Introduction

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Introduction INTRODUCTION In 2001 the Armenians commemorate the fact that 1700 year ago, in 301, their king, Trdat, and with him the entire Armenian population, adopted Christianity. This means that Armenia was the first nation to adopt Chris- tianity as the official religion of their public institutions, more than a decade before Constantine did so in the Roman Empire. Ever since Christianity has been an integral part of the Armenian self-image and identity. This issue of Het Christelijk Oosten intends to show how this identity took shape over the centuries down to the present day. Besides this religious factor there is an additional element which is crucial for understanding the Armenian identity: due to its geographical position Armenia has always been under extreme pressure from external peoples and religions. The Armenian Church struggled for independence against the Greeks; it was forced to take position vis-à-vis Islam as early as in the sev- enth century; it was subject to aggressive unification attempts from the side of the Roman Church in the Crusader time and in the eighteenth century; it had to come to terms with a long Persian and Ottoman dominion; and it had to establish its independence against the Russian Orthodox Church. In recent times, Communism constituted a serious threat to the activities of the Armenian Church. The central questions here are: how did Armenia and its Church react to these external pressures and why did the Armenian population so tenaciously hold to its traditions? In this issue, a number of renowned armenologists will discuss these ques- tions from various perspectives. With one exception (Dadoyan's paper on Armenia and the Islam) their contributions focus on the ‘modern’ period, from the seventeenth century onward – that is, the period which in Western Europe is marked by the rise of capitalism and secularism. As Zekiyan con- vincingly showed in the recent monograph, The Armenian Way to Moder- nity, 1 Armenia took part in these developments. When we say that Armenia forms an integral part of the Western, Christian culture, this does not only refer to remoter times when Armenia adopted Christianity, but also to the 1 Boghos L. Zekiyan, The Armenian Way to Modernity (Venice, 1997). 172 INTRODUCTION fact that over the centuries Armenia fully shared in the intellectual develop- ments of the ‘Western’ world. We might say that Armenia entered the modern period with the introduction of book-printing. The first Armenian printed books appeared in 1511; they were produced in Venice. At that moment the Armenian Church had devel- oped for a period of over a thousand years. It had established its doctrinal posi- tion as a monophysite Church when it refused to accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451); a century later, at the second Council of Dwin (555), it had declared itself an independent, autocephalous national Church. During the Arab domination of Armenia, in the absence of a secular Armenian focus of power, Catholicos Yovhannes Awjnec’i (717-728) obtained jurisdiction over all Armenian interests from the Arab caliphs; from this time onward the Armenian Church developed its characteristic function as the spiritual and sec- ular centre of the Armenians. Until the twelfth century, that is, until the time of the Crusades, the Armenian Church was involved in defining and main- taining its position to chalcedonian, dyophysite Byzantium. In Crusader times the political and religious centre of Armenia shifted from central Armenia towards Cilicia, in Southern Anatolia. This period was characterized by increas- ing religious contacts with Western powers and with the Church of Rome. These contacts resulted in various attempts to come to an ecumenical union. Although these attempts were not free from political motives, the Armenian religious leaders, such as Nerses Shnorhali (1166-1173) and Nerses Lambronac'i (1175-1198) attest a genuine desire for religious unity in their writings. Ecumenic attempts stopped after the final victory of the Mamluks in Cilicia (1375) and the conquest of Constantinople by the Seljuks (1453). It is in this situation that the Armenians entered the modern world. Politi- cally they came to live under Ottoman or Persian dominion. The only national institution was their Church. However, neither the Armenian people nor its Church turned to isolation. From the sixteenth century onwards a new phenomenon can be noticed among the Armenians: the diaspora situation. Originally as merchants, later as refugees, Armenians established themselves all over the world. They followed the great trading routes; as silk traders they are found in the main ports and commercial cen- tres of Europe: Venice, Livorno, Marseilles, Frankfurt, Moscow and Amster- INTRODUCTION 173 dam. There they took their goods, there they built their churches and there they eagerly took in contemporary cultural trends. It was through diaspora Armenians that the humanistic ideals of Enlightenment were spread all over the nation. If, following Zekiyan, the rise of modern Europe can be defined as an ongoing movement towards ‘secularisation’, towards an emancipation of human activity from the primacy of ethical values, then Armenia has participated in this movement through its diaspora. The development of ‘modern’ Armenia came to an abrupt halt through the genocide which annihilated the Anatolian Armenians in 1915. This genocide lead to the diaspora pattern as we know it now. The papers in this collection describe and study various types of the Arme- nian diaspora in an effort to show how the Armenians and their Church reacted to their ever changing surroundings. Over the centuries, contacts with Islam have been very frequent. However, historical research has greatly neglected this aspect of Armenian society. Seta Dadoyan is one of the first scholars to approach this field. Her paper gives an overview of Armenian history and interaction with Islam in the pre-modern period. It was from Islamic territory – from Persia –, that the seventeenth-century Armenian merchants came to Europe to form their colonies. In recent years, the structure and organization of the Armenian silk traders’ society in the Persian capital of Isfahan (or New Julfa) have attracted new attention. Vazken Ghougassian wrote a major study on the Armenian Diocese of this city. In his contribution he sketches the background of these merchants and their cultural and religious role in the development of ‘modernity’ among the Armenians. The relations between Armenia and the Church of Rome have not always been easy, to say the least. Boghos Zekiyan sketches the main contacts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period is marked by the fruitful cultural emancipation through the so-called Mekhitarists, a Roman Catholic religious order which was established by Mekhitar of Sebaste, a person of exceptional stature. This order, operating from Venice (and later also from Vienna) – the Armenian diaspora –, was instrumental in spreading cultural emancipation among the Armenians. Zekiyan rightly stresses the exceptional ecumenical vision of Mekhitar. At the other end of the spectrum Zekiyan describes the formation of an Armenian Catholic patriarchate in the eight- 174 INTRODUCTION eenth century and the gradually increasing distance between the Armenian Church and the Armenian Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century also saw organized attempts at a political ‘liberation’ of the Armenians who lived in the Ottoman Empire and under Persian suzerainty in Transcaucasia. Quite naturally the Armenians looked for support from the Russians who had emerged as a new ‘Christian’ power and who themselves clearly were expanding towards the south. Theo van Lint describes a most curi- ous, and as yet unknown, episode in which political and religious motivations are intermingled and which sheds an interesting and unexpected light on the religious motivation of eighteenth-century Armenian nationalism. It was in the nineteenth century that the Armenian Church came into closer contact with Protestantism through missionary activities largely organized from the United States. The importance of these contacts and their intellec- tual repercussions are sketched by Barbara Merguerian. Drawing on con- temporary sources, which are difficult to access, she points out that the Protestant mission programmes played a major role in the awakening of the Armenian nation in the nineteenth century. The Armenian genocide halted all development towards modernization and emancipation. It is only now, at the beginning of a new century, that Armenian cultural and religious development makes a new start and tries to link again to trends which were amputated in 1915. As always in Armenian history, an important impetus originates from the diaspora. The main cen- tre of Armenian diaspora is now the USA. In his contribution Dennis Papaz- ian traces the origins of the Armenian diaspora in the United States and describes its current situation as an example of the twentieth-century Armenian cultural position. Taken together, the contributions in this issue provide an illustration of the continuous formation and tenacity of Armenian culture. As in the past Arme- nians look upon their Church as a major pillar of their identity; as in the past, they pass on impulses and new ideas from and through their diaspora. It is for this reason that one may be confident that the Armenians will be able to con- tinue their Christian tradition successfully. Jos J.S. Weitenberg.
Recommended publications
  • The Cost of Memorializing: Analyzing Armenian Genocide Memorials and Commemorations in the Republic of Armenia and in the Diaspora
    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR HISTORY, CULTURE AND MODERNITY www.history-culture-modernity.org Published by: Uopen Journals Copyright: © The Author(s). Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence eISSN: 2213-0624 The Cost of Memorializing: Analyzing Armenian Genocide Memorials and Commemorations in the Republic of Armenia and in the Diaspora Sabrina Papazian HCM 7: 55–86 DOI: 10.18352/hcm.534 Abstract In April of 1965 thousands of Armenians gathered in Yerevan and Los Angeles, demanding global recognition of and remembrance for the Armenian Genocide after fifty years of silence. Since then, over 200 memorials have been built around the world commemorating the vic- tims of the Genocide and have been the centre of hundreds of marches, vigils and commemorative events. This article analyzes the visual forms and semiotic natures of three Armenian Genocide memorials in Armenia, France and the United States and the commemoration prac- tices that surround them to compare and contrast how the Genocide is being memorialized in different Armenian communities. In doing so, this article questions the long-term effects commemorations have on an overall transnational Armenian community. Ultimately, it appears that calls for Armenian Genocide recognition unwittingly categorize the global Armenian community as eternal victims, impeding the develop- ment of both the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. Keywords: Armenian Genocide, commemoration, cultural heritage, diaspora, identity, memorials HCM 2019, VOL. 7 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/202155 12:33:22PM via free access PAPAZIAN Introduction On 24 April 2015, the hundredth anniversary of the commencement of the Armenian Genocide, Armenians around the world collectively mourned for and remembered their ancestors who had lost their lives in the massacres and deportations of 1915.1 These commemorations took place in many forms, including marches, candlelight vigils, ceremo- nial speeches and cultural performances.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnic Return of Armenian Americans: Per- Spectives
    Karolina Pawłowska: Ethnic return of Armenian Americans: Perspectives Ethnic return of Armenian Americans: Per- spectives Karolina Pawłowska University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan, [email protected] Abstract The field research conducted among the very few Armenian Americans who have moved to Armenia showed that the phenomena of migration of the diaspora of Armenians to Armenia holds great potential both as a theoretical issue within migration studies and potentially a social phenomenon, as Armenian Americans differ from other migrants and expats in Armenia, because they carry stereotyped pre-images of that land that influence their expectations toward their future lives there. Field research conducted in Armenia in 2012 shows that the disillusionment that repatriation brings causes internal tensions and identity crises, eventually forcing migrants to redefine their role in Armenia in the frame- work of their contribution to the development of their homeland, often isolating them from local Armenians through diaspora practices and maintaining the symbolic boundary between these two groups of Armenians in Armenia. KEYWORDS: diaspora, ethnic return, symbolic boundary, boundary maintenance, so- journers Introduction Both diaspora and specifically the Armenian diaspora are topics well explored in litera- ture (Cohen 2008; Dufoix 2008; Bauböck & Faist 2010; Tölölyan 2012). However, the migration of Armenians from the diaspora to Armenia is not a popular topic among re- searchers and the diaspora of Armenians themselves. The number
    [Show full text]
  • Yeghishe Charents March 13, 1897 — November 29, 1937
    Հ.Մ.Ը.Մ.-Ի ԳԼԵՆԴԵԼԻ ԱՐԱՐԱՏ ՄԱՍՆԱՃԻՒՂԻ ՄՇԱԿՈՒԹԱՅԻՆ ԲԱԺԱՆՄՈՒՄՔ Homenetmen Glendale Ararat Chapter Cultural Division Get to Know… Volume 2, Issue 3 March 2009 YEGHISHE CHARENTS MARCH 13, 1897 — NOVEMBER 29, 1937 Yeghishe Charents (Yeghishe Soghomonian) was born in March 13, 1897 in Kars, currently located in North-Eastern Turkey. Born into a family of tradesman, he became one of the legendary figures of Armenian art and anti-Soviet activism. His works have fostered generations of patriotic Armenians and have been translated and read by peoples as diverse as the subjects on which he wrote. One of the leaders of the literary elite of the Soviet Union, his poetic dynamism and musical modality set him apart as one of the most inspired poets—not Armenian poet, but poet—of the twentieth century. Charents spent 1924 and 1925 as a Soviet diplomat, traveling throughout the Armenian Diaspora urging Armenian writers to return to Armenia, and continue their literary work there. After returning to Armenia, in 1925, he and a group of other Armenian writers founded a literary organization called the Association of Armenian Proletarian Writers. Unfortunately, many of his colleagues were either deported to Siberia, or shot or both, under Stalin’s regime. During the years following 1925, Charents published his satirical novel, Land of Nairi (Yerkir Nairi), which rapidly became a great success among the people. Later on, Charents became the director of Armenia’s State Publishing House, while he continued his literary career, and began to translate, into Armenian, literary works by various writers. Charents also published such famous novels as: Rubayat (1927), Epic Dawn (Epikakan Lussapats, 1930), and Book of the Road (Grik Chanaparhi, 1933).
    [Show full text]
  • What Makes a Restaurant Ethnic? (A Case Study Of
    FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE, 2017, NO. 13 WHAT MAKES A RESTAURANT ETHNIC? (A CASE STUDY OF ARMENIAN RESTAURANTS IN ST PETERSBURG) Evgenia Guliaeva Th e Russian Museum of Ethnography 4/1 Inzhenernaya Str., St Petersburg, Russia [email protected] A b s t r a c t: Using restaurants in St Petersburg serving Armenian cuisine as a case study, the article studies the question of what makes an ethnic restaurant ethnic, what may be learnt about ethnicity by studying a restaurant serving a national cuisine, and to what extent the image of Armenian cuisine presented in Armenian restaurants corresponds to what Armenian informants tell us. The conclusion is that the composition of the menu in these restaurants refl ects a view of Armenian cuisine from within the ethnic group itself. The representation of ethnicity is achieved primarily by discursive means. Neither owners, nor staff, nor customers from the relevant ethnic group, nor the style of the interior or music are necessary conditions for a restaurant to be accepted as ethnic. However, their presence is taken into account when the authenticity or inauthenticity of the restaurant is evaluated. Armenian informants, though, do not raise the question of authenticity: this category is irrelevant for them. Keywords: Armenians, ethnicity, ethnic restaurants, national cuisine, authenticity, St Petersburg. To cite: Guliaeva E., ‘What Makes a Restaurant Ethnic? (A Case Study of Armenian Restaurants in St Petersburg)’, Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 2017, no. 13, pp. 280–305. U R L: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/fi
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Armenian Immigration to Southern California Daniel Fittante
    But Why Glendale? But Why Glendale? A History of Armenian Immigration to Southern California Daniel Fittante Abstract: Despite its many contributions to Los Angeles, the internally complex community of Armenian Angelenos remains enigmatically absent from academic print. As a result, its history remains untold. While Armenians live throughout Southern California, the greatest concentration exists in Glendale, where Armenians make up a demographic majority (approximately 40 percent of the population) and have done much to reconfigure this homogenous, sleepy, sundown town of the 1950s into an ethnically diverse and economically booming urban center. This article presents a brief history of Armenian immigration to Southern California and attempts to explain why Glendale has become the world’s most demographically concentrated Armenian diasporic hub. It does so by situating the history of Glendale’s Armenian community in a complex matrix of international, national, and local events. Keywords: California history, Glendale, Armenian diaspora, immigration, U.S. ethnic history Introduction Los Angeles contains the most visible Armenian diaspora worldwide; however yet it has received virtually no scholarly attention. The following pages begin to shed light on this community by providing a prefatory account of Armenians’ historical immigration to and settlement of Southern California. The following begins with a short history of Armenian migration to the United States. The article then hones in on Los Angeles, where the densest concentration of Armenians in the United States resides; within the greater Los Angeles area, Armenians make up an ethnic majority in Glendale. To date, the reasons for Armenians’ sudden and accelerated settlement of Glendale remains unclear. While many Angelenos and Armenian diasporans recognize Glendale as the epicenter of Armenian American habitation, no one has yet clarified why or how this came about.
    [Show full text]
  • Road from Home to America, Middle East and Diaspora, About Being Armenian Genocide Female Survivor
    www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol. 4, No. 3; August 2011 Roots and Routes: Road from Home to America, Middle East and Diaspora, about Being Armenian Genocide Female Survivor Ani Derderian Aghajanian Washington State University E-mail: [email protected] Received: February 11, 2011 Accepted: February 28, 2011 doi:10.5539/ies.v4n3p66 Abstract Adolf Hitler, on August 22, 1939 stated, “I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity men, women, and children belonging to the Polish-speaking race. It is only in this manner that we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians?” (Kherdian, 1979). Armenia is a land which has been ravaged by war on far too many occasions. Other nations keep turning it into a battlefield and tearing it apart. Armenian people have survived for many generations and their stories are told and retold during the hard winters. Armenians’ survived just as Armenia and Armenian culture have survived (Downing, 1972). Therefore, diverse life experience, traditions, histories, values, world views, and perspectives of the diverse cultural groups make up a society and preserve culture (Mendoza and Reese, 2001). In this study, two Armenian books “The Road from Home” and “The Knock at the Door” were analyzed. These books are organized as personal stories and experiences about Armenian female genocide survivors and are supplemented by background information on Armenian people before and after the genocide of their culture, including a brief history, discussion of traditions, recipes, music and religion.
    [Show full text]
  • The Armenian Church and the Russian State, 1825-55
    DRAFT: Please do not cite or circulate. Carolina Seminar, “Russia and Its Empires, East and West,” September 17, 2015 Divine Diplomacy: The Armenian Church and the Russian State, 1825-55 Stephen Riegg PhD Candidate History Department UNC-Chapel Hill Monument to “Russian-Armenian friendship” in Yerevan. Photo property of the author. 1 DRAFT: Please do not cite or circulate. Introduction A large crowd in Yerevan braved the winter chill of 2 December 2013 to watch the unveiling of the city’s latest sculptural addition. Dignitaries at the ceremony included Serzh Sargsyan, the president of the Republic of Armenia, and Maksim Sokolov, the Russian Minister of Transportation.1 Towering behind the men stood the new, fifteen-foot-tall marble monument. It depicts two women, their veiled heads slightly bowed toward each other, bound in an intimate embrace. A large cross, the focal point of the sculpture, not only links the women but also finds shelter in their unity. While new to the Armenian capital, the monument is a larger replica of an older statue in central Moscow, whose inscription declares: “Blessed over centuries is the friendship of the Russian and Armenian peoples.” The political partnership and the ecumenical solidarity evoked by these monuments experienced their defining epoch during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I (1825-55). This paper examines the encounter between the tsarist state and the Armenian Church in that period, placing this dynamic within a broader discussion of Russian imperialism. I argue that St. Petersburg capitalized upon the political influence of the Armenian Church to advance its foreign policy in the Ottoman and Persian capitals.
    [Show full text]
  • Armenians of Tampa Bay : a Long Way Home
    University Honors Program University of South Florida St. Petersburg, Florida Certificate of Approval Honors Thesis This is to certify that the honors thesis of AnnaNefedova Has been approved by the thesis committee On May 2, 2002 as satisfactory for the thesis requirement for the University Honors Program Thesis Cmmnittee: Thesis Advisor: Raymond Arsenault, Ph.D. Committee Member: Daanish Nlustafa, Ph.D. ARMENIANS OF TAMPA BAY: ALONG WAY HOME (THE HISTORY OF THE ARNIENIAN PEOPLE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE TAMP ABAY ARNIENIAN COMivfUNITY) By: Arma Nefedova A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Honors Program University of South Florida May,2001 Thesis Advisor: Raymond Arsenault, Ph.D. Thesis Committee Member: Daanish Mustafa. L_.__ _ _ _ TABLE OF CONTENTS .... 1. [ntroduction ... .. .... ............ .) 2. Armenians: Who They Are Origins and Location ............................ .. ............... ... ....... 7 Armenian Language. .................... ......... ... ...................... 9 Transcaucastan. R eg10n. m. -?Oth C entury....... ... 11 Armenia Today ........................... ................. ... ............. 12 3. The Long Road to the Present Ancient History and its Influence on the Place of the Armenian Nation in the World Today ....... ........... ....... ... .. .... 14 First Conflicts Changing Times ....... .... ..... .. .......... .................. ..... 20 Christianity in Armenia and its Consequences.. .............. 21 Arabic Conquest of Asia . 23 Armenian History in 11-19 centuries
    [Show full text]
  • The Armenian Diaspora and the Negotiations Between Turkey and Armenia, 2009-2010
    When the Diaspora Becomes an Obstacle: The Armenian Diaspora and the Negotiations between Turkey and Armenia, 2009-2010 Gallia Lindenstrauss The involvement of diasporas in state-of-origin peace processes is usually categorized as either “positive” or “negative.” Some scholars, when explaining “negative” involvement, point to the identity-related issues that cause extreme and non-compromising views among diasporic members. This article claims that any major development in the homeland forces the diaspora to reflect on its identity, and that this reflection can cause resentment, and even lead to actions against such developments. This issue can be linked to the concept of “ontological security,” that is, the idea that routine in relations with significant others contributes to a consistent sense of identity. The claim is supported by analyzing the case of the Armenian diaspora and the 2009-2010 negotiations between Armenia and Turkey. Members of the Armenian diaspora are mainly descendants of survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915, and as such feel they are the custodians of Armenian identity. The protocols signed by Turkey and Armenia on October 10, 2009, that were meant to establish diplomatic relations and open the shared border between the states, were received by most Armenian diasporic organizations with more resentment and protest than in Armenia itself. Two clauses in particular have raised an outcry. The first is the establishment of an intergovernmental subcommittee to examine the historical differences between 63 Gallia Lindenstrauss the countries. This conflicts with Armenia’s longstanding insistence on referring to the events of 1915 as genocide. The second clause requires Armenia’s recognition of the border between Armenia and Turkey, a demarcation that Armenia, since gaining independence, has refused to recognize officially.
    [Show full text]
  • Rich Faith of an Ancient Culture Waves of Immigration Build a Church Armenia Sits at the Intersection of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
    Rich Faith of an Ancient Culture Waves of Immigration Build a Church Armenia sits at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 301 AD, it was the first sovereign nation to accept Christianity as a state religion. Christianity was suppressed in Armenia for more than 600 years under the Ottoman authority. More recently, Armenia gained its sovereignty after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. “Being Christian kept us Armenian,” Bishop Mouradian says. Since the faith was widely adopted early in the modern history of Armenia it became deeply rooted in cultural identity. Bishop Mouradian Armenian Catholics began arriving in the celebrates Mass at By Beth Griffin United States in the late nineteenth century, Our Lady of Nareg following the first in a heart-breaking series Parish on Easter. eing Armenian and being of massacres and genocides in their home- Christian are like two wings of land. They settled on the East Coast and “Bthe same bird. The bird can’t asked Patriarch Stepan-Bedros X Azarian to fly with only one wing,” says Bishop Mikael send a priest from Armenia to serve them. Antoine Mouradian, leader of the Armenian Bishop Mouradian says the first wave of Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Nareg. Armenian immigrants concluded with sur- “My first priority is to keep my people in the vivors of the 1915 genocide that killed more Catholic faith with the growing challenges in than 1.5 million people. A second wave of the United States and Canada. Second is to immigrants came after the Second World War, keep them as Armenians, because for us, to and the most recent wave began after imper- be Christian and to be Armenian is one thing.
    [Show full text]
  • Armenian Cuisine: a Construct in the Service of Identity
    ARMENIAN CUISINE: A CONSTRUCT IN THE SERVICE OF IDENTITY by Gevorg Mnatsakanyan Presented to the Department of English and Communications in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts American University of Armenia Yerevan, Armenia May 24, 2018 2 Abstract The central issue of the present paper is to study the role of Armenian cuisine in the reemergence of an Armenian national identity during the wave of national(ist) awakening that swept Soviet Armenia of the 1960s. Focused around a textual analysis of Armenian Cuisine (Haykakan Khohanotsʿ), a cookbook first published in 1959 under the auspices of Soviet gastronomic engineer Anastas Mikoyan, the first section of the research findings explores the socio-historic conditions of its creation, as well as its function in the formulation of a unified concept of Armenian cuisine. The second part to the analysis draws from the findings of the first to understand how these socio-historic conditions gave birth to a form of discourse that placed Armenians as its subjects, who upon internalizing said discourse, used it to associate with a glorified historic past seen as central to its national identity. The paper concludes by establishing the unmistakable relation between cuisine and identity, while pondering the inherent dangers of overidentification with nationalist discourse and possible avenues for the future evolution of Armenia’s culinary tradition. 3 Introduction The director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, Brian Mandell, explains negotiation as the art of letting other people have it your way. Insofar as culture is the point of suture of negotiated meanings, Armenians seem to have been very successful in negotiating their culinary culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Armenian Claims and Historical Facts Questions and Answers
    ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Center for Strategic Research – 2005 ANKARA WAS EASTERN ANATOLIA 1 THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THE ARMENIANS? 2 ARMENIAN CLAIMS AND HISTORICAL FACTS CONTENTS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ......................................................................................... 5 QUESTION 1: WAS EASTERN ANATOLIA THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THE ARMENIANS? ................................................................................... 7 QUESTION 2: DID THE TURKS TAKE THE LANDS OF THE ARMENIANS BY FORCE?.......................................................................................................... 9 QUESTION 3: HAVE THE TURKS ALWAYS ATTACKED AND MISRULED ARMENIANS THROUGHOUT HISTORY ? ............................................... 12 QUESTION 4: DID THE TURKS REALLY TRY TO MASSACRE THE ARMENIANS STARTING IN THE 1890's ? ......................................................................... 17 QUESTION 5: WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM "GENOCIDE" ?............................ 27 QUESTION 6: DID THE TURKS UNDERTAKE A PLANNED AND SYSTEMATIC MASSACRE OF THE ARMENIANS IN 1915 ? ....................................... 28 QUESTION 7: DID TALAT PASHA SEND SECRET TELEGRAMS ORDERING MASSACRES? ...................................................................................................... 33 QUESTION 8: DID 1,5 MILLION ARMENIANS DIE DURING WORLD WAR I ?.......................................................................................................................... 39 QUESTION
    [Show full text]