2 - The Homeland Debate, Redux: The Political–Cultural Impact of the 1946–1949 Repatriation to Soviet Armenia

Summary

Introduction

On 5 December, 1945, the Soviet news agency TASS announced the establishment of the Repatriation Commission, the organised drive to collect all worldwide Armenians and ‘return’ them to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). A little less than a month later, in mid-January 1946, Soviet authorities started to circulate information that the repatriation authorities required from each potential repatriate. That circulation happened partly through leftist and communist Armenian newspapers like Joghovourti Tzain, printed in Beirut, which, as seen in Chapter 1, was the foremost centre of Armenian community, political and intellectual life in the Middle East. Besides data like name, date of birth, occupation and education, the Soviet authorities were also interested in more personal information: whether the repatriate had friends or acquaintances in the USSR; if yes, where; and what they did. They also asked for a detailed account of the goods that the repatriate would bring to the USSR and the work that s/he would hope to perform in the USSR. In short, the ASSR, the destination of those repatriates, was already before their arrival starting to order and categorise them as citizens. The speed with which the initiative had been made reality continued apace.

The Soviet repatriation registration drive began on 1 February, 1946. In Greater Beirut alone, there were ten locations, some in community centres like the one in Beirut's Zareh-Noubar centre, others in people's private homes, such as in Achrafieh or in the Nor Yozghad neighbourhood. While there were other prominent repatriation centres in the Middle East, including Aleppo, Damascus and Tehran, over one-third of the more than 100,000 Armenians worldwide who repatriated to the ASSR travelled via Beirut or came from it, which made Lebanon's capital the most central origin and staging point for the repatriation initiative. The repatriation ship, the Russia, one of the two transportation ships (the other was the Transylvania), arrived at the port of Beirut. Repatriates from both Syria and Lebanon were housed near the area, in the Karantina quarter. They remained there for two days before the departure. The first caravan departed on 22 June, 1946: an event covered with great pomp and fanfare in the following days.