Is a resurgent Christian Armenia possible, or even wise?

The designation the other week by the United States of the massacres of Armenians in Asia Minor between 1915 and 1923 as genocide was an important step in satisfying the call for justice. But that particular passage of brutality was only one of many actions taken by the Ottoman Empire and the republican government of the new Turkey. The Armenian question has been one which has always confused many in the West.

Most people will have heard of, and many read The Song of Bernadette by Czech-Austrian novelist Franz Werfel. But when Mr Werfel arrived in Lourdes in flight from the Nazis, he was already famous as the author of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933). Here, on the coast of the Mediterranean, far from what many today think of as Armenia the population was massacred: Mr Werfel’s novel is a literary monument to a forgotten moment.

Mussa Dagh was an Armenian settlement in what is now northern Syria and had once been southern Turkey on the western extremity of the realm of Armenia which stretched eastward to the edge of the Caucasus. The legendary past of the country was centre on Lake Van in eastern Turkey.

In the boundary changes made by the Allies to the defeated Ottomans many nations were given a new form. Others were refused a return to their historic past. Such was the case with Armenia and to the south into Iraq and Persia was Kurdistan. Russian Armenia had a brief few months of independence after 1918, only to be quickly suppressed by the Soviet army in 1920. Since then both have remained to trouble the conscience of the world with their neglected claims, and their ill treatment by their new masters.

This was especially true of Armenia. There are few enough Armenians in Ireland, a couple of hundred; but there are large communities in France and in the United States. From both of these have come, since the 1920s, a continuous stream of books and journalism constantly reiterating the claims of Armenia as a whole to justice, but to the great annoyance of the changing regimes of Turkey.

What Turkey feared then and fears now is territorial loss, that Armenia and Kurdistan claims recognised would reduce the extent, power and influence of Turkey in the world. The old imperial habits of mind linger long.

However, leaving aside Muslim Kurdistan, the re-emergence in the 21st Century in the Middle East of a Christian state with an historic past and crowded history would certainly pose a problem, one akin in some ways to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Lineage

Turkey can trace its lineage as a nation back to around 1300, when Turkic tribes from Central Asia established themselves in north-west Turkey. In contrast the Kingdom of Armenia goes back to Tigran II who flourished before 63BC. It was a Christian realm for the earliest days of the new faith.

Armenia outclasses Turkey in its claims through culture and religion. Certainly in Marco Polo’s account of the medieval world both Greater and Lesser Armenia loom large. The Armenians now in exile recall all of this history and sustain a longing to see their ancient nation once again a flourishing state.

Only when Armenia and Kurdistan are settled in peace under their own rulers will peace in general begin to prevail in the Middle East.

Last week’s declaration was the end of one process, but also the beginning of another. Only by accepting what local cultures individually want and need, will the great powers be able to sleep easy in their beds. But what new problems will emerge remains to be seen.

The current conflict between Armenia (the former Soviet Republic, an independent fragment on the edge of the Caucuses) and its neighbour Azerbaijan does not bode well for a future of peace. To the Armenians, Armenia means historically a much larger region of the Middle East, as suggested by a map of the area in the time of Marco Polo (see map).

For Marco Polo Greater Armenia was famously the country of the mountain where Noah’s Ark came to rest, a legend that still obsesses many Bible Christians in the US who would send more expeditions there if conditions were calmer and less crossed by conflict.

Joe Biden followed through on his campaign promise of an annual commemoration to be called ‘Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day’. From now it will be harder to forget the massacres. But the complete peace the region’s peoples so long for retreats further into the future.