16Even so, Armenians stepped into the nineteenth century a divided people.
17Each group was stamped with the culture, language and lifestyle of their
18particular overlords or, in the case of the many living in the diaspora, their
19hosts. Western Armenia, the main part of the historical homeland, was 20111 Ottoman, or Turkish; Eastern Armenia was initially Persian, although most
21of it subsequently became Russian as the Tsars expanded their conquests in
22the region. As the rulers of the imperial powers played out their barbaric
23‘great game’ in the South Caucasus, the Armenians and other people who
24happened to live on their chessboard suffered the real sacrifice as each piece
25was won or lost. Property was systematically looted, lives were ruined or
26abruptly ended, local economies were carelessly wrecked, residential neigh-
27bourhoods were smashed apart, self-reliant people were turned into pathetic
28asylum seekers.
29Meanwhile, the industrial revolution in Western Europe brought about an 30111 even more rapid acceleration of political and social change across the world
31as the nineteenth century developed. Democratic theories of government and
32the modern conception of nationhood were rapidly spread by new communi-
33cations technology. Such progressive ideas flourished even while the colonial
34 empires subjugated much of Asia and Africa and industrial capitalism
35reduced newly urbanized peasants to the deepest poverty. The contradictory
36trends reached into the lives of people all over the world. The chapter by
37Aram Arkun assesses the impact of these changes, focusing on the way in
38which the world around them between 1800 and 1913 affected the lives of the
39homeland Armenians and triggered the formation of a new identity.
40111 |
All three ruling elites of the Caucasus – Ottoman, Persian and Russian – |
41found during the nineteenth century that they had to respond to the even
42more energetic imperialists of Western Europe by modernizing themselves.
43This they did with varying degrees of success by reforming and adapting
44their military, political and economic structures to allow them to compete in 45111 the modern world. Throughout their empires, they began to build up
6 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 centralized institutions and more effective administrative procedures. For the
2subject peoples this reform meant more direct intervention from central
3 |
government. The impact was more often malign than benign and bore down |
4 |
most heavily on marginal, disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, among |
51111 |
them Christian Armenians living next to often hostile Muslim communities. |
6In his account of the condition of Armenian groups in the homeland in this
7period, Arkun shows that although there were substantial differences in
8 |
respect of political status and living conditions between the Ottoman, |
9 |
Persian and Russian empires, and between the urban middle class and the |
10111 |
rural poor, Armenians everywhere continued to experience discrimination |
11and hardship even if the extent of it varied. Among Armenian historians the
12nineteenth century has been viewed as a dark period in Armenian political, 13111 social and economic history, at least for homeland Armenians.
14 |
At the same time, however, the nineteenth century is known as a time of |
15awakening, a zartonk. Arkun argues that even though the homeland popula-
16tion was profoundly divided by the militarized frontiers that separated the
17imperial powers, it nevertheless managed to retain and even to promote its
18own cultural unity. The foundation for this achievement was the shared
19written language. Wherever Armenians lived, they managed to teach it to 20111 their children by one means or another, and for everyone it was sustained
21and continually renewed in vernacular books and newspapers. By the second
22half of the century, newspapers in the national language became available in
23 virtually all Armenian communities. For the first time ever it became
24possible to exchange information, to disseminate new political ideas, and to
25hold a genuine national debate. The eventual result was the formation of a
26consensual understanding of national identity, complete with modern polit-
27 ical aspirations of territorial sovereignty and economic hopes for
28government-led prosperity. This reconstruction of the Armenian identity is
29interpreted by Arkun as a transformation in the character of the national 30111 myth. Armenian identity, formerly a cultural romanticism, became a real-
31istic nationalist project, calling for political action. His chapter ‘Into the
32Modern Age, 1800–1913’ describes the difficult, multifaceted and painful
33process whereby an Armenian nation in the modern sense was formed. As
34he points out, it is a remarkable story. Nearly two thousand years of frag-
35mentation and subjugation did not prevent the Armenian people from
36 entering the twentieth century with a surviving language, religion and
37culture, an organized political movement, a coherent national ideology and
38a drive to be united and independent.
39 |
The human cost of all the attempts to bring such ambitions to life was |
40111 |
very high. The story of the Armenians in the nineteenth century is a |
41sequence of different acts of desperation. There were attempts to find allies,
42only to be deceived by all of them. There were uprisings followed immedi-
43ately by reprisals and subsequently by long periods of repression. And there
44were waves of massacres, the most serious of which took place in the eastern 45111 provinces of the Ottoman Empire between 1895 and 1909. As many as
Introduction 7
11111 200,000 people were killed in a terrifying series of assaults, and it is gener- 2 ally agreed by historians that between 60,000 and 100,000 people who 3 managed to dodge the knives and bullets took the radical decision to
4emigrate.
51111 |
The dreadful human cost notwithstanding, the uprisings of the late nine- |
6 |
teenth century did produce significant political gains. By 1900 a new |
7diplomatic catchphrase, ‘the Armenian Question’, had been added to the
8 |
factors determining each round of the ongoing game played by the imperial |
9 |
powers with the lives, land and property of the peoples of the Caucasus. |
10111 |
Henceforth it would always be understood that the Armenians should no |
11longer be treated as uncomplaining pawns in the game. They were still
12losers, but they had become troublesome. That meant that a decision would 13111 have to be made about the future political status of the Armenian-populated
14territories. Finding themselves entangled perforce in the high politics of
15great-power rivalry in the closing years of the nineteenth century and the
16early years of the twentieth, the Armenians placed their trust and hope in
17the governments of Western Europe and Russia. These soon proved to be
18misplaced. In 1915 the world watched almost in silence the first genocide of
19the century, the mass murder of the Armenians of Ottoman Turkey. In the 20111 space of a few months, approximately one-and-a-half million Armenians
21were killed and the rest of the population was forcibly expelled, most of
22them southward towards Syria. It was one of the most horrific instances of
23ethnic cleansing in recent history. It instantly became the most significant
24factor in Armenian identity in the twentieth century, and in the longer term
25it caused general immiseration, mass displacement and emigration even
26from non-Ottoman parts of the Caucasus, and the loss of a huge part of the
27homeland under the terms of the eventual political settlement.
28The Genocide’s psychological and social effects on the generations of
29Armenians after the First World War were similar to those of the Nazi holo- 30111 caust on the generations of Jews that came after the Second World War. The
31 immediate impact on the surviving population consisted of traumatic
32emotional distress. Over time this became a sense of having been victimized,
33combined with a strong sensitivity to issues of morality and justice. Ethnic
34identity, which had been gradually declining in importance as mental hori-
35 zons expanded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was forced
36violently back into the centre of self-consciousness for all those who called
37themselves Armenians. That process created a social boundary around the
38group, sharply defined, and giving a heightened importance to the distinc-
39tion between ‘us’ and ‘them’. In relation to both these issues – identity and 40111 identification – strong forms of social pressure emerged spontaneously, and
41as time passed they became generally accepted and firmly noted. Children
42were told the hideous story of the Genocide, and repeatedly retold it. As the
43event became generally known in all parts of the diaspora, the Genocide
44became the main integrating force for the Armenian nation and continued in 45111 that role throughout the twentieth century.
8 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 The 1915 Genocide also shaped the Armenian nation’s continuing
2imagery of the world immediately surrounding it. The Turks were con-
3 |
structed as an enemy group, forever dangerous, with their state pictured as |
4 |
an oppressive, backward-looking power regardless of the transformation |
51111 |
brought about by revolution in the years following the Great War. In order |
6 |
to balance this negative image, it was cognitively necessary that Russia, |
7Turkey’s historic adversary, should be seen positively. The empirical contra-
8 |
dictions produced by the mental logic were, and are, consciously tolerated. |
9 |
Although some political parties, such as the Armenian Revolutionary |
10111 |
Federation, never accepted the seventy years of Soviet rule over Armenia, |
11they nevertheless shared the widely held belief that Moscow could be relied
12upon for protection. Armenians were apt to point out that the Russians 13111 possessed a similar religious tradition to their own. And if that were not
14sufficient to produce political harmony, Russian strategic logic could always
15be expected to persuade them to see Armenians as the natural guardians of
16their southern frontier.
17 |
The seven years between 1914 and 1921 brought an intense sequence of |
18 |
profound events for Armenians, covered in this book by Richard |
19 |
Hovannisian. Asking first what happened to the Armenian people under the |
20111 |
shadow of the First World War, and then how it happened and why, he sets |
21out the historical logic, political circumstances and ramifications of the
22Genocide and the Russian Revolution. The chapter takes the reader through
23the labyrinthine politics of the many states involved in the region’s affairs.
24Defeated by the Allied armies the Ottoman Empire collapsed, to be replaced
25in the 1920s by the secular nationalist Republic of Turkey. Tsarist Russia
26itself, all but beaten by the German army, was falling apart as it unsuccess-
27fully fought the revolutionaries in the domestic arena. Nevertheless, the
28armies of both powers continued to lay waste to the Caucasus in spite of
29their domestic distractions. At the same time, the United States, Great 30111 Britain and France, victorious and powerful, intervened in the region almost
31casually, with vacillating policies and actions conceived on the basis of
32 |
shifting perceptions and inconsistent promises. |
33 |
In the midst of all these self-interested outsiders, Armenian politicians |
34persisted in efforts to seize control of events. They were united in their aspi-
35ration to gain independence, but they were divided on every other issue and
36faced a chronic lack of resources. The clashes of the various outside forces
37were having a devastating effect on the people on the ground. In the short
38time between 1914 and 1921 ethnic Armenians were swept completely out of
39the main territories of their historical home, suffering massive human and 40111 material losses in the process. Hundreds of thousands were driven out, even-
41tually to join the refugee diaspora that by then was already spread all over
42the world.
43 |
The Russian revolution of 1917 forced the Tsarist army to withdraw from |
44 |
the region, opening a window of opportunity through which an independent |
45111 |
Republic of Armenia could be proclaimed. Leaders of the surviving |
Introduction 9
11111 Armenians gathered in Yerevan and did just that, in 1918. Initially,
2Armenia’s first government for more than a thousand years was able to
3 |
assume control of a substantial territory. They combined the Russian part of |
4 |
Eastern Armenia with the eastern half of Turkish Armenia, because since |
51111 |
1916 that region had been under Russian army control. But the fledgling |
6state could deploy only ramshackle defences, both military and diplomatic.
7Faltering against Turkish army attacks and the cynical manoeuvrings of
8Western diplomacy, Armenian jurisdiction was gradually reduced to a small,
9 |
landlocked zone at the very eastern reaches of the ancient homeland. In 1920 |
10111 |
it was yet again reconquered, this time by triumphant Communists from |
11Russia who had formed a tactical alliance with the ‘Young Turk’ government
12in Istanbul. Armenia’s self-governing regime gave way to the Bolsheviks, and 13111 the border was redrawn around a small land area that significantly excluded
14the ethnic enclave of mountainous Karabagh to the east.
15The account of all these events by Richard Hovannisian opens up all the
16complexities of the brief period of independent government and its impact
17on Armenian identity. He argues that the Armenians living in the diaspora
18saw it quite differently from the people who actually lived in Armenia, a
19difference that has persisted since. The diaspora was made up of people who 20111 migrated in the aftermath of the massacres of 1894–1909, together with
21survivors of the 1915 Genocide and a steady flow of economic migrants
22from Western Armenia. For all these people, the homeland meant the
23Armenia of the Ottoman Empire, around the biblical Mount Ararat and
24 Lake Van. Few Western Armenians saw the Russian part of Eastern
25Armenia as a homeland that they could identify with.
26But for Armenians who lived in Armenia, the declaration of the First
27Republic was the fulfilment of the dreams of centuries, however tiny the new
28state might be. The newly elected government quickly created a new judicial
29system, introduced a national currency and a progressive income tax, and 30111 despite all its financial, social and military problems it managed to launch
31 an educational infrastructure designed to resemble Western models of
32universal and secular education. An example was the foundation of the
33nation’s first university, based on the most advanced principles, including
34gender equality.
35Despite the short lifespan of the independent republic, its two years of
36 freedom exerted a disproportionate impact on Armenia’s identity.
37Henceforth the self-image was to be that of a modern progressive nation
38with a mature political consensus, which could and should establish its own
39institutions of government on the basis of democracy and civil society. 40111 These assumptions were given a second chance to come true in the late
411980s, when Armenia once again took the path to independence, this time
42from the Soviet Communist regime. In the spirited debates on constitution-
43building and public policy, the vivid memory of the stillborn achievements
44of the first Republic of Armenia became a source of inspiration and ambi- 45111 tion for masses of the homeland’s people.
10 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 |
In his chapter on Soviet Armenia, Ronald Grigor Suny argues that, given |
2the pitiful condition of the surviving homeland, Armenians in 1920 faced a
3stark choice between Soviet control and emigration. By that time 30 per cent
4 |
of the population of the republic had been lost to migration and premature |
51111 |
death, and half of the remaining 60 per cent were themselves refugees. The |
6country was without an organized middle class and it lacked a mature set of
7economic, political and social institutions. Armenia therefore entered its
8 |
Soviet period as a society thrown back to its pre-capitalist agrarian |
9 |
economy. Inevitably it became a dependent republic on the periphery of the |
10111 |
big empire ruled from Moscow. |
11 |
In broad outline, Armenia’s seventy-year Soviet experience between 1921 |
12 |
and 1991 was necessarily similar to that of all the other nations in the |
13111 |
Union. Lenin’s inaugural policy of War Communism eased into the more |
14moderate New Economic Policy but then gave way to Stalin’s brutality,
15displayed first in his collectivization programme and then in the terror
16known as the Great Purges. There followed the Second World War, in which
17Hitler’s savage army was halted, at profound cost, at Stalingrad just north of
18the Caucasus. With the war over, the Soviet economy began to boom and
19Stalinism eventually passed away. A post-Stalin thaw marked the USSR at 20111 its peak of success under Khrushchev, although his regime gave way to a
21generation of stagnant leadership from Brezhnev. Finally, Mikhail Gorba-
22chev’s unsuccessful attempt to modernize the Communist system in its final
23decade ended with the inward collapse of the federal authority in 1991.
24From beginning to end, the regime’s ideological extremism made it authori-
25tarian, militaristic, rigid, arbitrary and often cruel, even though it always
26attempted in its ponderous fashion to implement intellectual, scientific,
27socialist and other civilized values.
28 |
However, a conventionally critical account such as this understates the |
29 |
many positive aspects of the Soviet Union’s seventy-year impact on the |
30111 |
human, social and economic affairs of the world’s largest country. In nearly |
31 |
all its regions, Soviet rule brought four successive generations of rapid |
32 |
economic growth. As wealth expanded, entire new cities and industries were |
33 |
created, massive infrastructure facilities were constructed, and a large |
34proportion of the people were educated to world-class levels. At the same
35time, new libraries, museums, galleries and concert halls were provided free
36of charge, and literature, the arts and the sciences were actively promoted.
37Impressive strides were also made in such fields as health care and techno-
38logical innovation.
39 |
Despite the uniformity in overall Soviet policy towards the republics, they |
40111 |
retained and in some ways actively cultivated their own individuality. In the |
41chapter ‘Soviet Armenia, 1921–91’ Ronald Suny reflects on the particular
42Armenian experience of Soviet rule, surveying its outcome and assessing its
43impact on the national mentality of the people living in Soviet Armenia. He
44argues that although the Soviet regime was temperamentally anti-nationalist, 45111 its choice of policy actually gave rise to a strong feeling of territorial nation-
Introduction 11
11111 alism. The various nations were encouraged to cultivate a ‘self’ while simul-
2taneously keeping all political, ideological and social issues entirely separate
3from it. Precisely because they were forbidden as Soviet citizens to draw on
4anything current or politically sensitive when choosing what to do to cele-
51111 brate their ‘national day’ and similar events, the people of each nation
6searched in their past, real or imagined, for ways to keep their collective self-
7 image alive. They developed a taste for talk of ethnic origin, traditional
8religion, past golden ages, and their love of their geographical homeland.
9 |
In the case of Armenia this focus on history provided the most efficient |
10111 |
choice of fuel for a nationalist fire. That fire was intensified for teenagers |
11by the impact of schools that taught in the medium of the Armenian lang-
12uage, and for older students by the cultural activities of the many higher 13111 educational establishments. When the relaxed period of the 1960s arrived,
14many of the picturesque old Armenian churches were restored. In their new
15splendour they had to be regarded as heritage sites rather than as build-
16ings for worship, but even so they helped to contribute to a growing cultural
17self-awareness.
18These things were sufficiently subsidized by the USSR in order to provide
19for its assortment of national cultures and to keep each one pure and 20111 distinct. Nationalism of this culture-oriented, non-political kind is very
21different from the assertion of sovereignty-as-citizenship that characterizes
22nationalism in democracies. Concerned as it is with ‘blood and belonging’, it
23brushes aside all the differences of thought and diversities of taste within a
24group, in favour of raw feelings. As a result, when Armenia rebelled against
25the Soviet regime in 1988, culture and territory became the rallying-cry for
26the masses, whose nationalist passions were at their strongest in relation to
27the ethnic enclave of Mountainous Karabagh.
28For a whole generation, Soviet policy on the issue of the lost lands of
29Western Armenia was subordinated to broader foreign policy interests. Lenin 30111 supported the Young Turk government, which meant that the Armenian
31territorial claim had to be brushed aside. The 1921 Treaties of Kars and
32Moscow formalized the loss. The uncompromising strictness of the USSR’s
33early policy meant not only that mention of Western Armenia was erased
34from international diplomacy, but also that both the Armenian Question and
35even the Genocide became taboo within the USSR. Censorship ensured not
36just that school textbooks ignored these topics, but that all other publications
37did so as well. From the 1920s until the 1950s, anyone who dared to speak
38out in public was labelled an ‘enemy of the people’, then eliminated. An
39entire generation of Armenians grew up under these conditions between the
40111 two world wars, knowing little about what had happened in Western
41Armenia only two decades earlier. The Soviet propaganda machine had
42successfully engineered their historical and social understanding. Their igno-
43rance of their own people’s very recent history made Western Armenia seem
44remote, and the Genocide seem like a minor event. Both became peripheral 45111 to the national self-image of people in Armenia.
12 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 However, the warmth of the relationship between Moscow and
2Istanbul did not last long and cooled to freezing point during the Second
3World War. In 1945 the Soviet government formally declared a claim to
4 |
historic Armenian lands and demanded a revision of the Soviet–Turkish |
51111 |
border. This U-turn in foreign policy was quickly followed by a corre- |
6 |
sponding U-turn in domestic policy. Genocide was inserted into the |
7 |
history textbooks, academic publications were granted permission to |
8tackle the subject (provided they did not question the self-serving official
9 |
line on the Russian role in events) and in subsequent decades a handful of |
10111 |
prominent writers duly took up the subject. A better-informed generation |
11grew up, sufficiently numerous and confident by 1965 to crowd the streets
12of Yerevan in the first-ever demonstration demanding that the USSR 13111 should make an issue of the Armenian Question in its foreign policy. That
14event signalled the beginning of a new phase in Armenian nationalism.
15From then on, the self-image of the people of the homeland compelled
16them to seek ways to take action on the linked issues of Genocide recogni-
17tion and land restoration.
18 |
A different pattern had been formed among Armenian families who had |
19 |
settled in other countries. In her chapter on the diaspora, Susan Pattie exam- |
20111 |
ines the outlook of the distant Armenians today, and explains why it is that |
21many of them have remained emotionally tied to the national idea to such
22an extent that each generation cannot avoid transmitting an equal fervour to
23its children. That might seem paradoxical when nearly all of these people
24live in different countries and owe loyalty to the governments of those coun-
25tries. They have diverse lifestyles and speak other languages primarily or
26exclusively. Some even conduct all their relationships within networks that
27do not contain other Armenians. Pattie argues that the emotional link
28between all these disparate individuals was created by the 1915 Genocide,
29and she describes the social fabric of the communities that they have estab- 30111 lished since that time. Although by 1915 some of the communities had
31already been established in countries like Syria, Iran and India for over
32seventeen hundred years, the ethnic cleansings of the late nineteenth century
33and especially during the Great War threw up a tidal wave of refugees. The
34wave flooded the established diaspora with new arrivals, who then changed
35the way that the older residents thought about themselves.
36 |
Since that time nearly every Armenian family outside the homeland has |
37either itself experienced a first-hand memory of a politically motivated
38death, loss or trauma, or knows others who have. That consciousness of the
391915 killings and related horrors, universally shared, has held together the 40111 group identity; it is now the essence of ‘Armenianness’. Given that shared
41consciousness, the logical implication has been to assert demands for inter-
42national recognition of the fact that the Genocide actually took place and
43for apologies to be made by those who can speak for the perpetrators.
44Sometimes there have also been additional demands for compensation for 45111 the families of the victims, and restitution of the stolen lands. Regardless of
Introduction 13
11111 whether or not a campaign for such goals can have a realistic prospect of
2success, it does have a powerful role in maintaining the group identity.
3 |
The short-term trauma of the Genocide was followed for a much longer |
4 |
period by the sense of vulnerability that always afflicts people on the move. |
51111 |
Before most survivors finally settle down, they will have made three or four |
6unsuccessful attempts to find a secure environment elsewhere. The practical
7uncertainty of refugee life has provoked a generalized anxiety in the minds
8of the expatriates, causing them to feel as if they are constantly threatened,
9 |
even in the many countries where they are in fact secure. For even, say, the |
10111 |
Parisians or Californians among them, it is a source of reassurance to be |
11 |
constantly in touch with fellow exiles whose situation is similar, which |
12 |
means that an ongoing community life has to be cultivated and serviced. |
13111 |
The chapter ‘Armenians in Diaspora’ describes how that is done, through |
14family ties, the Church, political parties, cultural organizations, and clubs
15and social networks.
16To keep a community going in a foreign environment, Armenians have
17 had to constantly redefine the group boundaries and adjust them to
18changing circumstances, such as the gradual assimilation of the younger
19generation into the host culture. The effect is that, in the diaspora, questions 20111 that can be taken for granted in Armenia itself, such as who belongs and
21 |
what it is that they belong to, become matters of endless debate. In response, |
22 |
as Pattie observes, the definition of ‘Armenianness’ has undergone a |
23 |
sequence of transformations. At first it was thought to be objective, a matter |
24 |
of blood lines or inherited genes: if you or your parents were born |
25Armenian, you were perforce Armenian. Then the stress moved to the
26culture, in the form of things that could be taught and learned. If people
27really belonged, they would speak the language, they would know their
28 |
country’s history, and above all their lives would be devoted to their |
29 |
extended families. That phase evolved into an ideological choice. It became |
30111 |
sufficient that Armenianness be demonstrated by taking part in community |
31 |
activities and attending the Church. And in the most recent past, the |
32emphasis has moved on to entirely subjective factors, removing altogether
33any need for external evidence. To be an Armenian now, it is enough that
34one be conscious that one is. In the pithy phrase of Anny Bakalian, cited in
35the chapter, identity has shifted from a matter of being Armenian to feeling
36Armenian.
37This succession of changes has been less marked in the settlements of the
38Middle East, where Armenians have always been noticeably different from
39everyone else because religion remained a key marker of difference between 40111 communities. It is in the Western countries, with their long-standing tradi-
41tions of individualism and of actively integrating the foreign-born into a
42secular unity of politics and culture, that the progressive evolution in how
43the group is defined has been so noticeable.
44The meaning of the ‘homeland’ proved to be similarly controversial in the 45111 diaspora communities, especially during the forty-year Cold War after 1945.
14 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 For most Armenians, the sight of a dependent republic that had virtually 2 disappeared into the mighty USSR signalled an end to their hope of
3returning one day to the independent state they dreamed about, united
4 |
within its traditional borders. For others, whatever the political regime and |
51111 |
however uninspiring the current circumstances, their duty remained: they |
6must support their land of origin and keep in close touch with it. But even
7for those who stayed loyal to their identity throughout the history of the
8USSR, the Soviet Union’s version of Armenia was perceived less as the
9nation’s true heartland than as a poor relation in need of handouts and
10111 |
protection. |
11 |
However, the 1991 formation of an independent state brought drastic |
12 |
change to the Armenian identity, both at home and abroad. With the |
13111 |
collapse of the Soviet Union coinciding with the end of the Cold War, a |
14truly independent homeland became available to all Armenians whether
15they were living in the territory or not. For the second time in the twentieth
16century, they had to reshape their mental world to take that into account.
17The last six chapters of this volume examine how that reshaping was done,
18with each contributor examining a different aspect of the experience of the
19new state’s first, critical, decade of self-reliance. Unexpectedly, the initial ten 20111 years of freedom turned out to be harsh, difficult and violent – a circum-
21stance that was vividly reflected in the startling growth of the diaspora. The
22global expatriate Armenian community expanded faster through emigration
23from the homeland in the 1990s than at any time since the First World War.
24 |
The many crises that independence brought to the new Armenia actually |
25began years before Gorbachev and Yeltsin orchestrated the death throes of
26the Soviet Union. The first one was provoked by intense nationalism. As the
27rigid grip of central government was progressively relaxed, an emotional
28 |
wave of feeling about ‘correcting the error of history’ swept through |
29 |
Armenia. This slogan referred to a 1921 decision of the Soviet rulers in |
30111 |
Moscow to include Karabagh within the borders of Azerbaijan, regardless |
31of the fact that most of its population was ethnic Armenian. Feeling gave
32rise to action, and in February 1988 the Karabagh Movement held a mass
33demonstration that filled the streets of central Yerevan in spite of the winter
34cold. The assembly was the largest in the history of the USSR, the demon-
35strators all wanting to give support to the claims of the Armenian people of
36the mountainous Karabagh region of Azerbaijan to ‘self-determination’, by
37which they meant irredentism: separation from Azerbaijan followed by
38unification with Armenia.
39 |
The Karabagh Movement met immediate resistance from both |
40111 |
Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union, resistance that caused it to add a new goal |
41and thereby change its nature: it became a political campaign against the
42Soviet regime. The movement’s leaders took control of Armenia in 1990,
43declared independence from Moscow rule in 1991, and assumed command
44of the Armenian troops that became involved in violent conflict with Azeri 45111 forces in and around Karabagh itself between 1992 and 1994. The result was
Introduction 15
11111 that the new Armenian state was born into both political and popular
2confusion. The campaign for a free Karabagh had become intermingled
3with the campaign for a free Armenia to such a degree that it was difficult
4for ordinary people to distinguish one from the other. The Karabagh issue
51111 brought war; the Armenian issue brought the transition: a massive
6programme of state-building, economic transformation, social change, ideo-
7logical reversals and, along with all of that, intense societal pain. Ordinary
8people were left to deal with everything on the list at the same time.
9 |
The chapter by Marina Kurkchiyan is specifically focused on the |
10111 |
Karabagh issue. She sets out the historical background and shows how the |
11conflict escalated from a domestic dispute between citizens of the same state
12upwards to diplomatic confrontation between sovereign governments and 13111 then on to active warfare. In 1994 Karabagh was liberated by volunteer
14 |
fighters who succeeded not only in ejecting the Azeri authorities both from |
15 |
the province itself and from a strip of territory known as the Lachin |
16 |
Corridor linking it to Armenia, but also in conquering a substantial area of |
17 |
Azerbaijani territory. Their victory was made possible by unstinting, |
18 |
although strictly unofficial, supplies of personnel and equipment from |
19 |
Armenia. |
20111 |
The war ended in a fragile ceasefire in 1994 followed by protracted nego- |
21tiations that dragged on; they had not reached a settlement by early 2004.
22The ceasefire froze the conflict in favour of the Armenians, who were left in
23control of the Karabagh district and a substantial part of Azerbaijan. The
24cost to Armenia was relatively light in immediate military terms, but crip-
25pling in terms of the wider economic perspective. The government in Baku
26secured the collaboration of Turkey in imposing a total blockade on their
27respective Armenian borders. The closure of roads, railways, gas pipelines
28and electricity supplies across the two major borders not only made the
29country unduly dependent on the few remaining transport links that ran 30111 through Georgia, but also directly intensified the already severe economic
31hardships being caused by the transition. Meanwhile, Karabagh declared its
32independence, a symbolic gesture which did not lead to recognition by any
33state, even Armenia itself. The leadership in Stepanakert nevertheless set
34about constructing the official institutions of a national capital and by 1995
35its presidency and parliament presided over an elaborate, if flimsy, national
36administration.
37The military struggle over Karabagh made a powerful impression on the
38Armenian self-image. The earliest calls for self-determination in 1988 had
39provoked a hostile public reaction in Azerbaijan, rapidly expressed in a 40111 pogrom against the community of ethnic Armenians living in the Caspian
41industrial town of Sumgait. Several lesser incidents followed in Baku and
42elsewhere, and many families fled to Armenia. The news was flashed to
43Armenia and, as reports spread across the country, the perceived danger of
44a second genocide moved towards the ideological centre of the national 45111 movement. It was Turks, not Azeris, who had long been bogeymen in the
16 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 Armenian popular mind on the basis of past experience. But in reaction to
2Sumgait, Azeris were labelled ‘Turks’ and the distinctions between different
3Turkish-speaking nations were forgotten. Although the Sumgait atrocity was
4 |
localized, it was nevertheless savage. That fact led to its being readily |
51111 |
portrayed as a renewal of the massacres in Western Armenia of seventy |
6years earlier. In Stepanakert, Yerevan and expatriate communities around
7the world ancient feelings of vulnerability once again took hold.
8 |
However, on this occasion the sense of victimization lasted for only a |
9short time. It subsided progressively in the early 1990s with Armenian
10111 successes on the battlefield. The post-Sumgait righteousness faded in
11parallel. Initial black-and-white assumptions about Armenians and Azeris
12blurred into grey as it became ever more apparent that soldiers on both sides 13111 were equally capable of committing horrific acts. When the eventual cease-
14 fire left them not just in full control of Karabagh but also in military
15occupation of Azerbaijani land well beyond it, Armenians found themselves
16in a novel position: they were being called aggressors. This left no room in
17 their self-image for the role of victim. Among the Armenians of the
18Caucasus, though not for those of the diaspora, that self-empowerment
19removed the symbolism of the Genocide. The great tragedy of 1915 was still 20111 seen as a horrific act that should be apologised for by the Turkish govern-
21ment and acknowledged by the world, and for that reason it continued to be
22stressed in Armenia’s foreign policy. But the victory over Karabagh took
23away its emotional significance as a component of identity. Armenians were
24no longer losers; from now on, they were winners. Within the homeland, the
25rallying-cry of ‘victim’ could no longer serve to whip up popular feelings,
26even though its appeal remained as strong as ever in communities abroad.
27 |
It was not only the successful prosecution of the war with Azerbaijan that |
28altered the composition of the self-image of the people of Armenia in the
291990s; the act of gaining independence itself also had a major impact. The 30111 achievement enabled the Armenian nation to see itself as an independent
31agent, capable of making a significant mark on the world in the here and
32now. That constituted a profound shift from the previous self-perceptions,
33all of which had looked backwards and encouraged contemporary Armenians
34to think of themselves as passive curators of memory and material heritage.
35The emphasis had always been placed on their guardianship of an ancient
36culture, their martyrdom in defence of a classic religion, their sufferings in
37the archetypal Genocide of the twentieth century, their unassertive compli-
38ance as objects of Moscow rule. But from 1988 onwards Armenians were
39transformed into a forward-looking group, fully capable of making their own 40111 decisions and implementing them. The people understood that they had first
41mobilized themselves along ethnic lines to achieve national unity, then they
42had demanded their sovereignty, then they had secured it, then they had
43successfully asserted it.
44 |
Domestically, the immediate impact of the shift in self-image was to raise |
45111 |
expectations to an unrealistic level. People wanted a decent, comfortable and |
Introduction 17
11111 prosperous life, and they assumed that, with the diversions and waste of the
2Cold War out of the way, these things could be provided. In the early years
3this unqualified optimism empowered the leadership to undertake radical
4 |
policies, even when sacrifice would be necessary if the desired improvement |
51111 |
was to be achieved. However, public confidence in firm leadership had a |
6dual implication. Freedom to act boldly was certainly one, but the other was
7 |
that in an independent Armenia performance would form a basis for judge- |
8 |
ment. Furthermore, a full-scale national self-evaluation could take place |
9 |
even while those responsible for any shortcomings were still in office. In |
10111 |
other words, Moscow was not running the country now; Yerevan was. |
11Henceforth, all the power so eagerly granted to the local politicians would
12necessarily be held to account.
13111 From the early 1990s onwards, the people began to pass judgement on 14 their nation’s independent record. Disillusionment immediately set in.
15People began to understand that many of their supposed romantic heroes
16were exhibiting crudely self-interested conduct; that corruption and
17hypocrisy were common in high places; and that, worst of all, actual perfor-
18mance was dismal – in every field of domestic policy. Emotionally, such
19negative features of real life could not be reconciled with the romantic image 20111 that had served as the psychological foundation of the national movement.
21The result was the widespread depression, pessimism, cynicism and apathy
22that dominated the social and political climate of homeland Armenia from
23the mid-1990s onwards. Enthusiastic commitment degenerated into cynical
24alienation.
25In his analysis of Armenian politics in its first decade, Edmund Herzig
26looks closely at the way in which morale in the country declined from its
27high point around 1990. He examines the few successes and many failures of
28the political leadership, and explores the circumstances that turned well-
29regarded public figures into political bankrupts. His chapter outlines the 30111 major political events in Armenia between 1991 and 2004: the controversial
31parliamentary and presidential elections, the constitutional referendum, and
32the presidential resignation of 1997. He describes the political turbulence in
331999–2000 provoked by the assassination of prominent politicians when
34gunmen stormed the parliament in October 1999. Tracing the course of
35political development in post-Soviet Armenia, he comes to the conclusion
36that although there had been some progress towards democracy by the turn
37of the century, overall the record was a disappointment to Armenia’s citi-
38zens. Civil society remained undeveloped, there was no mature political
39structure to represent the interests of party supporters, and members of the
40111 public were not protected from arbitrary actions by the government.
41Ordinary people felt just as much distrust of the politicians as they had in
42the Soviet period.
43Progress in building democratic institutions in contemporary Armenia is
44further scrutinized in Mark Grigorian’s chapter on the media and democ- 45111 racy. He assesses how deeply tolerance and democratic values have become
18 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 embedded in Armenian national ideology and political life by focusing on
2the history, development and current state of the country’s news and enter-
3tainment media. He suggests that the ‘golden age’ of freedom of expression
4 |
occurred between 1990 and 1992, when the popular interest |
in the media’s |
51111 |
output was at its height. The beginning of the decade saw |
a peak in the |
6activity of the unregistered press that had been triggered by the Karabagh
7movement from 1988 onwards. Many uncensored publications appeared,
8driven by the urge to ‘tell the truth’ in contrast to the carefully managed
9news that was put out in the official Soviet press. Known as samizdat, this
10111 unofficial press could certainly be called independent, and it gave an
11authentic voice to nationalist feelings. Being a genuine voice of the people, it
12could also be called democratic. However, it was far from being democratic 13111 in its lack of respect for the voices of minority opinion or for such values as
14 |
tolerance. |
15 |
In 1989 the laws that had imposed controls on the media were relaxed, |
16and soon afterwards the Communists were defeated. The Armenian media
17was then free to turn itself into a viable, professional and independent
18voice. But that could not be done overnight, and each problem that the
19society as a whole went through caused difficulties for radio, TV and the 20111 newspapers. The blockade caused newsprint shortages and the 1992–4
21energy crisis caused an electricity shortage, damaging both printing and
22broadcasting. After 1995 political pressures got worse, particularly in the
23run-up to each election. Nevertheless, the general standard of journalism
24did improve year by year, even though progress was slow. Things were a
25little better by the start of the new century than they had been in 1988, but
26there was still a long way to go towards full professionalism, editorial
27freedom and financial independence.
28 |
However, Grigorian does point to one area of firm ground for optimism. |
29 |
In the 1990s the Armenian public had greater access than ever before to a |
30111 |
variety of news sources, even though most of them were both low quality |
31and biased. The availability of such a wide range of interpretation and
32opinion forced people to choose, and in doing so they unconsciously culti-
33vated a new and more sophisticated understanding of public affairs and even
34developed some tolerance of diversity. To reach a fully mature understanding
35of democracy would take a much longer time, but a start was made. Despite
36 their poverty and the weakness of their democratic institutions, the
37Armenian people began to realize that the national interest was itself a
38pluralist concept, capable of being interpreted differently by separate social
39groups without posing any threat to the fundamental unity of the nation. 40111 Even more important than the press to Armenian politics and national
41identity in the post-independence period was the state of the economy. In
42this book its recent vicissitudes are described by Astghik Mirzakhanyan.
43After reviewing both the modernizing achievements and the bureaucratic
44inefficiencies of the Soviet period, she points out that by the late 1980s 45111 Armenia was considered to be one of the most developed republics in the
|
Introduction 19 |
11111 |
Soviet Union despite its lack of natural resources. It had advanced tech- |
2 |
nology, good infrastructure and a workforce that even by world standards |
3was skilled and well educated. Not surprisingly, Armenians were feeling
4confident when they stepped on to the path towards a free market. They
51111 could justifiably assume that theirs was an advanced nation, capable of
6raising its standard of living to match that of the developed world within a
7short time.
8 |
In the event, the opposite happened. Very quickly, in the years following |
9 |
1990, the country fell into destitution. Mirzakhanyan considers both why |
10111 |
the economy was devastated and what attempts were made to revive it. She |
11argues that an unfortunate coincidence of factors was responsible for the
12disaster. In addition to the problems common to all post-Soviet countries, 13111 such as the shock of privatization and the severance of links to the tightly
14integrated Soviet system, Armenia suffered first from a massive earthquake
15in 1988 and then from an economic blockade imposed by neighbouring
16Azerbaijan and Turkey. The consequences were so destructive that it became
17impossible to recover, at least within the first decade. Mirzakhanyan uses
18statistics and survey data to draw a picture of the hardship and poverty that
19settled across the country in the 1990s. She shows that despite some measure 20111 of success in restructuring the economy and in establishing macroeconomic
21stability during the first half of that period, by 2004 the new government
22had failed to make any tangible improvement in the living standards of ordi-
23nary people.
24Faced with the extreme privation of the 1990s, how did people cope?
25What did they find they had to do in order to feed, clothe and shelter them-
26selves and their families, and how did they manage when they became ill or
27incapacitated? Did the ways in which people were forced to respond to the
28prolonged crisis alter the social structure of the country? To what extent did
29such critical circumstances alter the national self-image? In her chapter on 30111 the nature of Armenian society in transition, Marina Kurkchiyan attempts
31to answer these questions. She argues that history came to the aid of the
32people by suggesting ways that could help them to bear the burden. Over the
33centuries Armenians had built up a tradition of mutual support known as
34networking. This was not founded upon altruism or charity or even good-
35 will. Rather, it was built upon a businesslike reciprocity developed so
36extensively that it enabled society to continue to function even under condi-
37tions that in a different culture might well have reduced normal life to chaos,
38despair and collapse.
39Reciprocity, or networking, originated in the prolonged subjection of the 40111 homeland to foreign rule. Through successive centuries of governance by
41aliens who frequently exploited them, Armenians had learned the need to
42distrust authority in all its forms. They never had enough power to confront
43officialdom with any hope of success, so they cultivated instead ways of
44ignoring it, avoiding it, deceiving it, or working round it wherever they 45111 could. Rather than cooperate actively with officials like police officers,
20 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 department managers, property inspectors and military commanders, they
2made sure that their energies were more constructively directed. They culti-
3vated members of their extended family, their friends, their close colleagues
4 |
and anyone else that they knew they could trust. All of these could be relied |
51111 |
upon to accept a favour and be prepared to return it whenever called upon |
6to do so. At different periods informal networking enabled the people to
7minimize the impact of Ottoman agricultural tithes, Tsarist business levies,
8Persian religious decrees and all the other miseries imposed by whichever
9 |
imperial power was the overlord at the time. Supposedly omnipotent gov- |
10111 |
ernments struggled to enforce their laws in the face of widespread non- |
11cooperation, while an alternative social structure and informal economy
12functioned invisibly below the deceptively passive surface of Armenian
13111 |
society. |
14 |
The seventy years of the Soviet regime changed none of this. The central |
15government’s grand plans, construction projects, resource allocations and
16output targets all proceeded along at the official level, but sluggishly, while
17informal networking enabled food to be supplied to needy families, leaking
18taps to be repaired, and essential surgical procedures to be carried out.
19When the official system collapsed entirely in 1990, in effect the unofficial 20111 system took its place as the principal means of running what little there was
21of a new economy. The desperation felt by most people during the end-of-
22century years of war, blockade and transition served only to strengthen their
23old habits of informal networking. The higher the personal stakes, the more
24important trustworthiness and reliability became.
25 |
The overwhelming dominance of the private sphere over the public |
26sphere in the 1990s had both positive and negative effects. On the positive
27side, the thick social texture woven by the continual flow of personalized
28 |
exchanges worked to absorb the |
shock when all the supportive public |
29 |
services, such as social security, |
pensions, health care and education, |
30111 |
collapsed. Informal networking provided social stability, just as it had |
31centuries before when marauding armies were laying waste to the country.
32But on the negative side the vigour of the networking practices in the 1990s
33 |
encouraged the growth of an informal economy characterized by tax |
34 |
evasion, embezzlement and corruption. |
35 |
That informal economy encouraged, in turn, an explosion of inequality. |
36In the space of just a few years after 1990, the economic collapse and the
37transition from planned economy to free market combined to destroy the
38egalitarianism of the former society and replace it with a polarized struc-
39ture. The malign conjunction of rising unemployment and collapsing 40111 welfare services ruined most of the people who lived in the country, whereas
41a handful of the lucky, the well-connected and the unscrupulous were at the
42same time growing sufficiently rich to enjoy a Western standard of living
43complete with luxury cars, private houses and expensive consumer goods.
44Conscious that the privileges of the new elite had nothing to do with hard 45111 work or personal integrity, but much to do with cheating, corruption and
Introduction 21
11111 theft, the majority began to think of the so-called ‘new Armenians’ as
2‘them’, not ‘us’.
3 |
From that moment, the romantic nationalism of the Karabagh movement |
4 |
began to crumble away, and with it both the emotional unity and the political |
51111 |
self-confidence of the people. An optimistic national self-image could not be |
6sustained once people had taken the mental step of classifying some of their
7fellow citizens as not being proper and worthy Armenians. Clearly a new test
8was being applied to decide who are the ‘we’ among ‘we Armenians’. It was a
9 |
test of something more subtle and less crude than mere ethnicity. The signifi- |
10111 |
cance of this was that within a decade of achieving true independence, |
11homeland Armenians were once again forced by circumstances to re-examine
12their national self-image, and doing so on this occasion shook their self-belief 13111 to its foundations.
14Against all expectations at the time of the USSR’s collapse, it was not a
15case of Armenians from the diaspora pouring into the liberated homeland in
16the hundreds of thousands; the flow was the other way round. In the ten years
17after 1990 a million people – a third of the population of independent Armenia
18– headed abroad in search of a job and a new home. Kurkchiyan argues that
19the emigrants forming this new outward wave were driven away not only by 20111 economic hardship, but also by disappointment, frustration and a sense of
21alienation. In principle, their sudden disillusionment could be reversed, but
22that could only happen in response to positive trends in Armenian politics and
23the active cultivation of an atmosphere of trust between the people and their
24rulers. And as Herzig points out in chapter 9, the tendencies in the first decade
25were rather for Armenian politics to move the other way, towards authoritar-
26ianism, and for trust in the leadership to decline.
27How did the members of the diaspora feel about the newly independent
28Armenia? And how did the relationship between the two evolve and develop
29in the eventful years after the homeland was opened up to direct access by 30111 the diaspora? In the final chapter of this book Razmik Panossian reflects on
31the complexity of the homeland–diaspora interaction and probes into the
32core meaning of ‘Armenianness’ as revealed by the twin perspectives of the
33two branches of the split nation. In analysing the politics of the relationship
34between the Armenian leadership and the diaspora leaders during the first
35decade of independence, he demonstrates that the differences between the
36collective identities of the two entities proved to be much greater than had
37been expected. As he puts it, initial contact between them after 1990 was ‘a
38reluctant embrace, much like distant relations who had become strangers’.
39Each side, homeland and expatriate, had cherished an idealized image of 40111 the other throughout the long years of Cold War isolation without any
41necessity to put the expectation to the test. The lifting of the Soviet Union’s
42solid barriers to free communication also lifted away the illusion. Disillusion
43meant that sometimes the pendulum swung to the other extreme – to an
44unsympathetic focus on the other’s faults and failures. As soon as untram- 45111 melled contact between homeland and diaspora was permitted, it exposed
22 M. Kurkchiyan and E. Herzig
11111 the conflicts of interest, clashing expectations and incompatible values of
2the two communities, rather than reinforcing any sentimental notions of
3brotherhood. The result was that, as the twentieth century came to a close,
4the umbrella of Armenianness began to leak.
51111 Panossian sets out to explore this situation more thoroughly. He looks
6back into history, where he discovers evidence that the sources of the recent
7division between the two groups are long-standing. He points out that, as
8far back as the early nineteenth century, Armenians were organized around
9 |
two different centres that competed with each other in terms of both culture |
10111 |
and ideology. The Western trend, based in Constantinople, now Istanbul, |
11was stimulated by French and Italian liberalism to acquire a reformist
12ideology laced with pragmatism and realism. The Eastern trend was based in 13111 Tiflis, now Tbilisi, and was shaped by the romanticism of Russian and
14German schools of thought and in particular by their revolutionary ideas.
15The two identities, Western and Eastern, were divided by geography and
16evolved separately as parallel rather than integrated leadership groups. By
17the beginning of the twentieth century, the distinction between the two sides
18had become evident in the cultural and nationalist literature of Armenia,
19both in respect of the language used and the distinctive political agendas 20111 formed on either side of the division. After the 1915 Genocide and the
21consequent mass emigration from Western Armenia, the Western aspect of
22Armenian identity became the dominant self-image of the diaspora, whereas
23the Eastern shoot put down roots in Soviet Armenia. The subsequent isola-
24tion during the Soviet period pushed the two groups even further apart.
25 |
Turning to the contemporary identity differences between the homeland |
26and the diaspora, Panossian comes to the conclusion that the concept of
27Armenianness carries different meanings for people in Armenia from those
28it holds for residents of the diaspora. Today the two are recognisably distinct
29cultural entities despite being united by the collective memory of belonging 30111 to the same nation with its rich and extensive history. This situation poses
31serious questions about the future. Is the gap between diaspora and home-
32land likely to widen over time, or might an ongoing interplay between the
33 two parts of the nation lead eventually to their being reunited? Is the
34Republic of Armenia capable of gaining the legitimacy of a genuine home-
35land so that it can either convince its lost citizens to come back or unite
36them on the basis of its own agenda? Will the diaspora continue to sustain
37its internal communications and articulate its own ideological programme,
38or will its members slowly become assimilated into other nations and lose
39interest in Armenia’s cause? More deeply, is nationalism, ethnic or other- 40111 wise, Armenian or any other, on the way to becoming out of date and fading
41into the past of an increasingly globalized world? These are open questions,
42to be decided by history.
43
44
45111