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09.03.2009

PROBLEMS OF THE ARMENIANS OF SYRIA: THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF DAMASCUS

   

Araks Pashayan

Araqs_Pashaian (original)Armenians settled in Syria from ancient times. Armenia had secular historical and cultural ties with that region. The Armenian community of Syria widened in 1915 by the emigrants, who had escaped the Armenian Genocide and then by the refugees from Cilicia. At current moment the number of Armenians in Syria is about 65-70 thousands. There are large Armenian communities in Aleppo, Kamishli, Damascus, Latakia, Kesap. Armenian Apostolic Church has two dioceses in Syria: the diocese of Beria (with the residence of the head of the diocese in Srb. Qarasun mankunq (St. Forty chrisoms) church in Aleppo) and the Diocese of Damascus (with the residence of the head of the dioceses in Srb. Sargis (St. Sargis) church).

The Armenian community of Damascus, which is one of the traditional and accomplished communities, takes a special place among the Armenians of Syria. The number of the Armenians of Damascus does not exceed 5-6 thousands.

The Armenian apostolic community (as well as other Christian communities) is regarded on behalf of the state as a religious minority, which is represented by the Armenian Apostolic Diocese of Damascus belonging to Echmiadzin. In fact, the church represents its community to the state and the state to the community. The Armenian community of Damascus has local national authorities, which have worked basing on the national constitution elaborated in 1853 and ratified in 1863 by the sultan’s government. At present moment the head of the Armenian Diocese of Damask is His Holiness bishop Arsham Nalbandyan.

The domestic affairs of the community are administered by the Council of province, the legislative organ, which chooses the City council playing the role of the executive organ. Armenians gained real scope in the issue of the arrangement of their national life. They were allowed to teach Armenian and Christianity in Armenian.

Syrian Armenians have good reputation and recognition in the country. In different periods of Syrian history Armenians assisted Arabs, including their struggle for independence. At the second half of the 19th century in the period of national, cultural and political blossom (Nahda) the people of Armenian descent played a significant role. Among them one of the founders of professional Arab theatre Adib Ishak (1856-1882) and Rzkallah Hasun (1823-1880) who is supposed to be the founder of Arab political journalism. There are a lot of Armenians who became the officers of Syrian Arab Republic and took part in the defense of the country and general-lieutenant Aram Karamanukyan, who is supposed to be one of the founders of Syrian army, took part in Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

Today Armenians of Syria, including Armenians of Damascus, are also actively involved in social and economic and cultural spheres. The name of the conductor of the symphonic orchestra of Syria Misak Baghbudaryan is rather well-known in Damascus. There are three members of the writers union of Syria – Nora Arisyan from Damascus, Alexander Keshishyan and Hrach Kalsahakyan.

The Armenians of Damascus are mainly involved in trades and private enterprise. At current moment there are almost no Armenians among military and state figures. The number of intellectual persons is not big. There are only some individuals engaged in academic science.

It is characteristic that in Syria, including Damascus, for the last twenty years the Armenian youth has been showing much more interest in education and there are even more young people who have gone into higher education than in 1970-1980th and this mainly due to the improvement of the wealth of the Armenians.

The activities of the Armenian parties in Syria are prohibited that is why they work under restrictions in Damascus, i.e. in the frame of public, cultural and sport organizations and unions (clubs). The Armenian community of Syria is, in fact, a net structure, because all the unions and religious trends have their substructures or branches in almost all the districts inhabited by the Armenians. Various sports and cultural events are arranged in those clubs. The most well-known in Damascus is “Knar” chorus, directed by Shant Keshishyan, which was established in 1960th by the Armenian catholic union.

The unions working in Damascus are officially licensed and registered in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour; they have their own regulations and they follow the order of the Ministry. The branches of Hamazkayin Armenian (Pan-Armenian) Educational and cultural Association, the New Generation cultural Union, Armenian General Benevolent Union, Tekeyan Cultural Union, and Armenian Catholic Union work in Damascus. Though belonging to different associations reflects rather complicated inner mosaic but it does not affect the protection of Armeniancy.

The Armenians of Damascus belong to different religious trends with some special peculiarities. The apostolic, catholic and evangelistic communities are distinguished. The largest is the apostolic community. Armenian Catholics have residences in Damascus and Aleppo, and Armenian evangelists in Aleppo. The spiritual leader of Armenian Catholics is Bishop Hovsep Arnautyan and the leader of Armenian evangelistic church is Tatev Pasmachyan. There is close cooperation between Armenian apostolic, catholic and evangelistic churches. By joint efforts they arrange some all-Armenian events, including those confined to the April 24th.

The Catholic community of Damascus is small, mainly Arab speaking; they have a residence and church, which is the centre of the community. The “connecting link” of the community is Sargis Keshishyan who plays a significant role in the arranging of the national life of the Armenian catholic community. As for the Armenian Evangelists then their community is also small but as compared with the Catholics it is more Armenian speaking. Armenian Evangelists have their church and school in Damascus.

Arab speaking (mainly catholic) old Armenians (arman kadim) form the special stratum among the Armenians of Damascus. Their national consciousness is almost fully clouded.

The embassy of the RA in Syria plays a great role in the issue of rallying the Armenian community of Damask. All Armenian unions are invited to the events arranged by the embassy including the representatives of catholic and evangelistic communities.

In recent years there has been only one Armenian member of Syrian parliament due to the demographic factor. The Armenian candidate is regarded as a candidate from Armenian Diocese of Aleppo (Berio) and is elected on party list. The last parliamentary elections took place on April 2007. The present Armenian member of Syrian parliament is S. Sumbulyan, who became the deputy for the second time. He is a member of the parliamentary commission on external affairs and the chairman of the parliamentary commission on Armenian-Syrian friendship. The Armenians of Damascus are not engaged in politics, though there are members of ruling party “Baas” among them.

The issue of the dioceses is one of the most topical issues for the Armenian community of Damascus1, which has in some sense divided community into two wings. The first includes the circles oriented on Echmiadzin, i.e. hnchakyan, beneficial, ramkavar, communist circles, and the second are the dashnak circles, which has Antiliasian orientation and they tend to return the Damascus diocese to Cilician cathalicosat; they consider that the belonging of Damascus diocese to Ehcmiandzin is illegal. They boycott all the events arranged under the sponsorship of the leader of the Armenian Diocese of Damascus. That issue of the Diocese has turned into practically unsolvable problem. It is supposed that the problem of the diocese brings some activity to the life of the community but this seeming activity, in fact, is a result of unhealthy competition, and the new generation in most cases is tired of old controversies.

The Armenians of Damascus being integrated to the Syrian society at the same time tend to preserve their national identity. There are national schools (as well as nurseries) in the community belonging to the Armenian apostolic community. The following schools are known in Damascus: Targmanchats (Translators) National School, the first educational institution established in Damascus (1898), National Joint School (1929), Kyulpenkyan-Sahakyan School of Kyulap (1929). There are also three schools of Armenian Catholics and one school of Evangelists. After graduating from the school Armenian pupils continue their education either in Arab or in private (paid) schools. National Joint school today has 170 Armenian pupils. In the near future the school will move to a more modern building, which is situated in one of the suburbs of Damascus. There are 160 pupils in Kyulpenkyan-Sahakyan School of Kyulap and 350 in Targmanchats School.

The national education goes on both in sports and cultural unions and in the family. According to the point of view of one part of Armenians of Damascus Armenian education is most strongly expressed in dashnak circles.

There are no Armenian newspapers published in Damascus, but they get it from Beirut. The most widespread newspapers are “Azdak” and “Zartonk”. “Gandzasar” weekly from Armenian Diocese of Aleppo (Berio) and other periodicals are also delivered to Damascus. Though there are printing houses, which belong to Armenians in Damascus but no Armenian literature is published there.

There are also beneficial organizations working in the Armenian community of Damascus. The poor care commission of Srb. Sargis (St. Sargis) church, which was established in 1890th, the Cross of help of Syrian Armenians – a women’s beneficial organization established in 1929 on the initiative of Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnakcutyun.

Both Syrian authorities and the society take kindly to the Armenians of Syria. This is conditioned by their merits, their reliable and law-abiding behavior (in the opinion of the lecturer of Damascus University Nora Arisyan in certain cases Armenians know their responsibilities better than their rights), and also by the tolerant policy of the present authorities towards the religious minorities. At present the representatives of various ethnic and religious trends peacefully coexist in Syria. Separate mosques and churches are located side by side. Armenian spiritual figures from time to time meet not only Muslim religious figures but also the representatives of other Christian or religious trends to discuss the issues of collaboration, the interfaith dialogue and the religious and ethnic tolerance.

In spite of this, there is an internal danger concerning security. Interethnic and interfaith discrepancies in Iraq spark concern as a possible precedent in case of the problems of the same kind. The processes, going on in the neighbour countries also have an economic impact on Syria. It is not a mere chance that the intensifying emigration also has economical motives. Armenians mainly emigrate to the US, Canada, and the Gulf countries. The most part of the emigrants are young and they go to study (mainly to the US and Europe) and never return.

Today the Armenians of Damascus faced various problems which are, on the one hand, connected with the preserving of the Armenian identity and, on the other hand, with economic issues. The efforts focused on preserving of Armenian identity are getting even more difficult; the influence of foreign cultures is growing, there is a lot of Arab speaking families which appetence to stay in Armenian environment is reducing, the number of mixed marriages is growing at some extent (mainly with Christian Arabs). According to the leader of the Armenian diocese of Damascus Bishop Arsham Nalbandyan there is a certain stratum, which is “lazy” in national sense and stay away from everything.

The Armenians of Syria, including the Armenians of Damascus have certain expectations concerning activation of national life from Armenia. They want Armenia range itself on the side of all-Armenian interests and Diaspora. There are some realities in Armenia they regard negatively. The Armenians of Damascus are first of all concerned about a number of vicious occurrences such as, e.g. the expansion of the religious sects. After many of them (including Armenians from Syria in general) faced on different occasions administrative and social problems in Armenia, they regard it a country, which is still in the progress. In accordance with separate points of view the Republic of Armenia is not a Motherland they were dreaming of. This circumstance may cause in many cases the crisis of national consciousness.

From the point of view of boosting national life in Damascus the satellite television, which allows to watch “Հ1” (Public Armenian Television H1) programmes, plays great role.

Though the Armenian community of Damascus manages traditional and efficient mechanisms of self-regulation and has a substantial potential it needs to modernize the traditional functions of national organization.

1The Damascus Diocese was formed in the middle of the 15th century by Jerusalem patriarchy and worked under its management till 1929. In order to reform the Great Cathalicosat of Cilicia (after the Armenian Genocide and the exile of the Armenians from Cilicia only Aleppo Diocese stayed under its protectorate) in 1929 with the blessing of the Cathalicos of All Armenians Gevorg V Surenyanc the patriarchy of Jerusalem assigned Damascus Diocese, together with the Diocese of Beirut and Cyprus to the Cathalicosat of Cilicia. After the church split in 1956 the administrative belonging of the Diocese has not been clarified yet. At present the head of the Damascus Diocese is appointed non-officially froim Echmiadzin.


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