READING ROOM: What it takes to be Armenian

Mon 30 Oct 2006
Sophia Echo
READING ROOM: What it takes to be Armenian
09:00 Mon 30 Oct 2006 - A report by Dafina Boshnakova.

PRESERVANCE: Priest Kusan from Holy Virgin Mary church keeps
faith and language alive for the Armenians in Sofia.A look at the past, present and future of a community that has become an integral part of Bulgarian life.


“I remember my childhood days in Varna when my family visited relatives. Having guests is a ritual for Armenians. There would always be a meal prepared and everybody would sit at the table eating, drinking and talking. Sometimes we would go there at noon and leave at late evening.

“The funniest part of the visit would start when someone would say it was about time we had left. Then, all of a sudden, the hosts would bring one more dish or start pouring coffee. In this fashion we would spend another hour. When we would manage to get up and start for the door, our relatives would stop us at the top of the staircase (for the dining room in their house was on the first floor) and everybody would continue chatting as if they hadn’t met for ages. Half an hour more would pass.

“When we would finally get to the door on the ground floor, our hosts would keep us there 30 minutes more, talking incessantly. So traditionally it would take us about two hours to be actually able to leave our relatives’ house.”

This story is one of the numerous memories of Mishel Gutsuzian, 27, a representative of the youngest generation of Bulgarian Armenians. Despite that his mother is a Bulgarian and that he presently lives in Sofia, away from his relatives, Mishel feels proud of his Armenian origin.

But what does it mean to be Armenian in Bulgaria? One general thing could be said – Bulgarians don’t consider them different. They are so well integrated, that usually only their surname ending with the typical -ian gives them away. It strange but true – Bulgarians don’t fancy Turks too much and they quite dislike Roma people. At the same time, Bulgarians feel Armenians to be part of their nation and have no negative stereotypes about them.

It could be the result of the hundreds of years of peaceful co-existence. Protobulgarians and Armenians had their first interaction 1900 years ago, and Armenians have lived on the Balkans for more than 1500 years. Throughout this time, political changes have obviously strengthened all the more the relationship between the two nations.

Armenians have a unique fate that probably could be likened only to that of Jews. This talented nation has put its grandest historical achievements not in its own state and culture, wrote English Byzantologist R Genkins.

Centuries of trial
Although Armenia is one of the most ancient and still-existing countries, it has suffered numerous dominations and vast parts of its territory were torn apart by its neighbours. In 387 the Roman Empire and Persia finally divided Armenia in two parts. Since then, over 1600 years now, the state of existence of two Armenias – East and West – has continued. Their sovereignty and their belonging to one or another foreign country changed through the centuries depending on the geopolitical situation in the region and the world as a whole. One sole fact speaks for itself – the present Armenian country is fully within the borders of East Armenia. The rest of the historical Armenian lands are in Turkey.

Armenians might very well be called a nation of fugitives. Today there are about three million people living in Armenia, and another 10 million scattered all around the world. Migrating has become their fate – Armenian mercenary armies were first settled in the lands of nowadays Bulgaria by the Byzantine emperors in the sixth century. With each new conqueror, new groups of Armenians were displaced and very often sent to the Balkan Peninsula. Armenians left their lands not only because of the oppression of foreign rulers. The unfavourable natural resources and conditions in their territory were one more reason that besides foreign occupations that urged Armenians to find other places to live.

Even bigger were the migration waves during the period of Ottoman domination. At that time, both Bulgaria and Armenia were within the borders of the Turkish empire. Travelling for the purposes of trade and crafts fostered the relations between the two peoples. Probably that is the time when the Armenians realised they would stay in Bulgarian lands for good. So they started building churches and founding schools. The common faith – Christianity – also helped Bulgarians and Armenians to grow closer.

The sad events in the history of the Armenian nation at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20 century turned Armenians and Bulgarians into close friends once and for all. Armenians still fight for a worldwide recognition of the genocide inflicted on them. Bulgaria is one of the few countries that openly accepted the refugees from that period, and that is why Armenians are ever thankful to the Bulgarians.

A nation of fugitives
But let’s give it a clear explanation. By the end of the 19th century, Bulgaria was already a free country. Its liberation had been acquired through a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the battles held on Bulgarian lands with the active participation of many Bulgarian volunteer detachments. Although unstable and just starting to make its way through the complicated situation of the day, Bulgaria was free. At the same time, the Ottoman Empire was already on the deathbed, striving to survive and crumbling under the pretence of its own ruler.

The sultan Abdul Hamit II feared to death that someone might undermine his unlimited authority. Hence he had become hostile to every kind of national-liberation movement in the empire. Armenians were first on his list of culprits. During the 1880s, a vast plan for their genocide was developed. It included depriving Armenians of the protection of law, seizing by force of Armenian property, organisation to systematically massacre them. Of course, everything was carried on unofficially. The aim of the sultan was that Armenians revolt against such treatment, which reaction would be the perfect pretext to officially use armed force against them.

The result of the sultan’s 1894-1896 campaign: 300 000 victims and 500 000 refugees. Bulgaria reacted immediately: the ships Bulgaria, Knyaz Boris and Istanbul transported Armenians to the Bulgarian Black Sea ports for free. The government granted the refugees money and exempted from taxation all petty tradesmen, craftsmen and those who had managed to receive agricultural land.

Like everybody, Armenians hoped that the downfall of the Ottoman Empire would mean end to the oppression. Wrong. The Young Turks proved to be more barbaric even than the retrograde sultan had been. Only one generation, 20 years, had passed. Armenians had fresh memories of the loss of friends and relatives. And everything repeated all over again, but on a grander, more horrifying scale, from between 1915-1916 and until there was mass Armenian deportation to the most distant desert parts of Turkey. People were simply left out there and were told they had to find a way to survive. Men, who were more likely to fight against the Turks, were collected from around the towns and shot.

That period saw the loss of 1.5 million Armenian lives and the flight of another 800 000 people. The fact that Bulgaria officially opened its borders for the refugees is a credit to the state. Actually, Bulgaria had just gone through three wars (two Balkan wars and World War 1) that had exhausted its resources to the utmost extent. Nevertheless Knyaz Boris III ordered with a decree that all Armenians should be accepted into the country. They numbered about 20 000.

Nowadays, Armenians from all over the world celebrate April 24 as a memorial day to the victims of the genocide. The date is used to launch campaigns for recognition of the genocide, appointed by the respective country’s parliament. Although the UN had acknowledged the genocide back in 1945, many states still have no official standpoint on the topic. The greatest problem probably is with Turkey, which stubbornly continues denying that something like that had ever happened.

According to the official census from 2001, presently in Bulgaria there live about 13 000 Armenians. Unofficial data of the Armenian church gives even a larger number – about 20 000. Almost all of them (about 95 per cent) live in towns and their occupation is very often connected on trade, crafts or arts. There even exists such a stereotype in Bulgarian minds about Armenians – that they are goldsmiths (or other craftsmen, who are skilful in producing exquisite things), and that they have never practiced hard physical work.

“Usually when I say my name, people recognise my Armenian origin,” Anton Hekimian, 22, a student at Sofia University, explains. “Next thing that happens is that everybody starts talking about us being goldsmiths and so on,” he smiles. As a matter of fact, his grandfather, one of the refugees from 1915-1922, had been a shoemaker. The other curious fact is that only when his father married a Bulgarian, did he “discover” the difference between the various agricultural implements. “So it’s not true that Armenians never worked in the fields. My farther did. Because of his love for my mother,” said Anton.

The role of faith
There is one thing most characteristic of the Armenian communities outside their home country. They keep tight relationships, support each other and do their best to preserve their cultural identity. Their solidarity is so popular that Bulgarians started joking that all you need is put three Armenians together and they will immediately build a church, found a school and start publishing a newspaper. At the same time, Armenians are not insular and they actively co-operate to establish connection between themselves and the “host” peoples.

That is how Armenians in Bulgaria have both managed to keep their traditions and still be active citizens, bringing prosperity to the country. According to Kusan Hadavian, a priest at Sofia’s Holy Virgin Mary church, the Armenian minority alone stand closest to the Bulgarian nation. And that is why they have never created problems for the government. “We have come here knowing clearly that we need to obey local laws. But meanwhile we are called to preserve our language, religion and culture. We shouldn’t allow what we call ‘djermak chart’ to happen – that means we shouldn’t give our traditions up,” Father Kusan explained.

In the past, because of the numerous dominations that the people of Armenia had suffered, the church played the role of a uniting centre for all Armenians. It substituted the government, the court, the schools. Today, with Armenians living abroad, the church again plays as the centre of their universe.

It is at church service where most of the Bulgarian-Armenians talk their native language. There people meet not only to pray to God, but to socialise and to find out what’s new with their friends. “Conditions of life have changed,” admits Father Kusan, “and they have become more difficult”. That’s why the regular-goers have grown fewer. But at least for tradition’s sake, the temple fills up on Sundays and major feasts like Easter and at the Nativity.

Maybe preserving the Armenian consciousness is truly in their genes, as a man from the congregation said. Religion, Christianity to be exact, is a vital part of that consciousness. It is very unlikely that you meet an Armenian who doesn’t know how Christianity was spread in his country. Everybody you ask surely takes pride in the fact that the religion had been widely popular in Armenia from the very beginning of its existence in the first century CE. Another thing that you might hear very often is the fact that the country officially accepted Christianity even before the Roman Empire did, in 301.

Even though, at present, the Armenians in Bulgaria are less religious than they were some 20 years ago, they still feel hurt if you neglect the ancient history of their church. They also insist on making its actual name clear. Officially it is the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, and they call it such because the first people to spread Christianity in the lands of Armenia were two of Jesus’ disciples – Thaddeus and Bartholomew. One other name for it is Lusavorchagan, after the most-honoured Armenian saint. He is Krikor Lusavorich (257?-337?), or Gregory the Illuminator, a reformer of the church during whose time Christianity was proclaimed the official religion of the country.

Unfortunately, a misunderstanding about these names appeared. In the 19th century Echmiadzin – the spiritual centre of Armenia – fell within the borders of the Russian empire. The Russian constitution demanded that the church bear the name of its founder. That’s why Armenians started calling it Lusavorchagan, Russians – Enlightener’s, and in Western Europe it became popular as Armeno-Gregorian. In truth, the last name created a lot of confusion. Although it was attributed to Gregory the Illuminator, Western people tend to believe it has a relation to the Roman Catholic pope Gregory. Armenians deny this concept as absolutely untrue. Actually this is one main reason why they insist hard on the name Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The other reason, of course, is the fact that they want to uphold their 2000-year-old heritage, starting with Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

Language during service turns out to be both a privilege and a problem. For many Armenians, the church is the only place where they can speak it in their otherwise Bulgarian habitat. On the other hand, it’s so rich and complicated that sometimes it’s hard to understand the words and chants of the priest. “In order to make ourselves clear and to attract more pilgrims to service, we ought to use plainer vocabulary,” Father Kusan admits. In his view, another tactic that could bring more people to the church is publishing a booklet with the order and texts of service in both Armenian and Bulgarian. That could also stimulate people to learn the Armenian language better.

Recent challenges
During the communist period, in the 1960s, Armenian schools in Bulgaria were closed. The effects were all negative. The interest in the study of Armenian language was lost to a great extent. Twenty years later, when teaching could be resumed, there were neither qualified professors, nor adequate books, which created a lot of problems. The contemporary young prefer to study Bulgarian because they live and work among Bulgarians. While in past years, 76th elementary school William Saroyan in Sofia has had classes full of Armenian children, now things have changed: “There are more than 300 kids here,” said Headmistress Stefanova, “but out of them only about 20 study Armenian language. I believe the reason is the difference between the generations. The grandparents insisted much more on knowing the traditions and language. Nowadays parents are not so much up to that”. And there are some the adults, too, who don’t speak Armenian even at home with their relatives.

It all seems to be connected – the young Armenians in Bulgaria tend to break the dogmas of their ancestors. You should go to church, you should speak Armenian, you shouldn’t marry a person who is from a different nationality… Keeping the “purity” of the blood used to be an obligation out of question for every Armenian in the country. But some of its validity was lost 30 years ago, when intermarriages started.

“A cousin of my father’s fell in love with a Bulgarian girl,” gave Anton as an example. “After the wedding his parents didn’t speak a word to him for 10 or more years. They were really mad that he neglected the tradition.”

You might think that that’s the natural way for a development of a nation – where young people revolt against the rules created by their predecessors. And still there are interesting exceptions from that like mixed families, where the Bulgarian partner speaks Armenian perfectly. Anyway, the Armenian people have been put to the test of time and have survived, keeping their identity intact. Massacres, emigration, insecurity and assimilation proved weak and couldn’t wipe them out. In spite of their having lived in Bulgaria for so long, they keep their face and traits. But then again, they have managed to integrate so well that no one considers them foreigners. That is a life approach worth envying.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.