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This volume examines significant social transformations engendered by the ongoing Syrian conflict in the lives of Syrian Armenians. The authors draw on documentary material and fieldwork carried out in 2013-2019 among Syrian Armenians in Armenian and Lebanese urban settings. The stories of Syrian Armenians reveal how contemporary events are seen to have direct links to the past and to reproduce memories associated with the Armenian genocide; the contemporary involvement of Turkey in the Syrian war, for example, is seen on the ground as an attempt to control the Armenian presence in Syria. Today, the Syrian Armenian identity encapsulates the complex intersection of memory, transnational links to the past, collective identity and lived experience of wartime "everydayness." Specifically, the analysis addresses the role of memory in key events, such as the bombing of Armenian historical sites during the commemorations of 24 April in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor; the (perceived) shift from destroying Syrian Armenians' material culture to attempting to destroy the Armenian community in urban Aleppo; and the informal transactions that take place in the border area of Kessab. This carefully-researched ethnography will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology, and political science who specialize in studies of conflict, memory and diaspora.
List of contents
1. Introduction: The Syrian Armenians and The Turkish Factor: Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War.- 2. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: From Violence to Genocide.- 3. Religious Affiliation and the Armenian Diaspora in the Middle East.- 4. Armenian Communities in the Syrian War.- 5. Deir Ez-Zor and its Lieux de Mémoire.- 6. Aleppo Armenians at War.- 7. Kessab in the Syrian War.- 8. The Occupation of Northern Syria.- 9. Conclusions.
About the author
Marcello Mollica is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the University of Messina, Italy.
Arsen Hakobyan is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
Report
The Syrian War represents one of the most important challenges the world has faced in the last ten years. This book provides a different reading of contemporary events in Syria and their roots, by reading them through the eyes of the Syrian Armenian community. ... The book will shed light on the war-related social urban changes in Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor. (Fundamental Armenology, fundamentalarmenology.am, Vol. 14 (2), 2021)
