My Armenian identity. A journey from the personal to the political
- Alexis Krikorian
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
A personal essay by Alexis Rochette Krikorian
Many have already written about what Armenian identity means. For me, the “guess guess[1]”, this has long consisted of eating dolma at my grandparents' house. No Armenian school, no community clubs, no language learning. None of the fundamentals that make one “fully” considered an Armenian of the diaspora.
The sonorous “Hayeren khose” (“speak Armenian”) shouted by visitors dressed in black still echoes in my ears, like contradictory and pathetic injunctions.
It was my Aunt Rose who, through sheer determination, forged my Armenian identity during those formative years. She was the one who insisted that I use my middle name, Aram. She was also the one who made sure that I heard the horror stories of my grandmother Satenig, a genocide survivor, during afternoons spent in the garden of the house built by my grandfather Krikor and my uncle Marc (Nechan).
Istanbul rather than Yerevan: an introduction to Armenian culture through justice
My “true” introduction to Armenian culture came as an adult. It began during a trip to Armenia in 1999 with my parents and my Aunt Rose, among others. But it was really in December 2003, in Istanbul, the "Bolis" of the Armenians, that the penny dropped.
I was representing the International Publishers Association at the trial of Ragıp Zarakolu, the first Turkish publisher to have had the courage to publish a book on the Armenian Genocide. His publishing house, Belge, had been burned down after the book Jenosid by V. Dadrian[2] was published. It was there, in that state security court, under the gaze of Atatürk's bust, that I understood what being Armenian meant to me: a quest for justice through firm and dignified advocacy.
Ragıp Zarakolu introduced me to Armenian Istanbul: the Agos newspaper, the Aras publishing house, the Marmara newspaper, where I had the honor of meeting the late Rober Haddeler (Haddedjian). It was thanks to Ragıp that I met Hrant Dink. I can still hear the great man shouting my name, “Krikorian!”, in the stairwell of the bilingual newspaper. It was like a challenge to Kemalist Turkey, which had Turkified the surnames of the "remnants of the sword".
Without a doubt, it was in Istanbul, rather than Yerevan, that my “true” entry into Armenianness took place.
A year later, my friend Kjell Olaf Jensen of Norwegian PEN and I co-organized a "parallel event" on freedom of expression in Turkey at the UN in Geneva. The two great men, Ragıp Zarakolu and Hrant Dink, were among the speakers.
From freedom of expression to defending the truth
This meeting with Ragıp Zarakolu marked the beginning of a decade of commitment to freedom of expression in Turkey, marked by Hrant's assassination in 2007 and culminating in the campaign for Ragıp's release from prison in 2011-12.
My friend Alain Navarra and I founded Hyestart in 2016-2017 to defend human rights in Turkey and Armenia, at a time when it was becoming dangerous to travel to Turkey after the “attempted coup”.
To me, being Armenian means committing not only to defending freedom of expression and human rights, but also to defending historical truth in the face of falsifiers and deniers of all kinds. It also means combating state-sponsored Armenophobia, a phenomenon documented by the Council of Europe[3] and denounced by the European Parliament as “a systematic, state-level policy of Armenophobia, historical revisionism and hatred towards Armenians promoted by the Azerbaijani authorities, including dehumanization and the glorification of violence[4]”. This state policy will not disappear overnight, as some would have us believe, given that the Azerbaijani state espouses the irredentist ideology of Western Azerbaijan at the highest level[5], effectively denying the very existence of the modern Republic of Armenia.
The mountain facing us: resisting psychological warfare
Today, this Armenian identity finds itself with its back against the wall. In 2021, Ibrahim Kalin - then Erdogan's spokesperson, now head of the secret service - declared that the “arguments of the diaspora” were “on the verge of collapse[6]”. French historian Vincent Duclert analyzes this policy as part of a “a deliberate attempt to destroy the psychological capacities and moral strength of a people who survived the first genocide of the 20th century[7]”.
The Turkish authorities use the DARVO method[8] (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) to portray the diaspora as anti-Turkish and silence it. Their goal is clear: to destroy the dignified pro-Armenian advocacy aspect of Armenian identity by any means necessary. This includes insulting the diaspora by constantly labeling it “pro-Russian,” for example, and putting the Armenian prime minister, who has abandoned this approach and has begun implementing repressive internal methods similar to Erdogan's, on a pedestal. However, the Armenian diaspora aspires to a democratic Turkey that would recognize the genocide and take reparative measures, which alone can ensure Armenia's long-term security.
For a just and non-imposed peace
Today, this Armenian identity also means committing to a just peace, and not to the “neoliberal peace” imposed on Armenia, symbolized by the TRIPP (“Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”), the transport corridor that will soon cross its territory without any real compensation.
A just peace would involve:
• The release of the 23 Armenian hostages held by Azerbaijan
• The right of return for Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is recognized by the International Court of Justice
• An end to the destruction of Armenian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been widely documented[9]
• The withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the 250 km² occupied in Armenia itself
• Justice for war crimes such as those committed against Anush Apetyan. The Armenian female soldier was tortured, raped, killed, and mutilated in September 2022
Without a democratic Turkey that respects human rights, Armenia risks ultimately suffering the same fate as Nagorno-Karabakh, with the de facto complicity of Russia and the West.
[1] « Half half » in Armenian
[5] https://oc-media.org/exclusive-azerbaijans-western-azerbaijan-campaign-exposed-in-leaked-documents/
[6] https://asbarez.com/armenia-turkey-normalization-will-destroy-u-s-armenian-community-says-erdogans-spokesman/
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