Tigran Yegavian
The loss of Artsakh did not end when its Armenian population was forced out. A second loss is now possible: the disappearance of Artsakh Armenians as a distinct community.
Most displaced Artsakh Armenians now live in Armenia. But geography alone does not preserve identity. They have lost the territorial, political and institutional framework around which their collective life was built.
That makes them, in a sense, a new diaspora.
Artsakh Armenians have their own historical memory, dialect, social networks and political experience. If these are gradually absorbed into a broader Armenian identity, displacement will have achieved more than the loss of homeland. It will have erased a particular Armenian community.
The traditional diaspora should see this as its responsibility.
That does not mean speaking for Artsakh Armenians or using them as a weapon in Armenia’s domestic political struggles. It means helping them preserve the capacity to organize, represent themselves and transmit their identity to the next generation.
The diaspora should understand this better than anyone. Armenian communities survived displacement for decades because they built institutions: schools, churches, newspapers, cultural organizations and networks of solidarity.
Artsakh Armenians now need the same kind of institutional thinking.
Humanitarian support is essential, but humanitarian support alone does not preserve a community. A community survives when it has its own structures and the freedom to reproduce its identity.
The broader Armenian world also needs to abandon the instinct that every Armenian identity must eventually be absorbed into one center.
I favor a multipolar Armenian world. Beirut, Paris, Istanbul, Aleppo, North America and other centers should remain strong in their own right. Their existence does not weaken Armenia.
The same principle should apply to Artsakh Armenians.
Integration into Armenia should not mean political invisibility or cultural disappearance. Their distinct identity should not be treated as temporary, inconvenient or something that will simply fade with time.
There is also a larger challenge here for the diaspora itself.
For decades, Armenian identity was often imagined around three poles: Armenia, Artsakh and the diaspora. That structure has been broken. Artsakh has been emptied of its Armenian population.
Yet too much of the diaspora still behaves as though the old framework can continue unchanged.
It cannot.
If the diaspora wants to remain politically and culturally relevant, it has to do more than issue declarations, commemorate losses and react to emergencies. It needs to sustain Armenian communities wherever they exist and help them remain organized.
Artsakh Armenians are now one of those communities.
The diaspora should not wait until their institutions have disappeared and their identity has been reduced to memory.
The loss of territory was already catastrophic. Allowing the loss of a distinct Artsakh Armenian identity would be a second failure — and this time, part of the responsibility would be ours.
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