GEOCurrents
The Peoples, Places & Languages Shaping Current Events
The Many Armenian Diasporas, Then and Now
Written by Martin W. Lewis on February 6, 2012
Wikipedia map of the recent Armenian DiasporaArmenians have long been
scattered over many countries, whether as permanent migrants or
temporary sojourners. Today, only about a third of their population
lives in Armenia, with the rest spread over a wide area, as can be
seen on the map posted here. This pattern largely reflects the
movements caused by deadly mass expulsions of the early 20th century
that most scholars call the Armenian Genocide. As a result, standard
reference sources on the “Armenian Diaspora” focus on the deadly
Ottoman deportations into the Levant and the subsequent dispersion of
survivors to the far reaches of the world. But earlier Armenian
diasporas had completely different geographies that were of great
historical significance. Today only vestiges of the earlier movements
remain, yet at the same time new patterns are emerging as Armenians
once again leave their homeland in large numbers. The Armenian
diaspora, it would seem, is always in flux.
One change over the past few decades has been the reduction of the
once sizable Armenia communities in the Middle East generated by the
Ottoman expulsions. Lebanon is the key locale here, still hosting some
150,000 Armenians, or about four percent of the national
population. Before the Lebanese Civil War of the late 1970s and `80s,
the community was substantially larger. But despite its recent
decline, the Beirut community remains culturally vibrant, publishing
three Armenian-language daily newspapers. Each paper is linked to a
different Armenian political party, typifying the fractious and
sectarian nature of Lebanese politics.
Modified Wikipedia map of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Circa 1200
CEHistorically speaking, the Armenians are no strangers to mass
deportations and refugee crises. Robin Cohen traces the Armenian
“victim diaspora” back to the actions of the East Roman Emperor
Maurice, who resettled Armenians in Cyprus and Macedonia in 578 CE.*
The Seljuk Turkish invasion of the Armenian homeland in the eleventh
century resulted in a much larger refugee flow. Many settled in
Cilicia in what is now south-central Turkey. There they built their
own kingdom, which emerged as a fairly powerful state called Cilician
Armenia (or Little Armenia) in the 1200s. After Cilician Armenia fell
to the Mamluks of Egypt in late 1300s, the more prosperous members of
the community fled to the cities and towns of Europe. Central and
Eastern Europe were major destinations. Poland-Lithuania, desperate to
populate its vast expanse, welcomed many. So did Hungary and the
Romanian principalities. So many migrants settled in the Transylvanian
city of Gherla that it became known as “Armenian-town” (Armenopolis,
Armenierstadt or, in Armenian, Hayakaghak). As late as 1850, Gherla
had an Armenian majority; subsequently, most of the community was
assimilated into the Magyar (Hungarian) population.
Modified Wikipedia map of Armenians in Transylvania 1850But not all
Armenian mass movements were “victim diaporas.” When historians of the
early modern period discuss the Armenian diaspora, they usually have
in mind a dispersion rooted more in economic opportunity than
political persecution. This Armenian “trade diaspora,” based on
long-distance exchange across nodes of ethnic kin, was vast,
stretching the breadth of Eurasia. When European adventurers first
reached such seemingly isolated states as Tibet and Ethiopia
(Abyssinia) they found prosperous Armenian outposts. Such settlements
were sometimes founded on trade in highly specific commodities. The
Armenians of Tibet, for example, dealt mainly in deer musk, a once
precious substance used as a perfume fixative, incense ingredient, and
medicine, and which was also thought to be an aphrodisiac.
This early modern Armenian mercantile diaspora was largely voluntary,
but it did include some episodes of coercion. In 1606, Shah Abbas I of
Safavid Persia forcibly deported** tens of thousands of Armenians from
his empire’s contested border zone with the Ottomans. The shah
recognized the economic potential of the Armenians, and hoped to turn
it to his own advantage. Resettled in New Julfa, a suburb of the
Safavid capital of Isfahan, the Armenians were treated with toleration
and encouraged to trade. Before long, the New Julfa merchants were
carrying out most of Persia’s vital silk trade, establishing outposts
as far afield as Manila and southern China. The deep extent of the
historical Armenian presence in Iran is evident in the large number of
Persian loanwords in the Armenian language.
The Safavid Empire was not the only major Muslim polity to want an
Armenian presence. India’s Mughal emperor Akbar invited Armenian
merchants to settle in Agra in the late 1500s, offering substantial
inducements: “By an imperial decree, Armenian merchants were exempted
from paying taxes on the merchandise imported and exported by them,
and they were also allowed to move around in the areas of the Mughal
empire where entry of foreigners was otherwise prohibited.” Many came,
and the South Asian Armenian community thrived though the 1800s.
In the twentieth century, most of the foreign outposts established by
this early-modern Armenian system withered, undermined by modernizing
trade and transportation practices and by the hardening of
ethno-national lines. Most Asian-based Armenians again relocated,
usually to the Western Hemisphere, Australia, or France. The Armenian
community of India now numbers all of around 100, challenging the
survival of such venerable cultural institutions as the Armenian
College of Kolkata (Calcutta). A similar situation is found in
Ethiopia, where the remaining Armenians struggle to support their
school, church and social club. The Armenian population of Iran is
more stable, numbering between 40,000 to a little more than
100,000. Still, an estimated 350,000 “Armenian Iranians” now live
abroad. In the Armenian communities of Europe, partial assimilation
has generated a more ambiguous situation. Poland, site of one of the
oldest diasporic communities, found only 1,082 Armenian residents in
its 2002 census; some Armenian sources, however, claim that the actual
number is closer to 100,000.
While many foreign Armenian communities are disappearing, others are
being replenished by emigration from Armenia itself. Since the late
1980s, an estimated one million Armenians have moved abroad, fleeing
the poverty of their homeland. Most have relocated to Russia, long a
focus of Armenian dispersal. As a result, the population of Armenia
itself has dropped substantially in recent years. Demographers
estimate that 25,000 to 30,000 people permanently leave the country
each year. In 2010, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
officially advised the Armenian government to “improve the
socioeconomic situation and strengthen the rule of law” in order to
avoid further depopulation. Considering the fact that its total
fertility rate is only about 1.5, Armenia’s demographic future does
seem grim.
The current Armenian exodus has a distinct gender imbalance, with men
predominating. In some rural areas, women now form a clear
majority. As one local informant recently told a reporter, “It’s a
total matriarchate. We even joke that our village’s name should be
changed from `Canyon of Roses’ to `Canyon of Women.'”
Counterbalancing this trend has been a marked upturn since
independence in the sex ratio at birth; far more Armenian boys are
being born than girls. This trend is found throughout the southern
Caucasus: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan now vie with northern India
and eastern China for their natal sex imbalances. The exact reasons
for this seldom-noted Caucasian phenomenon are not clear, although
son-preference obviously plays a major role.
* Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction. 1997. University of
Washington Press, page 44).
** Persian sources often claim that the Armenians came on their own,
fleeing persecution by the Ottoman authorities, but most historians
doubt such accounts.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
