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Prologue
David Davidian
The history of the Armenians, characterized by persecution and displacement, has profoundly
impacted this forlorn people and their collective experience. Much like Belgium, Armenia
was a battleground between forces of East and West. But unlike Belgium, Armenia could
never stand wholly on its own for long, relying on the ‘benevolence’ of the powerful, from
ancient Iran to Russian ‘salvation’ from Ottoman rule. Armenian literature, poetry, and songs
are generally somber and melancholy, and characterized by despairing themes. It should not
be surprising that Armenians adopted Christianity as a national religion, hoping for divine
deliverance.
The 1915 Turkish Genocide of the Armenians was so profound that it may have led to
collective epigenetic changes in survivors and their descendants. Yet no studies appear
dedicated to this phenomenon in the Armenian case. Experiencing horrific trauma can result
in epigenetic changes to a person's genes, which their offspring may inherit. This change does
not involve a genetic mutation but modifies how genes are expressed. Any potential
epigenetic expression would be complex and multifactorial, influenced by many

environmental factors. The difference between Soviet Armenian and diasporan environments
may account for different epigenetic expressions. Of the possible epigenetic cases, the most
studied are Jewish Nazi Holocaust survivors, yet this area of research is still in its infancy.
One might note that Holocaust survivors had an outlet with a large population of Jews outside
of the trauma region; their synthesis helped create the state of Israel with the direct
orchestration of powers such as England and the US. Armenians had no such equivalent, and,
extant today, many survivor descendants remain trapped in a possible epigenetic prison
resulting in a collective real-world political paralysis characterized by an inability to thrive
politically despite having outward characteristics of a closely-knit nation.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Armenians dominated commerce in
the eastern regions of Anatolia. In Tsarist Russian Tiflis (present-day Georgia's Tbilisi),
Armenians constituted about two-thirds of the population and most of its mayors up to the
Soviet era. Armenian industrialists competed against prominent names such as the Nobels
and Rothschilds for control of Caspian oil. One of the wealthiest people of the twentieth
century, Calouste Gulbenkian, also known as "Mr. Five Percent," was the first to exploit Iraqi
oil. Armenians had the highest percentage of successful individuals of any ethnic group
spanning central Anatolia, the Northern Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea region.
Note the term individuals. The violent extermination of the Armenians not only formed the
basis of the Modern Turkish Republic, jump-started by the seizure of Armenian capital and
property, but it removed the major economic competitor to European powers who coveting
inroads into this region.

Armenia Through the Ages

Armenians lacked self-governance since the fall of their last kingdom in 1375, coming barely
a hundred years after the devastating Mongol invasion of Armenia and followed by the

Ottoman conquest. For over half a millennium, Armenians were ruled over by others,
deprived of continuity in self-government, collective goals, and diplomatic traditions.
Armenians were forced farther into the mountains, surviving only as families and small
groups. As a result of generations constrained by parochial politics and manifestations of
selfishness, little dynamic existed to engender the formation of a collective or larger society.
This condition was magnified by Armenians being dhimmi, second-class citizens defined as
religious minorities under Ottoman Turkish rule. This is perhaps one reason why newly
established Armenian diaspora communities built churches.
What remained of Armenia after WWI was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union and
populated by a plurality of orphan genocide survivors. An all too common Armenian last
name is Harutyunian, (resurrection), given to thousands of orphans too young and
traumatized to remember their last names. The Soviet Armenian contribution to WWII was
the mobilization of over 600,000 men, half of them casualties. Both numbers were among the
highest, percentage-wise of any ethnic group or of any Soviet republic including Russia.
There was a hope that such a contribution would incentivize the Soviet Union to annex prior
Armenian-inhabited lands along the Turkish-Soviet borders. The international community
dashed such hopes. Soviet policies of restricting national expression went as far as to forbid
Armenians from writing their genocide survival memoirs. This complete lack of such
memoirs contrasts with the multitude of memoirs written by Armenian diaspora survivors.
This unredressed trauma was so deep that it actively manifested itself two generations later.
In 1965, demonstrations took place in the Soviet Armenian capital of Yerevan on the fiftieth
anniversary of the genocide, demanding its recognition. The result was Moscow granting the
construction of a genocide memorial a few years later. Such an act was unprecedented during
Soviet times.
The 1988 earthquake in northern Armenia, killing over 25,000 people, coincided with the
start of the First Karabakh War between Armenian and Azerbaijan forces, with tens of
thousands of Armenian fatalities. Armenians across the breadth of Azerbaijan were violently
expelled, with nearly a quarter million from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. As a result of the
Second Karabakh War in 2020, Armenians lost sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh and
surrounding territory. Azerbaijan currently occupies over 215 sq. km of internationally
recognized sovereign Armenian land. There has not been a trauma-free generation of
Armenians in over a century.

Demonstrators in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia, April 1965, on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the
Turkish Genocide of the Armenians
From the start of organized corruption, accelerated during the Brezhnev years and after,
Armenians again began exhibiting individualistic instincts, viewing governing bodies and
institutions as targets for systematic corruption. To be fair, such corruption was not unique to
ethnic Armenians within the Soviet Union; greed is universal. With the fall of the Soviet
Union, corruption in post-Soviet republics transitioned from being at the expense of distant
Moscow to the detriment of fellow citizens in the post-Soviet republics. Practices such as
bribery, extortion, and nepotism were characterized by prioritizing private interests over
public ones, with a flagrant disregard for any adverse consequences suffered by the public.
Amassing individual fortunes was the societal ethos that flourished in the absence of normal
controls on civilized society. An unwritten policy of post-Soviet Armenia was the deprecation
of simple national expression or patriotic feeling, a convenient continuation of Soviet
policies. Instead, what pervaded was a culture of serving elites who derided transparency and
accountability, in spite of having been ‘democratically’ elected.
Lacking any sociological or psychological studies, one is left to hypothesize that a cultural
ethos of individual interests may be the fallout of an epigenetic expression, manifesting a
superiority complex that in reality is hiding a deep-seated collective inferiority. Conspicuous
consumption and oligarch-envy are symptoms of this and is evidenced in social media
commentary. The collective behavior belies the presence of the necessary requirements to
build and sustain a successful modern nation-state.

Sadly, instead of encouraging an ethos to embrace the values needed to build a secure state,
there is a predominant desire for individual wealth with state-building and existential security
not equally valued, thus not coequally pursued. Such endeavors must not be mutually
exclusive. The following is a partial listing of outcomes that have been disastrous for the
Armenian state and people. They are the result of individualistic thinking and aspiration for
selfish pecuniary gain and power, which has produced a strategic crisis in the Republic of
Armenia and in Nagorno-Karabakh.
 Not having the best and brightest local Armenians in positions of strategic importance
while excluding diasporan experts, negating the creation of a leadership culture, with
individual interests trumping competence. The result is the Armenian government is
characterized as a kakistocracy.
 A never-ending process of selling off of Armenian strategic infrastructure to foreign
interests following the wholesale theft during the immediate post-Soviet period.
 Not having established a competent diplomatic corps serving long-term goals.
 Not having established a state-of-the-art state intelligence system.
 Not engaging in modern state public relations and counter-intelligence.
 Not encouraging a disciplined educational system serving both national, economic, and
individual goals.
 Not creating a military serving the national defense that does not rely on anachronistic
leadership.
 Not having a police system that protects the individual rather than serve the whims of the
ruling class.
 Not maintaining a judicial system that serves the state constitution, not those who
appointed the cadre of judges.
 Having a government that views strategic legislation as nothing more than a temporal
transaction.
 Never having creating a society demanding public accountability and responsibility by
government bodies.
 Having encouraged a lack of utility in national cultural pride.
 No end to economic determinism devastating the environment, public safety, food, health,
and consumer safety, etc., contrary to the mandate of a constitutional republic.
To counter these self-created depravities requires the adoption of a clear grand national
strategy. Nation-states, like individuals, can only achieve goals if they are clearly articulated
and supported by plans to attain them. Neither states nor individuals can achieve long-term
goals by making haphazard, impulsive, transactional decisions, especially in the modern era
of accelerated change. Not all nation-states have grand national strategies, but those who
expect to survive the rest of this century without being culturally and politically dominated
do. While the items listed above define conditions in many nation-states, for Armenia, they
represent an existential threat given its perilous geopolitical status. If not remedied, a line
may be crossed where aspects of Armenian state sovereignty will be on the auction block — if
not already. Armenia could disappear forever as other nations, societies, and cultures have.

Implementing a grand strategy where one never existed, and countering the interests of those
who have comfortably established themselves as part of the ruling elite, is an enormous
challenge. History is replete with forces that have opposed the status quo, ranging from
violent revolutions to quiet referendums. But without a comprehensive national strategy, true
reform is effectively impossible to achieve.
Should Armenia fail to realize that reform and secure its sovereignty, society, culture,
and legacy of historical achievement, it will suffer at the hands of the global powers
with agendas detrimental to Armenia, and, Armenia will yield to its past.
Some will find this analysis imprudent for a public forum. Yet there are forces
internationally that understand Armenians better than themselves and who are taking
advantage of the shortcomings within the Armenian ethos.
Yerevan, Armenia
Author: David Davidian (Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has
spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high technology firms.
He resides in Yerevan, Armenia). A collection of his work can be seen at…shadowdiplomat.com   .

photo ; Armineh JOHANNES   arminehjo@hotmail.com