Category Archives: CORNERSTONES

In contemporary diasporological theories

Summary

Hratsin V. Vardanyan

Since the end of the 1980s, and especially since the 1990s, the interest of academics towards diasporas has grown dramatically in a number of countries around the world. Large-scale theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted. If in the 1990s many of the theoretical studies on the diaspora started from the idea that the diaspora has not been properly examined by science, today, in fact, one can summarize, analyze the theoretical generalizations made over three decades, аlthough researchers have different approaches and scientific debates continue on a number of issues. It is noticeable that the interest towards diasporas is conditioned by the growth of the significant economic, political, social and cultural influence that diasporas have in the modern world.

Theoretical discussions about diaspora are not only somewhat different from each other, but are sometimes at different poles. These theories reflect the expansion of the semantic domain of the term diaspora over time, as well as changes in social processes, in particular, under the influence of globalization and transnationalism. Taking into account the chronological developments of the definition and the description of the main features of the diaspora, different theoretical directions were distinguished: from classical to constructivist and postmodern.

Only the old diasporas are taken as a starting point for the classical theory of the diaspora; an attempt is made to give a clear definition to the term diaspora, to determine its basic characteristics.

Constructivist studies use the ideas of nation, nationalism, the process of diaspora formation, issues of identity, in particular the changing nature of identity. Constructivist studies analyze the transition and processes, in the presence of which it can be said that people settled outside the homeland move from the status of an ethnic group to the status of the diaspora.

According to the post-modern theory, the diaspora is characterized by a number of opposite phenomena: centralization, globalization, radicalization, resettlement, variability, stability, and paradoxical combination. It is seen as a link between the past and present, the country of origin and the host country.

Among the issues discussed at the theoretical level on the diaspora, the issues of identity are basic. Like other issues related to the Diaspora, theorists have different approaches to issues of identity; the existence of wide scientific discussions is due to the fact that identity, as a social-psychological phenomenon, is complex in itself; it has different layers. In the case of the diaspora, it is based first on the formation of ethnic self-consciousness, and then on the formation of a typical diaspora self-consciousness. Diaspora identity is not always homogeneous, it can be characterized by heterogeneity, diversity, as well as hybridization.

A critical view from a centennial distance

Summary

Ararat M. Hakobyan
The period of 1920-1921 appeared to be fateful for Armenia and the Armenians. During these two years, the Republic of Armenia suffered a defeat from Kemalist Turkey and lost its independence. One part of the republic was occupied by Turkey and the Soviet power was established in another part. It was in this period that the Armenian-Turkish border-territorial issues appeared under consideration and were later stipulated in the Treaty of Alexandropol on December 3, 1920, in the Treaty of Moscow on March 16 (18), 1921, and in the Treaty of Kars on October 13 of the same year. Though the mentioned treaties are viewed as a whole, as far as their legal succession and contents are concerned, the Treaties of Moscow and Kars are quite similar.

The Treaty of Alexandropol appeared to be the outcome of Armenia’s severe defeat and the aggression carried out by Kemalist Turks. The Treaty of Moscow was the result of the Soviet-Turkish rapprochement and the Treaty of Kars actually was the repetition of the Treaty of Moscow, signed by the delegations of three Transcaucasian Republics on the directive issued by the Central Bolshevist authorities.

Since the Armenian-Turkish Treaty of Alexandropol was not legally valid from the stand-point of the international law, it could not impose any legal obligations on the government of Soviet Armenia (Armenian Revolutionary Committee) and was not implemented for the following reasons: 1. At the moment when the treaty was signed, a change of power had taken place in Armenia. 2. The treaty was ratified neither by Armenia, nor by Turkey.

On March 16, 1921, without Armenia’s knowledge and involvement, Soviet Russia and Turkey signed a treaty in Moscow which in its territorial-border terms actually repeated the Treaty of Alexandropol. On October 13 of the same year, the Soviet Armenian delegation was compelled to sign a treaty in Kars, which ratified and legalized the terms of the Treaty of Moscow. Thus, the Treaties of Moscow and Kars secured the Turkish claims regarding their intrusion into Armenian territory, as it was claimed by their “National Oath” in January 1920. Furthermore, Russia ceded Surmalu District to Turkey, which had never been under the Ottoman Empire before and had not been claimed by the “National Oath”.

The Treaties of Moscow and Kars led Armenia to lose more than a half of its genuine eastern Armenian territories. In consequence of the mentioned treaties, Turkey incorporated Kars Province with its 17,250 square kilometers, and Surmalu District covering 3,450 sq. km, making 20,700 sq. km of the Eastern Armenian lands, in total. Besides, Turkey demanded that the region of Nakhichevan covering 5,500 sq. km should be placed under the protection of its kin Azerbaijan. If we consider, that Mountainous Karabakh, which covers 4,160 sq. km also had to be annexed to
Azerbaijan on the resolution by the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of Russian Communist (Bolshevik) Party made on July 5, 1921, then almost 10,000 sq. km of Armenian territories had been granted to Azerbaijan. To sum up, one can conclude that in 1920-1921, Armenia was deprived of more than the half of its actual territory (20,700+9,660=30,360 sq. km). As we can see, this area is even larger than that of Soviet Armenia and its legal successor Republic of Armenia.

The main clue to the Soviet Russian Government making such allowances for Turkey should not be sought in the susceptibility of the Soviet state of those times, but in the essence of its Eastern policy. As far as the Bolshevik Government considered Turkey to be the centre of world revolution in the East, and tried to implement this futile plan, it urged and encouraged the Kemalists by all possible means, including gold allotments, arms and ammunitions supply, as well as meeting their territorial claims. Unfortunately, the territories had been ceded to Turkey mostly to the detriment of Armenia and vital interests of the Armenian people. At the same time, Soviet Russia made advances to Turkey for it not to join the Entente. However, we are of opinion, that Soviet Russia had not nurtured any deliberate anti-Armenian policy. Armenia just appeared to be at the crossroads of big political game and trying to preserve independence in the environment, where there was no room for independence, it had to suffer huge losses.

On the other hand, the Treaty of Moscow reasonably marked a deal. From the stand-point of the international law, the Treaty of Moscow in its part that concerns Armenia, abuses the law, as Moscow had met the territorial claims of the Kemalists at the expense of the Armenian territories in order to prevent them from joining the Entente. Besides, both parties had resolved the issues of the Armenian borders without the knowledge and participation of the Armenian representatives.

Thus, Turkey that had lost World War I and had committed one of the most severe crimes against humanity – the Armenian Genocide, by taking advantage of the discrepancies among the powerful states and pretending to be both revolutionary and comrade of the Bolshevist Russia, instead of being liable before the International Court, got away with the crime it had committed. Not only did it not return Armenia the Western Armenian provinces stipulated by the Treaty of Sèvres but, thanks to the Treaty of Moscow, Turkey also received a significant part of Eastern Armenian territories as a reward.

The policy of false amiability with Russia, conducted by Kemalists, led the Western states consider that they should recognize “New Turkey” and settle their relations with it. That is what actually took place at the Lausanne Conference in 1922-1923.

And as far as the principles and norms of international law are concerned, the Treaty of Moscow and its successor Treaty of Kars, in their parts that concern Armenia are predatory, illegal and not compulsory, and thus they can be regarded as invalid. The boundary delimitations, specified in the mentioned treaties and their appendices are disputable and unacceptable.

The treaties are not eternal. They exist as long as the conditions that bore them do.

At present, the Republic of Armenia and the whole Armenian nation possess sufficient historical, political and legal proofs and arguments to discuss the issue at the state offices, and to take the matter of the legitimacy of the Treaty of Moscow and its successor Treaty of Kars, as far as Armenia is concerned, to the international courts in order to undermine their legitimacy and to denounce them, as well as to restore violated rights and annexed territories.

And ways to overcome the victim complex

Davit R. Mosinyan

The wars turn from local to more comprehensive regional, gaining a broad geopolitical character. The wars on the border do not only concern the neighboring countries, but also necessarily involve certain political units, or, on the contrary, some interests of the political superpowers give rise to private wars. Therefore, taking care of one’s own war presupposes references to civilized dimensions. The appropriation of war, that is to say, the maintenance of sovereignty in geopolitical relations, among other factors, requires the historification of war. The historification of war means to get rid of the myths that compel certain behaviors related to it and to think of that in the course of time, bringing together the personal, military, cultural, geopolitical levels in the perspective of the future. The post-war period is in danger of remaining like that, of not turning into peace, as long as there is no initiative to make it an internal phenomenon.

Ararat M. Hakobyan

Summary
The centenary of the signing of the illegal Moscow Russian-Turkish Treaty of “Friendship and Brotherhood” on March 16 (18), 1921 will be marked, which left a heavy trace on the fate of Armenia and the Armenian people. It was signed by Kemalist Turkey and Bolshevik Russia, which at that time were in allied relations. It is a historical fact that the governments of these two internationally unrecognized countries, having virtually no territorial border contact with each other, signed an agreement and resolved the territorial-border issues of the third internationally recognized state, in this case Armenia, without the knowledge and participation of the latter. The Moscow Treaty was signed behind the backs of Armenia and the Armenian people, with gross violations of international law. And in this sense, the Russian-Turkish Moscow Treaty, as a prototype of a political deal, can be compared and even identified with the Moscow Treaty of 1939 on the division of territories of Eastern Europe – the notorious Soviet-German Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Considering territorial and border issues of vital importance for Armenia and the Armenian people in the sphere of Russian-Turkish relations, it is easy to see that they were openly sacrificed to the expansionist interests of Turkey, which soon became a NATO member.

Summarizing and generalizing the decisions of the parties on territorial and border issues concerning Armenia and the Armenian people, in accordance with the first three articles of the Moscow Treaty, the following real picture can be recorded in the language of numbers. Under this agreement, 17,250 km² of the Kars province and 3450 km² of the Surmalu district, a total of 20,700 km² of the internationally recognized territory of Armenia, were transferred to Turkey. In addition, at the request of Turkey, the Nakhichevan district of the former Erivan Governorate and the internationally recognized Republic of Armenia, which was about 5500 km², was transferred to its younger brother – Azerbaijan. In this context, if we take into account the fact that in 1921, by the decision of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCWP dated July 5, 1921, 4160 km² of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was illegally presented to Azerbaijan, it turns out that in 1921, as a result of these anti-Armenian deals from Armenia and the Armenian people were taken away and annexed to Turkey and Azerbaijan: 20700 + 5500 + 4160 = 30360 km² of area, which is actually more than the territory of Soviet Armenia and its legal successor, the present Republic of Armenia – 29.8 km². As a result, it turned out that if Georgia and Azerbaijan had reasons for joy, then in Armenia there were still feelings of anxiety, loss and pain, since the more than cynical Article 15 of the Moscow Treaty and its logical continuation in the person of the Kars Treaty of October 13 1921, continue to cause the anger and concern of Armenia and the Armenian people.

These treaties, imposed on Armenia and the Armenian people by force and the threat of the use of force, have been lasting for 100 long and difficult years. We believe that the current government and parliament of Armenia should make a statement on the occasion of this anniversary, addressed primarily to Turkey and Russia, as well as to the UN and the international community as a whole.

Very soon, this fall, the centenary of the Turkish-Transcaucasian Treaty of Kars, which is an exact copy of the Moscow Treaty, will be marked. This will be discussed in detail in the autumn issue of “Vem” magazine.

As sources of power and domination

Summary

Alexander S. Manasyan
The article substantiates the idea of force as a universal phenomenon in inanimate, in animate nature, as well as in a society in which it acts as a factor in the regulation of social relations. The key concept of the general idea is the concept of social power, the main sources of which are property, faith and knowledge. Social power is the ability of one subject to influence another, to impose his point of view (will) on him. Social strength is an innate feature of any human society, just as the force of gravity of any body. If there is a community of people connected with each other, then it is endowed with social power by the fact of its existence. The immediate observable source of all forms of coercion, power, domination is social power. Social power is the engine of any political and economic process and its guiding companion. The society of people that enters the struggle for power acts as a political force. Property, faith, and knowledge differ from other factors in shaping society in that they have functioned steadily throughout human history, forming power-oriented societies. It is obvious that the emergence of property is associated with a natural necessary need of man. In order to live, a person must acquire, create, have at his disposal goods that meet those needs: food, clothing, shelter. The phenomenon of property is related to the natural need to have the goods that meet the vital needs of man. In the course of the reproduction of social life, the energy invested in the instruments of production is repeatedly reproduced during their use, it turns from a material force into a social force, ensuring the power of the ruling minority over the disadvantaged majority. As a source of power, private property began millennia ago and still engenders a relationship of domination. Already at the stage of slavery, the social power of the slave owner flowed from the lands, the instruments of production and the slaves used as labor, which he owned. Often these days, the owner’s power over the means of production is not direct control over them. They are mediated by financial capacity, securities, key management positions and the right to control information flows. The person or group of people for whom property is a source of social power is commonly referred to by the common name as economic person. Faith also had and has tremendous community building potential. The principle underlying it knows no boundaries of nationality or class. He has been and remains a counterbalance to the material beginnings of power. The motto of Christianity “not only bread” in a condensed form expresses the transcendent role of spiritual values outside the material realm for the meaning of life. The ideas of the ancient peoples about the inner connection between power and knowledge are fixed in the Latin saying “Scientia potentia est” (“Knowledge is power”). The principled role of knowledge in the beginning of industrial civilization, thanks to Francis Bacon, found its general reflection in the formula “knowledge is power”, which this time, in contrast to its use in previous periods, marked a new trajectory of social development. The role of the natural and social sciences varies considerably in political processes. If the inclusion of natural knowledge in property relations becomes a source of social power, then social knowledge becomes such, bypassing property relations. The investor of natural and technical knowledge is an economic person who pursues victory in economic competition. The investor of social knowledge in the public consciousness is a political person who aspires to political power. The struggle for power in its purest form is a struggle of socio-political concepts, social projects that competing parties are trying to introduce into public consciousness. The implementation of any large-scale scientific project related to the country is a matter of state competence, which today embodies the politics of a person who came to power in a “party costume”. He should be the main customer of social knowledge.

From Berlin to Sèvres

Summary

Samvel A. Poghosyan
The Armenian Issue became a subject of discussion in international diplomacy in the international agreements adopted at the 1878 San Stefano Conference and the Congress of Berlin. Until 1918, the subject of the Armenian Issue was Western Armenia, which bore the country name “Armenia” in international diplomatic documents. This proves that before the declaration of independence of the Republic of Armenia formed in the South Caucasus in 1918, the issue of exercising the rights of the Armenian nation bearing the title of the country of Armenia already had an international political status.

Armenian aspirations were aimed at establishing Armenia’s autonomy, which would eventually lead to independence. And international diplomacy was satisfied with promises of reforms and changes. The geographical borders of Armenia (Western Armenia) were specified in the documents submitted by the Armenian delegation to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and especially in the May 1895 reform program. The plan presented to the sultan by the great powers on May 11, 1895, clearly marked the borders of Armenia (Western Armenia) within the six vilayets that covered most of the Armenian territories of the Ottoman Empire.

On the eve of World War I, when the task of partitioning the Ottoman Empire began to be on the agenda of the great powers, their diplomatic struggle ended with the signing of a Russian-Turkish agreement on Armenian reforms. On January 26, 1914 (February 8), in Constantinople, the Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha and the Russian Chargé d’Affaires Kostandin Gulkich signed a Russian-Turkish agreement on Armenian reforms. According to that agreement, Armenia (Western Armenia) was divided into two regions: a) Sebastia, Erzurum, Trabzon and b) Bitlis, Van, Kharberd, Diyarbakir. In other words, Trabzon was added to the six vilayets of Western Armenia.

Armenia’s independence on May 28, 1918, and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I brought the vision of a United and Independent Armenia to the diplomatic agenda. At the initial stage of the Paris Peace Conference, it was discussed as a “Great Armenia” project, including Armenian Cilicia, but later, in the Treaty of Sèvres signed in 1920, it was turned into a “Little Armenia” project, including most of the provinces of Van, Bitlis and Erzurum, and a part of the province of Trabzon with access to the Black Sea.

On August 10, 1920, in Sèvres suburb of Paris, a peace treaty was signed between the allied states and the Ottoman Empire, which established Armenia’s sovereignty over the mentioned territories, and the decision to determine the final border between the Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman state was left to US President W. Wilson. The Arbitral Award issued by the latter as of November 22, 1920 is still the only legal document clarifying the Armenian-Turkish state border.

Some considerations upon the science examining the politics

Ludvig G. Vardanyan
To distinguish political science as science or discipline it is important to lay down the goals and questions that make it defferent from the other social and humanity disciplines, as well as substantiate its real place in the scientific system.

The political science is complicated by its special subjectof research. In general, social-political science can study the regularities and tendencies of such and such sphere of life as well as its seperate institutions. main issues, facts, phenomena. Thraditionally, the value of the political science is determined by the ability of exploring the cause-effect relationships in the society. That means that these abilities or opinions may become a base and give the opportunity to precieve the repeatability of the events. defining as a result some “objective” and always reproducing forms between politics and life’s other aspects’ inter-dependence, some modes of human behavior, state organization methods and so on.

Political science is examined in this article to wide extent, as a general theory of politics, at the same time it is considered to be a totality to different disciplines, which coheres by the general object of the research. Each scientific sphere or discipline has its own conceptual framework and research tools. Nevertheless two types of knowledge can be differed: empirical and theoretical and each of them has its particular methods of research. It is justified in this article that political science is particular by its nature and may show up also as “empirical” science, which is certainly to be discussed and substantiated in the sequel.

Summary

Romik Kh. Kocharyan
This article considers three meanings of the “open hermeneutics” and demonstrates that two aspects of the first meaning are present in Dilthey’s theory in such a way, that the second aspect is in the basis of the first, and, moreover, his conception appears to us as just the embrio of the second meaning, which later was completed by H. G. Gadamer’s conception of philosophical hermeneutics. In Dilthey’s conception the possibility of being of human sciences is self-understood by epistemological inquiry, and his conception of hermeneutics is formulated as the universal methodology of human sciences. The goal of Diltey’s methodological reflection is to understand and interpretively explicate the calling and truth of human sciences. He defined the own subject, experience and method of these sciences, in contrast to natural sciences. In his viewpoint, the goal of human sciences is not the establishing of general laws and concepts, but the understanding and interpretively revealing of the uniqueness of the individual phenomena as such. The subject of understanding is composed of three classes of expressions of life: the first is presented by concepts, judgments, and more complex structures of thought, the second class consists of actions, the third – of expressions of lived experience, the latter is just the preferable subject of understanding, and according to these classes there are elementary and higher forms of understanding.

As the main contradiction of the era

Summary

Alexander S. Manasyan-Doctor of Philosophical Sciences
The article discusses the issues of transformation of the social power of an economic man into political power. On this basis, two historical phases of such a transformation are distinguished. The first historical phase is characterized by a direct transformation of the social power of an economic man into a political one, which was characteristic of a slave-owning society and feudalism. In the second phase that began with the era of bourgeois revolutions, the social power of an economic man within the framework of the Western model of the economic system could be transformed into political power indirectly through the parliamentary system. The economic man was in the minority in the total mass of the electorate and naturally feared that the formula “One voter – one vote” might leave him in the minority in parliament. Disputes were fierce in England in the 17th century over issues of universal suffrage between the Independents and the Levellers. Fears were not removed after the parade of bourgeois revolutions in Europe. Technologies were required to overcome the obstacle presented to an economic man by parliamentary democracy. The task became more complicated especially after in the middle of the 19th century political parties appeared on the political arena of Europe – new subjects of power. Over the course of the next century, an economic person solved the problem of legitimizing the seizure of power with various technologies. Now he owns a monopoly in both the economic and political spheres. In the eastern model in the economic system, this monopoly is owned by a political man. Both in the first and in the second model, the source of social evils is the monopoly possession of all power pockets. It is obvious that the true nature of the processes of transformation taking place in the Republic of Armenia cannot be adequately understood outside the context of the analysis of the main contradiction of the era – the contradiction of an economic man and a political man. Otherwise, they will be interpreted and presented as conflicts of individuals, clans and parties without ideology. The article substantiates the idea of dividing the power package between an economic person and a political person, describes a model for such a separation.

Part one. The formation of the Armenian Question

Summary

Ruben A. Safrastyan-Academician of NAS RA
Nowadays, various characterizations are given to the Armenian Question. Thus, for instance, it is mentioned that the Armenian Question has undergone changes at the current stage and is a matter of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide. There is another approach, according to which the Armenian Question has two stages;

the first is the stage of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, and the second is overcoming the consequences of the Genocide, that is, the stage of territorial claims. Proponents of the last viewpoint insist that the Armenians must invest all their efforts to successfully overcome the first stage, that is, to fight only for the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, and after having successfully completed it to launch the struggle for the elimination of the consequences of the Genocide.

In our opinion, these viewpoints cannot be guidelines for our further struggle. We believe that, as in the past, today the essence of the Armenian Question has not changed. It is an awareness of the necessity to restore the United Armenian statehood in the Armenian Highland, to recreate Armenia, and to realize appropriate actions towards this direction. It is important to emphasize that the borders of the Armenian Highland and Armenia are not the same, as the borders of the former, as a naturalgeographical environment, are unchanged, yet the borders of Armenia are subject to compression and expansion, as it is a historical-ethnic phenomenon.

In our opinion, though the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is part of the Armenian Question, however, neither does replace it, nor should it be viewed as the first stage of the final solution of the Armenian Question. We think that a simultaneous struggle should be led towards the recognition, condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, and for a just solution to the Armenian Question.

Assessing the results of the first three and a half decades of the internationalization stage of the Armenian Question, it should be emphasized that in 1914 it was possible to achieve a certain result only when it was succeeded in establishing a geopolitical equilibrium between the Great Powers. The equilibrium was established after long negotiations. It was based on the fact that, as Roderick Davison, a well-known American orientalist, once pointed out, none of the negotiating parties – the European powers and Russia, appeared to be the losers, and everyone got what they strived for. However, even that modest step remained on paper, as the Ottoman Empire taking advantage of World War I canceled the treaty.