Language Attitudes, Collective Memory and (Trans)National Identity Construction Among the Armenian Diaspora in Bulgaria

1.1. Overview of the Topic

The aim of this work is to examine, through an anthropological and ethnographic approach, the promotion of Armenian identity in the diasporic context of the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv through the use of specific symbols (above all the autochthonous alphabet) and memory practices (in particular the narratives related to the Genocide and the lost homeland) by the local Armenian intelligentsia. The Armenian language and its writing system are considered here not only in terms of the practical way in which people use them to communicate (speaking, reading, and writing) but primarily as fundamental tools in a process of “symbolic cultivation” (Smith 2009) of collective identity. This process is sustained, among other things, by the rhetoric according to which Armenians have historically become a nation only after the creation of their alphabet, a discourse disseminated in various social domains to cultivate collective memory practices and to foster internal cohesion within this Armenian diaspora community.

My research on the Armenians in this Bulgarian city demonstrates that language and the alphabet play a primary function in practices of collective self-representation, being used by local elites to engage audiences in a discourse of ethnic identity. Involvement is reinforced by the strong cultural, symbolic, and emotional content of these elements, which are charged with an additional rhetoric of the “survival” of the Armenian people in connection with the memory of the Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman authorities against their ancestors. These elements are part of a cultural system that involves an ideological use of the past (Eriksen 2001: 272, Zerubavel 2004) and by which ethnic identity perpetuates itself. This is done through inherited cultural representations, defined as “ethnic memory” (Fabietti 2004: 145) consisting of symbols that remind people of their common belonging. In order to be constitutive of ethnic memory, such symbols must be “remembered” through repetitions or actualizations associated with a specific culture of memory. This, in turn, is very often conveyed precisely by various forms of writing, understood in terms of textual production not only as literature, journalism, and poetry but also as public examples of inscription of communal space through monuments, gravestones, and memorial plaques. Language and writing are thus linked to the ethnic question insofar as they prove to be tools, but also objects of cultural memory, here understood as an attribution of meaning realized through explicit reference to symbols, rituals, and myths (Cohen 1985) as founding elements of collective belonging, or an “imagined community” (Anderson 1991).

If we look at the use of writing in Western societies, we find that it has almost exclusively a communicative function, serving the transmission of information; however, in other societies, writing systems can also play a role in other areas of social life, for example, as a decorative and monumental element: the example of calligraphy is surely an eloquent one (Cardona 2009: 171). Writing can thus take on new functions, as in the case of Armenians in the diaspora, where its role is also to convey various meanings of highly symbolic nature. Such reasons make writing a suitable subject for anthropological investigation: it was created by people and is culturally transmitted. It has both symbolic value and material aspects; it is crucial for interaction between people and central to the creation of knowledge that is passed intergenerationally (Barton & Papen 2010: 4).

In the Armenian case, apart from being inextricably linked to the religious and spiritual dimension (as in the case of Arabic), the unique script created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 A.D. also became a crucial element of national identity, enriched with an “ethnogenic” content. Indeed, the origin of the alphabet is viewed by Armenians as coinciding with that of the people who started making use of it, and through its characters the strength of a legendary invention is propagated across generations. The alphabet is thus treated through identity rhetoric spread by “cultural elites” as the true bond of ethnic intimacy and as the cornerstone of the nation, in many ways as a revealing element of “authentic” collective experience.

Italian linguist Giorgio Raimondo Cardona (1982: 5) claims that, by virtue of its indirect contact with thought, writing can acquire some of the power contained in it: propositional, active, creative, depending on the ideologies behind it. In the case of Armenians, the stronger ideology is the one related to the memory of the past or the exercise of an “ethnic memory,” so we can claim that the main function attributed to the written word is the one evocative of ethnicity and distinctiveness.

In the history of its distance from the motherland, Armenian identity has expressed itself not only through the subjective dimension of affection, memory, and imagery (Zekiyan 2000: 168) but also as an objective entity in a social reality that makes use of written records in the broadest sense. Against this background, I have analyzed how the element of writing—that is, the graphic aspect of the Armenian language, becomes embedded in the collective consciousness of the community through its employment as a recurrent motif in written production; in education through learning exercises and the “ethnohistory” (Barth 1998: 12) it carries on, and in the physical space of the community (on monuments, plaques, etc.) for commemoration purposes. In all these cases, the Armenian writing system stands out as the main cultural marker for the city’s Armenian community, rooted in discourses on the ethical imperative of remembering the suffering of Armenians in the 1890s (with the “Hamidian massacres”) and especially the Genocide against them in the years of World War I.

The fundamental question for me was to understand how it was possible for the Armenian people, scattered throughout history to all parts of the world, to preserve forms of collective (national) consciousness despite the absence of an independent homeland (until 30 years ago), and the assimilation tendencies of the various powers to which they were subjected.