Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope

by Donald E. Miller, Lorna Touryan Miller, Jerry Berndt (Photographer)

A remarkable view of how geopolitics affects ordinary people, this book documents, in words and pictures, the lives of Armenians in the last two decades. Based on intimate interviews with three hundred Armenians and featuring Jerry Berndt's superb photographs, it brings together firsthand testimony about the social, economic, and spiritual circumstances of Armenians during the 1980s and 1990s, when the country faced an earthquake, pogroms, and war. At times shocking and deeply emotional, Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope is a story of extreme suffering and hardship, a searching look at the fight for independence, and an exceptionally complex portrait of the human spirit.
A companion to the Millers' highly acclaimed work Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide, which documented the genocide of 1915, this book focuses on four groups of people: survivors of the earthquakes that devastated northwestern Armenia in 1988; refugees from Azerbaijan who fled Baku and Sumgait because of pogroms against them; women, children, and soldiers who were affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh; and ordinary citizens who survived several winters without heat because of the blockade against Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Millers' narrative situates these accounts contextually and thematically, but the voices of individuals remain paramount. The Millers also describe their personal experiences in repeated research trips, inviting us to look beyond the headlines and think beyond the circumstances of our own lives as they bring contemporary Armenia to life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Asia

248 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2003

About the author

Donald E. Miller is the Leonard K. Firestone Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California and Director of Strategic Initiatives at USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books, including Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement and Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium.

Reviews

[Denna Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was the most difficult book I have ever read. As part of the Armenian diaspora, learning and hearing firsthand about the survival of the atrocities that the Armenian population have faced since 1980s, after surviving the genocide is deeply heart-breaking.

As this book was published in 2003 and the war in Artsakh recommenced in 2020, it is more important than ever to understand the history, geopolitics and survival stories of my people.

I would urge any Armenian to read this book and any non-Armenian to understand and research more about our history.

I learned a lot, I cried a lot, and I have a lot to process.

[Taty Igidbashian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.It was very depressing to read about those people who lost their lives and just running to find a shelter to stay safe at.Also,the people who lost a friend or relative did not know where they were or even if they were dead or not.December 7, 1988 changed peoples' lives forever and it is a day to remember.In this book, there are reporters who actually experienced being there at that moment and interviewing the people who had lost someone.The images in the book, for example, showed a picture of two little boys playing in the ruins or basically what is left in their school located in Spitak,Armenia.This book really touched my heart and I will never forget the day that people were killed innocently and just the thought of how the relatives of the victims felt its just devastating.

[Adrineh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good primer on the Armenian people and life in Armenia in the early 90s, after independence. Appendix includes research methodology and the interview questions 300 people were asked.

[Totochelamouche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our checked luggage contained a small gasoline-powered electric generator and a thousand cassette tapes, not to mention clothes, a laptop computer, and gifts - inexpensive calculators and quarter-pound bags of coffee intended for the people we would interview.

We traveled regularly to Armenia to monitor the research, which was focused on four populations: (1) survivors of the earthquake that devastated northwestern Armenia in 1988; (2) refugees from Azerbaijan who fled the cities of Sumgait and Baku because of pogroms; (3) women, children, and soldiers affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh; and (4) ordinary citizens who had survived several winters without heat because of the blockade imposed by Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Asked to consider adding a visual dimension to the project, we called Jerry, whom we had met briefly while he was on an assignment in Los Angeles. "How would you like to go to Yerevan?" we asked. Rather than negotiate a fee, or ask, "Why?" or "Where is Yerevan?" his immediate response was, "Sure, when do we leave?"

The bubble of affluence in which most of us live - in which we take for granted running water, grocery stores stocked with food, and thermostats we can turn up or down at will - insulates us from the reality of at least a third of our fellow human beings on this globe.

But in 1993, when this research project was born, people were barely thawing out from an exceptionally harsh winter. Many had died from the cold, and some people we spoke to reported having lost ten or fifteen pounds. Surviving on half a pound of bread a day is not easy. The schools had been closed for the winter, because there was no fuel to heat them.

Fortunately, the 1994 cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh is still in effect as we write. The nuclear plant in Medzamor has been reactivated, and most people have electricity (those who can pay for it; utilities are now privatized). For those with money, there is food to buy on the grocery shelves.

In 1915 half of the Armenian population living in Ottoman Turkey was annihilated through genocidal death marches and massacres. These were preceded by pogroms that killed at least a hundred thousand people in 1895 and 1896 and another thirty thousand in 1909. When politicians carved up territory after World War I, Armenia not only lost its western provinces to Turkey, it also lost Nakhichevan, on its southern border, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Almost 90 percent of the territory that was once historic Armenia is occupied by other countries, leaving to present-day Armenia a tiny area about the size of Maryland - one that is scarcely viable, with few natural resources and no seaport, and culturally isolated, with Muslim neighbors on three sides.

After World War I, Armenia existed as an independent republic for only two years, from 1918 to 1920. Then Mustafa Kemal, the self-proclaimed president and prime minister of Turkey, squashed the fledgling, desperately poor country, and what was left of Armenia was placed under Soviet control. In 1921 Nagorno-Karabakh, at that time 95 percent Armenian, was made an autonomous oblast (district) under Soviet Azerbaijan, and Nakhichevan, which was 40 percent Armenian, was also put under Azerbaijani governance.

By the time Armenia became independent in 1991, Turkey and Azerbaijan had imposed a blockade on the tiny, landlocked nation, which not only put a complete chokehold on the economy but also created great obstacles to the entry of foreign aid. And because the nuclear power plant in Armenia had been shut down after the earthquake for fear of a Chernobyl-like accident, the country was cast into near darkness, with one or two hours of electricity a day, and sometimes not even that much. The only fuel coming into Armenia came through Georgia, where pipelines were sabotaged by Turks loyal to Azerbaijan.

On December 7, 1988 at 11:41 A.M., a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Armenia. Registering 6.9 on the Richter scale, the earthquake lasted forty seconds and was followed four minutes later by a 5.8 magnitude aftershock and swarms of smaller quakes, some as strong as 5.0. Four cities and fifty-eight villages were affected in an area with a diameter of eighty kilometers. At least 25,000 people were killed (this is the Soviet figure), and estimates run as high as 100,000. Many thousands were injured, and at least 500,000 were left homeless.

The house specialty was khengali, a meat pastry baked in broth, and the owner had a wood stove where he could cook if there was no electrical power.

We visited some of the shipping containers and domigs (pipelike houses) that people were living in after the quake. Never intended as permanent homes, they were small and cramped, lacked decent insulation, and were subject to leaks. However, individuals were afraid to reconstruct homes out of stone, because without proper steel reinforcement, even one-story houses could not stand up to another quake. We saw the ruins of hundreds of such homes - mere rock piles, often with a few roof timbers sticking up at random angles. Ironically, some of the structures still standing were the oldest buildings, constructed prior to the Soviet era.

Then they were transported to Baku, where they were put in new housing. "They were saying, 'Pick any place in this building that you want to stay and you can live here.' I think they were regretting the slaughter that had taken place in Sumgait. So they were kind to us."

There was a writer who wrote mainly for children, and all of his works were nice and kind. Suddenly,... he appeared on television and declared that all people whose last names ended in -ian must leave and be fired from their jobs.

In 1993 we were buying rojig (walnuts covered with grape syrup) at a roadside stand outside of Yerevan when a middle-aged man, a physical education instructor dressed in military fatigues, insisted that we follow his car to a cemetery a few miles away.

Others indicated that their friends in Nagorno-Karabakh were much better off than they were in Armenia because it was easier to keep livestock and chickens in Nagorno-Karabakh. The blockade meant that refugees faced the same difficulties as did the rest of the population of Armenia. They struggled to stay warm, they were often without electricity, and food was scarce.

The floor maid told us we should draw a full tub when the water came on, because otherwise we would not be able to bathe in the morning. That was fair warning, and fortunately we had brought our camping shower - a black plastic bag with a nozzle that we hung out on the porch to warm.

In the absence of electric power, modern industrial society comes grinding to a halt, and this is precisely what happened in Armenia. Elevators in high-rise apartments did not operate. Water had to be carried. There were massive layoffs in industry. People sat in darkness at night. Public transportation ceased or became exorbitantly expensive.

A more profound and morally ambiguous problem is that men who left Armenia in order to send money back to their families have often formed relationships with other women, married, had new families, and no longer support their wives and children at home, who, along with the elderly, make up one of the most desperately poor population groups in Armenia.

[Karl-O]

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003...