Repatriation of Armenians

The repatriation of Armenians refers to the act of returning of ethnic Armenians to Armenia.

Armenians were persecuted, forcefully displaced, and deported multiple times in their history during foreign rule. For over a thousand years, the Armenian people were continuously expelled from their homeland in a process which began with the Byzantines, continued with the Great Surgun under the Persian Empire, and culminated in the genocide of 1915 under the Ottoman Empire.

The attachment of the Armenian people to their homeland has been sustained within the diaspora through the formation of Armenian communities and schools. Repatriation to Armenia has long been a central aspiration of the diaspora; however, apart from the forced relocation of Armenians from the Middle East and Azerbaijan large-scale repatriation to Armenia has remained minimal.

The goal of repatriation has faced numerous goals which have disincentivized migration. Among them are anti-Armenian sentiment within the sections of Armenian homeland that lie in Turkey (Western Armenia) and Azerbaijan, Eastern Armenia’s incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1920, the instability following its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan since 1988, and Armenia's geographic position between two hostile neighbors—Turkey and Azerbaijan. These factors have discouraged many in the diaspora from relocating to Armenia, prompting successive generations to remain in more stable host countries. Over time, this has led to growing assimilation and, particularly among younger Armenians, a waning connection to their heritage—a phenomenon often referred to within the community as "White Genocide."

Background

Origins of the Armenian people

Armenians are an ethnic group who originate from the eponymous Armenian Highlands, located in Western Asia, between Anatolia, the Caucasus, the Iranian Plateau, and the Fertile Crescent. Most of the region is currently divided between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Turkey.

Urartu, the predecessor of the Satrapy of Armenia, united the tribes of the highlands sometime in the 9th century BC, which eventually led to the emergence of the Armenian people. As the Armenian language spread, the highlands became homogenized.

The Armenian kingdoms that followed enjoyed sovereignty over the Armenian Highlands, but also often fell to the rule of foreign empires. However, when under foreign rule, Armenia often remained a self-ruling geopolitical entity, as a tributary or vassal state, and rarely under direct control of the ruling empire of the time. This allowed a distinguishable Armenian culture to develop and flourish, leading to the creation of its own unique alphabet and its own branch of Christianity.

Foreign rule

It was in the 11th century, with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, followed by waves of Turko-Mongol invasions around the time of the Mongol Empire, when Armenian self-rule in Armenia began to dramatically decline. By the time of the Timurid Empire in the 14th century, only pockets of Armenian autonomy remained, such as in Artsakh.

After centuries of instability, the political landscape in the Armenian Highlands finally settled, divided between the Ottoman Empire ruling the western portion, and Iran ruling the eastern portion. The two empires' rivalry was often settled with battles in the heart of the Armenian Highlands.

Displacements and deportations

Armenians were persecuted, forcefully displaced, and deported multiple times in their history during foreign rule. For over a thousand years, the Armenian people were continuously expelled from their homeland in a process which began with the Byzantines, continued with the Great Surgun under the Persian Empire, and culminated in the genocide of 1915-1922 under the Ottoman Empire.

Early period In 578 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Maurice deported some 30,000 Armenians from territories under his control. He told his Persian counterpart to do the same.

Turkic violence against Armenians began with the 11th-century invasions of Turkic nomads, escalated to cultural destruction and displacement, and culminated in the 1915 Armenian Genocide, resulting in the destruction of Western Armenia and the expansion of Turkic states into occupied Eastern Armenia. The Institute for Religious Minorities in the Islamic World, states that since the conquests by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century, "the main theme of Armenian history has been the struggle for survival against the encroachment of Turkic power."

Muslim rule in Armenia in the following centuries also accelerated the gradual emigration of Armenians. Several centuries later, conflicts between the Ottomans and Iranians caused the voluntary and forceful emigration of Armenians from the Armenian Highlands. One of the first major forced displacements of Armenians in the modern era was at the turn of 17th century when the Iranian king Abbas I moved Armenians from Iranian Armenia to the inner regions of his empire. The Ottomans were regularly making incursions into Abbas I's realm through Armenia, one of the Safavid Iran's primary frontiers. In order to remove the means of maintaining large armies on his frontiers, Abbas I adopted a scorched earth strategy and depopulated them as much as he could. He also used this as a way to enrich his realm by moving Armenians into Isfahan, the capital, as Armenians were esteemed merchants. Roughly 300,000 Armenians were moved from Chokhur-e Sa'd (roughly modern-day Yerevan and its surroundings), Beyazit, Van, and Nakhichevan, to Iranian Azerbaijan and Isfahan.

Under the Ottoman Empire Until the beginning of the 20th century, Armenians continued to form the largest ethnic group (but not religious majority) in most of Ottoman Armenia.Arnold Toynbee's re-calculated population values of the Ottoman Empire in 1912. See here: . As explained in the footprint: The analysis excluded certain portions of a province where "Armenians are minor". In the "vilayet of Van", (vilayet is a province in the Ottoman Empire) there were two portions (portions in modern use correspondes to county). Arnold Toynbee to find the ratio of Armenians in "Van," removed the values originating from portions of Van (listed in the foot print) where Armenians were in minority in this province. The presented table shows the re-calculated values of the stated provinces using values where Armenians are not in minority. This graphic was first prepared in 1913 by the Armenian politician Marcel Leart (Krikor Zohrab). The demographics of the region changed considerably due to the Ottoman Empire's policy of settling Muslim refugees from the Balkans during the Balkan wars into the region, and the emigration of Ottoman Armenians to Russian Armenia, the latter of which had been ongoing since the mid-19th century, when most of Iranian Armenia had been annexed by the Russian Empire.

After the Armenian genocide during World War I, the Armenian population of Ottoman Armenia ceased to exist, being reduced to negligible numbers. Many who remained hid their identities or were assimilated. The survivors who did not remain formed the Armenian Diaspora, a community of Armenians who have spread around the world.

Under the Soviet Union

Between 1944 and 1953, Soviet authorities under Stalin's regime forcibly removed ethnic minorities, including Armenians, from the South Caucasus, including the Black Sea coast, and other regions. On May 29, 1949, a top-secret resolution, described as "Operation Volna" (no. 2214-856) signed by Stalin and council executive secretary Mikhail Pomaznev Soviet ordered the expulsion of certain minority groups, including Armenians to Altai Krai.

In total, those expelled included 80,000 Armenians from the Armenian SSR, and 2,771 Armenians from the Georgian SSR. Certain historians characterize this as a form of ethnic cleansing. Armenians who had fled the former Ottoman Empire and those associated with the Dashnak party were targeted because their cross-order ethnic or ideological affiliations were seen as obstacles to a unified Soviet identity.

Russian Armenia (1828–1917)

Background

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had conquered Transcaucasia from Iran, which reconquered it in the early 17th century. The local Armenians, who had been laid destitute by heavy Ottoman taxation, and the Shi'ite Muslims who had been persecuted for their beliefs, welcomed Iran as liberators. In 1603, news of an Ottoman counteroffensive reached the king of Iran, Abbas II, who ordered the displacement of the population of Armenians from the province of Erivan (roughly modern-day Yerevan and its surrounding provinces, Igdir, Nakhchivan, and Maku), particularly from the town of Julfa, and also from the province Van, as part of a scorched earth strategy. It is estimated that the number of Armenians who were displaced by 1605 was as high as 300,000. Over the following centuries, several nomadic Turkic and Kurdish tribes settled in the area and established khanates.

In the 19th century, Russia acquired all of Transcaucasia, including most of Eastern Armenia, as a result of wars with Iran (1804–1813 and 1826–1828) and with the Ottoman Empire (1828–1829 and 1877–1878).

Armenian Oblast (1828–1840)

After the Russian Empire annexed Transcaucasia from Iran, they established the Armenian Oblast out of the Erivan Khanate. In 1826, the population of the khanate was 110,120, of which 20,073 (~18.22%) was Armenian.Bournoutian 1980, p. 12.Bournoutian 1992, p. 63. The Russian Empire, along with the existing Armenian community in Transcaucasia, promoted the resettlement of Armenians fleeing from the Ottoman Empire in to the new oblast. As many as 40,000 from Qajar Iran and 100,000 from Ottoman Turkey left for the Russian-controlled territory.

Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire

The Russo-Iranian and Russo-Ottoman wars caused a sentiment of distrust for Christians within the Muslim empires, particularly in the Ottoman Empire, which was amplified by their ongoing losses to Christian nations in the Balkans during the decline of the empire. Armenians were often accused of betrayal, leading irregulars opposing the Russian Empire to pillage and attack Armenians, and massacres such as the Hamidian Massacres.

Although a number of Armenians preferred Ottoman or Iranian rule, Armenians from within Russia did instigate revolts and feelings of national awakening among Ottoman Armenians. Many moved to Transcaucasia to join the revolutionary organizations that aimed to restore Armenian independence for Ottoman Armenia. This ultimately became one of the factors that led the Ottoman leadership to commit genocide and eliminate all Armenian presence from Ottoman Armenia. The influx of Armenian refugees into Transcaucasia was accelerated drastically as the Armenian genocide was being carried out starting from 1915.

First Republic of Armenia (1918–1920)

After the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Armenian population of Transcaucasia declared the independence of the first Armenian Republic in 1918. The short-lived republic dealt with war from all sides throughout the entirety of its existence. As the Ottoman Empire fell, the partition of the Ottoman Empire was being discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The conference agreed that the Ottoman Empire had to surrender all of its territorial claims in Transcaucasia, but the parts of Ottoman Armenia to be awarded to the Armenian Republic was less clear, since its Armenian population had been extinguished during the Armenian genocide. Additionally, Armenians faced Muslim uprisings in the region (i.e., the Kars Republic). Finally, in the Treaty of Sèvres, a large part of Ottoman Armenia was awarded to the Armenian Republic, today referred to as Wilsonian Armenia, which the Ottoman government signed, but was never ratified.