From James Dean to Stalin: The Tragedy of Armenian Repatriation

[TomServo]

What do you all think? Does the hayrenadarts/teghatsi division still exist in Armenia today? While I don't think the treatment of repatriates is as horrific as during the Stalin/Khrushchev periods, I would argue that it does. The word akhpar has been used more than once on these forums, particularly by Mos. Then again, the first president of Armenia was a repatriate from Syria...

Speaking of which, communist emissaries tried to get my father's family to make the move from Aleppo to Armenia in the postwar period. I am so glad they decided to stay put.

From James Dean to Stalin by Hazel Antaramian Hofman

As a young child, she always wondered why she lived in Yerevan when her father was born in the U.S. and her mother was from Lyon. Then she understood. With an historical-artistic project, Hazel Antaramian Hofman follows the footprints of those people, who, from all over the world, decided to migrate to Armenia after the Second World War

I was born in 1960, in Yerevan, Armenia, yet spoke little Armenian, and what I did speak was Western Armenian. As a young child, I always wondered why I came from such an exotic place when my father was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and my mother was from Lyon, France. Only after years of hearing stories did I realize that I was the product of two Armenian Diaspora post-World War II repatriate children, who were compelled by their father and mother’s emotive sense of hayrenik to leave one known cultural and ideological ground for another.

Read the rest here

Pictures here

[TomServo]

Re: From James Dean to Stalin: The Tragedy of Armenian Repatriation

This is an extremely bitter piece but I thought it was worth sharing because it discusses issues that are never addressed (and are actually suppressed) by both Armenia and the diaspora.

[Haykakan]

Re: From James Dean to Stalin: The Tragedy of Armenian Repatriation

Pretty good read there. I gotta say it very much touches on what i have been saying fora long time-diaspora and Armenia need to intigrate- that the syrian armenians need to fight-that the armenian lobby is a compromised piece of bs. The resentment for the foreigners that the article talks about is somewhat misplaced. The hayastantsis were not angry at the akhpars for coming to eat their bread-they were angry because the akhpars came with money and flaunted it when the hayastantsis themselves were poor and struggeling. The story here is told from a onesided point of view. The division of the diaspora from Armenia is our biggest enemy and needs to be adressed more then anything else except security issues.

This is an extremely bitter piece but I thought it was worth sharing because it discusses issues that are never addressed (and are actually suppressed) by both Armenia and the diaspora.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: From James Dean to Stalin: The Tragedy of Armenian Repatriation

Pretty good read there. I gotta say it very much touches on what i have been saying fora long time-diaspora and Armenia need to intigrate- that the syrian armenians need to fight-that the armenian lobby is a compromised piece of bs. The resentment for the foreigners that the article talks about is somewhat misplaced. The hayastantsis were not angry at the akhpars for coming to eat their bread-they were angry because the akhpars came with money and flaunted it when the hayastantsis themselves were poor and struggeling. The story here is told from a onesided point of view. The division of the diaspora from Armenia is our biggest enemy and needs to be adressed more then anything else except security issues.

Except that the Armenian solution to alleged "division" is always some self-proclaimed "Superior Armenians" saying that they have more insight then mere "ordinary Armenians", and the solution is just to "do what I say". This of course just creates even more division.

Perhaps the solution is to get rid of those cowardly, self-seeking "leaders" inside Armenia and amongst the diaspora.

At present, NATO and the Gulf States are sponsoring a revolution that is undermining Syria, and the Armenians who fled massacre in Turkey into Syria, are now fleeing Syria. The true nature of this revolution can be readily brought home, if not to fools who believe in “people power”, then at least to Armenians, by indicating that the genocidal “Deep State” rulers of Turkey have taken the lead in supporting and fomenting the revolution in Syria under the pretense of averting a “humanitarian disaster”

Ironically, with regard to Syria, many Armenians in the diaspora are making the same argument deniers of the Armenian genocide put forward as to why so many Armenians were killed around the first world war, namely, that they were “caught up” in a general chaos of war rather than being deliberately targeted. So instead of using the means available to them through the Armenian media and employing lobby groups to exert some political pressure to try and avert the disaster of having Syrian Armenians further removed from their lands, when not sitting with their hands folded, are collecting money to empty them from Syria and send them further from their lands.

The behavior of the leaders of the diaspora organizations cannot exclusively be explained by avarice and stupidity. A number of them are undoubtedly corrupted traitors who have made a deal with the devil.

If the "true nature" is so readily visible to Armenians, why the total silence from ALL of them (not just from their supposed leaders)? All we get are simplistic propaganda about a 100 year old genocide and silence about the one taking place today. But, as I've said before, this is not surprising given that the same complete silence happened during the American-led genocide of Iraqi Christians.

[TomServo]

Re: From James Dean to Stalin: The Tragedy of Armenian Repatriation

Pretty good read there. I gotta say it very much touches on what i have been saying fora long time-diaspora and Armenia need to intigrate- that the syrian armenians need to fight-that the armenian lobby is a compromised piece of bs. The resentment for the foreigners that the article talks about is somewhat misplaced. The hayastantsis were not angry at the akhpars for coming to eat their bread-they were angry because the akhpars came with money and flaunted it when the hayastantsis themselves were poor and struggeling. The story here is told from a onesided point of view. The division of the diaspora from Armenia is our biggest enemy and needs to be adressed more then anything else except security issues.

I'm not saying it's 100% accurate, it is a personal account, after all. But there are many similar stories (just look at my initial post in this thread). As for "resentment for the foreigners" -- well, that's one thing the author doesn't address -- the impact of Stalinism and its extreme xenophobia on Soviet Armenia and the Soviet Union in general.

Also, the author asserts that the treatment of Syrian Armenians will likely mirror the treatment of the akhpars in the 1940s. Those Halebtsis better make sure they don't flaunt all their money.