THE REPATRIATION TO ARMENIA AND THE PEOPLE’S HISTORICAL MEMORY (According to the personal ethnographic observations)
After the Armenian Genocide part of the Western Armenians, who were dispersed all over the world periodically repatriated to Armenia (1920-1930s, 1946-1948, 1962-1965, and later).
The repatriates came to the Motherland, Armenia, to put hand in hand with their sisters and brothers in the homeland, a soothing balm over the bloody wounds of the Motherland caused by the Second World War. For that noble purpose, the workers were bringing the force of their arms; the craftsmen, the skill of their hands; the intellectuals, their knowledge; the rich, their belongings and factories; the parents, their children.
In spite of the political, domestic and moral-psychological difficulties prevailing in the country, however, a great number of repatriates settled down, taking advantage of the opportunity to receive free education in the Motherland, to creative work.
We have started to write down folklore materials and chronicle-documentary testimonies of historical memory from the repatriates living in the Motherland as early as 1955 on our own initiative and by the call of our Western-Armenian blood. We have recorded, during 60 years, the relics of the popular oral tradition communicated by the representatives of the various age and sex groups.
Thus, the new social quality of the repatriates living in Armenia, their spiritual-conscious inner world and mentality were gradually shaped in the crucible of the higher professional education received in the Motherland, the increasing scientific-technical information and the public production relations. Their cultural development and their ability to public adaptation, proceeding in the direction of approach, constitutes a component of the national identity and the consolidation of the Armenian nation.
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