ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF ISTANBUL SHRINKING

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 15, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian community of Istanbul, Turkey, numbering between 70,000 to 80,000 people is shrinking and though there are Armenian schools and churches the community is losing its role.

Ruben Safrastian, head of Turkish division at the Institute of Oriental Studies, an affiliation of the National Academy of Sciences, says the majority of Istanbul Armenians speak and write more Turkish than Armenian. Istanbul along with Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, were the main hubs of Armenian culture, art and press. Some three hundred Armenian language newspapers, magazines and other periodicals were published in Istanbul since 1832. Today there are six Armenian newspapers and magazines.

“The main condition for preserving once identity is the native language and if an Armenian does not speak it, he does not fit perfectly into his or her national identity,” he says. But as an important trend he pointed out the community’s invigorated involvement in the country’s public and political processes after decades of cautious behavior after the 1915 genocide. This trend has been sparked largely by developments regarding Hrant Dink, chief editor of a bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, who has been advocating for years that Turkey must recognize the genocide of Armenians, but the government continues its denialist policy.

Safrastian says recently tens of books were published in Turkish about the role and place of Armenians in the Ottoman empire, about their immense contribution to development of Turkish culture and art. He says works of Armenian writers are being published in Turkish, an unprecedented thing, but Safrastian attributes it to Turkey’s softening of its policy on national minorities after it began talks on EU accession.

Despite these positive trends, Safrastian says it is still a difficult thing to be an Armenian in Turkey. “If a man declares himself Armenian in Turkey he has to be very courageous,” he says.