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Lalai Manjikian
Dr. Lalai Manjikian is a humanities professor at Vanier College in Montreal. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of immigration and refugee studies, media representations of migration, migrant narratives and diaspora studies. She is the author of Collective Memory and Home in the Diaspora: The Armenian Community in Montreal (2008). Lalai’s articles have been published in a number of newspapers and journals including The Armenian Weekly, Horizon Weekly, 100 Lives (The Aurora Prize), the Montreal Gazette, and Refuge. A former Birthright Armenia participant (2005), over the years, Lalai has been active in volunteering both within the Armenian community in Montreal and the local community at large, namely engaged in immigrant and refugee integration. She previously served as a qualitative researcher on the Armenian Diaspora Survey in Montreal. Lalai also serves as a board member for the Foundation for Genocide Education. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University (2013).
Latest posts by Lalai Manjikian (see all)
- On the importance of teaching genocide in high school: A case study from Quebec - May 24, 2023
- Reflections on Hamazkayin’s Cultural Retreat - June 10, 2022
- Facing intergenerational wounds - October 15, 2020
There has been much talk lately about Bolsahays (Constantinople/Istanbul Armenians) and whether or not, or to what degree, they constitute a Spiurk, a Diaspora. A few articles were published especially after the Diaspora Minister visited the community recently.
I wonder just how far being a Diaspora goes when a community has been a presence in a city or on area for generations beyond living memory, and when that particular place considers the Armenian element part and parcel of society, such as in Bolis/Istanbul, or in Nor Jugha/Esfahan, or even in Lebanon, or the way it was in central and eastern European cities for centuries in the middle ages.
Of course, when it comes to what remains of the Armenians in Turkey, the consideration of historically-Armenian lands (not Istanbul, though) and the execution of a genocide complicate the inter-community, majority-minority relationships.
Istanbul, as well as Isfahan, Beirut and Los, will always be diasporas. They will also be temporary, as are with all none-religious diasporas. It’s counter productive to think otherwise.
Constantinople was the ultimate magnet for the Anatolian and Cilician Armenians to make a decent living and get educated in the Centre of the Ottoman Empire. Bolis or Constantinopolis has been like a second home to Armenians until the Empire started to cruble, fall in a deep paranoia, became more violent and started to persecute the minorities as early as the 1820-30’s after the Greek war of Independence.
We all grew up basically with Istanbul based Armenian Arts and literature from Tourian to Zohrab, Baronian and Khrimyan Hayrig. Too bad that the white genocide is very intense. We grew up in the Middle East as second generation “western Armenian” and it is no wonder that we somehow identify more with Istanbul than the Russian and then Soviet controlled eastern portions of Historic Armenia. Too bad that today the Istanbul community is on the verge of extinction.