Category: 2021

Clash of Histories in the South Caucasus: Redrawing the map of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iran
By Rouben Galichian
Bennet & Bloom, 2012
232 pp.

It is widely acknowledged that history is often manipulated and revised by authoritarian states. History textbooks have been used as a tool to legitimize government and institutionalize racism and hatred. This is the case of Azerbaijan, where after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijani scholars guided by the political leadership tried to shape the national identity of their state. 

Rouben Galichian, in his book Clash of Histories in the South Caucasus: Redrawing the map of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iran, examines the roots and effects of Azerbaijan’s rewriting of history and why it continues to do so, focusing on Armenia and Iran. In addition to detailing the officially-sponsored invention of modern Azerbaijani national identity, the book also looks at the various methodologies employed by Azerbaijani historians and geographers for their falsification of the documented pasts of Eastern Armenia and the northern Iranian province of Azerbaijan. 

According to the author, the official Azerbaijani narrative is to prove that the overall strategy adopted by Azerbaijan is to create a Turkic identity for its entire population, constituting the indigenous people of the territory and that the Armenians are newcomers to the South Caucasus. They also claim that all cultural monuments existing in Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan belonged to the ancient nation of Caucasian Albanians, who claimed to be the ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. The strategy is to erase and deny any trace of the existence of Armenians in the region. Interestingly, this strategy started during the Soviet times and intensified after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991. 

Galichian highlights Baku’s strategy in falsifying history and creating a false national identity as follows:

—Distortion of the history and the cultural heritage of Armenia and Iran

—Presenting Armenia as ‘Western Azerbaijan’ and Iranian Azerbaijan as ‘Southern Azerbaijan’

—Trying to convince other governments and international organizations that Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijan are two historical names for the same country, making the peoples of the Republic of Azerbaijan direct descendants of the Caucasian Albanians

—Presenting Armenians as newcomers to the region of the South Caucasus and the Azerbaijani people as indigenous to the area

—Making the Turkish language, imported into the region by the Turkic invaders, the indigenous language of Azerbaijanis

—Appropriation of all historical monuments in Azerbaijan, Artsakh, Nakhichevan as well as Armenia as part of ‘ancient Albanian-Azerbaijani’ heritage

The author refutes Azerbaijan’s distortions and argues that after the 11th and the 12th centuries the term Albania as a country or nation disappears from both Christian and Islamic historical and cartographic literature. He even counterargues Azerbaijani claims that Armenians are newcomers to the region. Azerbaijani historians claim that prior to 1828-1829, there were no Armenians living in South Caucasus and they were brought from Persia by the Russian empire. Galichian shows archival and historical facts that Armenians were forced to leave their homeland by the Persian Shah Abbas and deported deep to Isfahan (around 300,000-400,000 Armenians). Later with the advance of the Russian army, an insignificant number of Armenians (around 35,560) returned to their native land. 

Interestingly, Galichian provided facts about the naming of the Republic of Azerbaijan. When the three countries of South Caucasus declared their independence in May 1918, the eastern region (mainly populated by Muslims and Tatars) wanted to name the region as “Eastern and the Southern Trans-Caucasian Republic.” But Musavat, the major party at the time, with its Pan-Turkic leanings managed to name it as Azerbaijan. Persians erupted in protest as the Persian government argued that Azerbaijan was part of Persia, and the country and the territory east of the South Caucasus (northeast of the Arax river) have never been part of Iranian Azerbaijan. However, after the occupation by the Bolsheviks, Soviet leaders didn’t attempt to change the name as they played the ‘Southern Azerbaijani card’ against Iran.

Galichian addresses President Ilham Aliyev’s attempts to revise history as more proof that Azerbaijan’s distortion and falsification of history are backed by the state. In December 2005 at the National Academy of Sciences, Aliyev addressed Azerbaijani historians and encouraged them to busy themselves with “research to prove that Armenians are newcomers to the region.” He also allocated huge funding to this project. In 2011, during the general assembly of the same institution, he expressed satisfaction that Azerbaijani historians have responded positively to his appeal and “proved that present-day Armenia is established on the historical lands of Azerbaijan.” Later, on December 10, 2020, at the Baku Victory Parade, Aliyev called “Yerevan, Zangezur and Sevan as historical Azerbaijani lands.”

The conclusion of this fabrication clashes with the internationally accepted historical record that states the contrary, and so the undertaking exposes inherent errors and inevitable contradictions. As a result, the following conclusions are evident from this important and well-researched book:

—The majority of the Albanian Christian tribes converted to Islam during the eighth and ninth centuries. A few centuries later, Caucasus Albania, located north of Kura River gradually disappeared from the maps.

—The multitude of churches, monasteries and Christian monuments built during the 10th to 18th centuries on the current territory of Azerbaijan and Artsakh could not have been built by Islamized Albanians or the insignificant number of Udis who remained Christian in this period. Only Armenians had the resources to build and maintain these structures.

—The present Armenian population of New Julfa near Isfahan, resettled there from Nakhichevan and the surrounding areas by the Persian Shah Abbas, is living proof that Armenians were uprooted from their homeland. 

—Up to the Middle Ages, the languages spoken in the Iranian province of Azerbaijan were not Turkic, but the Indo-European Azari dialects related to the Median and Parthian. It was only during the 13th century that this language had disappeared and was replaced by the Turkic language.

—According to historians and travelers’ accounts, the territory or country named Azerbaijan north of Arax River did not exist until 1918. The evidence of the ancient and later cartographers, presented in more than 50 color maps, along with the Greek and Roman historians and the accounts of Islamic and European travelers confirm the international position that runs counter to Azerbaijan’s false claims.

—The territories labeled ‘Northern Azerbaijan’ and ‘Southern Azerbaijan’ historically never existed. These are terms invented by modern Azerbaijani historians to serve political ends.

As Azerbaijan engages in fabrication and distortion of historical facts and lobbies around the globe through its lobbying activism, Armenians must continue and intensify in showing the historical reality by engaging in political and diplomatic activism to preserve what has been left of Armenian culture in the occupied territories of Artsakh. The danger of the Nakhichevan example with the destruction of cross-stones, the ‘Albanization’ of Armenian monasteries and iconoclasm of Armenian heritage is still haunting our generation and already is being conducted around occupied Artsakh. The slogan “never again” should be translated into action. Diasporan organizations, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry and religious institutions must come up with a concrete plan and lobby at UNESCO and other international agencies to prevent the cultural cleansing of Armenian presence in the region.

There is nothing wrong with being proud of one’s nationality, ethnic origin or religion. However, when that pride becomes so fanatical, reaching the level of absurdity, then we are dealing with someone who has lost all sense of reality.

Turkish political analyst Burak Bekdil acknowledged in his July 30, 2021 article published by BESA Center Perspectives: “The Turkish-Islamist psyche is susceptible to…the pitfalls of honor, fatalism, conspiracism, bombast, publicity, and confusion.”

Over the years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made many bizarre statements that raise suspicions about his mental sanity.

Here are some examples of Erdogan’s nutty statements.

In 2014, Erdogan told a group of Latin American Muslims visiting Istanbul that Muslim Pilgrims discovered America several centuries before Christopher Columbus: “It is alleged that the American continent was discovered by Columbus in 1492. In fact, Muslim sailors reached the American continent 314 years before Columbus in 1178. …In his memoirs, Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque atop a hill on the coast of Cuba. A mosque would look perfect on that hill today.” Of course, Columbus never said such a thing in his memoirs.

In another outlandish claim, Pres. Erdogan announced that Turkey will send a spaceship with a Turkish astronaut to the moon in 2023 on the centennial of the Republic of Turkey. He speculated that a female astronaut may be a part of the Turkish space team. It would be interesting to see how Turkey, a bankrupt country, could spend billions of dollars on such a far-fetched adventure, not to mention its lack of space technology. Maybe this whole topic is a hoax to divert the people’s attention from their woes and empty pockets to gazing at the moon and stars! A skeptical Turk sarcastically said: “We cannot go to the supermarket, so how will we go to space?” Another Turk remarked, “We were not able to distribute masks [for COVID] to citizens, so how do we go to space?”

Before Erdogan can fantasize about going to space, he should worry about the collapsing lira, millions of unemployed Turks and a huge percentage of his people suffering from abject poverty. According to Turkish sources, 34 million Turks are on the verge of starvation. In the first half of 2020, 1.6 million Turkish families had their electricity and gas cut off because they could not pay their bills.

Bekdil wrote that he “grew up in classrooms filled up with mottoes like ‘A Turk is worth the world,’ ‘Turks have had to fight the seven biggest world powers,’ and ‘A Turk’s only friend is another Turk.’ Our textbooks taught us that the supreme Turkish race dominated the entire world for centuries; that the Ottoman Empire collapsed only after a coalition of world powers attacked it; that we lost WWI because we had allied with the Germans, who were defeated (not us); and that one day, we will make the entire planet Turkish. We were taught that an Ottoman warrior could keep on fighting even after having been beheaded by the [Byzantine] enemy.”

As a result, Bekdil explained, “Turks are hungry for fairy tales about the good life they did not get to enjoy over the past century, but believe they deserve. Any feel-good news propaganda, even Erdogan’s famous ‘The West, including the Germans, are jealous of us!’ tirade, finds millions of receptive listeners in Turkey’s post-modern marketplace of absurdity.”

In an article titled, “‘Jesus Was Turkish’: the Bizarre Resurgence of Pseudo-Turkology,” Luka Ivan Jukic wrote in NEW/LINES Magazine: “You would be forgiven for not knowing that former U.S. President Barack Obama was a Turk. Or that Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad were, likewise, of Turkic origin. You would be forgiven for not knowing that Russia is really a great Turkic nation, that Kazakhs and the Japanese are genetically identical or that the legendary English King Arthur was, you guessed it, a Turk. You would be forgiven because none of this is true. Yet in countries from central Europe to Central Asia and everywhere in between, supposed historical facts like these and the theories they support have made their way from the minds of overzealous and pseudo-academics into national school textbooks, popular culture and, indeed, official government ideology.”

In 1932, the Turkish language Institute invented the fake “Sun Language Theory” which claimed that “the Turkish language was the source of all human language and therefore all human civilization,” Jukic wrote. “Linguists from the Institute claimed that language had been invented by sun-worshipping proto-Turks in Central Asia as they babbled at the sun.” Furthermore, the Turkish History Thesis claimed that “Turks had brought civilization to China, Europe, India and elsewhere when they migrated from the Eurasian Steppe.” These pseudo-theories found their way into Turkish textbooks and popular books, brainwashing several generations of Turks. Most adherents of these pseudo-scientific claims are followers of Pres. Erdogan.

There is no super race. All people are equal. They are all God’s children. While claims of superiority may satisfy a vain human inclination, no one should treat other races as inferior.

Targeted for genocide and dispossession, reduced to exiles and deportees and fighting for survival and freedom, Armenians were facing the nation’s darkest moments from 1915 to 1919. Yet New Year and Christmas came, as it always did, occasioning memories of brighter days, even offering glimmers of hope. On the roads of deportation, in concentration camps and in the trenches, families and friends embraced, prayers were said and, if possible, Mass was celebrated. 

This article takes us on a journey to Christmas in the time of genocide. Mining survivor memoirs and accounts, I offer snippets of often fleeting moments of celebration, hope and resilience as the New Year tolled and Armenian Christmas beckoned. 

Today, the holiday season is a reminder of the losses left in the wake of the 44-day war on Artsakh—arguably the darkest period of Armenian history since World War I. It is in times such as this, that one can channel the resilience and resistance of one’s ancestors. 

We stand on the shoulders of generations that repelled the deepest darkness with resistance and celebration. If they could do it, so can we.

1916: Celebrating Christmas in Marsovan and concentration camps 

In January 1916, the Dildilian and Der Haroutiounian families prepared to secretly celebrate Armenian Christmas at the latter’s house, on the outskirts of Marsovan (modern day Merzifon, Turkey). This was their first Christmas since they had evaded deportation by converting to Islam. The occasion was immortalized in a rare photograph that is part of the collection of the Dildilians, famed photographers of everyday life in the Ottoman Empire. In his book, Reimagining a Lost Armenian Home, scholar Armen T. Marsoobian identifies and reconstructs the trajectories of the family members depicted in the photograph.¹ 

The Dildilian and the Der Haroutiounian families prepared to secretly celebrate Armenian Christmas in January 1916. (Photo from the Dildilian Collection. The author thanks Prof. Armen T. Marsoobian for the photograph.)

Around the same time, more than 800 miles south of Marsovan, pharmacist Hagop Arsenian of Ovacık was among the survivors who greeted the New Year on the banks of the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert.² Within days of arriving at the Meskeneh concentration camp, he fell severely ill, lost his mother (he buried her “among all the other refugees there” on December 22), bandits robbed him of his clothes and the gold coins that same evening, and yet another re-deportation loomed. In his memoir Towards Golgotha³, he recounts:

December 30, 1915. The gendarmes became active again and without any consideration for the sick and dying, they began dismantling the tents. I did not have the energy to sit, much less to walk, since I was still in a period of convalescence after my disease and in dire need of rest. But to whom was I to plead my case?

He had to comply “and joined the caravan towards unknown destinations.”

As the last day of 1915 dawned, Arsenian was once again on the deportation roads, after having camped overnight near an Arab village. “I was feeling extremely weak, the weather was exceptionally cold, and I was afraid of having a relapse.” Still, he managed to survive and the convoy reached the Dipsi transit camp by the end of the day. He writes:

January 1, 1916. On the first day of this new year, as customary, we woke up at dawn and witnessed the beautiful sunrise and welcomed the new year. With Father Arsen and Hapet Effendi Ghazarian and his brothers, Zakar Agha and other villagers, we gathered in our tent, in that deserted corner of Syria, to celebrate the new year after surviving one of the darkest chapters of the Armenian deportation. On this occasion, we exchanged good wishes and hoped that the New Year would be a good one.

It was a beautiful day, Arsenian recalled. So much so that “we took it to be a good omen and a sign for better days.” The next day, Arsenian’s aunt died. Still ailing, Arsenian “wrapped myself well and, leaning on a cane, accompanied Father Arsen, who undertook the funeral rites in a low profile ceremony. Thus we surrendered another member of our family to the treacherous desert sand…. We were haunted by a nightmare that very soon each one of us would be sharing the same fate.”

The re-deportation continued. On Armenian Christmas Eve (January 5), Arsenian arrived in the Abuharar camp “exhausted” and “in a defeated state.” He remembers:

The following day was Christmas Day. The blessed believers wanted to attend Mass on the occasion of Holy Christmas, with the hope of receiving some spiritual consolation. In that huge refugee camp… we chose a spot to celebrate mass and requested a clergyman from Akshehir to conduct the service. Of our fellow compatriots from the Ovajik Church were Mihran Papazian, Vagharshag and others who assisted in the Mass, thus filling us with a sense of joy, hope and continuity. On that day there was no Sevkiyet [deportation].

1917: Celebrating the New Year in Belemedik in Hiding

Armenian priest Grigoris Balakian welcomed New Year in 1917 in Belemedik, a village near Adana. He was in hiding with the Armenian intellectual Teotig (Teotoros Labdjindjian), both working for the German railway company. “Like me, most of these Armenian refugees were registered in the company’s official ledgers under false names… nevertheless the police found informers to reveal the identity of some of them,” he wrote after the Great War. In his memoirs, which he began writing in the immediate aftermath of the war and completed years later, he contrasted New Year’s celebrations in Belemedik among the Germans, the prisoners of war and the Armenians who were in hiding: 

The Germans in Belemedik celebrated New Year’s 1917 with great pomp: there was plenty of food and drink, including beer and wine and even champagne—hundreds of glasses of champagne were emptied in toasts to the ultimate victory of Germany. We Armenians, however, passed the festive days within the confines of our huts, mourning and feeling like orphans. The hundreds of Russian, French, and Italian prisoners of war in Belemedik also spent the New Year in a melancholy frame of mind. But we Armenians felt not just melancholy but grief; the prisoners of war had the hope of seeing their loved ones again, but our beloved relatives had been martyred and had gone to eternity leaving us inconsolable.

We who were left alive felt like pitiful wrecks, somehow still dragging our useless selves on; we envied those who had died … who, having paid their debt, were now resting forever. Meanwhile we remembered happy New Year celebrations of the past, with tables laden with fruit and anushabour; surrounded by our loved ones, we had heartily wished one another Happy New Year and Merry Christmas. Would we ever see the old, happy days again?⁴

The answer to this question was somewhat positive for some members of the Der Haroutiounian and Dildilian families, for Hagop Arsenian, and for Balakian himself. They survived and, scattered around the globe, helped rebuild their communities. With their writings and photographs, they also kept alive the memory of the people who did not survive to see another Christmas, and the places that remained inaccessible behind the borders of the Turkish Republic.

1919: First New Year after Ottoman Turkish Defeat 

Karnig Panian was dragged into an orphanage in Antoura (modern-day Lebanon), where the administrators followed a policy of systematic Turkification. In this notorious institution conceived by Cemal Pasha, who reigned supreme over Ottoman Syria, Armenian children were forced to speak Turkish only, were circumcised, given Muslim names and subjected to religious and political indoctrination. Panian’s memoir and multiple other accounts that corroborate it paint a grim picture of abuse and terror that lasted throughout the war. With the Ottoman defeat and withdrawal from Syria late in the fall of 1918, the orphanage administrators packed and fled, and the children who had survived were now free. “We once again felt like a part of humanity, a part of the Armenian nation,” writes Panian in his memoir. The orphans were thrilled when, a few months later, Santa Claus came. Panian narrates:

On New Year’s Eve, the staff organized a celebration. There were delicacies, songs, a beautiful dance performed by one of the teachers, and even a visit from Santa Claus. He gave us all stockings full of confections, raisins, walnuts, almonds, and dried fruit. There was no limit to the orphans’ joy. We remembered how back home, on New Year’s Day, we would go from home to home, gathering gifts. Those old, happy days seemed to be coming back.⁵

Here it is again: the same references to “old, happy days.” As if in response to Grigoris Balakian’s question, Panian, a child survivor, looked to the future with optimism and hope. Hope that would make rebuilding the nation—largely on the shoulders of orphans and widows—possible. 

Panian, whose Armenian identity was targeted for erasure, became a celebrated educator at the Armenian Lyceum (Djemaran) in Beirut. His daughter Houry Boyamian is the principal of St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School in Watertown, MA. And when on December 20, I saw the images of the school’s Christmas celebration and Santa’s visit on Ms. Boyamian’s Facebook page, I imagined her father, as a child survivor, celebrating with Santa more than a century ago, and then embarking on the next difficult task: rebuilding the nation.

Annual Christmas party at St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School, December 20, 2021

________________________

¹ Armen T. Marsoobian, Reimagining a Lost Armenian Home: The Dildilian Photography Collection (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 220-246.
² For a detailed exploration of the concentration camps in the region, see Khatchig Mouradian, The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915-1918 (Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2021).
³ Hagop Arsenian, Towards Golgotha: The Memoirs of Hagop Arsenian, a Genocide Survivor, trans. Arda Arsenian Ekmekji (Beirut: Haigazian University Press, 2011), 109-118.
⁴ Grigoris Balakian, Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918, trans. Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag (New York: Knopf, 2001), 324-325.
⁵ Karnig Panian, Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, trans. Simon Beugekian (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 149-151.

One of the attributes of our identity that I find intriguing is our sense of tradition. It’s intriguing in the sense that it drives incredible resiliency and cohesion, yet also at times prevents progress. When examining our connection to tradition, we sometimes lose sight of traditions that are at the core of our culture and are distinguished from behavior that we should shed as we move forward. This requires constant self-reflection which is difficult to sustain. At its very best, tradition enables us to bring the best of the past into the recipe for the future…similar to the way we make holy muron. Unfortunately, certain traditions enable behaviors that are either outdated or not part of our perceived core values. If it does continue, one has to question our core values.

Internally driven change is difficult for a tradition-centric culture. We struggle to maintain those traditions that our grandparents brought from the homeland. Some are retained, and others fade into the woodwork of assimilation. New traditions emerge as our culture continues to evolve. It is interesting to note that although we work diligently to retain certain traditions, our reality in the diaspora is a change agent itself. Each of our diaspora communities has taken on some traits of their host country. The Arab culture has influenced the Armenians in Lebanon and Syria. The American culture has impacted the Armenian communities in America. Our focus should be to position the Armenian community with traditions that reflect the best of our culture and are aligned with human values.

One of the most significant issues in the discussion of tradition and values is the role of women in the global Armenian nation. The current environment has thankfully exposed many of the discriminatory actions towards women. The challenge is not the presence of change but the rate and sustainability of our actions. The evolution of the position of women in Armenian circles tracks behind the emergence of women in western societies. It was just a generation ago that women in Armenian communities were directed towards the kitchen or targeted roles such as teachers (important, but stereotyped). Leadership positions were rare and usually in targeted roles such as secretaries. This is not to diminish the accomplishments of the women of these generations. They were capable of much more and limited by our systemic bias defined by men. It was considered “tradition” and slowly changed because of outside influences such as the role of women in the workforce and social revolutions. There is little credit that the Armenian community can take for this refreshing change, especially the male power structure, as it was driven by our host culture. When I served on the Prelacy Executive Council in the 80s, there were no women. Today, it is much more common. The same goes for the diocese. Look at the historical pictures of councils and boards. Think of all the talent that was never able to serve. Thankfully, this is a part of our “shedded” past. There is so much more work to do. 

Quite often, I hear about the wonderful leaders in women organizations such as the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) or Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA). This is true. We are blessed with many talented Armenian women in these and other women-based organizations. Armenian men, however, should self-reflect and realize their contribution was minimal. In one sense, AIWA was formed out of a void in our communities to promote the issues and values of Armenian women. The lack of equality and focus created the need. In other words, the mainstream organizations were not getting it done. What remains is for women to attain equal status in the traditional ranks. When it becomes a natural occurrence, then we clearly can celebrate permanent progress. Why is this a concern? I can think of two primary reasons. First and foremost, we must always stand for the human right of equality. Secondly and from a practical standpoint, when we are not gender blind, we deny our nation of precious talent. It is obvious at all levels that we do not possess an abundance of leadership. Similar to the issue of engaging our youth, we need to make room. In this case, that means that selectively, men need to move over and make room for Armenian women. It is happening but not fast enough. Time for more self-reflection. Are you helping as a catalyst?

Armenian women took up arms in the the Armenian national liberation struggle of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Photographed on the right is fedayi Eghisapet Sultanian. The other woman is unidentified.

Improving gender equality is an issue of basic human respect. The range of stereotypes vary from laughable (why are there no women on the kebab grills at churches or men at the baked goods table) to very serious such as glass ceilings and domestic violence. I find it sadly ironic that a culture that has cherished its women as our mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters struggles to advocate for their rights as human beings, as equals and as leaders. The underlying causes of our male-centric culture starts with our history, particularly the manner in which it has been written. A few years ago, I taught a unit at an Armenian summer camp on Armenian women in our history. Unless you are a scholar and have conducted research, most of our layperson history is void of the important roles of women. We proudly discuss the sacrifices of Sts. Hripsime and Gayane and then find very few references over the succeeding centuries. Even in modern times, we honor the Armenian freedom fighters of the 1890s into the 1920s, yet most Armenians cannot mention a female hero beyond Sosie Mayrig from the hundreds who fought and sacrificed. A colleague of mine, Judith Saryan, has waged a remarkable campaign to bring the life of early 20th century intellectual and human rights advocate Zabel Yesayan into our modern education. I am embarrassed that my knowledge was minimal prior to this effort despite the fact that Yesayan was the only woman on the arrestee list of April 24, 1915 that initiated the Genocide. I learned two things from that experience: it is never too late to update our history to tell the whole story, and we all have a responsibility to ensure this happens. We can advocate in many ways from sponsoring research and publication to promoting plays and films for the general public. There was an article published recently in the Weekly that focused on some of the women contributors to the Artsakh struggle. This not only places a value on the diverse roles of everyone but also the importance of women as an essential component. 

The church has struggled with this issue for decades. As the role of women has been rightfully challenged in our society, the church has continued to limit their inclusion to lay administrative roles. Our church has a historical tradition of deaconesses with an ordination a few years back in the Prelacy Iranian diocese. I have witnessed diocesan assembly discussions where this noble tradition is devalued not on theological terms but on gender bias. This is not right. When we tolerate this type of behavior, we not only limit opportunities, but it sends the wrong message to our adherents. The solution to this challenge starts in the Armenian home and transitions into the community. There’s a strong perception in a traditional Armenian home that there is a double standard of men and women. The women are expected to conform to certain traditional standards, and the guys get a pass. A friend of mine once described to me that her brothers were the “pashas.” We joke about it, but behind all humor is an element of truth. It is very important for young men to see women in important roles. Whether this applies to your family or not, we can all help apply standards of equality for Armenian women in community life. We can all be advocates as decisions are made on leadership roles and resource optimization.

The Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918) granted the right to vote for women before the United States passed the 19th Amendment, yet today our social advancement is plagued by the stain of domestic violence against women. This is completely unacceptable in a culture that speaks of honor and respect yet carries this dark cloud of shame. Our response has been gradual but again very slow. It took years for a law to criminalize this behavior, but enforcement requires trust in the system. There are heroes in our midst who organize shelters and provide a safe environment for women to rebuild their lives. The problem is complicated to resolve, but our position should be clear. Yet, it seems to be inadequate. I don’t hear the church talking about a behavior that is both criminal and inhuman. We don’t help the defenseless women with our silence, and it certainly does not give the correct message to young boys. After the law was passed, the visibility of the issue in political circles has been minor. The law, in and of itself, will not eradicate this disgrace. Enforcement to build trust and behavioral education among the young men and women must be a priority. Our voices here in the diaspora are important also in support of women’s rights globally. Tolerance or complete disregard create an environment of hypocrisy. Building a democracy starts with human rights with a foundation based on respect.

We can all start by constantly asking questions that encourage dialogue. Why are most Armenian NGOs led by women, yet the government continues to be male dominated? The former is a critical institution of nation building and value, but has yet to move to the authority structure. When we think of contributing to the equality of gender rights, it must be viewed as a diverse subject that all of us can make a contribution…if we choose. Whether Armenian women choose to take advantage of an enlightened environment is not the point. We must all advocate an unconstrained society. There is no neutral ground on this issue given its wide ranging impact from family to human rights. Our actions each day can make an impact. Where are you? And where do you stand?

The online press conference of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, December 24, 2021

During his December 24, 2021 press conference, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made several statements and assertions on the current situation in Nagorno Karabakh and his vision for its future. He rejected the idea to demand the withdrawal of Azerbaijani forces from any territories, which they captured during the 2020 Karabakh war, including the territories of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (the entire Hadrut region, several villages of the Martakert, Martuni and Askeran regions and Shushi city). According to Pashinyan, the Azerbaijani population which lived in the former NKAO (according to the 1989 Soviet Union census, Azerbaijanis made up 22.4 percent of the NKAO population, while the number of Armenians was 76.4 percent) had the right to return, and the capture of Hadrut region, Shushi and other territories created the possibility for the realization of that right. This narrative puts Armenians currently living in Nagorno Karabakh in a perilous situation, as the de facto new line of contact fixed by the November 10, 2020 trilateral statement established a tiny entity which is not viable neither politically nor economically. However, according to Pashinyan, Armenia will not demand independence even for that small entity of approximately 3,000 square kilometers. The prime minister stated that Nagorno Karabakh lost all chances not to be part of Azerbaijan back in 2016. So, if there were no such chances when the territory of the unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic was 11450 square kilometers, there definitely could be no chances now. The prime minister stated that his vision is to see Armenians living in Karabakh safely and securely, which means that Armenia is ready to move forward and sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan if Baku provides some guarantees for the security of Armenians. Theoretically, it could be a written guarantee put in the peace treaty with no status, or it could be some status of cultural autonomy for Nagorno Karabakh within the November 10, 2020 statement borders, providing Armenians the opportunity to study the Armenian language in Azerbaijani schools or have several hours of daily Armenian language broadcasts on Stepanakert radio.

Nevertheless, this will mean only one thing in real life: no Armenians in Artsakh. Everyone who has at least a basic knowledge of the history and current stage of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict understands very well one thing – if Azerbaijani troops, officials and population enter Stepanakert, Martakert, Askeran and Martuni, it will very quickly, within days if not hours, force Armenians to leave or be killed. The current situation in the Shushi and Hadrut region, where you will find zero Armenians 14 months after the end of the 2020 Karabakh war, is vivid, albeit not the only, evidence confirming this reality.

Thus, during his press conference, Pashinyan sent an indirect message to the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh to use the remaining few years of the Russian presence to prepare their safe landing out of Nagorno Karabakh, either in Armenia or anywhere else. Otherwise, if either in 2025 or 2030 they face a situation similar to what the Armenian population of Shushi, Hadrut, Karvachar or Berdzor faced in November 2020, they should blame themselves and not the government of Armenia. If nothing changes, many Armenians will heed this advice, while simultaneously Azerbaijan will relocate the Azerbaijani population in the territories of the former NKAO currently under its control. Very soon, within a maximum of 10 years and within the borders of the former NKAO, Azerbaijanis will become a majority, thus significantly changing the region’s demographics compared with 1989. It will make the deployment of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh senseless. With the withdrawal of the Russian troops (which may happen in 2030 or later), remaining Armenians will leave, and Artsakh will be transformed into another Nakhichevan with zero Armenian population.   

Meanwhile, the position of the Armenian government makes the continuation of the work of the OSCE Minsk Group senseless. The cornerstone of the activities of the Minsk Group was the issue of the status of Nagorno Karabakh. Suppose Armenia says that Karabakh has zero chance not to be part of Azerbaijan, and the only issue is the security guarantees of Armenian nationals living in Karabakh and holding Azerbaijani passports. In that case, this is not the problem for the three permanent members of the UN Security Council. They are not going to negotiate the number of hours of Armenian language classes in Azerbaijani schools in Karabakh or the possibility to have Armenian language broadcasts on Stepanakert radio.

There are several explanations why the Armenian government pursues this policy. One is based on geopolitics. According to this narrative, Armenia and Azerbaijan, under the auspices of the US, agreed to implement a policy to eventually push out Russian troops from Nagorno Karabakh by decreasing the number of Armenians living there and making the deployment of peacekeepers senseless. It could be a part of the US policy of containment aiming to decrease the influence and positions of Russia in the post-Soviet space, in this particular case in Azerbaijan. While in exchange for support of this policy, the US will turn a blind eye to authoritarian trends in Armenia, which became more clear after the local elections in late 2021 and will continue to provide funding to the Armenian government through USAID, World Bank and IMF and will push the European Union to provide loans via EBRD and EIB. In this scenario, the current Armenian government may secure its position for another decade, either by winning the 2026 parliamentary elections or changing the constitution in 2022, bringing Armenia back to the semi-presidential system of government and winning presidential elections of 2023 and possibly of 2028. 

Another explanation is more straightforward and more prosaic. The current government wants to enjoy the benefits of being in power – state-funded luxury cars, state-funded business trips, state-funded homes, plus the possibility to be part of lucrative business deals – without problems and complications. The existence of the Artsakh problem may prevent them from enjoying that power. That is why the best solution is to forget about Artsakh and eventually make Artsakh another chapter of Armenia’s tragic history.

Are there any possibilities to prevent the realization of this scenario? A significant part of Armenian society – due to the lack of reliable sociological surveys (it is impossible to say they comprise 30 percent, 50 percent or 70 percent of the population) – is indifferent to these developments. Due to the global rise of the consumer society as well as targeted propaganda in the Armenian media for the last 25 to30 years, the ultimate goal of life of this part of the society is to drive 10-year-old BMWs or Mercedes instead of 20-year-old Opels and to spend their holidays not in Kobuleti (Georgia) or Hurghada but in Cyprus or Greece. Their attitude will be either indifference or, if they feel that at the end of the day this scenario may bring additional money to Armenia and personally to them – American money, European money, Turkish money or Azerbaijani money, they may support this vision.

Meanwhile, there is another part of Armenian society, and also quite significant, which is ready to take actions and even sacrifices to prevent the loss of Artsakh. However, this part needs leaders who are ready to organize. In this context, the ultimate responsibility lies on the shoulders of individuals who have relevant capacities and capabilities to rally this part of Armenians around them. People like Nubar Afeyan, Ruben Vardanyan and others can play a role here. They have the experience to launch different pan-Armenian initiatives – The Future Armenian, Armenia 2041, FAST and IDEA foundations. However, the goals of these initiatives are relatively vague and lack the simplicity to involve significant numbers of people. The first step towards the prevention of the loss of Artsakh could be the establishment of the “Save Artsakh” fund with a straightforward goal – to have at least 30 percent more Armenians living in Artsakh in 2027 than now and at least 50 percent more Armenians living in Artsakh in 2030 than now. This simple and clear goal will unite significant numbers of Armenians both in Armenia and the Diaspora, including the middle class. One of the options to increase the population of Artsakh could be the offer of a financial bonus for every Armenian who would like to relocate to Artsakh to do the work which he is doing now in Armenia or abroad. The development of IT technologies has created a situation where many people work remotely from their homes, and there is no significant difference if you have access to the internet in Yerevan, Moscow, Paris, Los Angeles or Stepanakert. The fund may sign contracts with participants offering them a financial bonus in the form of paying them an additional salary if they agree to go to Artsakh and work from there remotely, or do the offline jobs, such as teaching, construction, etc., for a fixed amount of time starting perhaps from three months and reaching a year or even longer. The “Save Artsakh” fund could also pay the rent for these persons while they live in Artsakh. 

This is only one option, and definitely, there could be others to boost population growth in Artsakh. If Artsakh has at least 50 percent more Armenians in 2030 than now, it will ruin the Azerbaijani strategy to change the demographic situation and eventually transform Artsakh into another Nakhichevan. Russian troops will probably be deployed in Artsakh at least until 2030, so the basic security of Armenians living there will be guaranteed. Meanwhile, if the Armenian population increases, it will provide a solid base for Russia to keep its troops in Artsakh after 2030. The upcoming green economy revolution and the relative decrease of the role of oil and gas after 2035 may create problems and trigger instability in Azerbaijan, thus forcing Baku to shift its focus on the domestic situation and probably abandon its plans of destroying Artsakh. 

Dr. Artyom Tonoyan

After almost two years, the Zohrab Center has now returned to in-person meetings at the Armenian Diocese in New York, said director Dr. Jesse Arlen, happily welcoming a sizable crowd for the book presentation of the Russian press coverage of the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis by Dr. Artyom Tonoyan in November. The lecture was streamed on Zoom and YouTube.

Arlen, who is also a postdoctoral research fellow in Armenian Christian Studies at Fordham University, called it important to “gather in person to talk, listen, think deeply and appreciate experts’ presentations on how to engage most effectively with the homeland and Armenian culture. We have had virtual events, but there is something different about getting together in-person, after having spent so much time separated from one another.”

Dr. Tonoyan, the author of Black Garden Aflame: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the Soviet and Russian Press, said that though Russian President Putin was “interested in tranquility along its southern borders, he was not going to interfere in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict militarily on the side of its regional ally Armenia.”

In spite of the fact that Russia has treaty obligations with Armenia, they can only be activated if Armenia itself comes under attack, and since Nagorno-Karabakh has been internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan, Russia would not get involved. In addition, there were questions of whether PM Nikol Pashinyan had strayed away from Russian dependency and was leaning more to the West geopolitically.  

However in 1988, nationalism and ethnic grievances reared their heads, the speaker continued. In Sumgait, pogroms and wanton violence raged against mostly Armenian-populated towns by Azeri thugs. Hundreds of Armenians were brutally murdered in Kirovabad, Khodzhaly, Maragha and Baku by Azeri mobs and troops, resulting in the exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan.

Simultaneously, a group of Armenian intellectuals from Nagorno-Karabakh had started a campaign to redress what they considered a historical injustice that Stalin had perpetrated in 1921 and reverse the overwhelmingly Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabakh from Azeri jurisdiction to Armenian control. They stipulated that the area had suffered greatly both culturally and economically.

Dynamics Change

“Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow’s influence over the anti-Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan and the conflict dynamics in Nagorno-Karabakh diminished as Russia turned more or less inward, seeking to solve its many domestic problems and deal with new foreign policy challenges that would account for its weakened international standing,” Tonoyan explained.

In Nagorno-Karabakh where Armenians were fighting to regain the territory, Azeri victories from 1991 were reversed by 1992 by poorly planned and executed Azeri operations, and by the spring of 1994 Armenians had taken full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, except for Shahumyan and seven Azerbaijani regions. However, Armenians controlled the important towns of Kelbajar and Lachin.

A Fragile Ceasefire – “No War, No Peace”

“Exhausted by the cascading defeats on the ground, and fearful of continuing political instability and social unrest, Azerbaijan pressed for a Russian-brokered ceasefire in May 1994.  Although fragile, the ceasefire would largely hold for the next two decades,” declared the speaker.    “International mediation efforts led chiefly by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, the US and France) tried unsuccessfully to bring the conflicting parties to negotiate a lasting peace.”

It did not take long for increased tension to give way to a full-blown war. Azerbaijan, with increased oil wealth, amassed a huge array of advanced Israeli, Turkish and Russian weapons systems, and dismissive of western mediators they “first tested the waters in 2016 with its Four-Day War.” Hundreds were killed on both sides.      

“If there was no meaningful international pressure on Armenia to cede territories, Azerbaijan was willing to take matters into its own hands, by fair means or foul,” Tonoyan stated, adding, “cross-border clashes were becoming increasingly frequent, deadly and ominous, a harbinger of things to come.”

With Pashinyan coming to power in 2018 with a fervent promise to reform Armenia’s politics and a sagging economy, “the result left much to be desired,” Tonoyan surmised. “Reform often meant a badly concocted mix of popular sloganeering, some democratic initiatives (and some clearly undemocratic ones), and made-for-TV arrests of long-feared politicians and oligarchs, and emboldened by this new confidence and a mandate from the people, Pashinyan set out to tackle the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan.”

In addition, Pashinyan insisted that any negotiated deal “must be equally acceptable to both Armenians and Azerbaijanis, something that previous Armenian governments were loath to voice publicly.” Making the “biggest unforced diplomatic error as prime minister, and providing Azerbaijan and its allies with fresh grounds for a renewed diplomatic onslaught,” “with characteristic bombast, he declared at the opening of the 2019 Pan-Armenian Games in Stepanakert, “Artsakh is Armenia, period!” The reaction in Baku was furious and “unforgiving.”

Bloody cross-border clashes followed in July 2020, including mass demonstrations in Baku with protesters demanding an all-out war against Armenia. The 2020 invasion of Artsakh by Azerbaijan with the assistance of Turkey was inevitable, Tonoyan declared.

Ignored by the West and Western Media

The South Caucasus, and especially Armenia and Artsakh “are not and have not been in the attention of the western media.” When the area is covered very infrequently, it involves either the subjects of tourism or war such as the case of Georgia/South Ossetia in 2008. “People do not know (or perhaps do not care) about the region until and unless something of note takes place,” Tonoyan said.

“Western journalistic interests probably match the general or even the precise contours of Western geopolitical interests in the region.”

And as far as Russia is concerned, he stated that “Moscow’s knowledge of the region is as strong as it is permanent, dictated mainly by geopolitical interests, and depending on the political (and increasingly geopolitical) winds blowing in the region, Moscow has at times favored Yerevan, and at other times Baku. But in all circumstances it has favored Moscow!” This is well understood by most observers and analysts.

Laurence Broers, co-editor in chief of the Caucasus Surveys, has commented that “despite its devastating human consequences on the global stage, the Karabakh conflict unfortunately remains obscure. Not so in the Russian-language press, including Pravda, Izvestia, Nezavisimaya gazeta and other papers by Russian and Soviet journalists.”    

Broers writes that Black Garden Aflame is an “indispensable resource that brings to an English-speaking readership the shock and fury of the conflict’s outbreak in 1988, the inability of the broken Soviet system to contain it, the descent into war, the protracted ceasefire that followed, the multiple geopolitical interests in play and a catastrophic new war in 2020.”   

A native of Gyumri, Armenia, Dr. Tonoyan received his PhD from Baylor University. A sociologist and a research associate at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, he has researched the sociology of religion, politics in the South Caucasus, and religion and nationalism in post-Soviet Russia.

BELMONT, Mass. — The National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) is pleased to announce the 2021 Dr. Sona Aronian Book Prizes for Excellence in Armenian Studies, jointly awarded to Dr. Stephen Badalyan Riegg for Russia’s Entangled Embrace: The Tsarist Empire and the Armenians, 1801-1914 (Cornell University Press, 2020) and Dr. Marc David Baer for Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide (Indiana University Press, 2020); and to Nareg Seferian for his translation of the novel Mayda (Մայտա) by Srpuhi Dussap (Սրբուհի Տիւսաբ) (Armenian International Women’s Association Press). The 2021 awards are for books with a 2020 publication date.

NAASR’s Aronian Book Prizes were established in 2014 by the late Dr. Aronian and Dr. Geoffrey Gibbs, to be awarded annually to outstanding scholarly works in the English language in the field of Armenian Studies and translations from Armenian into English.

NAASR’s Director of Academic Affairs Marc A. Mamigonian commented that “this year’s prize-winning books—in a year with a number of very valuable publications also worthy of attention—really reflect the diversity of Armenian studies and its inextricable relationship with other fields such as Russian studies, Ottoman & Turkish studies, and Feminist studies to name just three. I think that Dr. Aronian, with her own diverse interests, would be pleased.”

Dr. Riegg is assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University. Russia’s Entangled Embrace, his first book, examines the complex relationship between the Russian imperial state and the Armenians who lived in the empire and in areas that over the course of the long nineteenth century would come under Russian control. In doing so, Riegg explores, at the meeting point of territoriality and religion, the “dramatic vicissitudes of policy and perception [that] characterized Russo-Armenian ties” in this period. The author examines the Armenian case as a vehicle to explore Russia’s colonization of the South Caucasus and to disentangle the “complex processes by which imperial Russia mobilized certain groups into loyal minorities.”

Via email, Dr. Riegg wrote that “it is a true honor to learn that my book is a winner of the Dr. Sona Aronian Award. My sincere gratitude goes to the members of the selection committee and the esteemed NAASR organization, which is a model of how to bridge the gap between the public and academe.” Dr. Riegg commented that “the work of historians remains as important today as ever. We must resist the illusory search for ‘the truth’ in history; instead, we must embrace the fact that the past was no less complicated than our present.”

Dr. Baer is professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks provides both the history and analysis of the mythology and stereotypes of Ottoman and Turkish philo-Semitism, and how members of the Jewish community in Turkey and certain scholars leveraged this mythology in the service of denial of the Armenian Genocide. Dr. Baer adopts a long historical perspective as he sets out to answer the questions, “How can we understand that group’s identification and alliance with the perpetrators and their propagation of denial? What emotional world or affective disposition compels them to take this public stand?”

Dr. Baer responded to the news of the prize by email, commenting, “I am greatly honored to receive this prestigious award from your organization. It is much-appreciated acknowledgement of my effort integrating the histories of Jews and Armenians, genocide recognition and genocide denial.”

Seferian is a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs in the Washington, D.C., area. His dissertation will focus on the province of Syunik and geographical imaginations in flux following the emergence of new borders after the Second Artsakh War. The translation prize awarded to Seferian for Dussap’s ground-breaking feminist novel Mayda, first published in Constantinople in 1883, recognizes not only the excellence of the English-language version but also the enormous historical significance of making available what is one of the earliest novels in Western Armenian, the first known novel by an Armenian woman, and a landmark in the formulation of an Armenian feminism. 

Also deserving acknowledgement is the effort of the Armenian International Women’s Association to make this and other important works by Armenian women writers available; and specifically, the role of the volume’s editor Dr. Lisa Gulesserian, with Dr. Barbara Merguerian (who wrote a short biography of Dussap for the book), Dr. Joy Renjilian-Burgy, Judith A. Saryan, and Danila Jebejian Terpanjian must be noted, as well as Dr. Valentina Calzolari who wrote the learned introduction. 

Seferian commented, “I felt very privileged indeed when I was invited to take on the translation. I owe Barbara Merguerian a special debt of gratitude in this regard. Now I feel doubly privileged to be in the company of past recipients of the award. This publication was in truth a team effort, so a great deal of credit is due to the hard-working committee at AIWA. The dedication of AIWA members and supporters is exemplary. I hope our work together reflects Dr. Aronian’s hopes and expectations in establishing this award. God bless her memory.”

Authors or publishers wishing to submit books for consideration for future Aronian Prizes may contact [email protected].