NATIONAL IDENTITY AND GENOCIDE
We are now commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish governments during over a quarter of a century (1895-1923).
PHASES OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
The attempt to annihilate the Armenian nation and to clean Historical Armenia of its aborigines, of Armenians living on those lands from the birth of human civilization was realized in five phases: From the time of the creation of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, from 16-17 centuries the Turkish Government applied a policy of discrimination against subjugated people, a policy of depriving them of their ethnic identity, a policy of denationalization. From the second half of the 19th century begin the first attempts of their deportations and massacres (genocides). In regards to Armenians we can point out The massacres of over 350.000 Armenians during 1896-98; the massacre of over 80.000 Armenians living in Cilicia during 1908-09, just after the victory of the Young Turkish Revolution and declaration of equality, fraternity and justice; the deportation and genocide of all Armenians (over 2.000.000) living in different parts of the Ottoman Empire; the massacre of 100.000 Armenians of Eastern Armenia and the remnants of Western Armenians (1918-1923). By implementing this barbarous plan of Genocide the Turkish governments annihilated over two and a half millions of Armenians, de-armenized the Armenian territories and forced the creation of the Great Armenian Diaspora.
NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POST GENOCIDE PERIOD
The Armenian nation faced the imperative of resolving a serious dilemma: either to accept a total defeat and agree to survive as an unorganized national entity, as a sum of scattered ethnic groups or reveal his inner potential power accumulated during his fife thousand year history, reorganize itself and continue his creative efforts in all fields of life. The Armenian nation chose the second possibility and masterly architectured his future life in Armenia and in the Diaspora. He waged victorious struggle of self-defense and independence in Cilicia, he defeated the Turkish invading army of 35 000 and made it possible the creation of the Independent Republic of Armenia. During the Soviet years Armenia registered unforeseeable achievements in culture, science, education and urbanization. The Diaspora communities in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Argentina, Uruguay, USA soon could overcome the difficulties and became active contributing forces to local and Armenian civilization.
NATIONAL IDENTITY ISSUES UNDER TURKISH YOKE
Under Ottoman rule the Armenians, as all the other minorities, were categorized and second-class citizens and were accepted not as national or ethnic formations but as religious communities, religious entities, religious millets. Together with the Arabs, Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, slaves and others Armenians were demanding recognition as national entities with corresponding rights. Their behavior was dictated by the firm conviction that they have been the aborigines of the Armenian Plateau for the last 5-6 thousand years and as such have contributed to world civilization. The Turkish governments never would agree with the demand of giving ethnic or national rights to minorities. They were principally against all kinds of ethnic or cultural diversities. The picture was not very different in ?Russian Armenia?.
After 1920-21, after the Genocide, the struggle of the Armenians for national identity took a strange turn, entered into a new phase.
ISSUES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY DURING SOVIET RULE
In Soviet Armenia the tradition of using the tem people instead of nation became dominant. Both the historically established nations (such as the Armenians, the Russians, Ukrainians, Belo Russians, Georgians, Estonians, Latvians, the Lithuanians) and the tribal ethnic formations that were entering the phase of national consolidation (such as the Azeries or the Caucasian Tatars, the Uzbeks, the Tadjiks, the Kazakhs, the dwellers of the northern steppes) were presented under the tern people. But that was not all. They were considered the parts of a greater formation, the components of the Great Soviet Nation. Thus three different ?ethnical groups? were distinguished in identifying Armenians through history: those who had lived and passed away before the Soviet era and the Armenians of the Diaspora were named Armenians; those who had started their lives before the Soviet era and continued to live in that era were labeled as ?Armenian-Soviet? or ?Soviet Armenians?; those born in the Soviet era were considered not Armenians, but Soviets. This fact is clearly depicted in major Soviet encyclopedias. This was a new kind of discrimination and assimilation. This approach actually neglected the integrity and continuity of Armenian history, the unity of the Diaspora and the motherland.
At the same time in the Soviet structure there were active tendencies that were legally contrary to the above-mentioned strategic plan. First. The Soviet economic-social-political policy was lead by the assumption that the different nationalities of the country can enter the phase of communist when all of the reach a common level of development, if they become equal economically, socially, culturally and politically. Thus for each ethnic formation was assigned specific national plans of development. Second Soviet ideology propagated the slogan that the Soviet system is preferable to others because the needs of each ethnic member of the union are satisfied in the best way. It enhances the national build up of its members. Third. The Russians were accepted to be the unifying central power of the multi-ethnic union. They were considered the power that is capable to guarantee the economic, social, cultural and political development of the less ?fortunate? nationalities. Russian civilization, in many ways, was considered to be more advanced than that of others. This soon turned out to become the foundation of officially accepted Russian nationalism. The other nationalities, the Armenians included, took advantage of the possibility and architectured their mini or maxi nationalism. Fourth. During WW II the Soviet propaganda came to the conclusion that the Soviet Union cannot win the war without the revival of national consciousness of each ethnic formation and a concord with the church. Fifth. The founder of the Soviet Union Lenin in the early twenties officially emphasized the imperative of economic, cultural and political relations with the Diaspora of ethnic formations having active patriotic communities in different parts of the world. Those relations had to achieve three goals: provide economic and technical aid; help the Soviet propaganda machine and the Soviet intelligence. In different ways helped to keep the concept of national unity of Soviet ethnical formations having Diaspora organizations. It created leaks for the enhancement of national consciousness in different parts (Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Baltic Republics, Georgia and etc.) of the Soviet Union.
As a result we notice major changes in three dimensions: in the study of national history, in the study of national culture and literature in particular, in the broadening of religious activities, in the rights given to national churches. The latter was one of the main pillars of national traditions and of national pride.
For more than two decades the Soviet schools and universities did not include in their curriculum national history courses (History of Armenia, History of Georgia etc). Instead they were taught History of the Soviet Union, which factually depicted history of Russian civilization. Each teacher, according to the degree of his courage, introduced pages on national history. Gradually Armenian history became subject to academic study and introduced in schools. In due time the main feature of Armenian History was considered the pan-Armenian struggle against all aggressors for liberation (not class struggle) of Armenia, the struggle for the right of self determination, struggle for the freedom of worship and the reign of friendship. These features also defined the inner spirit, the dynamics of the Armenian creative spirit and of Armenian civilization. The leaders of these movements were depicted as national heroes. These evolutions not only lead to the scientific study of Armenian civilization, not only to the radical revision of Armenian history, but also to the thorough study of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish governments. Armenia became one of the great world centers of Genocide Studies with its monumental museum.
ISSUES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA
The Armenian Diaspora has a history of over two thousand years. The first Armenian communities were established in Athens, in western Greek colonies of Asia Minor, in Georgia, in Rome, in Eddessa, in Aleppo, in Jerusalem. Soon we meet active Armenian settlements in Constantinople, Egypt, Cilicia, Italy, India, Persia, Crimea, Moscow, Astrakhan, Balkans, Singapore, China, and Lebanon and in other countries. Some of the countries of the Balkans and the Near East where Armenian communities had been established during history were under Ottoman yoke. The Armenians helped them to gain their independence. Thus, the people of all countries where active Armenian communities existed developed a positive attitude, a feeling of strong friendship in regards to the Armenians. They welcomed the survivors of the Turkish deportations and Genocide and helped create a big and strong Armenian Diaspora.
The Armenians intellectuals, professionals, artists, scholars, business men living in the major cities of the Ottoman Empire even in conditions of segregation had a an indispensable role in the development of Turkish linguistics, Turkish press, Turkish economy, Turkish Music, Turkish Architecture, Turkish Law, Turkish political thinking, Turkish Science and the Turkish educational system. Instead of expressing gratitude and encouraging them the Turks were afraid of the creative capability of the Armenian nation, the growth of its influence on Turkish life. They saw in it the rise of the Armenian spirit that could lead to the de facto legalization of the status of a nation, to the creation of an Armenian autonomy or a separate Armenian Republic. As a result they implemented the plan of perpetual genocide.
As for all ethnic groups, people and nations under Ottoman rule, so for the Armenians the major task was to revive the right for national identity, for cultural identity, for nationhood. The Ottoman Government was intolerant to cultural diversity, because they saw in it the feeling and consciousness of national belonging. They were not also tolerant to religious equality, because they considered all Christians as infidels, ?gravures?, and second-class citizens. Their goal was to moslemize the Christians, ant make Turks of every Moslem. Thus they also segregated against the Moslem population of the Ottoman Empire (against all Arabs of the Middle East, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, against the Albanians, Iranians and others). The aborigines living on the lands occupied by the Ottoman Turks (Armenians, Arabs, Albanians, Assyrians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Hungarians, Iranians, Rumanians and others) considered their struggle for national identity, nationhood because they were living on their historic territory for thousands of years, because during ages they have developed a unique civilization enriching world culture, because they have helped the Turks to learn from them when they invaded and occupied their motherland as nomad tribes on horse back without having written culture.
The survivors of the deportations and the Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Government dispersed all over the world, especially to countries where Armenian communities existed faced the problem of keeping their national identity. Major differences existed between the struggle for national identity in the Ottoman Empire and in the new centers of the Armenian Diaspora. 1. Now the Armenians were not on their historic territory. They were guests, immigrants of very generous, kind and hospitable people (Arabs, Bulgarians, Greeks, Russians, Rumanians, French, Americans, Argentineans, Brazilians, Iranians and others). 2. During the persecutions, deportations and Genocide the Armenians had lost the majority of their leaders, intellectuals, professionals, clergy, businessmen and the elite in general. Only a handful of them had survived the atrocities. There was a crisis of leadership. 3. The survivors were not only under the aftermath of the trauma, but had dismembered families: fatherless or motherless families, thousands of orphans, destroyed dynasties and social traditions. 4. In the new hospitable lands the survivors had no lodging, no shelter, no work, no reliable income, and no ties, social. Professional relations. 4. The survivors faced the imperative of a new process of national build up, a process of building their new social life, educational system, and religious, cultural establishments. 5. To achieve these they had first to revive, organize their vitality, optimism and creative power. They had to find financial resources necessary for the accomplishment of the task. 6. If the goal of keeping and strengthening the national identity under Turkish yoke was to create, on the territory they were living on, an Armenian Republic or an Armenian Autonomy in the ?Ottoman Federation of Autonomous Republics?.
In the new settlements, communities the goal of the struggle for national identity was different. It was mostly cultural in character. First, they wanted to keep alive the five thousand year old Armenian cultural traditions alive and through it contribute to the progress of the hospitable country. Second, they did not to see the evil victorious. If the Diaspora Armenians gave up their program of enhancing national identity tar would mean that the victimizer has reached its goal fully. If they would keep alive the struggle for national identity, that would mean the Armenians have not yet lost the war, they have not yielded and have kept their right for national existence. Third, by keeping alive their national identity, their creative spirit, their national traditions the Armenians intended to be ready for a repatriation to their historical lands. They believe that justice will prevail and the world community will oblige the Turkish Government to accept its fatal mistakes, pay the due compensation and return the Armenian lands to its people. In the very beginning of WWI the allies had decided to return the lands occupied by the Ottoman Empire to its historic owners (to Arabs, to Greeks, to Italians, to Armenians) and leave to Turkey only the southern straps of the Black Sea, approximately the area of the Pontus kingdom proper. The birth of Red Russia mixed all the plans. The Armenian dream was not baseless.
The majority of the survivors found refuge in the neighboring countries (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania and others) that had long suffered under Ottoman oppression and their victorious struggle had lead to the establishment of their free and independent state. During their struggle against Ottoman rule they had defended their rights for national identity, for national determination and statehood. Thus, they could easily understand the desire, the ideology of the Armenians. They understood and did not impede. Do facto they agreed with the reality of cultural diversity. As a result the Armenians soon built their set of churches, schools, cultural organizations, and clubs. The other part of the survivors found refuge in countries with rich democratic traditions (France, America, Latino American countries). They were in accord with cultural plurality based on human rights. In some of those countries there was a shift from the concept of ?melting pot? to the practice of ?mosaic structure? where each stone represents the cultural elements of different nations. Thus, the issues related to national identity had clear possibilities of being resolved in the post-genocide Armenian Diaspora. Sometimes the latter helped the motherland in that field.
The struggle for the development of national identity in the Diaspora introduced a very interesting element, a very enriching innovation. Under the Ottoman rule it did not have the imperative of developing a feeling, a consciousness of multi belonging. The Armeno-Turkish relations in the Ottoman Empire could not rich that level, because of the national, cultural, religious policy adopted by the Turkish Government. The relationship with other nations struggling for their right of self-determination and freedom did not exceed the level of political cooperation, friendship. The attitude of the people of countries that gave refuge to the survivors, the possibilities they rendered made it possible to nourish a feeling of belonging, consciousness of belonging to that country, to the flag and constitution of that country. So the Diaspora Armenian developed at least three kinds of the feeling and consciousness of belonging: belonging to the world family, because they were dispersed all over the world; the belonging to the country of refuge, to the second motherland; the belonging to the Armenian heritage. Diaspora national identity was a bouquet of these three elements. This kind of national identity created possibilities of close cooperation between the Armenians of the Diaspora and the people of many countries in their strive for the condemnation of the Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Governments and for compensation.
The post-Genocide struggle for national identity has another specific feature. It is being carried on during the existence of an Armenian state on the 1/10th part of Historical Armenia. All the issues of national identity, in this or that way, were and are correlated to the reality of the Armenian state. National identity is either based on the achievements of the national state, the Armenian Church, the Armenian organizations in the past, on the activities of the existing state, church, organizations or aims to the creation of a state in the near future. It may combine the three versions. The national identity of the Armenians under the Ottoman rule was interwoven with the achievements of historical independent Armenia kingdoms, the Armenian Church and with the struggle, the dream of reviving, establishing an independent Armenian republic. The post-Genocide feeling and consciousness of national identity included past, present and future Armenian reality. The future presupposes, at least among some sectors of the Armenian nation, the emancipation of Armenian territories illegally, by force annexed to the Turkish Republic and to the Azerbaijani Republic.
THE ROLE OF THE ARMENIAN STATE IN SHAPING NATIONAL IDENTITY
We can define four main historical periods of Armenian statehood: the period of Armenian kingdoms (from the third millennium BC to 1375 AD); the first independent Armenian Republic (1918-1920); the Soviet Armenian Republic (1920-1991); the independent Republic of Armenia of today (1991- ).
THE ARMENIAN KINGDOMS
During the first period took place the consolidation and unification of Armenian tribes, the formation of the Armenian nation and its state. During that period the specific features of Armenian culture, of Armenian traditions, Armenian mentality was created. First these were realized in national mythology. Soon we trace their evolution through Armenian Christian culture on a higher and perfect form. Thus it, with all its historical limitations and oscillations, gave the foundations of Armenian national identity.
THE FIRST ARMENIAN REPUBLIC
The second period realized the six hundred year desire to revive the Armenian state as a republic and consolidate the dispersed Armenians in their homeland. It started to give a new power, essence to national identity that, in many aspects, remains alive in our times.
THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
The issues related to national identity during the Soviet period are very complex. It had the least relation to the political system. It relates to the latter as far as it kept the territory and the nation, helped to urbanize the social, economic and cultural life of Armenia, made possible the repatriation of Armenians and gradually adopted a policy of promoting national cultural traditions. But these tendencies went parallel to political repressions, exiles, limitations, tendencies of russianization and colonization. The feeling and consciousness of national identity was mainly promoted by the broad masses lead by a group of outstanding intellectuals. Despite of all these negative factors the Armenians developed the movement and ideology for the official commemoration of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Government, for the liberation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and for the overthrow of the Soviet power. These achievements are inherited by the consciousness of national identity by contemporary Armenians all over the world.
THE MODERN REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
During the popular revolutionary liberation movement and anti-Soviet struggle the national pride and feeling and consciousness of the Armenian nation was very high. It was on an inspiring level even after the devastating earthquake. The declaration of independence, the war against Azeri aggression and Genocide and the celebration of victory over Azerbaijan brought a new ascending wave. Soon it started declining as the former defeated Soviet political elite, who had accumulated all the financial resources in Dollars, started creating difficulties for the newborn Republic. It faded as factories were not working, because they were physically and morally worn out; the low quality and high production coast made the produced goods incompatible on the international marked. The rich in Armenia and capitalists abroad did not invest in Armenian economy and the Republic had difficulties in finding and keeping investors. Thus the solution of providing jobs and social problems faced extreme difficulties. Poverty gradually rose. To the economic factors soon were added the decline of democratic tendencies. Started a strong wave of an exodus; hundreds of thousands of Armenians migrated abroad. This created a new kind of national identity: negative feelings against the ruling clan of Armenia, but struggle for the revival of Armenia and safety of its population. The immigrated Armenians together with the Diaspora Armenians sent millions of Dollars to Armenia. According to some sources immigrated Armenians from USA sent each month about ten million dollars to their relatives, friends and neighbors living in Armenia. The following factors contributed to the molding of the new spirit during very critical times: the consciousness that they are the survivors or the sons of survivors, that they have overcome all the hardships of the Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Governments, that they were victorious over the powers of the planned and implemented the Genocide, that the Turks and Azeries are dreaming to see Armenia and Armenians defeated and lost, that they have overthrown Soviet dictatorship, that the salvation of the nation is its unity and that each Armenian is responsible for Armenia and each other Armenian in Armenia or in the Diaspora.
Dr. Gevork Kherlopian
Glendale, 03/25/2005
