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

“Armenia Geography.” WorldAtlas. 2016. http://www.worldatlas.com/geography/armeniageography.htm.

“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.