Doctoral Thesis University of Trento School in Social Sciences Doctoral Program in Sociology and Social Research 25th Cycle Mayr Hayastan Im Hairenik: Memory and the Politics of Construction of the Armenian Homeland Ph.D. candidate: Turgut Kerem Tuncel Advisor: Professor Giolo Fele Trento, June 2014 I dedicate this dissertation to my mother Fatma Tuncel and my father Bekir Hikmet Tuncel 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank to the School in Social Sciences at the University of Trento for granting me the opportunity to complete this dissertation. I would also like to acknowledge Prof.Giolo Fele for supervising my research. I would like to offer my greatest appreciation and thanks to Simon Payaslian (Boston University), Tsypylma Darieva (Friedrich-Schiller University) and Carlo Ruzza (University of Trento) for being the members of my dissertation committee and providing me with valuable criticisms and guidance. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Gerard Libaridian and Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I had been a pre-doctoral fellow in the 2011-2012 academic year. This dissertation has been a long journey during which I met many wonderful people in Ankara, Istanbul, Trento, Yerevan and Michigan. I will always remember the 24th and 25th cycle PhD candidates in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Trento with whom I shared the working space for almost two years. The people of the Studentato di San Bartolameo between October 2009 and June 2010 from different corners of the World had not been only the ones I shared the common spaces but wonderful friends that I shared joy and happiness. I would like to thank Hamoon, Levon, Ruben and Armine for not just providing me with help during my stays in Yerevan at different times before and during my PhD research, but also for becoming my beloved friends. Among the Yerevantsis, I am grateful to Diana for translating some texts without which this dissertation could not have been possible. My very special thanks go to Deniz Onay, Engin Onay, Erdem Doganoglu and Murat Aygun, who have been my brothers since the junior high school. Last bu not least, I would like to thank to my mother Fatma Tuncel and my father Bekir Hikmet Tuncel for their love and support. 2 Abstract Establishment of the independent Republic of Armenia in 1991 has been a turning point in the Armenian history; except for the existence of an independent Armenian republic between 1918 and 1920, by the dissolution of the USSR, Armenians gained an independent state after more than six hundred years. The transition of the Soviet Armenia to an independent republic stimulated not only the radical dislocation of the established economic, political and socio- cultural structures in Armenia, but also transformed the routine in the Armenian diaspora communities. In this process, aiding the frail and infant independent Armenian republic became a paramount ethno-national cause among the diaspora communities and, by extension, one of the principal ethno-national binders, as well as a chief cause of controversies. Overall, the post-1991 era has witnessed the re-territorialization of the de-territorialized Armenian political imagination in the diaspora. This facilitated the post-1991 trans-state Armenian ethno-national re-construction along the Armenia-diaspora nexus. A parallel process to that has been the construction of the social reality of the post-1991 Armenia. This dissertation examines the construction of the Armenian ethno-national social reality of the post-1991 Armenia through the discursive social practices of the Armenian state, new generation diaspora organizations and the diasporic individuals within the communicative space formed along the Armenia-diaspora nexus. The examination demonstrates that concerns over the physical and cultural survival of the Armenian ethno-nation expressed in different ways are the main considerations that eventually result in the construction of the post-1991 Armenia as the guardian and the soil of the Armenianness. From an abstract point of view, the actual agent of discourses that speaks through the Armenian state, new generation diaspora organizations and the diasporic individuals is the “anxious Armenian” who searches stability and security, reclaims her ethno-national identity, and is concerned about the cultural survival of the Armenian ethno-nation. Besides all, she is the one who “remembers” the genocide. This “anxious Armenian”, instead, is the person that the social memory of the genocide speaks itself through. As such, genocide is not only the “defining and founding moment” of the contemporary Armenian identity, but also the “defining and founding moment” of the post- 1991 Armenia. 3 CONTENTS 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………...7 1.1 Background of the Research: Establishment of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenia-Diaspora Nexus…………………………………………………………...7 1.2 Objective of the Research: Understanding the Construction of the Ethno-national Social Reality of Post-1991 Armenia……………………………………………...11 1.3 Discursive Social Practices and the Construction of the Ethno-national Social Reality of the Post-1991 Armenia within the Trans-state Communicative Spaces……………………………………………………………15 1.4 The Agents and the Socio-political Context of Discourse………………………...18 1.5 Methodology of the Research……………………………………………………..22 1.5.1 The Data……………………………………………………………………..22 1.5.2 Method of Analysis………………………………………………………….30 1.6 Composition of the Chapters………………………………………………………32 2 CHAPTER 2: THE OVERVIEW OF THE ARMENIA-DIASPORA RELATIONS FROM 1987 TO THE PRESENT……………………………………………………35 2.1 Early Armenia-Diaspora Contacts in the Final Years of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1987-1991)…………………………………………………..35 2.1.1 Beginning of the Political Upheavals in the USSR and the Re-emergence of the Karabakh Conflict………………………………………………………35 2.1.2 Transformation of the Karabakh Movement into an Independence Movement…………………………………………………..38 2.1.3 The Beginning of the Karabakh War and the Establishment of the Independent Armenian State……………………………………………….51 2.2 The First Stage of the Post-Independence Armenia-Diaspora Relations (1991- 1998)……………………………………………………………………………...56 2.2.1 The Clash between the ANM and the Opposition until 1998: The “New Thinking” vs. the “National Ideology”……………………………………..61 2.2.2 Armenia-Diaspora Relations: the Civic vs. the Ethnic, and the 1995 Constitution and the Controversy over Dual-Citizenship…………………..69 2.3 The Second Stage of the Post-Independence Armenia-Diaspora Relations (1998- Present)……………………………………………………………………………74 2.3.1 The Post-1998 Political and Social Landscape in Armenia………………...77 2.3.2 The Post-1998 Ideological Landscape in Armenia: The Republican Party of Armenia and the Armenian National Ideology…………………...81 2.3.3 Post-1998 Foreign Policy…………………………………………………...85 2.3.4 Post-1998 Armenia-Diaspora Relations…………………………………….88 2.4 Beginning of the Third Stage of the Post-Independence Armenia-Diaspora Relations: Legalization, Formalization and Institutionalization of Armenia- Diaspora Relations since 2005…………………………………………………..100 2.4.1 The Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia……………………102 2.5 Summary………………………………………………………………………...116 4 3 CHAPTER 3: THE MAKING OF ARMENIA IN THE ARMENIAN STATE DISCOURSE………………………………………………………………………..118 3.1 The Hayern Aysor Electronic Daily……………………………………………..120 3.1.1 The Old and the Renewed Hayern Aysor………………………………….120 3.1.2 The Subject-wise and Country-wise Content of the Hayern Aysor…….....122 3.1.3 The Discourse of the Hayern Aysor……………………………………….125 3.1.4 Hayern Aysor’s Conceptualization of Armenia…………………………...138 3.1.5 Interim Conclusion: The Making of Armenia within the Hayern Aysor….140 3.2 Minister Hranush Hakopyan’s Speeches………………………………………..142 3.2.1 Rhetorical and Thematic Characteristic of Hakopyan’s Speeches………..142 3.2.2 The Foundations of Hakopyan’s Discourse: Threat Perceptions and Moral Claims……………………………………………………………………..142 3.2.3 Hakopyan’s Conceptualization of Armenia……………………………….151 3.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Making of Armenian within Minister Hakopyan’s Speeches……...……………………………………………...157 3.3 President Serzh Sargsyan’s Statements………………………………………….158 3.3.1 Securitization of the Armenia-Diaspora Relationship…………………….158 3.3.2 Armenian Ethno-National Unity and the Mode of Cooperation…………..161 3.3.3 Sargsyan’s Conceptualization of Armenia………………………………...170 3.3.4 Interim Conclusion: The Making of Armenia in Sargsyan’s Statements……………………………………………………..174 3.4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………174 4 CHAPTER 4: THE U.S. BASED NEW GENERATION DIASPORA ORGANIZATIONS AND THE DISCOURSE ON THE “ARMENIAN HOMELAND”………………………………………………………………………177 4.1 Birthright Armenia………………………………………………………………179 4.1.1 Journey of Self-discovery, Voyage to Nation Building…………………...186 4.1.2 Armenia: The Ultimate Means of Ethno-Nation Building………………...190 4.2 Armenian Volunteer Corps……………………………………………………...191 4.2.1 Moving the Mountains…………………………………………………….196 4.2.2 Armenia: The Symbol of the Historical Justice and the Guarantor of the Survival of the Armenian Ethno-Nation…………………………………..199 4.3 Christian Youth Mission to Armenia……………………………………………201 4.3.1 Thousand Sermons in One Journey……………………………………….203 4.3.2 Armenia: Spiritual Roots and Contemporary Armenianness……………...209 4.4 Land and Culture Organization………………………………………………….211 4.4.1 Avatars of the Armenianness……………………………………………...213 4.4.2 Armenia: The Roots and the Temple of Armenianness…………………...218 4.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………220