Issue N6
Ahead of the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, observed on April 24, EVN Report’s April issue entitled “Diaspora” focuses on the realities of the Armenian diaspora and attempts to understand the multi-layered, multi-dimensional nature of the ever-changing Armenian diaspora. Today, in the post-war reality, it is important to redefine and recalibrate the relationship between Armenia and its diaspora.
Guest editor Varak Ketsemanian, a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, writes: “Not only did the past year bring unprecedented threats to the Armenian state and the diaspora as living and dynamic units, but it has also cracked open a Pandora’s Box, unleashing a whole wave of new problems and issues that both sides were not ready to confront. The military defeat we witnessed on the battleground also signaled the defeat of long-established patterns and tropes of Armenia’s relationship with its diaspora and vice-versa. The articles of this special issue are humble efforts in this regard.”
Western Armenian literature does live in many different environments, traditional or innovative. The question, however, is in what conditions or with what prospects? New pathways are necessary to keep it “living.”
Will the 2020 Artsakh War be a turning point for the diaspora to reassess and define a new agenda for itself? Dr. Khatchik DerGhougassian argues that a paradigm shift has started to occur in how the diaspora sees itself and its relationship with the homeland.
Do diasporas have agency, imagined and conceptualized, to produce collective behavior or are they too vast and heterogeneous to generate any coordinated collective action in unison?
The 2020 Artsakh War was perceived and experienced in Armenia as well as in the diaspora as an existential crisis. Kasbarian argues that the recent nation-wide mobilization made this moment a transformative one.
The guest editor for the April issue on “Diaspora” writes about clarifying the steps needed to navigate these difficult times, and the imperative to take a step back and deconstruct the pedestal on which we have built our mutual and national expectations.
The diaspora must continue to invest in rebuilding and channeling diasporic potential following the 2020 Artsakh War. This is not 1915, writes Lalai Manjikian, the nation has a huge pool of educated, driven and competent forces.
EVN Report’s mission is to empower Armenia, inspire the diaspora and inform the world through sound, credible and fact-based reporting and commentary. Our goal is to increase public trust in the media. EVN Report is the media arm of EVN News Foundation registered in the Republic of Armenia in 2017.
