"He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian." -Woody Allen
After living with the Armenians for 8 months I have come to know them fairly well. I've slept in their houses, ate at their tables, worked in their schools and spoken their language. For someone from California who spent the previous several years mostly living in Europe, Armenia is remarkably homogeneous country; both ethnically and psychologically. They are a big Caucasian tribe that the collapse of the Soviet Union unexpectedly turned into a country after centuries under the heel of great empires.
A prouder people I have never met, nor one more obsessed with their history. They tend to wallow in it more than they revel in it sadly. As a historian I don't really think any people have the right to say they had it so much worse than other peoples that they deserve special sympathy. Sometimes, it almost feels like they love their misery and tragedy, that it gives them strength, binds them closer together, makes the hardships of the present easier to bear. Nationalism is a complex beast, and it definitely doesn't take to all lands equally. By channeling centuries of getting the shit end of the stick, they have, if nothing else, firmly defined what it is to be Armenian; and suffering is a fundamental component of it. Even the Armenian Diaspora, whose tie with their roots is often merely conceptual, have proven remarkably loyal to the national identity.
All this was on full display as these people observed their 100th anniversary of the most recent round of large scale slaughter in their history, which is widely known as the Armenian Genocide. After a massive display of unsatisfied rage they convinced the Soviet government to build them a memorial after the 50th anniversary. Thus is there now a massive basalt fortification surrounding an eternal flame with a big obelisk next to it meant to signify something that is suitably somber and serious.
So now, a 100 years after the Armenian population living in the late Ottoman Empire got caught up in the most violent period of human history (1914-1945) and as a result got slaughtered en masse, the Armenian Nation meditates on death. I think the horrific truth of the matter is that the Turkish leadership knew they would lose the war and with it their Empire, so they figured they might as well purge as many Christians as possible from their future country; it would just make things simpler in the long run. Given that Europe had colonized hard in all non-Christian lands, their ruthless extermination of Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians was as pragmatically in line with the logic of the time as it was savage.
Nowadays, after all those people who lived through those dark days in 1915 are taking their eternal rest, the holiday has become a very odd combination of honoring the fallen, pretending they can get retribution from modern Turkey, and just an all out nationalistic frenzy. For a country of 3 million with no natural resources and an economy that is just plain broke(n) to speak belligerently about the 90 million Turkic peoples living on either side of their country takes some balls. Most people here really seem to have a deep seated passionate faith in the cult of Blame-the-Turks. Their most recent confrontation with Turkic speaking people has rather ironically led to them actually gaining some territory, that of Nagorno-Karabakh, from neighboring Azerbaijan in the early 1990's. Of course that now means that Azerbaijan has been spending double the GDP of Armenia on its military and bidding its time until it sees a moment ripe for reconquest. Only thing really preventing it now is Armenia being satellite state of Russia, whose forces control the border with Turkey.
The horrid truth is that to the south of Armenia things have become more barbaric and war torn than usual, and north of the Caucuses a tense ceasefire barely keeps Ukraine for resuming its civil war and potentially getting Armenia's protector, Russia, bogged down in so much shit that it wont be able to come bail out its little buddy if the Azeris make their move. Given the half assed response of the West to the rise of the Islamic State, pretty sure they wouldn't do a damn thing to a good old fashioned blood feud in the Caucuses.
Its an amazing thing to get to know a people who are so cognizant of the horrors they have suffered but still willing to antagonize its larger more powerful neighbors all whilst being seemingly unaware of what terrible costs they might incur by doing so. Guess after so many times going down the consequences-be-damned road its almost instinctual for them.
All this was on full display as these people observed their 100th anniversary of the most recent round of large scale slaughter in their history, which is widely known as the Armenian Genocide. After a massive display of unsatisfied rage they convinced the Soviet government to build them a memorial after the 50th anniversary. Thus is there now a massive basalt fortification surrounding an eternal flame with a big obelisk next to it meant to signify something that is suitably somber and serious.
Nowadays, after all those people who lived through those dark days in 1915 are taking their eternal rest, the holiday has become a very odd combination of honoring the fallen, pretending they can get retribution from modern Turkey, and just an all out nationalistic frenzy. For a country of 3 million with no natural resources and an economy that is just plain broke(n) to speak belligerently about the 90 million Turkic peoples living on either side of their country takes some balls. Most people here really seem to have a deep seated passionate faith in the cult of Blame-the-Turks. Their most recent confrontation with Turkic speaking people has rather ironically led to them actually gaining some territory, that of Nagorno-Karabakh, from neighboring Azerbaijan in the early 1990's. Of course that now means that Azerbaijan has been spending double the GDP of Armenia on its military and bidding its time until it sees a moment ripe for reconquest. Only thing really preventing it now is Armenia being satellite state of Russia, whose forces control the border with Turkey.
The horrid truth is that to the south of Armenia things have become more barbaric and war torn than usual, and north of the Caucuses a tense ceasefire barely keeps Ukraine for resuming its civil war and potentially getting Armenia's protector, Russia, bogged down in so much shit that it wont be able to come bail out its little buddy if the Azeris make their move. Given the half assed response of the West to the rise of the Islamic State, pretty sure they wouldn't do a damn thing to a good old fashioned blood feud in the Caucuses.
Its an amazing thing to get to know a people who are so cognizant of the horrors they have suffered but still willing to antagonize its larger more powerful neighbors all whilst being seemingly unaware of what terrible costs they might incur by doing so. Guess after so many times going down the consequences-be-damned road its almost instinctual for them.
"History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?' and lets fly with a club."
-John W. Campbell Jr.
