Why They Want to Erase Armenian Memory

Turning from policy to identity, Arthur G. Martirosyan makes the case that for Armenians, history and memory are not merely part of identity but close to dominant. He traces it to the Armenian Genocide, which scattered the nation from Australia to the United States, and argues it is that active memory that keeps Armenians Armenian across borders. In his telling, this is precisely what Pashinyan seeks to dissolve.

Martirosyan connects the point to the diaspora and the Armenian Apostolic Church. He says Azerbaijan and Turkey would prefer the diaspora reduced to a financial relationship with Armenia rather than a politicized community that has long been an obstacle to their aims. The church, he argues, remains the one institution binding the entire nation together, and he defines that nation broadly: not only passport holders, but everyone who considers themselves Armenian. Efforts to weaken these institutions, he suggests, align with what Baku and Ankara want as the price of their version of regional peace.

The moment resonates because it moves the conversation from railways and reactors to the question of who gets to define the nation. By linking genocide memory, the diaspora, and the church, Martirosyan frames the government’s confrontation with the church and its downgrading of historical grievance as parts of a single project. For an audience spread across the Armenian diaspora, the claim that shared memory is what holds the nation together, and that it is deliberately under pressure, is both personal and political. It reframes a domestic dispute as a question of long-term national cohesion and sovereignty.