BY DAVIT ABRAHAMYAN

Armenia is confronted with a diplomatic tug-of-war, having to choose an alliance between two regulatory superpowers, both of whom promise a secure and functioning future for the country. These systems of power have long expressed their interest in cooperation by providing timely humanitarian assistance, preventing conflicts, and supporting Armenia’s diplomatic prosperity. Although both parties have shown similarity in assisting the country’s development, their diplomatic intentions and core values differ, compelling Armenia to choose one partnership over the other. Armenia’s geopolitical realities have indicated its dependency on the neighboring powerhouse, Russia.

Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, every Armenian president has maintained strong relations with Russia, relying on its military protection and economic stability. However, the new ruling party seeks to diversify Armenia’s international partnership by taking initiative towards strengthening ties with the European Union – straining its relationship with the dominant regional power. Armenia should deepen economic and diplomatic relations with the EU, but distancing itself from Russia would only jeopardize security guarantees the country still relies on. The question is the following: Should Armenia lean on the European Union for aid, or is remaining under the influence of the authoritative government, for the sake of protection, the answer to its modern problems?

On May 5th, Armenia officially entered into the Connectivity Partnership with the European Union, signaling its intention to diversify its economic partnership, and embarking upon a new beginning in its foreign policy. The common diplomatic perspective among both parties resulted in possible discussions of Armenia gaining EU membership – causing skepticism for Russia, and forcing the regional heavyweight to warn Armenia of the potential economic risks it may face, should it abandon its security umbrella. As tensions rose from both sides, on June 11, Armenia received the dire news of Russia embarking restrictions on Armenian imported products – exerting economic pressure on Armenia for reconsideration of its recent partnership.

Armenia currently faces significant diplomatic challenges, including its difficulty to preserve peace with Azerbaijan, lack of foreign investment in its economic affairs, and its significantly constrained representation, suggesting closer diplomatic ties with the European Union for strategic advantages. However, given Russia’s leverage over Armenia makes the latter’s integration of Western alliance difficult.

Despite their strong relations, Russia has historically ostracized Armenia from forming potential Western alliances, provided Russia a significant amount of influence in the country’s government affairs, and made them reliant on its energy resources. Any hope of Armenian westernization, with the scheduled signing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area in 2013 came to a scandalous halt after the then president of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan and the regional dictator Putin, the deal fell through just days before it was scheduled to be ratified.

Russia’s recent economic barrier placed upon Armenia is not merely a reaction to its superficial economic alliance – it is an attempt to discourage Armenia from aligning with European institutions, and adapting to Western ideologies, such as promotion of civil rights, international cooperation, and addressing broad humanitarian issues, all of which stand in contrast to Russia’s current governing system.

Given Armenia’s geopolitical stance and its dependence on their security, the Civil Contract’s initiative – under the rule of current Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – to drastically exclude Russian influence from Armenia, would not serve in the country’s best interest. Quite the opposite, it would potentially pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty – impacting its national security and opening the door for the inevitable Azerbaijani incursion.

Currently serving as Armenia’s protective buffer, Russia is helping deter potential aggressions imposed upon Armenian borders – a security assurance that the European Union cannot guarantee. Although Russia has posed as the guarantor of Armenia’s border protection, history has proven that to not be entirely true. In 2022, Azerbaijan imposed yet another military aggression, this time attacking the internationally recognized territory of Armenia, to which Armenia appealed to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), relying on Russia’s security assistance. Instead of providing the country with military backing, Russia took the neutral ground and simply called for deescalation of conflict, with no mention of restitutions or sanctions for Azerbaijan’s hostile actions.

During the EU-Armenia Summit in Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission emphasized that their central priority in signing the Connectivity Partnership with the Republic of Armenia is to “boost trade, create jobs, reinforce resilience, and support regional stability.” However, the EU’s economic initiative with Armenia is not merely an act of goodwill, but a strategy to establish diplomatic control in the South Caucasus – allowing them to gain influence in the area.

Despite their intention of expanding Armenia’s market, the EU does not assure any military protection under potential attacks, illustrating their disregard of Armenia’s primary threat to maintaining border stability. Even if one would believe in those fairy tales, what good would a stable economy do in the absence of sovereignty? Reliance on the European Union for a boosted trade with no protection of the homeland forces the Armenian government to forfeit their national security, for a couple of press conferences in Brussels.

Although the then leading Republican Party of Armenia – under former president Serzh Sargsyan – have historically shown support towards Russian-oriented foreign policy, the current competition of regional influence between the EU and Russia suggest maintaining neutrality. Given its geographic position, Armenia would most likely suffer significant consequences if tensions continue to rise between the two powers. Nevertheless, possessing substantial decision making power in the situation, Armenia should treat its economic alliance with the EU as complementary, impeding any diplomatic influence from the European superpower, while for a given amount of time, allowing Russia to maintain influence in South Caucasus through Armenia.

Such a strategy would give Armenia the best chance to broaden its markets with the EU while minimizing possible harm to its security interests. The ideal scenario of Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party may be portrayed as increasing strategic autonomy in the future, but for now, maintaining a balanced relationship with both powers will serve in the country’s best interest in the long run.

Serving as a crucial geopolitical crossroads in the South Caucasus that will support Russia’s diplomatic intentions of power expansion in the region, Russia will always remain Armenia’s primary security partner. On the other hand, the EU can provide domestic stability and economic benefits. Nikol Pashinyan’s initiative towards severing ties with Russia suggests his lack of strategy. Pivoting toward economic priorities while neglecting Armenia’s security can have long lasting consequences for its stability. Approaching the given diplomatic situation with reason, Nikol Pashinyan’s current best option is to keep strong relations with both powers.

Davit Abrahamyan is an Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region Summer Internship Alum.

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AWU’s Executive Boards between 1944-46, Tehran; (l to r) Treasurer Makruhi “Mako” Asatrian, Overseer Eveline Vartani, Overseer Janet Arzangulian Tsaturian; standing left to right: unidentified, Treasurer Haverzhik Hovhannisian Bernardi, President Seda Darmanian Hovnanian, Secretary Emma Abrahamian. Source: Darmanian Hovnanian Collection. Reprinted with permission.

BY NANEH GRIGOR
Special to Asbarez

For decades, the evidence sat in women’s homes. It was tucked into photo albums, saved in boxes, folded into tablecloths, stitched into handicrafts and carried across borders after families left Iran. Some women preserved bylaws, anniversary booklets, letters, diaries and photographs for more than 50 years.

To many archives, those materials may not have looked important. But to Houri Berberian and Talinn Grigor, they told a history that had almost disappeared.

Their book, “The Armenian Woman, Minoritarian Agency, and the Making of Iranian Modernity, 1860-1979,” tells the first history of Armenian women in modern Iran. But at its center are not only institutions or political movements. This book is about women who documented their own lives when official archives often failed to do so, knowing that one day it would be needed.

The book is not only about what Armenian women did. It is also about how difficult it can be to prove that they were there.

“Formal archives have considered women’s history and their documentation irrelevant, unimportant, not worth preserving,” Grigor said.

That absence forced the authors to look elsewhere. According to Grigor, they used informal archives, including oral histories, private collections, photo albums, diaries, letters, posters, handicrafts and other objects women kept.

Those materials changed how they understood the women they were studying.

At first, Grigor said, the authors hesitated to call the women feminists because many did not use that word for themselves. But after reading the visual and material evidence, they saw how intentional the women were in fighting for women’s rights.

“They were very intentional in their fight for women’s rights and used visuals in intentional ways,” said Grigor.

Berberian said that the silence around the word “feminist” was one of the most revealing gaps in the research. The term did not appear in the organizations’ documents, but other sources showed women were working toward economic equity and public visibility.

“The absence of organizational documents tells us much about the context in which these women lived and operated,” Berberian said. “Namely, staunchly patriarchal communities and societies.”

The women in the book organized schools, charities, cultural events, exhibitions and publications. Their work supported children, refugees, students, artists, the elderly and women entering public life.

Berberian said these organizations often became the social welfare network that did not yet exist.

“Every child who attended school, every underprivileged individual who received aid or achieved literacy, every person who donated to charity, every elderly person who needed food and shelter, every refugee and internal migrant who was given care were touched by these women’s organizations,” Berberian added.

That work, she explained, helped make women “the harbingers of modernity.”

For Armenian girls in Iran, the influence of these organizations often began early. Grigor said Armenian schools had theater troupes and mixed choirs, giving girls experience being visible, bold and active in public spaces. Many women who later became artists, architects and intellectuals came from those schools and from families where mothers were active in women’s organizations.

But tracing those women was not simple.

According to Berberian, the authors faced several challenges, including the postrevolutionary exodus of Armenians from Iran, limits on _expression_, scattered archives and the loss of records. Another obstacle was the patriarchal practice of women dropping their maiden surnames after marriage, which made it harder to follow lines of women’s activism across generations.

Some women were also hesitant to speak about their own work or the work of their mothers and grandmothers.

Grigor said that many had been raised to think what they created, thought or said was not important. When the authors asked questions and treated their materials as historically valuable, some women began bringing out more boxes, photographs and objects.

“They started to feel empowered,” Grigor noted.

For Grigor, the research also became personal through her own grandmother, Seda Darmanian Hovnanian, who had been a co-founder and inaugural president of the Armenian Woman Union. She shared that she did not know the extent of her grandmother’s work until she found her photo albums, academic diplomas, papers and three-volume diary.

“The process of writing the book was at times very sad and difficult emotionally,” Grigor said. “Unlike my other books, this was not an aloof ‘scientific’ process.”

Still, for her, the coauthored nature of the book helped the work remain grounded in evidence.

Berberian and Grigor brought different training to the project. Berberian, a historian, worked closely with textual sources, including handwritten letters. Grigor, an art and architectural historian, examined images, objects and visual culture.

Together, they wrote against the idea that only official archives can tell history.

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The 60th Regional Convention of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Western United States was held from June 25 to 28, 2026, at the Pasadena Armenian Center, with the participation of authorized delegations from the region’s 16 chapters and the Armenian Youth Federation, as well as representatives of the ARF Bureau and the ARF Central Committees of the Eastern United States and Canada.

The 60th Regional Convention convened under historically exceptional and fateful circumstances, at a time when our homeland and the Armenian people throughout the Diaspora face fundamental existential threats, and when the regime that has seized state power in the Republic of Armenia, through its destructive policy of unconditional concessions, is openly serving hostile agendas through its anti-Armenian, anti-national, and anti-state actions.

The 60th Regional Convention of the ARF Western United States strongly condemns the parliamentary elections of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia held on June 7, 2026, which represent yet another manifestation of the violation of the Armenian people’s will through stolen and distorted votes.

In order to perpetuate its power at any cost, the anti-national regime of the Civil Contract Party did not hesitate to employ every possible unconstitutional, administrative, and authoritarian mechanism. By continuously terrorizing its own people with the threat of war, unconditionally satisfying all of the enemy’s demands in exchange for an alleged and illusory “peace,” and distorting and denying the fundamental pillars of Armenian national identity, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian culture, Armenian history, the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and the just pursuit of recognition and redress, the regime succeeded in securing full pre-election and post-election patronage and support from Turkey, Azerbaijan, and certain Western centers in Europe and the United States.

Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts and votes of the patriotic core of the Armenian people, this imposed regime, which has embraced every anti-national concession, has still failed to secure in the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia the absolute and qualified majority necessary to carry out the hostile demand for a fundamental revision of the current Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. This regime, which deliberately questions and denies Armenian history, the chronicle of the Armenian liberation struggle, the heroic battles of Artsakh, and the internationally recognized fundamental rights of the Armenians of Artsakh, has, through its anti-Armenian activities, become the greatest internal threat to the existence of the Armenian nation, implementing point by point the hostile strategy aimed at eliminating Armenian statehood and the Armenian people.

The ARF Western United States Region reaffirms its unwavering and principled support for all national and patriotic forces waging an unceasing struggle in the Homeland and throughout the Diaspora against the anti-Armenian regime; for our Artsakh Armenian sisters and brothers displaced from their ancestral homeland; for the political and military leadership of Artsakh held hostage in Baku’s prisons, along with all prisoners of war; and for the political prisoners and persecuted individuals imprisoned by the institutions of the Armenian state.

The 60th Regional Convention held thorough and comprehensive discussions on the urgent issues facing the homeland, the local community, and the Armenian nation as a whole. The Convention noted the rapidly evolving qualitative needs of the growing community, outlined strategic directions for preserving the integrity of Armenian national identity, revitalizing church and community life, increasing the effectiveness of sister organizations, and expanding the political work of the Armenian Cause, while adopting the corresponding strategic decisions.

For the upcoming two-year term, the Regional Convention elected the new Central Committee of the ARF Western United States Region, composed of:

Levon Baronian, representative
Raffi Sarkissian, co-chair
Mike Keleshian, co-chair
Alfrik Bandaryan
Raffi Dadaian
Antranik Jarchafjian
Chris Keosian
Rafi Kuyumjian
Apo Panossian
Hilda Saliba
Hrayr Sherikian

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