The Question Behind the Concept of “Real Armenia”
By K. M. GREG SARKISSIAN
The impetus for this article arose from a discussion in Los Angeles between Petros Ghazaryan and Dr. Viken Alex Hovsepian. ( https://youtu.be/FwX9O4v4UrU?is=k2zhWKhOYjkr8L32 )Their conversation prompted a deeper question:* How can the Republic of Armenia pursue the consolidation of its statehood without diminishing the historical memory and national identity of the Armenian people?***
This question has become particularly urgent following the 2020 Artsakh war and the forced displacement of Artsakh’s Armenian population in 2023. The Armenian government’s priorities—security, internationally recognized borders, economic development, and stability—are understandable. A small state must make difficult decisions in a complex geopolitical environment.
Yet the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people are not synonymous. The Republic is a sovereign state with defined borders, while the Armenian people constitute a historical and cultural community whose identity extends beyond those borders through centuries of history and a worldwide diaspora. This distinction implies neither territorial ambitions nor disregard for international obligations. It recognizes that a state’s present priorities cannot fully define a nation’s historical experience or identity.
Armenia’s challenge is to become a secure, stable, and prosperous state while preserving its people’s historical memory.
Statehood, Political Realism, and Moral Expectations
Armenia must conduct relations with states pursuing different interests, including Russia, Turkey, Iran, European countries, and the United States. Its geopolitical position requires careful diplomacy, realistic decision-making, and an understanding of international power dynamics. For a small state, security and long-term viability often depend on navigating circumstances over which it has limited control.
Political pragmatism, however, must not become historical amnesia.
A state can pursue peace and diplomatic cooperation while preserving historical truth. Remembering past events does not automatically imply territorial claims, just as establishing diplomatic relations does not require abandoning historical memory. The responsibilities of governments and the work of scholars, cultural institutions, and diaspora communities can complement one another.
There is, nevertheless, another difficult reality to acknowledge: the actions a state considers necessary for its survival do not always correspond to the moral expectations its nation places upon it. This tension is particularly acute for a small state such as Armenia, whose security concerns and geopolitical constraints may limit its political choices.
For example, the need to maintain peace, protect citizens, or preserve diplomatic channels may lead a government to adopt positions that do not fully reflect its people’s expectations concerning historical justice, recognition of the Armenian Genocide, or national dignity.
Recognizing this tension does not mean excusing injustice or abandoning national principles. Rather, it acknowledges that a state and a nation have distinct, though interconnected, responsibilities. The state must respond to immediate political and security realities, while the nation has a legitimate interest in ensuring that its historical experience, moral values, and collective memory are not sacrificed to political expediency.
The challenge is to reconcile the practical requirements of statehood with the moral and historical expectations of the nation without treating either as irrelevant.
Historical Memory Is Not Territorial Ambition
The Armenian Genocide occupies a central place in this discussion. The genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1915 and continuing through the following years, involved mass killings, forced deportations, and the destruction of numerous Armenian communities. These events profoundly shaped modern Armenian history and contributed to the formation of the diaspora.
For many Armenian families, the Genocide is not merely a historical event. It remains an integral part of family memory and identity, transmitted through generations through stories of lost homes, villages, churches, and communities.
Preserving this memory does not mean demanding sovereignty over territories within present-day Turkey. Historical remembrance and territorial claims are different matters.
The same principle applies to Artsakh. The forced displacement of its Armenian population and the fate of Armenian churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and other cultural heritage raise serious concerns. Documenting these developments is essential to preserving historical knowledge and enabling future generations to understand the past. Historical documentation need not serve a territorial or political agenda.
A nation preserves its history not only to advance political demands, but because that history is an inseparable part of its identity.
The Greek and Cypriot Experiences: A Comparative Perspective
Before the First World War, Anatolia was home to Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other communities. Violence, persecution, deportations, and population movements profoundly transformed the region. Although these communities experienced distinct historical events, their experiences can help illuminate the broader history of displacement and the loss of ancestral homelands.
The Greeks of Anatolia, including the Pontic Greeks and other Greek communities of Asia Minor, endured persecution and displacement. Many lost their ancestral settlements, churches, monasteries, and cultural environments. The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey uprooted numerous people whose families had lived in Anatolia for generations. Their traditions and family memories remain an important part of Greek identity.
Cyprus provides another relevant example. In 1974, following a coup backed by the Greek military junta, Turkey launched a military intervention on the island. Turkish forces subsequently took control of the northern part of Cyprus, and the island remains divided. Many Greek Cypriots were displaced from their homes and communities in the north, separated from ancestral properties, churches, and cultural landmarks. Their attachment to these places has continued across generations.
Greece and Turkey maintain diplomatic relations and are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), despite significant disputes concerning Cyprus, the Aegean, and broader regional issues. Their diplomatic relations and shared alliance have not erased historical grievances or the cultural memories of displaced communities.
These experiences illustrate an important principle: relations between states do not determine the full historical consciousness or cultural identity of their peoples. Greece can maintain diplomatic relations with Turkey while preserving the heritage of Anatolian and Pontic Greeks. Greek Cypriots can participate in the political life of the Republic of Cyprus while retaining their attachment to homes and communities from which their families were displaced.
These comparisons do not equate Armenian, Greek, and Cypriot histories. The Armenian Genocide and the displacement of Artsakh’s Armenian population have their own distinct circumstances. Rather, the examples demonstrate that a state can pursue pragmatic diplomacy while its people continue to preserve historical memory and cultural identity.
Similarly, Armenia can strengthen its statehood within its present borders while Armenians preserve the history of Western Armenian communities, remember the Genocide, and protect the cultural heritage of historic Armenian settlements.
Armenia, the Diaspora, and the Universal Study of Genocide
Preserving Armenian historical memory is a shared responsibility of the Republic of Armenia and the diaspora. Institutions such as the Matenadaran and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute play essential roles in preserving multilingual, manuscripts, historical documents, and evidence relating to the Genocide. Their work contributes to research, education, and the transmission of Armenian history to future generations.
However, understanding the Armenian experience requires more than documenting historical events in isolation. The Armenian Genocide, the formation of the diaspora, and the continuing relationship between the Armenian people and their historical homeland are interconnected phenomena. The Genocide destroyed communities, forcibly dispersed populations, and transformed the geographic distribution of the Armenian people. It also reshaped ideas of homeland, belonging, identity, and historical continuity across generations.
The study of these developments must therefore encompass not only the events of the Genocide, but also their long-term consequences: the formation and evolution of diaspora communities, the transmission of collective memory, and the cultural and historical connections that continue to link dispersed populations to their ancestral homeland.
In this context, the Zoryan Institute has made important contributions over approximately forty-five years to the development of genocide studies and diaspora studies. Its work has examined the Armenian Genocide, the formation and continuity of diaspora communities, questions of identity and belonging, and the relationships between diaspora populations and their historical homelands.
The significance of this work extends beyond Armenian history. Genocide and diaspora formation are also universal subjects involving mass violence, forced displacement, cultural loss, collective memory, and the reconstruction of communities. Understanding these phenomena requires comparative and interdisciplinary research involving scholars from different countries and academic traditions.
Through multinational scholarly collaboration, the Armenian experience can be studied alongside the experiences of other peoples without suggesting that their histories are identical. Such research helps illuminate both the distinctive circumstances of the Armenian Genocide and the broader patterns through which genocide, displacement, and the loss of homeland shape societies and identities.
The Zoryan Institute’s scholarly publications and peer-reviewed articles have also contributed to the comparative study of diasporas around the world. This research situates Armenian experience within international academic discussions and encourages a broader understanding of how diasporas emerge, preserve collective memory, maintain cultural identities, and sustain connections with ancestral homelands.
The diaspora should not be understood simply as a population living outside its homeland. It is also a historical, social, religious and cultural phenomenon shaped by displacement, inherited memory, adaptation to new societies, and the continuing negotiation of identity across generations. Studying these processes helps explain how a people can maintain historical continuity even when its members live in different countries and operate within different political systems.
This is why the international and comparative dimensions of the Zoryan Institute’s work are so important. They connect Armenian historical experience to universal questions of human history and place that experience within the wider framework of global scholarship. In doing so, the Institute contributes both to the preservation of Armenian history and to the advancement of education, knowledge about genocide, diaspora, and the enduring relationship between people and homeland.
The responsibilities of Armenia and the diaspora should therefore not be treated as competing obligations. Armenia must focus on the security of its citizens, economic development, and the strengthening of its institutions. At the same time, academic and cultural institutions in Armenia and throughout the diaspora can preserve historical evidence, advance research, and ensure that Armenian experience remains part of international scholarly discourse.
Armenians living in the Republic may prioritize peace, security, and economic development, while diaspora communities may emphasize Genocide recognition and the preservation of cultural heritage. These priorities need not conflict. When grounded in mutual respect and cooperation, they can complement one another and serve the long-term interests of the Armenian people.
Reconciliation Without Forgetting
Any serious discussion of Armenia’s future must also address its relations with Turkey. It is essential to distinguish between the Turkish state and the Turkish people. The historical and present policies of the state can be criticized without assigning collective responsibility to all Turkish citizens, whose political views and understandings of history vary.
Dialogue with Turkish citizens, scholars, and representatives of civil society can contribute to mutual understanding. Such dialogue, however, does not require abandoning research on the Armenian Genocide or efforts to secure its recognition.
Reconciliation cannot be built on denial or silence. It requires a willingness to confront difficult historical questions, listen to different experiences, and acknowledge documented events. Preventing future atrocities and preserving the truth about past atrocities are complementary responsibilities.
Striving for peace does not mean forgetting. Similarly, preserving historical memory does not necessarily prevent peaceful relations.
Reconciling Statehood and Historical Memory
The concept of “Real Armenia” can be useful if it expresses the aspiration to build a secure, viable, peaceful, and prosperous state. It becomes problematic if it is used to restrict the historical identity of the Armenian people or to suggest that national memory is an obstacle to statehood.
A state must protect its citizens, strengthen its institutions, develop its economy, and pursue stable international relations. A nation carries its history, language, culture, and collective memory across generations and beyond present borders. Recognizing this reality does not require territorial ambitions; it acknowledges the nature of national identity.
The Greek and Cypriot experiences help illustrate this distinction. Diplomatic relations and shared alliances can coexist with the preservation of ancestral memory. Similarly, Armenia can pursue pragmatic diplomacy while Armenians continue to preserve the history of their ancestral communities and the cultural heritage of their historical homeland.
At the same time, the moral expectations of a nation may not always align fully with the choices its state considers necessary. For Armenia, this tension must be addressed openly and thoughtfully. The practical demands of statehood cannot be ignored, but neither should they become a reason to dismiss historical truth or the moral values through which a nation understands itself.
The question, therefore, is not whether to choose between “Real Armenia” and the historical Armenian nation. The challenge is to establish a healthy relationship between them.
The Republic of Armenia must build a secure and prosperous future while respecting its people’s historical experience. The preservation of historical memory should serve knowledge, identity, and the education of future generations without necessarily becoming a territorial program of state policy.
The state and the nation have distinct but complementary roles. The state must protect its citizens and secure the country’s future. The nation must preserve its history, language, culture, and memory. Academic institutions, including those in Armenia and the diaspora, have an additional responsibility to document this experience, study it critically, and contribute to the universal understanding of genocide and diaspora.
Armenia can pursue a realistic and peaceful future without forgetting its past. The Armenian people can preserve their historical memory and national identity while recognizing the necessity of strengthening statehood.
This is how “Real Armenia” and the historical Armenian nation can be reconciled: not by sacrificing one for the other, but by recognizing that Armenia’s future and the historical memory of the Armenian people are inseparable dimensions of the same continuity.
K. M. Greg Sarkissian is President of Zoryan Institute
