ThesisOpen Access
Iskandaryan, Gayane, 2023
MA thesis, Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); eScholarship
Examines how the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and the collapse of the USSR triggered a mass wave of Soviet Armenian refugees and migrants into the diaspora, especially Los Angeles County. Argues these crises 'broached the Iron Curtain,' reconnecting a polarized diaspora with the homeland while simultaneously driving a mass exodus out of it. Explores the nuanced, sometimes tense relationship between long-settled Armenian-Americans and newly arrived Soviet Armenians. Places Artsakh and homeland crises at the center of modern diaspora-homeland dynamics.
Journal ArticleOpen Access
Avakian, Knarik, 2018
Fundamental Armenology, Issue 1(7) (Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of RA, Yerevan); ISSN 1829-4618
Argues that the displacement of thousands of Syrian-Armenians by the war beginning in 2011 (to Lebanon, the Gulf, North America, Europe, and to Armenia and Artsakh) demands a fundamental reevaluation of pan-diasporan priorities. Calls for a coordinated moral, ideological, and practical reorganization of diaspora communal life led jointly by diaspora structures, the Armenian churches (Apostolic, Evangelical, Catholic), the national parties (Hunchak, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Ramkavar), benevolent organizations, media, schools, and the homeland state. Frames repatriation and homeland-diaspora coordination as an epoch-making mission.
Journal ArticlePaywalled
Tölölyan, Khachig, 2000
Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 107–136 (University of Toronto Press); DOI 10.1353/dsp.2000.0004
The founding editor of Diaspora analyzes how the Armenian dispersion is organized as a 'transnation': a network held together by elites and institutions rather than by sentiment alone. It is the standard reference for the institutional architecture of the diaspora, in which the ARF and its affiliated bodies (party structures, schools, cultural and youth organizations, and the party press) are among the principal institutions competing to represent and mobilize the dispersion, alongside the church, the AGBU and the rival parties.
