Gender, nationalism, exclusion: the reintegration process of female survivors of the Armenian genocide

Class Notes

  • Starts on the premise of national reconstruction

  • There is a genuine effort to separate an Armenian identity from the Turks

    • Allows for unity and moral alignment → what does it mean to be Armenian post-genocide

    • This includes forgetting parts of their “Turkish” influenced identity → problematic, especially for Armenian women and children → if you’ve known something your whole life, then it isn’t as easy as flipping a switch

      • Also problems around fertility → Armenian mothers being mothers to Turkish and Armenian children

  • There was an institution that aimed to help reintegrate women → however, it was eventually controlled by the church → therefore, was very strict about the identity they could embody

  • Identity is not just about who we are, but also who (and what) we aren’t

  • There is an eternal lack of connection between parent and child

National Reconstruction

  • National reconstruction → the period immediately following the massacres → for the Armenian Genocide → 1917 => Armenian community lived in Egypt

    • The Armenians in Egypt “put their stamp of these efforts at national reconstruction through their active representatives” (63)

      • Imperative was to group all survivors and build a new Armenian identity by separation from the Ottoman Empire and the Turks

      • Not only do the events that occur leave marks, but also the dates they occur → they mark a turning point in identity and history. (63)

        • Ex. The use of “before/after the genocide” divides history in 2 parts.

      • "…this new element of belonging quickly turned into a powerful agent for integration—according to Mirsolav "Hroch’s (1985) defintion—and would serve to morally homogenise the Armenians” (63).

    • Therefore, after the massacres, the memory and pain (along with feelings of hatred), “became the main cement in the efforts of national reconstruction.”

    • Memory and pain → main means of ideological homogenization

  • “…a patriotic elite, be it endowed with centralizing government organs or not, is always inclined to create its own networks among the social classes with the aim of imposing its special vision of the nation on them” (63)

    • For the Armenians → “the nation must accept its new isolation from the Turkish world and renounce all cultural links with the Ottoman past” (63).

    • For the Armenian leaders → “It was imperative, therefore, to complete the break with the past, rebuild the nation after the horror of the genocide and prepare for that historic day with the ‘reborn’ nation would leave to settle in its future nation-state” (64).

Regroup, purify, reintegrate

  • Many Armenian women and children “were transferred from one group to another, always with the idee fixe of changing their national identity” (to that of Muslim, Turk, etc.) (65)

  • Initially, many children were relocated to “Turkify” them and women were used to bear children. → From 1917 on, Armenians themselves began to look for their women and children “with the aim of returning them to the national community” (66)

    • “Nationalistic ideology demanded that they be “cleansed” of the last vestiges of the “turkification” to which they had been subjected during the War.” (66)

Rehabilitating Armenian Women: The Attempt and the Contradictions Haunting it

  • “The immediate post-genocidal period saw an unprecedented national mobi-lisation of the Armenian people, who, with exemplary courage, devotedthemselves heart and soul to gathering up the remnants of their nation andbringing about a national rebirth. Their mobilisation also proved to the worldthat the attempt to exterminate the Armenians had failed.” (67)

  • “…the person concerned was still traumatized as a result of her experiences, and was not convinced that times have changed”

  • “It seems clear that they [Armenian leaders] were convinced that these women would never succeed in passing the ‘cleansing’ stage and that their identity was lost for ever.” (74)

  • “…children were rejected on the basis of a principle of racial discrimination, according to which any child fathered by a Muslim was unworthy of integration into the national community” (75)

Conclusion

  • MEMORY of genocide → building blocks of Armenian national identity

    • Narration and remembering have become institutionalized → both is diaspora and Republic of Armenia

    • “Under these circumstances, the image of the martyr-nation is sacralized, and the victims are transfigured and become subjects of admiration or even veneration”

      • But why aren’t women’s & children’s (survivors) stories seen the same as those killed/affected during the Armenian genocide?

  • Author argues that these questions ^^ gives opportunity to try and understand the meaning of “resistance” and its nuances.

  • Ultimately, the author is urging us to study the nuance behind survivors’ experiences, including those who are deemed to be a “lost cause.” Because “it is the generations that were born to these survivors that today form the majority of the Armenian diaspora, as well as a significant number of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia.” (78)