In the modern world of universal mobility, transnational corporations and cheap flights, people are less and less attached to the country in which they were born and raised. However, humanitarian crises, material inequality and political turmoil often become the reason for the change of residence, which means that people who do not voluntarily leave their homeland form a diaspora. What is it? The answer may be much more complicated than a simple translation from ancient Greek.
Diaspora - what is it?
The term "diaspora" appeared at a time when the first Greek colonists left their native shores to establish numerous new colonies along the entire Mediterranean Sea. In those distant times, this word meant a part of the civilian population, separated from their fellow citizens and living in new colonies.
In ancient times, one of the main ways of forming diasporas was the establishment of trade settlements in other countries. Thus, in the ancient world, the Phoenician, Greek and Jewish diasporas were formed.
What did this mean for the rest of the representatives of this or that nation, which has a significant number of compatriots living across state borders? First of all, the diaspora made it possible to improve the financial condition of the native country, since most of the migration was based on trade.
Culture spread
However, missionaries, clergymen and various adventurers traveled along with merchants. Diasporas were used to promote state interests, transfer mail and make money transfers, which became possible during the Renaissance thanks to the organization of the first banks by Jewish communities.
In addition, many rulers did not neglect the opportunity to use their compatriots living in other states to obtain information. Espionage in favor of their homeland and today is a fairly common occurrence.
In modern times, diasporas began to form due to major social conflicts, such as wars, revolutions, and also due to strong natural disasters. One of the most severe shocks in the 20th century was the Russian Revolution, due to which a significant Russian diaspora was formed abroad, the number of which today, according to various estimates, reaches twenty-five million people. However, in the twentieth century, other extremely unpleasant events occurred, from which many peoples suffered
Armenian Diaspora
For many centuries, the Armenian people have been subjected to the most severe trials. For the first time, Armenians were forced to massively leave their places of their original residence on the Armenian Highlands, when at the beginning of the eleventh century the Seljuks captured their capital - the famous city of Ani, whose population then reached three hundred thousand.
All the Armenian states in Asia Minor that existed after this were also destroyed, and their population left their inhabited places, spreading throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
After the fall of Constantinople and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Armenians remained in the new empire, since at first they were not persecuted for their faith. However, many still chose to leave, founding new communities in European cities.
Over the next four centuries, the history of the coexistence of Armenians and Ottomans was not the smoothest, and by the mid-nineteenth century the tension reached its peak. Mass riots began in the country, the victims of which were Armenians.
Pogroms and Armenian Genocide
Many of the victims decided to seek refuge in a neighboring Christian power, which was the Russian Empire. Many thousands of Armenians, thus, founded entire cities and villages in their new homeland. Those who remained soon had to face new difficulties, the crown of which was the 1915 genocide.
This genuine disaster of the Armenian people led to the fact that many of the survivors were forced to leave their villages and go to Russia, Lebanon, Greece and France. This situation led to the fact that in the territory of the young Turkish Republic there was no Armenian population at all, with the exception of the group of Hamshen Armenians who converted to Islam in the seventeenth century.
This sad page of history exerts its influence on modernity, serving as a cause of discord between the Republic of Armenia and Turkey.
October revolution and the outcome of peoples
Despite the fact that the fall of the autocracy and the proclamation of the republic at first inspired many millions of people with optimism and faith in the future, soon everything changed a lot, and in October 1917 many people were forced to leave their homeland.
As a result of the revolution and the ensuing Civil War, as well as because of the massacres and the flight of millions of citizens abroad, huge diasporas formed around the world, one of the largest of which was the Ukrainian diaspora.
After Ukraine was subordinated to Soviet power and during the occupation by Nazi Germany, many Ukrainians chose to take the opportunity and avoid returning to a totalitarian state by going to Europe and the United States.
The next wave of mass migration of Ukrainians was mostly economic and took place in the nineties, when the young sovereign republic was experiencing a protracted economic crisis. Thus, the diaspora was formed. What does this mean for the Ukrainian economy? On the one hand, the state economy suffers greatly from the loss of a large number of able-bodied educated people, but on the other hand there is a constant influx of cash from abroad in the form of small transfers for personal needs that people working abroad send to their relatives.