Introduction: From Nationalism in Exile to Transnationalism in Diaspora

Summary

I received my Ancestry DNA kit on 19 February 2021 and the results on 5 April 2021. It took me years to muster the courage to order it – there are rumours (perhaps true) about the DNA collection and DNA banks by governments. I had been thinking about my ancestry for some time, but it was not until I became deeply immersed in writing this book that I really felt the urge and the calling to send in the kit. The results estimated my ethnicity as follows: 84 percent Anatolia and the Caucasus, 12 percent Iran/Persia and 4 percent Cyprus. I click on the results page and am taken to another page with some descriptions and maps. Anatolia and the Caucasus are located in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and (the Republic of) Turkey, and it is defined as follows: ‘A physical bridge between Europe and Asia, this region has seen empires – Greeks, Persians, Romans, Ottomans – come and go for thousands of years’. However, Iran/Persia is described as located in a few countries in the Middle East, including Iran. And Cyprus is marked primarily as Cyprus, but it also was a region which ‘[t]he Phoenician, Persian, Egyptian, Roman, and Byzantine empires have each claimed […]’. All three categories are somehow included in each other's definitions, including migrations to and from regions, and this is because DNA profiles nowadays use geopolitical borders familiar to us in the modern world. In short, the profile indicates that my ancestors come from the Caucasus region, probably historic Armenia. They were uprooted from Armenia to Iran. And this is how I came to be an Iranian Armenian.

As I examined my DNA results, I first noticed all the movements and the fact that my ethnicity involved three different regions/countries, rather than one – my Iranian friend tells me that she has one category. This means that my ancestors most likely moved through that area many times, even if only to a limited extent, and probably in a circular fashion. The exposure to various cultures in these regions, with different languages and dialects, may also account for certain linguistic skills, a special talent where the brain stays more malleable than the norm.