Map Close  
Person info Close  
Information Close  
Source reference Close  
  Svenska
 
Previous page Page 496 Next page Smaller font Larger font Print friednly version  
Just after the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Armenian clergymen and laity gathered in Etchmiadzin for the election of a new Catholicos. Archbishop Chorekjian was chosen as Gevork VI (1945-1954) and, unlike his predecessor, was allowed to live in Etchmiadzin. The new catholicos had proven his ability to work with the Soviet authorities, and the Soviet government approved his election. A new era seemed to be opening in state-church relations and in closer ties between Soviet Armenia and the diaspora (spiurk). With the support of the conclave that had elected him, Gevork VI sent a series of messages to Stalin urging repatriation of the diaspora Armenians to Soviet Armenia and the return of Armenian lands in Turkey to Armenia. "The Armenian people", he wrote, "are firmly convinced that the Great Russian people will aid them in realising their patriotic and humane aspirations of recovering their national patrimony" 93

The repatriation campaign (ner-gaght) and the Soviet claims to Kars and Ardahan, areas held by Russia from 1878 to 1921, were supported by the Armenian Church throughout the world, as well as by the liberal Ramgavar Party, with its financial resources from middle-class and wealthy Armenians, and the socialist Hntchak Party. Even the anti-Soviet Dashnaktsoutyoun joined the campaign for repatriation. Most of the refugees, about 80 to 85 percent, were in the Middle East and Greece, and in the years 1945 to 1948, more than 100,000 "returned" to the "homeland". These "hairenadartsner" (repatriates) made up less than 10 percent of the Armenian diaspora and were primarily Armenians who lived at some time in their lives in historic Armenia or Cilicia. Survivors of the genocide or children of survivors, their emigration to Soviet Armenia had more to do with Armenian nationalist sentiments than with commitment to Soviet-style "socialism". With great joy and enthusiasm the repatriates embarked for Armenia, only to find on their arrival that the country was ill-prepared to receive them. The war had left great poverty and destruction in the Soviet Union, and local Armenians were often reluctant to share the little they had with the "aghberner" (pejorative for brothers), as these Western Armenians were derisively called. And as the Cold War began to chill, the government itself turned against the refugees, suspecting them of being too Western. Many repatriates ended up in prison camps where they remained until Stalin's death. When the opportunity arose in the 1950s and 1960s to leave Armenia, thousands emigrated once again, this time to Europe and the United States.



At the same time as it agitated for repatriation, the Soviet government raised the "Armenian Question" for the first time since the sovietisation of Armenia. On June 7, 1945, Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov told the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the Kars and Ardahan districts, which had been formally ceded to Turkey by Soviet Russia in 1921, would now have to be returned to the Soviet Union. Although the Turks wanted peaceful relations with the USSR, they were unwilling to make territorial concessions. Soviet pressure pushed Turkey toward an alliance with the West. Through 1945 and 1946 the Soviet Union made repeated claims against Turkey, both in the name of the Armenian and the Georgian republics. On October 27, 1947, Ambassador Andrei Vyshinski spoke at the United Nations in favour of the return of Kars and Ardahan to Georgia, compromising the moral and political claims of the Armenians. Meanwhile Armenians in Europe and America tried to influence their governments in favour of the annexations. A delegation of prominent Armenians visited Secretary of State Dean Acheson to plead their case, but the United States and Britain decided to back Turkey against what they perceived to be Soviet aggression. Once the Cold War broke up the Grand Alliance of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States, agreement on Armenian irredenta became impossible. The issue died shortly after Stalin's death in 1953, when Molotov publicly announced that the governments of Armenia and Georgia had waived their territorial claims against Turkey. The "Armenian Question" was once again buried by the diplomats, though Armenian organisations and publications periodically raised the issue. Historic Armenia remained divided, not only between the USSR and Turkey, but also between the two hostile camps – the Soviet Bloc and the NATO alliance.