Armenian Refugees In French Mandate Syria (statelessness And Nation-building In The Middle East)

By (author) Abrahamyan, Victoria
Short description/annotation:
A comprehensive history of Armenian refugees in French Mandate Syria, centring Armenian agency in the context of competing powers
Description:

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Armenian Genocide, and the Turkish War of Independence, Syria became host to thousands of Armenian refugees. In this comprehensive history covering the period from 1920 to 1948, Victoria Abrahamyan foregrounds the experience of the Armenian refugees in the Syrian Jazira as they navigated competing state-building efforts led by the French mandatory power, Syrian nationalists, and Soviet Armenia.

The book reveals the refugees’ agency amid internal conflicts and diverse loyalties. It sheds light on the intricate power struggles over their status and belonging— particularly through competing French and Soviet post-war refugee settlement schemes—in a critical frontier between Western imperialist powers, the Soviet bloc, and Turkey. Using Armenian, Arabic, Russian, and French language sources, the book explores how the Armenian refugee community responded to the rise of Arab nationalism in Syria, complicating simplistic sectarian interpretations of their place and reception in interwar Syria.
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By situating this history within the broader context of Armenian experiences in the Eastern Mediterranean and the role of refugees and displaced populations in state building in the post-war Middle East in general, this study offers essential reading for students and scholars of Armenian and Middle Eastern history alike.

Table of contents:

List of Figures
Preface
Forward
Acknowledgements
Note to the Reader
Abbreviations

Introduction
1. French Mandate Syria and the Struggle for Armenian Refugees
2. Belonging, Identity, and Citizenship in French Mandate Syria
3. Armenian Refugees, the Syrian Revolt, and the Origins of a Refugee Settlement Plan
4. The Entangled Story of Two Refugee Settlement Schemes: Yerevan and the Syrian Jazira
5. Between the Homeland and the Hostland
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Review quote:
Victoria Abrahamyan has succeeded in providing a distinctive and original contribution to scholarship. Her impressive book, drawing meticulously and sensitively upon primary sources in a wide array of languages, deserves close attention from anyone interested in armed conflict, refugees and state formation, and the entangled relationships between multiple actors, whether in the Middle East or beyond.
Review quote:
Abrahamyan’s study is a powerful exploration of how Armenian genocide survivors forged (provisional) new lives in Mandate Syria. It highlights their agency, resilience and ability to collaborate in the face of competing pressures—from the mandatory authorities, Ankara, Syrian nationalists, and the Soviets. This is historical scholarship at its finest: deeply researched, innovative, fine-grained, and eye-opening even for seasoned experts.
Review quote:
In this important new work, Abrahamyan tells the compelling story of post-genocide Armenian survivance in the Modern Middle East. Drawing from a wealth of sources, she weaves together the building of an Armenian diaspora national community with interwar French colonialism, rising Arab nationalism, and the politics of Soviet Armenia. In her account Armenians are active agents in creating a new community, not just beneficiaries of international humanitarianism or tools of European colonialism. Armenians come alive as complex actors in the social and ideological tumult of that period in a way no other historian of the interwar era has been able to accomplish.
Review quote:
Armenian Refugees in French Mand