"Between Memory and Reality: The Italian Response to the Armenian Diaspora Crisis" an article by Carlo Coppola
Il presente articolo nella versione italiana si trova sul sito del periodico "La Fiaccola" diretto da Paolo Scagliarini a seguente link: https://www.lafiaccola.it/wp/diaspora-armena-una-proposta-italiana-tra-analisi-e-critiche-europee/
An article by Franco-Armenian political analyst Albert Grigoryan titled "Entre mémoire et réalité: le décalage au sein de la diaspora arménienne face à la République d'Arménie" (Between memory and reality: the disconnect within the Armenian diaspora toward the Republic of Armenia), published in the magazine "Nouvelles d'Arménie," has been causing quite a stir in the European Armenian community since yesterday. With ruthless lucidity, the Franco-Armenian analyst has captured a diaspora in profound crisis: divided between genocide memory and contemporary reality, incapable of effectively dialoguing with today's Armenia, imprisoned by commemorations that risk becoming empty rituals. A diagnosis that sounds like an alarm bell for all Western Armenian communities.
But from Italy comes an unexpected response. Not a denial of the critical issues highlighted by Grigoryan, but rather a concrete transformation proposal that could change the face of the Armenian diaspora in the 21st century. The Italian experience, in its historical and geographical specificities, offers an alternative model that transforms divisions into opportunities and memory into cultural and economic capital.
From Fragmentation to Convergence
Grigoryan denounces the parallel coexistence of two diasporic souls that ignore each other: the historical one linked to the trauma of genocide and the recent one that migrated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Italy this fragmentation exists, but it manifests differently. The Armenian communities of Rome, Milan, Venice, Padua, and Bari constitute demographically contained but dynamic microcosms that, precisely because of their human dimension, can transform into true laboratories of convergence between past and present.
An Itinerant Congress of the Italian Armenian Diaspora proposed by Italian activists represents an innovative methodological response: fostering dialogue between generations and different experiences through a participatory process that touches various territorial realities. No longer a diaspora that suffers divisions, but one that transforms them into wealth.
From Passive Memory to Active Memory
One of the greatest risks highlighted by Grigoryan is that genocide memory becomes a sterile identity refuge, incapable of generating meaning in the present. Italy instead proposes a revolutionary approach: "active memory." The historical and cultural heritage of Armenian presence becomes an opportunity to develop tourist itineraries, virtual museums, school projects, and forms of soft power. Commemoration transforms from an end to a means, from ritual to concrete project that generates economic value and cultural diplomacy.
It's an example of how memory can become symbolic capital and economic attractor, maintaining intact its identity function but acquiring a project dimension that speaks to young people and contemporary institutions.
New Leadership Models
The absence of leadership capable of speaking the languages of the present is another crucial gap identified by the Franco-Armenian analyst. Many diasporic realities remain prisoners of traditional associative models, incapable of involving new generations or dialoguing with contemporary Armenia.
The case of the Honorary Consulate of Bari, entrusted to Armenian-Italian entrepreneur Dario Rupen Timurian, can instead represent an interesting alternative model. His activity has opened concrete spaces for economic, cultural, and institutional cooperation, going beyond the protocolary role of traditional diplomacy. It's a hybrid leadership based on cultural identity, professional competencies, and territorial roots that could be replicated in other European contexts.
Geography as Diplomatic Leverage
One of the most original insights of the Italian model is the conscious use of geography as diplomatic leverage. The proposal to make Bari an economic and logistical hub for Italy-Armenia relations through the creation of an Italian-Armenian Chamber of Commerce is based on a precise geo-economic vision: Puglia as a gateway to the East, a natural crossroads between the Caucasus, Mediterranean, and European Union.
In this way, the Armenian diaspora would not limit itself to claiming its past but would position itself as a strategic actor in bilateral relations between states, generating geopolitical value beyond identity value.
Innovation Economy
If Grigoryan insists on cultural and political dynamics, the Italian approach opens an important window on the innovation economy. Armenia is today recognized as an emerging hub in the technology sector, especially in software development. The creation of an Italian-Armenian Technology Hub at Italian universities represents a concrete way to attract young Armenians, enhance excellence, and build binational and bilateral startups.
The diaspora-motherland relationship emancipates itself from the welfare logic to transform into a symmetrical alliance where competencies integrate and multiply. It's a new, pragmatic, and ambitious model that responds to criticisms of self-referentiality.
Strategic Partnership 2030
The Italian response to accusations of lacking strategic vision is the proposal of a Strategic Partnership 2030 based on a bilateral fund for innovative SMEs, interregional agreements, and joint diplomatic training programs. This vision surpasses the vertical categories of diaspora as "sponsor" or "lobbyist" to open to horizontal forms of cooperation.
It's a sort of Columbus' egg, research aimed at the conscious use of the so-called win-win-win model (an approach that aims to create solutions in which all parties involved mutually benefit from the result of an interaction) in which the Republic of Armenia, Italy, and the diaspora benefit from shared projectuality. The diaspora would no longer be just a "community" or "witness" but a true active cultural, strategic, and economic subject.
A "Glocal" Model for the Future
Overall, from the Italian experience can emerge an original synthesis between identity localism and global vision. The resulting "glocal" model could combine territorial roots and international ambition, cultural tradition and technological innovation. It's a perspective all the more important in an era of representational crisis and changing international relations.
If it can seize this opportunity, the Italian Armenian diaspora could become a laboratory for a new diasporic diplomacy capable of speaking the language of the future without forgetting the past. A model that could inspire other European Armenian communities in the search for a path beyond the fragmentation denounced by Grigoryan.
