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Abstract
Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis in 2011, almost a fifth of Syrian Armenians in Syria have fled to Armenia. Most of them are descendants of the Armenian Genocide (1915) victims, who found shelter in Syria a century ago. Contrary to expectations on ethnic repatriation, their displacement and attachment to Syria emerge. The study assesses this peculiar case of the origin and return of a ‘traditionally diasporic’ community by combining models offered by diaspora studies with analysis of qualitative research on Syrian Armenian returnees who fled war-torn Syria. Continuing on the pathway initiated with the ‘Great Repatriation’ of Armenian diasporans to Soviet Armenia of 1946, the return to Armenia is a prolonged trajectory of diasporic displacement. Syrian Armenians returning to Armenia experience a conflict-generated diaspora of diaspora in the supposed homeland of Armenia. Explanations include the dissociation between the imagined Armenian homeland and the legally constituted one in present-day Armenia, and between the latter and the motherland of Syria. This challenges the essentialist account of the Armenian diaspora and, ultimately, the hypothesis surrounding Syrian Armenian marginalization and gradual ‘exit strategy’ in Syrian society.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge Professor Marion Maddox and Dr Noah Bassil for their insightful supervision of this research, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their valuable comments and dedication. I would also like to thank the participants and their associations in Armenia for their enthusiasm and engagement in this study.
Notes
1 UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Armenia) estimates that in 2015 17,000 Syrian Armenians have fled to Armenia of the 70,000 Armenians estimated to be in Syria before 2011, http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/latest/2015/8/55cafe526/nansen-legacy-lives-syrian-refugees-armenia.html. On estimated numbers of Armenians in Syria before 2011 see Ayvazyan, Hovhannes (ed.) The Armenian Diaspora. Erevan: Haykakan Hanragitaran Publishing, 2003, p. 508.
2 UNHCR. ‘Global Appeal 2016–2017’, http://www.unhcr.org/ga16/index.xml (accessed November 9, 2016).
3 ‘Armenia shows Europe how to welcome refugees’, Armenpress, November 27, 2015, https://armenpress.am/eng/news/827452/armenia-shows-europe-how-to-welcome-refugees.html (accessed November 30, 2015).
4 Erciyes, Jade Cemre C. ‘Diaspora of Diaspora: Adyge-Abkhaz Returnees in the Ancestral Homeland.’ Diaspora 17, no. 3 (2008): 340–61.
5 Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: an Introduction. London: Routledge, 2008; Safran, William. ‘The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective.’ Israel Studies 10, no. 1 (2005): 36–60; Safran, William. ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return.’ Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1, no. 1 (1991): 83–99.
6 Cohen, Global Diasporas, p. 6.
7 Tsolidis, Georgina (ed.). Migration, Diaspora and Identity: Cross-National Experiences. New York: Springer, 2014, p. 14.
8 Ibid., p. 8.
9 Ibid., p. 213.
10 Ibid., p. 214.
11 Cohen, Global Diasporas, p. 7.
12 Ibid., p. 5.
13 Axel, Brian Keith. ‘Time and Threat: Questioning the Production of the Diaspora as an Object of Study.’ History and Anthropology 9, no. 4 (1996): 415–43, p. 416.
14 Axel, Brian Keith. ‘Digital Figurings of the Unimaginable: Visual Media, Death, and Formations of the Sikh Diaspora.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34, no. 7 (2008): 1145–159.
15 Ibid., p. 1156.
16 Ibid., p. 1157.
17 Baron, Nick, and Peter Gatrell. ‘Population Displacement, State-Building, and Social Identity in the Lands of the Former Russian Empire, 1917–23.’ Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 4, no. 1 (2003): 51–100, p. 51.
18 Ibid., p. 52.
19 Ibid., p. 57.
20 Ibid., p. 58.
21 Erciyes, ‘Diaspora of Diaspora’, p. 341.
22 Koinova, Maria. ‘Can Conflict-generated Diasporas be Moderate Actors during Episodes of Contested Sovereignty? Lebanese and Albanian Diasporas Compared.’ Review of International Studies 37, no.1 (2011): 437–462, p. 438.
23 Shain, Yossi. ‘Jewish Kinship at a Crossroads: Lessons for Homelands and Diasporas.’ Political Science Quarterly 117, no. 2 (2002): 279–309, p. 280.
24 Ibid.
25 Allahar, Anton. ‘More than an Oxymoron: Ethnicity and the Social Construction of Primordial Attachment.’ Canadian Ethnic Studies 26, no. 3 (1994): 18–34, p. 20.
26 Ibid.
27 Hall, Stuart. ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora.’ Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 32 (2012): 223–237, p. 225.
28 Suny, Ronald Grigor. Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993, p. 217.
29 Phinney, Jean S, Horenczyk, Gabriel, Liebkind, Karnela, and Vedder, Paul. ‘Ethnic Identity, Immigration, and Well‐Being: An Interactional Perspective.’ Journal of Social Issues 57, no. 3 (2001): 493–510, p. 495.
30 Panossian, ‘The Past as Nation’, p. 121.
31 Cohen, Global Diasporas, p. 40.
32 Paul, Rachel Anderson. ‘Grassroots Mobilization and Diaspora Politics: Armenian Interest Groups and the Role of Collective Memory.’ Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 6, no. 1 (2000): 24–47, p. 27.
33 Ibid., p. 28.
34 Panossian, Razmik. ‘The Past as Nation: Three Dimensions of Armenian Identity.’ Geopolitics 7, no. 2 (2002): 121–146, p. 137.
35 Ibid., p. 139.
36 Imranli-Lowe, Kamala. ‘Reconstruction of the “Armenian Homeland” Notion.’ Middle Eastern Studies 51, no. 4 (2015): 540–562, p. 541.
37 Ibid., p. 550.
38 Ibid., p. 551.
39 Panossian, ‘The Past as Nation’, p. 136. Other historical indexes are: Armenia as pre-Christian Nation with shared ethnicity and language and the ‘first Christian Nation’.
40 Ibid., p. 137.
41 Tsolidis, Migration; Wald, Kenneth D. ‘Homeland Interests, Hostland Politics: Politicized Ethnic Identity among Middle Eastern Heritage Groups in the United States’. International Migration Review 42, no. 2 (2008): 273–301, p. 275.
42 ‘National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research’, 2007, https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/e72 (accessed January 9, 2017). Ethical and scientific approval granted (August 2016).
43 Places include shops run by Syrian Armenians, cafes and sites of Syrian Armenian associations.
44 Oppenheim, A. N. Questionnaire Design, Interviewing, and Attitude Measurement. London; New York: Martin's Press, 1992. p. 68.
45 One local Armenian service manager, one non-local non-Syrian service analyst, two presidents of Syrian Armenian NGOs, two Syrian Armenian writers, two Syrian Armenian women with no institutional affiliation and two Syrian Armenian men with no institutional affiliation.
46 Jorgensen, David. Participant Observation: A Methodology for Human Studies. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1979, p. 12.
47 Ibid.
48 Exception made for two non-Syrian participants who were interviewed in English. See also note 45.
49 Hourani, Albert. Minorities in the Arab World. London: Oxford University Press, 1947, p. 38.
50 White, Benjamin. ‘The Nation‐State Form and the Emergence of ‘Minorities’ in Syria.’ Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 7, no. 1 (2007): 64–85. p. 74.
51 White, Benjamin Thomas. ‘Refugees and the Definition of Syria, 1920–1939.’ Past and Present 235, no. 1 (2017): 141–78, p. 175.
52 Van Dam, Nikolaos. Struggle for Power in Syria. London: I.B.Tauris, 2011, p. 19.
53 Zolyan, Mikayel. ‘Refugees or Repatriates? Syrian Armenians Return to Armenia.’ OpenDemocracy, October 15, 2015. https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/mikayel-zolyan/refugees-or-repatriates-syrian-armenians-return-to-armenia (accessed September 12, 2016).
54 Altug, Seda. Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: Community, Land and Violence in the Memories of World War I and the French Mandate (1915–1939). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2011; Mouawad, Ray J. ‘Syria and Iraq–Repression.’ Middle East Quarterly 8, no. 1 (2001), p. 51; Mufti, Malik. Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996, pp. 65–68. Mufti calls the years between 1954 and 1967 a praetorian phase that saw several military coups.
55 Yousefian, Sevan. The Postwar Repatriation Movement of Armenians to Soviet Armenia, 1945–1948. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Los Angeles: University of California, 2011, p. 11.
56 Suny, Looking, p. 167.
57 Laycock, Jo. ‘Survivor or Soviet Stories? Repatriate Narratives in Armenian Histories, Memories and Identities.’ History and Memory: Studies in Representation of the Past 28, no. 2 (2016): 123–154.
58 Payaslian, Simon. ‘Diasporan Subalternities: The Armenian Community in Syria.’ Diaspora 16, no. 1–2 (2007): 92–132, p. 111.
59 Yousefian, The Postwar Repatriation, p. 95.
60 Laycock, ‘Survivor or Soviet’, p. 125.
61 Yousefian, The Postwar Repatriation, p. 63.
62 Ibid., p. 81.
63 Ibid., p. 85.
64 Ibid.
65 Migliorino, Nicola. ‘Kullna Suriyyin? The Armenian Community and the State in Contemporary Syria.’ Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée, no. 115–116 (2012), p. 20.
66 Altug, Sectarianism, p. 83, Kienle, E. ‘Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity, and Policy in Syria and Egypt’. International Journal of Middle East Studies 27, no. 1 (1995): 53–71, Hovannisian, Richard G. ‘The Ebb and Flow of the Armenian Minority in the Arab Middle East.’ Middle East Journal 28, no. 1 (1974): 19–32, p. 26.
67 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 18.
68 White, ‘Refugees’, p. 145.
69 Kasbarian, Sossie. ‘The Myth and Reality of “Return”: Diaspora in the “Homeland”.’ Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 18, no. 3 (2015), 358–81, p. 360.
70 Hovannisian, ‘The Ebb and Flow’, p. 28.
71 Kasbarian, ‘The Myth and Reality’, p. 361.
72 Payaslian, ‘Diasporan subalternities’, p. 97.
73 Ibid., p. 98.
74 Ibid., p. 96.
75 Ibid.
76 Hovannisian, ‘The Ebb and Flow’, p. 28.
77 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 18.
78 Chatty, Dawn. Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East. The Contemporary Middle East Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 32.
79 Ibid., p. 145.
80 Migliorino, Nicola. (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria: Ethno-cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis. Studies in Forced Migration 21. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2008. On transnational networks of Armenian diaspora see Tölölyan, Khachig. ‘Elites and Institutions in the Armenian Transnation.’ Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 9, no. 1 (2000): 107–36.
81 Chatty, Displacement and Dispossession, p. 139.
82 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 26.
83 Hinnebusch, Raymond A. ‘State and Civil Society in Syria.’ Middle East Journal 47, no. 2 (1993): 243-57, p. 254.
84 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 26.
85 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 28.
86 White, ‘Refugees’, p. 175. Motherland and fatherland are used interchangeably as synonymous.
87 Altug, Sectariansim, p. 83.
88 Migliorino, ‘Kullna’, p. 28.
89 Mouawad, ‘Syria and Iraq’, p. 51; Hourani, Minorities, p. 21; Ibid. Migliorino cites that since 1973, ‘the Armenians have maintained an individual, but continuous presence in Syrian parliament’.
90 Payaslian, ‘Diasporan Subalternities’, p. 109.
91 Mouawad, ‘Syria and Iraq’.
92 Payaslian, ‘Diasporan Subalternities’, p. 109.
93 Dira, Robert. Problem Analysis and Measures to Improve and Support the Economic Integration of Syrian Refugees in Armenia. German Agency for International Cooperation, 2015, p. 49.
94 Ibid., p. 43.
95 Syria's Armenians look to ancient homeland for safety, BBC, September 10, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34210854 (accessed on October 10, 2015).
96 Motherland and fatherland are used interchangeably.
97 White, ‘Refugees’, p. 172, his emphasis. White refers to the definition used by Muhammad Kurd Ali in ‘The topography of Syria’.
98 Chatty, Displacement, p. 32.
99 Gasparyan, Abraham. ‘The Armenian Political Elite’s Approaches and Beliefs in Foreign Policy’ in Values and Identity As Sources Of Foreign Policy in Armenia And Georgia. Tbilisi: Universal, 2016, p. 212.
100 Ibid., p. 217.
101 See also the documentary: ‘From the Lands: special Episode on Armenians’ [in Arabic], 48 min., 34 s., April 24, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tdNGI43A0Q (accessed on October 6, 2015).
102 When asked about their nationality, a majority of them said ‘I am Syrian’, with a third saying ‘I am Syrian Armenian’ and a few that ‘I am Armenian’.
103 The region is also known as Euphrates valley, the first area of settlement for Armenian victims of the genocide. See also Fuat Dündar. ‘Pouring a People into the Desert: The ‘Definitive Solution’ of the Unionists to the Armenian Question’ in Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Muge Gocek and Norman M. Naimark (eds). A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 280–281.
104 Miscellaneous interviews (September – October 2016).
105 Kasbarian, ‘The Myth and Reality’ p. 365.
106 Miscellaneous interviews.
107 Hourani, Minorities, p. 118.
108 Laycock, ‘Survivor or Soviet’, p. 132.
109 Ibid., p. 131.
110 Boyadjian, Levon, and Haigaz Grigorian. ‘Reflections on the Denial of the Armenian Genocide.’ Psychoanalytic Review 85 no. 4 (1986): 505–516.
111 Migliorino, (Re)constructing Armenia.
112 Yousefian, The Postwar Repatriation, p. 147.
113 Miscellaneous interviews.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 Cavoukian, Kristin. ‘“Soviet mentality”? The role of shared political culture in relations between the Armenian state and Russia’s Armenian Diaspora.’The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 41 no. 4 (2013), pp. 709–729.
117 Hovannisian, Richard G. The Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
118 Hovannisian, Richard (ed.). Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999.
119 Hovannisian, The Republic, p. 9.
120 Ibid.
121 Hovannisian, Remembrance, p. 25.
122 Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, p. 15.
123 Ibid., p. 21.
124 Ibid.
125 Ibid., p. 29.
126 Ibid., p. 38.
127 Ibid., p. 251.
128 Ibid., p. 190.
129 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, p. 221.
130 Ibid., p. 224.
131 Ibid., p. 179.
132 Dira, Problem Analysis and Measures, p. 50.
133 Jesse Tatum, ‘Armenia & Georgia: Corruption, the State, and Change’, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, 3(4) (2009), pp. 447–451, here p. 448.
134 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, p. 244.
135 Gasparyan, The Armenian Political, p. 213.
136 Georgia Calin-Stefan, ‘The Integration of Syrian-Armenians in the Republic of Armenia: A Case Study’, Romanian Journal of Political Science, 14(2) (2014), pp. 57–72, here p. 61.
137 Ibid.
138 Shahnazarian, Nona. ‘Letters from the Soviet “Paradise”: The Image of Russia among the Western Armenian Diaspora.’ Journal of Eurasian Studies 4, no. 1 (2013): 8–17, p. 10.
139 Ibid., p. 11.
140 Ibid., p. 13.
141 Laycock, ‘Survivor or Soviet Stories’, p. 134.
142 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, p. 222.
143 Tölölyan, ‘Elites and Institutions’.
144 Cavoukian, ‘Soviet Mentality’, p. 710.
145 With culture, it has to be intended: an approach to life or ‘expression of society’ as in Gramsci. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971).
146 The majority of the Armenian diaspora following the creation of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was considered composed of ‘Western’ Armenians, given their origins in Western Armenia. However, a considerable number of Eastern Armenians reside outside the Soviet Union, particularly in Iran.
147 Shahnazarian, ‘Letters’, p. 10.
148 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, p. 221.
149 Ibid., p. 191.
150 Tsolidis, Migration, Diaspora and Identity, p. 14.
151 Panossian, ‘The Past as Nation’, p. 127.
152 Shahnazarian, ‘Letters’, p. 10.
153 Ibid.
154 Ibid., p. 12.
155 Ibid., p. 15.
156 Laycock, ‘Survivor or Soviet Stories’, p. 134.
157 Ibid.
158 Shahnazarian, ‘Letters’, p. 11.
160 Shahnazarian, ‘Letters’, p. 12.
161 Ibid.
162 Laycock, ‘Survivor or Soviet Stories’, p. 135.
163 Ibid.
164 Calin-Stefan, ‘The Integration of Syrian-Armenians’, p. 61.
165 Cavoukian, ‘Soviet Mentality’, p. 710.
166 Dira, Problem Analysis and Measures, p. 50.
167 After Armenian independence, Panossian distinguished four phases in its relations: 1988–1989 (a reluctant working relationship), 1991–1992 (the ‘honeymoon’), 1992–1998 (schism and conflict) and 1998–1999 (early reconciliation). Ramik Panossian, ‘A Complicated Past, Difficult Present and Vague Future (Relations between Armenia and the Diaspora, 1988–1999)’, Diaspora, 1(2) (2000), pp. 30–48, here p. 31.
168 Migliorino, ‘Kullna Suriyyin?’, p. 16.