Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Silent Survivors: Women Who Preserved Armenian Identity
Transcript
- Lucas: We’ve spent the last several episodes tracing the swords and the treaties—the battles of Sardarapat, the sieges of Zeytun, the grand alliances of Cilicia. But if you strip away the generals and the kings, what actually kept the Armenian identity from dissolving into the empires that surrounded it? It wasn’t just stone fortresses or royal bloodlines. Lucas: It was the quiet, relentless work of women, often operating in the shadows of official history. In the Ottoman Empire, and later under Soviet rule, when political autonomy vanished, the family unit became the primary vessel for culture. And in that unit, the mother was often the keeper of the flame. Luna: So they were preserving things like language and religion in secret? Lucas: Exactly. Even after the Genocide, when entire villages were erased, women would carry the names of their ancestors, the recipes, the prayers, and the fragments of the old liturgical language, Grabar, into new homes in Beirut, Los Angeles, or Moscow. They turned memory into a daily practice. Lucas: Take the tradition of the khachkar, those intricate cross-stones carved with biblical scenes and genealogies. While men might have been away fighting or exiled, it was often the women who commissioned these stones to mark gravesites, ensuring that even if the living were scattered, the dead remained rooted in their specific plot of land. Luna: That feels like a powerful way to claim belonging when you’ve lost everything else. Lucas: It was. And this goes back much further than the twentieth century. Look at the medieval period, particularly within the Nakharar system, the aristocratic families. Women like Queen Keran of Cilicia didn’t just rule; they managed complex diplomatic networks and monastic endowments that funded education for generations. Lucas: But for the average woman in the highlands of Vaspurakan or the valleys of Syunik, it was about maintaining the liturgical calendar. The church was often the only institution left standing when secular power collapsed, and the women were the ones ensuring the chants continued, the fasts were observed, and the children learned the rhythm of the year. Luna: Did they have access to education during those times? Lucas: In many regions, yes, because literacy was tied to reading scripture. In places like Haghpat and Sanahin, which we discussed earlier as Silk Road hubs, there were active schools where women sometimes served as scribes or patrons. The monastery walls themselves are filled with inscriptions made by women, thanking donors or recording births. Lucas: There’s a fascinating example from the Safavid era in Isfahan. When Shah Abbas I moved thousands of Armenians to New Julfa, the community had to rebuild from scratch. It was largely the women who managed the household economies that allowed the merchants to trade, keeping the community solvent enough to build churches and schools. Luna: So the economic survival was directly linked to their domestic management. Lucas: Precisely. Without that stability, the cultural institutions couldn’t exist. And we can’t overlook the role of women in the resistance movements too. During the Hamidian massacres and later the World War I deportations, there are documented accounts of women organizing food supplies for refugees, hiding children, and sometimes leading small groups through the mountains. Lucas: In Zeytun, we know the men fought in the sieges, but the women were managing the logistics of the siege itself—rationing, communication between camps, and caring for the wounded long before the Ottoman forces finally breached the defenses. Luna: It’s striking how central they were to the actual mechanics of survival. Lucas: And this continuity is what allowed the First Republic of Armenia to emerge in 1918. You had a population that had survived displacement, but who still held onto a cohesive sense of self. When the Transcaucasian Sejm declared independence, it wasn’t just politicians signing papers; it was a community that had been rehearsing statehood in miniature, through their village councils and church synods, led heavily by women. Lucas: Even after the Red Army invasion in 1920, as described in previous episodes, the Soviet attempt to erase national identity failed because the grassroots culture, sustained by women, was too deep-rooted. The Soviets tried to replace the church with the party, but they couldn’t replace the grandmother telling stories at the table. Luna: That oral tradition seems like the strongest shield against assimilation. Lucas: It is. In the diaspora, especially in places like Lebanon and Syria, the Armenian language remained vibrant in neighborhoods precisely because mothers insisted on speaking it at home, refusing to let the next generation fully slip into Arabic or French without a trace of their own tongue. Lucas: This resilience wasn’t passive. It was an active, often difficult choice to maintain difference in the face of pressure to conform. Whether it was carving a khachkar in a remote village or teaching a child to read in a crowded apartment in Paris, it was a deliberate act of defiance. Luna: It redefines what victory looks like in a conflict that spans centuries. Lucas: Absolutely. Survival isn’t always about winning a battle on a field like Sardarapat, though that was crucial. Sometimes it’s about making sure your great-grandchild knows the name of the mountain their family came from. Lucas: If you’re finding value in these deep dives into the nuances of history, consider supporting the show directly. A small group of listeners already chips in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo — that's F. E. X. I. N. G. O., and that support literally funds the research and production without ads. Luna: It really helps keep these independent investigations possible. Lucas: It does, and we appreciate it. Now, looking back at that resilience, do you think the modern Armenian state owes more to the soldiers or to those cultural guardians? Luna: I think the soldiers bought the time, but the women bought the future. Lucas: That’s a profound distinction. The soldiers defended the border, but the women defined what lay inside it. Lucas: As we wrap up, it’s worth noting that while the Khachkar is celebrated globally today, its creation was often a communal effort led by female patrons who ensured the artistic legacy outlasted their lifetimes. Luna: So the stone itself is a testament to that silent endurance. Lucas: Exactly. And in the end, perhaps the most enduring monument to Armenian survival isn’t a palace or a fortress, but the simple, stubborn act of a mother passing her language down to her child.