Key reasons
The absence of a national aristocracy as an institution capable of anticipating likely political cataclysms and building an effective strategy to protect its people and its civilisational heritage. By the time the First World War began, the Armenian passionary resource, represented by individuals and some organisations, was scattered all over the world and did not have any central point of support, a united national ideology, goals and a roadmap for their achievement. The vacuum of its own national origin led to the fact that this passionary resource was not ready for global geopolitical changes, becoming a convenient tool for the unforgiving game of certain powers. As a result, the blind majority of the people found themselves trapped by the enemy that exterminated 1.5 million Armenians – without significant geopolitical consequences – and began to destroy the centuries-old religious and cultural heritage of the Armenian civilisation.
Historical blindness and complete absence of reflection on the part of the Armenian intelligentsia. The so-called Armenian intellectual circles in the Ottoman Empire and early post-imperial Turkey sincerely believed that the local rulers highly valued Armenians and were ready to grant them many freedoms and privileges as a ‘loyal people’. As a result, the Genocide began with the execution of the representatives of the very intelligentsia, which did not even suspect that they were a potential target. And this happened despite the recent tragic experience of 1894-1896 (the massacres of Armenians under Sultan Abdul Hamid II). During that period, many members of the Armenian intelligentsia were also killed or arrested. No lessons (even superficial ones) were learned, as evidenced by the events of 1915-1923.
Hope for an external saviour. In different parts of the world (from the Russian Empire to the European monarchies), the Armenian intelligentsia viewed their country of residence as a potential saviour of the Armenian people and the only actor capable of reviving an independent Armenia. For many centuries, the Armenian agenda has been shaped by various geopolitical centres, while local Armenian elite groups have been used as tools for lobbying and promoting that agenda. The message of all these centres was the same: ‘only we can save Armenians and Armenia’. Through artificially cultivated local Armenian intellectuals, the political aristocracies of the established powers convinced the Armenian people that their salvation and prosperity in no way depended on themselves (Armenians were not capable of anything on their own). As a result, there was an aggravation of the internal division, an inability to independently develop their own agenda, and an absence of a vision for the nation’s future outside the framework of an external saviour. The only thing that Armenian intellectuals in different parts of the world had in common was the agreement with the need to be saved by someone and to be dependent on someone.
Fundamental implications
The victory of the Turkish national project on the bones of the Armenian people, denial of the Armenian history and ruins of the Armenian heritage. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turks also found themselves in the geopolitical crosshairs of the great powers (the Eastern Question and then the Turkish question). Unlike Armenians, they managed to come out of the external hypnosis in time and mobilise their extremely limited passionary resources around the personality of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who took responsibility for the fate of his people and a country that was on the verge of collapse. The formula ‘the common is more important than the personal’ allowed him to develop a holistic strategy and a vision for the future of Turks as a political nation and a modernised Turkish Republic with its own merits and value proposition in a changing world. Using the inconsistency, naivety, avarice and prejudice of the Armenian elite groups, Ataturk managed to devalue the project of independent Armenia (Wilsonian Armenia), skilfully using the geopolitical contest between Europeans and Americans on the one hand, and Europeans with the early Soviet leadership on the other. The result was the establishment of the Turkish Republic recognised by the great powers and the collapse of the First Armenian Republic, which was sacrificed (as it happens to the weak).
The unlearned lessons: the colonisation of Spyurk and the Armenian agenda. Most of the Armenian thinkers and warriors found themselves in exile, forming separate cells around themselves with their own narrow ideology. The traditional parties represented by Dashnaktsutyun, Ramkavar Azatakan and Hnchak did not engage in the unification process, but rushed to fight for the minds, hearts and resources of the Armenians who managed to find salvation in a foreign land. Millions of murdered compatriots, lost heritage and lost statehood did not force even the great personalities like Poghos Nubar, Andranik Ozanyan, Garegin Nzhdeh, Drastamat Kanayan, Shahan Natalie to undertake earnest analysis of mistakes, overcome internal differences and move on to the foremost important and necessary work – the formation of a national aristocracy, a national agenda and a national strategy. From the point of view of the harsh political realism, the Armenian passionary resource turned out to be useless and once again became a tool in the hands of the external forces, which continued to shape the Armenian agenda in a way which was necessary for themselves. Instead of building a single political diaspora (a process that was launched by the Jews and the Irish at the same time), we got colonised communities subordinated to external interests. Turkey was largely satisfied with this balance of power, since its main task as a state was to prevent the emergence of an independent and self-sufficient Armenian factor (national aristocracy).
Another missed chance. The results of the Second World War provided an opportunity to revisit the results of the previous agreements concluded within the framework of the Versailles system (after the First World War). The Turkish Republic was an ally of Nazi Germany and provided material support to the Third Reich during the war, as well as provided its territory for conducting large-scale intelligence activities. The Turks also increased their military presence on the borders with Soviet Armenia, waiting for the right moment to invade the territory of the USSR. High-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht trained officers of the Turkish army, while certain ethnic factions within the Wehrmacht received training and treatment in Turkish cities. The Soviet leadership, the Americans, and the British were well aware of the ‘quiet but active’ role of the Turkish Republic – a product of the Versailles system. After the defeat of the Third Reich, Moscow was determined to redefine the borders in the Middle East that had been established after the First World War. The absence of an Armenian national elite (and, consequently, a strategy and agenda), that could effectively use this geopolitical situation (like Ataturk in the First World War), allowed the Turks not only to get away with it, but also to become part of the largest security system in the history of mankind – the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO).
The unlearned lessons of the causes of the Genocide and the lack of understanding of its consequences precipitated the following conditions for its continuation.
Lack of understanding of the meaning of independence and of responsibility for it. The emergence of the independent Republic of Armenia and the liberation of Artsakh were supposed to prompt the ‘fathers’ of the Third Republic and key figures in the Armenian world to the need for a fundamental analysis of their past and formation of a national aristocracy. Initially, it was obvious that a small republic without significant natural resources sandwiched between historical adversaries (Turkey is an established power, while Azerbaijan is its natural extension) has only one, but most valuable, resource – human. However, in order for this resource to be able to work for the benefit of the national interests, it had to be identified (an inventory of the global Armenian potential should have been carried out), systematised and integrated. In fact, instead of nation- and state-building, a feudal clan system was formed in the country, which found situational allies within the Armenian communities abroad. The result is total degradation: feudal lords instead of statesmen, merchants instead of the national bourgeoisie, an corrupt bureaucracy and petty officialdom instead of professional institutions, a physical territory instead of statehood and a people instead of a nation.
The Turkish-Azerbaijani colonisation of Armenia. As a result of decades-long degradation and relaxation, the country has turned into a convenient training ground for foreign intelligence agencies, hundreds of non-profit organisations and sectarian groups. Nothing has changed since the Genocide: meanings and narratives (the national agenda) were formed by external groups and their agent networks, while local feudal lords played the role of the executors of someone else’s agenda in order to preserve their power and material wealth. The result is the demise of the rotten feudal system and the establishment of a pro-Turkish collaborationist regime in the country led by the ‘yellow’ journalist Nikol Pashinyan and his assemblage, consisting of members of partisan non-profit organisations and sectarian institutions. Artsakh is surrendered, while the entire Armenian population is expelled from there. A course has been set to erase the Armenian identity (especially its religious distinctiveness represented by the institute of the Armenian Church), Armenian history (especially the history of the Genocide) and Armenian sovereignty (the wrecking of our own meanings, responsibility and self-sufficiency).
Thus, the conclusion is simple: Armenians themselves have not yet accepted and recognised the fact of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. Recognising and taking responsibility for the causes and consequences of the Genocide is a key condition on the path to gradual recovery, waking up from the centuries-old hypnosis and moving from the permanent survival mode to the prosperity mode.
