By Florence Avakian
The Second World War had ended, and Armenia, like the rest of the Soviet Union, had suffered terrible losses. In the Soviet Union overall, 25 million had perished, and in Armenia tens of thousands had died during the war. With Soviet Armenia’s prospects so reduced, a movement emerged under the rubric of “repatriation”—that is, a return to the homeland—which was devised by Soviet Armenian officials with the support of diasporan Armenian organizations like the AGBU, the Armenian Progressive League, and the Armenian National Council.
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PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Chris Zakian
Tel: (212) 686-0710
E-mail: chrisz@armeniandiocese.org
Website: www.armenianchurch-ed.net
April 11, 2014
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By Florence Avakian
The Second World War had ended, and Armenia, like the rest of the Soviet Union, had suffered terrible losses. In the Soviet Union overall, 25 million had perished, and in Armenia tens of thousands had died during the war.
With Soviet Armenia’s prospects so reduced, a movement emerged under the rubric of “repatriation”—that is, a return to the homeland—which was devised by Soviet Armenian officials with the support of diasporan Armenian organizations like the AGBU, the Armenian Progressive League, and the Armenian National Council.
The putative goal was to repopulate and revitalize Soviet Armenia. Similar repatriation plans were propagated in other Soviet republics. But the hopeful dreams of many “repatriates” were ultimately at odds with the reality awaiting them in the Soviet Union.
On Thursday evening, March 20, the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) sponsored a multimedia talk titled, “Repatriation and Deception: Post-World War II Repatriation to Soviet Armenia,” featuring commentary, music, and images by Hazel Antaramian-Hofman, the daughter of repatriated parents.
She was introduced by the Very Rev. Fr. Daniel Findikyan, director of the Zohrab Center, who called the mission of the center “the promotion of our Armenian civilization.”
In her presentation, Ms. Antaramian-Hofman detailed the experiences of repatriates who came to Armenia beginning in 1946. She revealed that during this period, more than 100,000 Armenians came by ship and plane from France, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Greece, Palestine, as well as the United States, to settle in Soviet Armenia. The repatriates from America proved to be “the least in number, but the most economically advanced.”
The speaker told of one repatriate family’s shattering experience in this new world. “On the evening of March 11, 1949, in Soviet Armenia,” Ms. Antaramian-Hofman said, “in the presence of his wife and two young boys, Alexander Khatchig Phillian was arrested by the Soviet secret police. His son Crosby, at the time 15 years old, would always remember the night when the uniformed men announced his father’s arrest, and his mother cried, ‘Is this why we came to Armenia?'”
The life-altering experience gave the young former-New Yorker a mantra by which to live in his newly adopted country: “Keep your mouth shut, and just survive,” Ms. Antaramian-Hofman related. It was not until the early 1950s that the repression of the Armenian repatriates ended.
In her talk, Hazel Antaramian-Hofman revealed that the number of repatriates was greater for Armenia than for the other Soviet republics. Memories of the Armenian Genocide, and the idealistic hopes of diaspora Armenians for a return to the historic Armenian lands of the former Ottoman empire, inspired many of the families to join the repatriation movement.
Calling the repatriation “a poorly constructed program,” she said it was “the beginning of the cultural and economic disconnect for the former diasporans. Soviet Armenia was never really home for them, and they struggled to fit in.” The speaker went on to describe how the repatriates were often shunned and ridiculed for their different dress, manners, and attitudes by the native population, and how their living quarters and food were far diminished from what they were accustomed to in their former countries.
In the discussion period of the talk, an audience member pointed out that this was a time of great deprivation for the native Armenians, who saw the newcomers as taking away available food and shelter. As the years advanced, the repatriates played an important role in the advancement of Armenia.
Hazel Antaramian-Hofman was born in Soviet Armenia, the daughter of a father born in America, and a mother born in France. Her parents repatriated to Armenia during the Stalin era, and after the thaw instituted by Khrushchev, Hazel at age five came to America with her parents, growing up in Wisconsin. She received an M.A. in Arts and Design, and an M.S. in Environmental Science, and is an award-winning artist, and writer. Part of her art collection is included in the Armenian Museum at U.C. Fresno.
In 2010, Ms. Antaramian-Hofman began to document the repatriation to Soviet Armenia, interviewing surviving repatriates, scanning photos, and conducting archival research in the United States and Armenia. To date, she has given four lectures on this topic across the United States, and is now presenting talks in England. Currently, she is working on a brief narrative of her project to accompany a commissioned 2015 theatrical production of the “Great Repatriation” at Fresno State University, with playwright Richard Kalinoski, playwright of the Genocide play, “Beast on the Moon.”
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