Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor

“This book is a warning about an impending disaster, remembering a similar past disaster.”

—    Levon Abrahamian, Professor of Anthropology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

“This book opens a door between anthropology and conflict studies that helps to understand the international relevance of Armenian history.”
—      Emidio Diodato, Professor of Political Science, University for Foreigners Perugia, Italy
“This book is an excellent historical and anthropological insight into the Syrian War as a chain of ethnic, religious and political games; identities; and struggles, rooted in the Armenian genocide.”

—      Yulia Antonyan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yerevan State University, Armenia

This volume examines significant social transformations engendered by the ongoing Syrian conflict in the lives of Syrian Armenians. The authorsdraw on documentary material and fieldwork carried out in 2013-2019 among Syrian Armenians in Armenian and Lebanese urban settings. The stories of Syrian Armenians reveal how contemporary events are seen to have direct links to the past and to reproduce memories associated with the Armenian genocide; the contemporary involvement of Turkey in the Syrian war, for example, is seen on the ground as an attempt to control the Armenian presence in Syria. Today, the Syrian Armenian identity encapsulates the complex intersection of memory, transnational links to the past, collective identity and lived experience of wartime “everydayness.” Specifically, the book addresses the role of memory in key events, such as the bombing of Armenian historical sites during the commemorations of 24 April in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor; the (perceived) shift from destroying Syrian Armenians’ material culture to attempting to destroy the Armenian community in urban Aleppo; and the informal transactions that take place in the border area of Kessab. This carefully-researched ethnography will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology and political science who specialize in studies of conflict, memory and diaspora.

Marcello Mollica is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the University of Messina, Italy.

Arsen Hakobyan is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.