50Received 04.04.2024. Revised 24.05.2024. Accepted 01.08.2024.
Acknowledgements. The article was written with the financial support of the Higher Education and Science Committee of the Republic of Armenia, project no. 21AG‐6C041: “Cognitive, communicative and semiotic mechanisms of the formation of historical memory and national identity: transdisciplinary analysis of Armenian epic literature, historiography, urban space and political discourse”.
Abstract. The article addresses the issue of integrating the memory of national minorities in Armenia. It places significant emphasis on analyzing the development of models of relations between titular ethnic groups and national minorities in the South Caucasus. The author explores the complexity of minority status, considering both legal mechanisms and the transformation of collective historical memory. The study shows how the interweaving of historical memories can influence self-identification of ethnic communities and their interaction with the titular nation. Additionally, the study takes into consideration the legal and ethnographic layers of research in national minorities, proposing to consider the problems of the shared collective memory of various ethnic groups existing in a common political and historical space. Thus, the article traces the historical path of development of ethnic communities in Transcaucasia, demonstrating a gradual demarcation between the ethnic majority and minorities. This aspect not only represents a change in the demographic picture but also draws attention to the formation of inter-ethnic contradictions that underpin the ineffectiveness of historical and partly modern models of identity politics in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Modern approaches to the integration of national minorities in the South Caucasus are illustrated through the examples of the Georgian model of civil-political inclusion of national minorities and the Azerbaijani policy of “limited” multi-ethnicity, tied to loyalty to the ruling regime. However, Armenia in this context appears as a unique example of the “spontaneous” formation of a shared historical memory among the Armenian majority and basic national minorities, with a common historical trauma that has become “timeless” in its nature. The integration of the historical national minorities’ memory in Armenia remains an important aspect of the identity politics within the framework of the modern systemic crisis in the republic.
Keywords: national minorities, South Caucasus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, monoethnicitization, integration of the historical memory
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