The World's A Stage: Eurovision As A Window To Armenian National Identity

In “National Identity and the ‘Other’,” Anna Triandafyllidou defines the ‘national significant other’ as any “nation or ethnic group that is territorially close to… the national community and threatens… cultural purity and/or its independence.” For Armenia, this includes former occupying nations Turkey and Russia, and Turkey-allied Azerbaijan. The ‘expanded self’, on the other hand, describes the Armenian diaspora, outside of the country’s boundaries but still considered authentic denizens. Armenia’s expanded self appeared on the global stage at Eurovision between 2010 and 2015, when entries emphasized breaking down divisions within humanity and allowing peoples to grow in coexistence. Armenia’s identity and its presentation at Eurovision align strongly as the external others—Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Russia—are minimized to allow the Armenian national pride and global unity through the diaspora to take the center stage.

Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia’s significant others due to culture and ideologies, rarely appear in presentation of the Armenian identity because emphasis falls instead on the Armenian identity and expanded self. Turkey became Armenia’s main significant other when, after two full centuries of occupation with ever-worsening relations, the “view of Turks as a ‘nation of murderers and ruffians’ became definitively sealed in the Armenian national consciousness with the Armenian genocide,” which Turkey continues to deny (Souleimanov). Azerbaijan, which associates with Turkey in this genocide denial as well as many elements of culture, is Armenia’s second significant other. In their unity of culture and ideology, both of which are directly opposite Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan are Armenia’s true significant others. 

Despite their fiery relations, these others do not appear in modern day Armenian performances, including Eurovision performances. During Turkish occupation, Armenian musical and literary works featured “the boundless brutality of the Turks” (Souleimanov), but Armenia’s music today centers on Armenian identity as it grows through its diaspora and its rich history. While the lyrics of “Apricot Stone” and “Face the Shadow” contain clear jabs at genocide deniers, none of the Armenian Eurovision entries reference Turkey or Azerbaijan directly. Originally called “Don’t Deny,” “Face the Shadow” premiered before the song contest with a music video that showed an extended family dressed in modern clothing that mimicked early-1900s fashions in the sepia monochrome found in old family photo-portraits. The end of the video shows only the empty chairs, with the family nowhere to be found. Even though this is clearly a portrayal of the Armenian genocide, the focus remains on the Armenian loss and the descendants of the survivors, rather than the attackers. On the worldwide platform of the Eurovision stage, Armenia does not shy from its significant others, but it continues to emphasize what Armenian identity is rather than what it is not.
Armenia’s most diminished and most amicable national other, Russia, appears in Armenian Eurovision entries more than Turkey or Azerbaijan because the Russian-Armenian narrative allows for primary focus on Armenian national identity and the expanded self of the diaspora. Despite—or because of—Armenia’s strong, sour relationship with its Turkish sovereigns, “Russia’s penetration of the Caucasus was welcomed [by Armenia]” (Souleimanov). Though their independence was still out of reach under Russian rule, the comparative freedom allowed after their “rescue” from Turkish occupation substantially lowered the perceived threat posed by Armenia’s new leaders. Because this contrast between treatment of Armenians by Turkey and by Russia was so stark, “the breakup of the Soviet Union was accompanied by almost no anti-Russian sentiment” (Souleimanov). With so little tension between Armenia and Russia, the relationship evolved into a subdued other rather than a significant other. Also unlike Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Russian other is subtly reflected on the Eurovision stage. “Apricot Stone” tells the diaspora story of Russian-Armenian singer Valeriya “Eva Rivas” Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan and lyricist Karen Kavaleryan. Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan sings “about the love of one's motherland, …not only directed to Armenians, but rather to all diasporas in the whole world” (Eva Rivas on Eurovision Song Contest official website). Rather than its contrast, it is Russia’s nearness to Armenia and its relative weakness as a significant other that make room for Russia on the Armenian stage.

Armenia’s identity—that of national pride and an expanded self—lines up with the identity portrayed in the Eurovision Song Contest because of a lack of shame in the nation’s history and the added strength of the diaspora’s numbers and diversity. Stephen Coleman describes that in most countries participating in Eurovision, viewers need an “ironic distancing” to separate themselves from the embarrassment of watching the entries, and that “[t]he source of the embarrassment is neither the songs nor the singers, but the national identities that are being disingenuously performed” (Coleman). For European countries that have shame attached to national pride, “[c]ontributory factors to this disenchantment [with national identity] were experience of the horrific associations between nationhood and the promiscuous slaughter of warfare… the adoption of nationalist iconography as the symbolism of racism… and the disembedding of social relations by distance-compressing media technologies” (Coleman). Armenia, under Turkish, then Russian control from 1555 to 1991, had an atypical experience of the World Wars, has no major racial supremacist groups, and has only become more connected by “distance-compressing” technologies (which open new channels for the diaspora to remain connected to the homeland). The Armenian genocide provides even more reason for pride, as stimuli connoting death have been linked in multiple studies to “[people groups] clinging to their cultural identities, working hard to live up to their culture's values and going to great lengths to defend those values” (DeAngelis, 2007). Without shame over national identity, and with the genocide’s psychological nudge toward stronger national pride, portrayed Armenian identities are free to revolve around their own culture, rather than getting bogged down by ironic distancing or national embarrassment. Even at Eurovision, Armenia is united by strong, sincere national identity and pride. Armenia’s Eurovision entry participants are almost exclusively Armenian, with Black Sabbath’s Toni Iommi, the writer of “Lonely Planet” in 2013, the only outlier among the singers, songwriters, producers, and dancers for the five entries between 2010 and 2015. Armenian cultural elements, including the duduk instrument, the apricot symbol, and various costume elements, are used only in relevant contexts (that is, to evoke specific historical events or the Armenian collective future). Armenian artists Inga & Anush Arshakyan, who write about Armenia in a traditional Armenian style, have appeared at Eurovision and maintained a large domestic fanbase both before and after the world stage event. The synthesis of the daily Armenian identity into entries in Eurovision is seamless because it requires no repackaging. The genuine Armenian identity and pride, unburdened by a shameful history and even emphasized by tragedies past, is free to outshine any mention of significant others.

The Armenian diaspora may seem closer to a significant other, posing a possible threat to “ethnic purity” (Triandafyllidou), but in reality it provides Armenia with essential diversity and unity that allows the Armenian identity to become a global identity. Triandafyllidou states that “objective criteria like culture and religion are insufficient” to define national identity, and that “the concept of nationality cannot be operationalized in terms of specific characteristics such as geographical location, religious composition or linguistic homogeneity. These are important only to the degree to which they reinforce national identity,” especially in separating the national self from its significant others (Triandafyllidou). Because Armenia’s diaspora population is defined as an ingroup, even the physical boundaries of the nation can and should be disregarded. Elie Kedourie describes the necessity of diversity as “a duty laid upon us to cultivate our own peculiar qualities and not mix or merge them with others” (Kedourie in Triandafyllidou). Diaspora researcher Scout Tufankjian describes how this concept lines up with the Armenian diasporas: “As with any group, there are bits you fit into and bits you don’t… [but] there are communities diverse enough to embrace all those different aspects” (Tufankjian in Gonzalez). The Armenian diaspora is essential to Armenia, providing not only strength in over ten times the numbers within the nation, but also healthy diversity to an otherwise homogenous nation. 

The Armenian national identity encompassing the diaspora matches perfectly with the Eurovision portrayal of “a cohesive Armenian whole that broadcasts unity across diversity”. Armenian performance motifs include shattering walls and flowering apricot trees. In the Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant point to deciduous trees (depicted in three of the five Eurovision songs) as the perfect symbol of “the cyclical character of…death and regeneration,” with fruit and the leaves as individuals and seed or roots as their heritage. Both motifs depict an Armenia beyond the confines of the map: shattering walls break down divisions of artificial border lines, and trees show a growing Armenia with many branches reaching to all sides of the globe. Among Armenia’s songs from 2010 to 2015, two included overt references to the diaspora (despite Eurovision’s “nonpolitical” policies). In “Apricot Stone,” Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan and Kavaleryan describe “love of one's motherland” and wanting to “go back to [their] roots”. The song’s name frames the Armenian community (commonly symbolized with apricots) as a seed that will grow into a flourishing tree, a stage effect that “blooms” in the final chorus. Five of Genealogy’s “Face The Shadow” singers have diaspora heritage, “united by the blood in their veins…and by music as the universal language of the world” (Eurovision Song Contest official website). While the artists stand on a world map to display the various countries they call home, an apricot tree blossoms to reinforce the identity of a strong, united Armenian people unconfined by physical country borders. The Armenian diaspora is inseparable from the centralized Armenian people, especially on an international stage like Eurovision, where it enriches the Armenian performance themes of unity and diversity.

With minimized others and maximized unity, the Armenian expanded self, national identity, and pride make a seamless transition to the global stage, broadcasting growth and oneness through diversity.

Citations

“About Geneology.” Eurovision Song Contest official website. 2015. Last accessed 7 Feb. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/history/year/participant-profile/?song=33123

“Armenian apricot stone becomes a tree.” Eurovision Song Contest official website. 2010. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?p=2&id=13873

Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. Dictionary of Symbols. Translated by John Buchanan-Brown. Penguin Reference. 1969. Penguin Books, 1996.

Coleman, Stephen. “Why Is the Eurovision Song Contest Ridiculous? Exploring a Spectacle of Embarrassment, Irony and Identity.” Popular Communication, vol. 6, 2008, pp. 127–140. 

DeAngelis, Tori. “Understanding terrorism.” American Psychological Association, vol. 40, no. 10, 2009, pp. 60. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/11/terrorism.aspx

Eva Rivas (Valeriya Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan). “Apricot Stone.” Music by Armen Martirosyan; lyrics by Karen Kavaleryan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2010 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A60atIirQAw.

“Genealogy (Armenia): 6 artists, 5 continents.” Eurovision Song Contest Youtube Channel, 30 Apr. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj-pqYFkO_M. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017.

Genealogy (Inga Arshakyan, Tamar Kaprelian, Mary-Jean O’Doherty Vasmatzian, Vahe Tilbian, Stephanie Topalian). “Face The Shadow.” Music by Armen Martirosyan; lyrics by Inna Mkrtchyan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6O8pr7HH94. 

Gonzalez, David. “Following the Global Armenian Diaspora.” Lens: The New York Times. 24 April 2014. http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/following-armenias-global-diaspora/.

“Sabbath star Tony Iommi writes Eurovision entry.” BBC. 6 March 2013. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-21689607 

Souleimanov, Emil. “Between Turkey, Russia, and Persia: Perceptions of National Identity In Azerbaijan and Armenia at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”. Middle East Review of International Affairs (Online), vol. 16, no. 1., pp.74-85. March 2012. http://search.proquest.com.proxy.seattleu.edu/docview/1189391833?accountid=28598&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo.

Triandafyllidou, Anna. “National Identity and the ‘Other’.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, 1998, pp. 593–612. 

Oneness Encompassing Diversity

The 2010 to 2015 Armenian Eurovision entries, analyzed together, display Armenia as racially homogenous but geographically wide-spread, focussing on unity that encompasses diversity. Depicted in motifs of breaking down walls and the life cycle of growing trees, the collective theme represented in Armenia’s entries is healing and regeneration of the human race as a whole through unity.

Russian-Armenian singer Valeriya Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan—better known by stage name “Eva Rivas”—described “Apricot Stone” as the story of herself and lyricist Karen Kavaleryan, children of the Armenian diaspora. Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan further asserted that the song was “about the love of one's motherland,” (which is explicitly mentioned in the chorus) “but that it was not only directed to Armenians, but rather to all diasporas in the whole world” (Eva Rivas on Eurovision Song Contest official website). As Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan recognizes, Armenian identity is central to the presentation of “Apricot Stone.” Musician Djivan Gasparyan, clad in a traditional Armenian jacket and playing the traditional duduk, accompanies Rivas, who wears in an apricot-colored chiffon-wrapped corset; the generous neckline, basque waist, and flowing train are modern parallels to a traditional Armenian dance costume. Even the title is Armenian: the apricot tree is an overt “symbol of Armenia.”

The tree is part of a larger motif that appears often in Armenian Eurovision entries: roots, seeds, fruit, and trees connote generational growth over time and the cyclical nature of life. In the Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant suggest that trees symbolize “the cyclical character of … death and regeneration,” adding that deciduous trees (like the apricot) represent “this cycle since they shed their leaves and cover themselves in fresh foliage each year.” This cycle is elucidated in the third verse of “Apricot Stone” (“May God bless and keep my cherished fruit / Grow my tree up to the sky… / I just wanna go back to my roots”) by the uniqueness of the individual, the “fruit”; the larger community and collective future to which the individual belongs, the “tree”; and the final death and regeneration through the “roots”. The metaphor continues in the chorus as a tree grows behind the singers: “Apricot stone, / Hidden in my hand / Given back to me / From the motherland. / Apricot stone, / I will drop it down / In the frozen ground / I’ll just let it make its round.” The seed’s “round” is the life cycle of the apricot tree, compounding the song’s connection to the past, present, and future of a generation.

The 2011 Armenian Eurovision entry, “Boom Boom,” performed by Emma “EmmY” Bejanyan, was an about-face from the undeniably Armenian narrative the year before, trading apricots for energetic boxing motifs devoid of ethnic sound, costume, or implications. EmmY appears in a satin warm-up robe and a thick gold champion’s belt, sitting on an enormous boxing glove. During the bridge, EmmY’s four backup dancers use satin ribbon to create a boxing ring around her as she sings, “You are the strongest fighter / … / It’s time to win me in the ring of love.” While boxing originated in early Greece, today’s sport—Emmy’s chosen imagery—barely resembles the ancient competitions, dropping ethnic ties for displays of virility and vigor. The strongest identity represented is a state of boundless physical energy—yet even EmmY seemed tired of this nonsensical love song.

Armenia’s 2013 Eurovision entry was the only Armenian entry with a non-Armenian artist; the music was written by Toni Iommi of England’s Black Sabbath, whose performance at a benefit concert after the 1988 Spitak earthquake forged a connection (BBC). The unifying theme of the lyrics involves the image of breaking down walls to reach love and light. However, it’s not the walls between identities that crumble in “Lonely Planet”—it’s the flimsy lyrics and mixed metaphors.

The band—Dorians, the “Armenian Bon Jovi”—was outfitted in denim and blue cotton and was lit with cold white and blue light. For such a mournful song, blue seems fitting, but the vitreous monochrome adds not solemnity but fragility, emphasizing the “loneliness” of the lyrics but arguing with the fact that the band’s five members share screen time equally, leaving no one isolated. The only divergence from the blue color scheme appears during the bridge: the performance is backlit by yellow beams reminiscent of the sun rising over a wall or mountain range, accompanied by the lyrics, “Maybe someday we'll break the wall. / Maybe the light will touch us all.” To explain the “wall” that is blocking out “light,” a number of cruelties are evoked in the verses, from “start[ing] a war” to interpersonal manipulation (“the one with clever face…[p]laying games that none can play”) to pride inflated to the point of assuming the role of a deity (“Who can change night and day? / … / Who’s the man and who’s the god?”). The cause and the cure of all these questions, revealed in the final chorus, is the unspecified “we”, on whose shoulders rest the fate of humanity (“Lonely planet! / We have done it! / We can save you? / We can stop it. / … / For the world”). Without a defined identity, Dorians cannot orient themselves within the sea of vague lyrics, losing the message of breaking down the wall between rigid divisions of identity.

In the 2014 Armenian Eurovision entry, “Not Alone,” Aram MP3’s grey monochromatic look emphasizes the small, glittery lapel pin in the colors of the Armenian flag; other than this nod to the performer’s and songwriters’ heritage, nothing about the performance is inherently Armenian. Twin columns of light spread into a ring around Aram Sargsyan, who stands on a serene starry sky decorated with a chevron of white flares. As the music builds to the chorus, a wind machine, subtle background flames, and building violins compound the emotional tension laid by the lyrics: “You’re all alone / … / Though you are scared and you’re hurt / You’re gonna wake up / It’s only a dream /… / You’re not alone”. The emotional wave and the dichotomy of painful solitude vs. unification in reality reach a breaking point during the classic EDM/dubstep “drop”, vibrating graphic “cracks” across the LED backdrop “shatter” into a passionate display of flames and white light. As the “Lonely Planet” follow-up, this wall-breaking imagery is enhanced by the framework laid in Dorians’ “Lonely Planet” for division as pain and unity as a cure-all. The chorus line, “What if it’s all in one kiss / That turns all seeds into trees,” is particularly revealing on the message of the song, using symbolism to imply that unity is the key to people of all heritages flourishing in coexistence. In American media, the kiss is usually confined to romantic and sexual love; however, a wider collection of works use it as a “[s]ymbol of joining together and of mutual adherence” (Chevalier & Gheerbrant). This “one kiss” implies not only the physical connection of two human beings, but that uniting under one idea, even as individuals, can translate into unity and growth of “all seeds”. As in Eva Rivas’s “Apricot Stone,” seed refers to ethnic heritage, and “Not Alone” implies that when unified in coexistence, all peoples will be able to prosper.

At the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, Armenia presented “Face the Shadow” with Genealogy, “a group of Armenian musicians who are descendants of genocide survivors” (Eurovision Song Contest official website). The fantastical costumes of the six singers are black with silver jewelry, and the light design covers the stage in rotating geometric bands that incorporate clock imagery and deciduous trees (both barren and blossoming). The verses indicate that the muse has experienced tragedies that they attempt to repress (“Feels like so many times life was unfair / Will you run and forget all the despair?”) while the singer insists that the only way to move forward is to accept the past (“When you follow a dream, surrender the sorrow inside”). The pre-chorus (“[t]ime is ticking and you keep thinking that you are tricking your heart”) describes that despite the ever-turning cycle of life, the muse mentally rejects the pain that their history continues to cause their heart. During the instrumental bridge, a wind machine and a shifting, swirling background texture evoke a tornado or whirlwind as the artists hold hands in the “eye of the storm.” When the storm calms and dissolves into a world map and a blossoming tree during the final chorus, the artists disperse themselves according to their nationalities: Tamar Kaprelian from America, Stephanie Topalian from Asia, Vahe Tilbian from Africa, Mary-Jean O’Doherty Vasmatzian from Australia, and Inga Arshakyan—a traditional singer who earned 10th for Armenia in Eurovision 2009—from Armenia (Eurovision Song Contest Youtube Channel). With Inga Arshakyan as Armenia, each surrounding singer represents a community of the Armenian diaspora—the six Armenian singers are “united by the blood in their veins…and by music as the universal language of the world” (Eurovision Song Contest official website). The flourishing apricot tree standing behind the diaspora community and the map of the world provides visual affirmation of the theme of the prosperity in unification across not only those of shared country, but also those of shared heritage, extended to the diaspora and then to the human race as a whole.

Eurovision entries for Armenia from 2010 to 2015 emphasize breaking down divisions within humanity and allowing peoples to grow in coexistence. While “Boom Boom” avoided discussion of identity, “Apricot Stone,” “Not Alone,” and “Face The Shadow,” and even “Lonely Planet” lead into each other to form a cohesive Armenian whole that broadcasts unity across diversity.

Works Cited

“About Geneology.” Eurovision Song Contest official website. 2015. Last accessed 7 Feb. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/history/year/participant-profile/?song=33123

Aram MP3 (Aram Sargsyan). “Not Alone.” Music by Aram Sargsyan; lyrics by Garik Papoyan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2014 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj0oOV-2fRQ.

“Armenian apricot stone becomes a tree.” Eurovision Song Contest official website. 2010. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?p=2&id=13873

Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. Dictionary of Symbols. Translated by John Buchanan-Brown. Penguin Reference. 1969. Penguin Books, 1996.

Dorians (Gor Sujyan, Gagik Khodavirdi, Arman Pahlevanyan, Edgar Sahakyan, Arman Jalalyan). “Lonely Planet.” Music by Toni Iommi; lyrics by Vardan Zadoyan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2013 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGOSZ7Uufno.

Eva Rivas (Valeriya Reshetnikova-Tsaturyan). “Apricot Stone.” Music by Armen Martirosyan; lyrics by Karen Kavaleryan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2010 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A60atIirQAw.

Emmy (Emma Bejanyan). “Boom Boom.” Music by Hayk Harutyunyan, Hayk Hovhannisyan; lyrics by Sosi Khanikyan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2011 Semifinal. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsKBnL6dWOk.

“Genealogy (Armenia): 6 artists, 5 continents.” Eurovision Song Contest Youtube Channel, 30 Apr. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj-pqYFkO_M. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017.

Genealogy (Inga Arshakyan, Tamar Kaprelian, Mary-Jean O’Doherty Vasmatzian, Vahe Tilbian, Stephanie Topalian). “Face The Shadow.” Music by Armen Martirosyan; lyrics by Inna Mkrtchyan. Armenia, Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Grand Final. Last accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6O8pr7HH94. 

“Sabbath star Tony Iommi writes Eurovision entry.” BBC. 6 March 2013. Last accessed 7 Feb. 2017. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-21689607

Armenia and the Azerbaijan "Other"

Armenia Opposite Internal Others

Armenia is small and largely homogeneous. Religious and racial minorities are few and far between, with 78% of the population belonging to a Christian denomination (about 73% belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church), and 96% of Armenian ethnicity. Armenia’s 20th century diaspora plays an important part in ensuring the acceptance of minorities, illuminated by Elie Kedourie’s words on the importance of national diversity: “There is a duty laid upon us to cultivate our own peculiar qualities and not mix or merge them with others” (1992, pp. 44-55).” In the words of Armenian-Bostonian diaspora researcher Scout Tufankjian, “[a]s with any group, there are bits you fit into and bits you don’t… But realizing there are communities diverse enough to embrace all those different aspects has been great.” Assuming that “[nationality] includes a set of elements which range from (presumed) ethnic ties to a shared public culture, common historical memories and links to a homeland and also a common legal and economic system (cf. Smith 1991, p. 14),” the diaspora is not only “acceptably Armenian,” but considered fully Armenian. Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, for example, shares ethnicity, religion, language, and even currency with Armenia—and if not a threat, it must be considered to have an identical nationality. As Azerbaijan fights for control over Nagorno Karabakh, Armenia is fundamentally threatened as well.

Armenia Opposite Turkey

Despite the complications of Nagorno Karabakh, the borders of the Armenian identity are most clear cut in the case of Turkey, an external other from which Armenia was liberated. Originally, Turkey considered nonthreatening and even a cooperative in-group, despite their objective power over Armenia; in fact, “in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Armenian community, unlike the other Christian subjects, did not question the sultan's authority…[and] the standing of the Armenian urban community—generally the bourgeoisie and intellectual elite—grew enormously.” However, a “sharp turnaround” in Ottoman-Armenian relations began with the introduction a steep taxation, and “further deteriorated after thousands of so-called Muhajirs or Balkan Muslims were settled in the none too fertile regions inhabited by Armenians. This was usually done to the detriment of the Armenian and Syriac Christians.” Istanbul also approved migration of Kurdish tribes into “territory that had traditionally been populated by the Armenian element.” Finally, in the late 1800s, Armenians increasingly “became targets of ever more intensive attacks by the Ottoman army and Muslim militias.” With their land and capitol threatened by the potential other of the dominant nation, Armenia could no longer consider itself part of a greater Turkish in-group. 

The othering of Turkey began with Armenian musical and literary works featuring “the boundless brutality of the Turks,” while armed divisions to resist Kurdish invaders organized within Armenia. At the same time, the emancipation movement from Armenian intellectual circles was gaining traction in Russia, with “the goal of protecting Ottoman Christians was a convenient excuse for expansion into the interior of Anatolia.” As the Armenian view of Turkey transitioned from potential other to active, harmful other, and with Russian invasion looming on the horizon, the Turkic view of Armenia underwent a similar change: “Ottoman Muslims began to view the Armenians as a homogenous ethnic-religious community, a "fifth column," trying to undermine the state's integrity with the support of foreign powers.” Finally, the “view of Turks as a ‘nation of murderers and ruffians’ became definitively sealed in the Armenian national consciousness with the Armenian genocide.”

Armenia Opposite Russia

In a total reversal of Armenian views of a dominant country, “Russia’s penetration of the Caucasus was welcomed by the Armenian intellectual and especially clerical elite, as well as by ordinary people. Their common religion played no small role in this,” as this similarity to Armenia decreased the risk that Russia would threaten Armenian identity the way Turkey had. At the beginning of the occupation, “some Armenians even believed St. Petersburg would allow the restoration of a sort of Armenian tsardom, as an autonomous entity under the protectorate of the Romanovs' empire.” Even after it became clear that a nation of their own was farther away than they thought, the Armenian attitude toward Russia remained sympathetic, especially as “Russia was seen as the only power willing and able to provide sparsely populated Armenia with a guarantee of existence in a situation of geopolitical stalemate.” This nonthreatening relationship went both ways—Russian documents highlight the view that Armenia was ”devoted to the Russian government and could not betray [Russia].” Despite the fact that their independence was still out of reach under Russian rule, the comparative freedom allowed after their “rescue” from Turkish occupation substantially lowered the perceived threat posed by—and to—Armenia’s new sovereigns. Because this contrast between treatment of Armenians by Turkey and by Russia was so stark, “in Armenia—unlike in neighboring countries—the breakup of the Soviet Union was accompanied by almost no anti-Russian sentiment.”

Armenia Opposite Azerbaijan

Both Turkey as an extreme external other and Russia as a passive in-group laid a framework for national dynamics today: Armenia’s foremost external other and “rival” for people and land is Azerbaijan. Because of their similar heritage, having been occupied by both Turkey and Russia in similar periods of time, Azerbaijan would at first seem to be the third kind of external other, competing for the same national heroes and origin stories—but Azerbaijan and Armenia have wildly different stances on their shared history. As even as time marches away from the Ottoman empire and the USSR, “[Azerbaijani] nationalism obtained strongly Turkic intonations,” while Armenia continues to define itself as opposite Turkey: such sentiments “have been the core of that ethnonationalism… [ever since Armenians] established themselves during the last decade of the existence of the Ottoman Empire,” both before and beyond the genocide. Armenia also moved closer to the identity of a former empire, but it was Russia that was “the only ally—a Christian nation that was able and willing to provide Armenians with the necessary assistance for the latter to secure their physical survival in the unfriendly environment of Turkic (Muslim) neighbors.” By emphasizing religiously, politically, and ethnically opposite periods of history, Azerbaijan and Armenia necessarily create national identities directly opposite to each other.

Whether through accident or direct effort, Russia encouraged this dichotomy by laying the foundation for Azerbaijan as a competitive other within the USSR. While Armenians were viewed as loyal and of a “religiously and politically kindred element,” Azerbaijanis were “generally distrusted by the Russian authorities.” To Russian elites, Armenians took “first place among the inhabitants of the Transcaucasus for their ability, industriousness and effort to educate themselves,” while Azerbaijan was condescendingly reduced to “the noble savage.”

Citations

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“Armenia.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 October 2016 https://www.britannica.com/place/Armenia.

Barseghyan, Kristine. “Rethinking Nationhood: Post-Independence Discourse on National Identity in Armenia.” Polish Sociological Review, no. 144, 2003, pp. 399–416. www.jstor.org/stable/41274871.

“The Economist Explains: The Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh”. The Economist. 15 April 2016. http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/04/economist-explains-9. Accessed 8 January 2017. 

“The Government of Armenia has approved the draft conclusion of ‘Recognizing Nagorno Karabakh Republic’ draft law.” Armenpress. 5 May 2016. https://armenpress.am/eng/news/846241.

“Sharmazanov clarifies when Armenia will unilaterally recognize independence of Nagorno Karabakh Republic.” Armenpress. 5 May 2016. https://armenpress.am/eng/news/846357.

Souleimanov, Emil. “Between Turkey, Russia, and Persia: Perceptions of National Identity In Azerbaijan and Armenia at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”. Middle East Review of International Affairs (Online), vol. 16, no. 1., pp.74-85. March 2012. http://search.proquest.com.proxy.seattleu.edu/docview/1189391833?accountid=28598&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo.

Tchilingirian, Hratch. “Church and State Relations in Armenia.” Window View of the Armenian Church, vol. 2, no. 3. 1991. http://oxbridgepartners.com/hratch/index.php/publications/articles/146-church-and-state-relations-in-armenia.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. “National Identity and the ‘Other’.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, 1998, pp. 593–612.