Armenian Diaspora - History

History

The Armenian diaspora has been present for over seventeen hundred years. The modern Armenian diaspora was formed largely after the World War I as a result of the Fall of the Ottoman Empire. After the Fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish nationalists under the lead of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took the province of Western Armenia. As a result of the genocide, Armenians were forced to flee to different parts of the world (approximately half a million in number) and created new Armenian communities far from their native land. Through marriage and procreation, the number of Armenians in the diaspora who trace their lineage to those Armenians who survived and fled Western Armenia is now several million. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, approximately one million Armenians have joined the diaspora largely as a result of difficult economic conditions in Armenia. Jivan Tabibian, an Armenian scholar and former diplomat in Armenia said, Armenians "are not place bound, but... are intensely place- conscious".

According to Randall Hansen, "Both in the past and today, the Armenian communities around the world have developed in significantly different ways within the constraints and opportunities found in varied host cultures and countries."

In the fourth century, Armenian communities already existed outside of Greater Armenia. Diasporic Armenian communities emerged in the Sassanid and Persian empires, and also to defend eastern and northern borders of the Byzantine Empire. In order to populate depopulated regions of Byzantium, Armenians were relocated to those regions. Until the eleventh century, Byzantine authorities often following the Armenian Apostolic version of Christianity, they kept ties with families in Armenia. As Cilis during the seventh and eighth century confrontations between the Arabs and the Byzantine Empire, Armenians either forcibly or voluntarily relocated there. After the fall of the kingdom to the Mamelukes and loss of Armenian statehood in 1375, up to 150,000 went to Cyprus, the Balkans, and Italy. Although an Armenian diaspora existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, it grew in size due to emigration from the Ottoman Empire and Russia and the Caucasus.

The Armenian diaspora grew considerably during and after the First World War due to dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Although many Armenians perished during the Turkish War of Independence, some of the Armenians managed to escape, and established themselves in various parts of the world.