A scattered people – remembering the Nansen Armenians

“The people of the earth have thus entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. The idea of a cosmopolitan right is therefore not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to the unwritten code of political and international right, transforming it into a universal right of humanity” ¹

24 April 2019 was the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  This May is the anniversary of the death of Fridtjof Nansen, the instigator of the Nansen Passport.  The Nansen Passport was the first refugee travel document. It allowed Russian prisoners of war and then refugees of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to escape to safe havens.

In this blog I look back the fate of the ‘Nansen Armenians’, those Armenians who were able to find refuge and a new home because they were issued with a Nansen Passport.  The Nansen Passport allowed Nansen Armenians the right to work and to live in countries which recognised the document and took in those seeking refuge.  I then look to the future. Can we carry forward the concept behind the Nansen Passport to help manage current refugee needs?

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide began on 24 April 1915 with the arrest and execution, by the Turkish authorities, of about two hundred and fifty Armenian intellectuals.  After that, many ordinary Armenians were chased from their homes and sent on death marches, across the Mesopotamian Desert.  They had no access to food or water.  They were forced to march and march and march and to endure humiliating treatment and beatings.  Many of those marching were killed.  Concentration camps were set up in the Syrian Desert, holding approximately 40,000 Armenians ².  The camps were designed to exterminate those held there.

Anyone who was not on the death march was murdered or treated in horrifying and horrible ways.  Children were stolen from their families and given to Turkish families.  Women were raped.  When homes were emptied out, Turkish families moved in.  This was a concerted effort to erase a people. Before the start of the genocide campaign, 2million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire.  By the end, only 388,000 Armenians remained ³.

Many were scattered around the Middle East and beyond.  They could not return to Turkey.  What was left, finally, of the borders of the Armenian nation was a small fraction of the previous size.  It was approximately one sixth of the area of what was Armenia before the First World War.

Not all countries recognise the genocide as genocide.  Turkey continues to talk about an ‘enemy force’ even though men, women and children were all affected by the campaign ⁴.  It is hard to see how a child, can be described as an ‘enemy force’.

Armenians annually commemorate the Genocide on April 24 at the site of memorials raised by the survivors in all their communities around the world.

Nansen and the idea of the Passport

Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) was a Norwegian scientist, polar explorer, diplomat, human rights and refugee official and Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1922).

In 1922, Nansen, as the first head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, was invited to organise the repatriation of refugees and prisoners of war following the end of the First World War.  If he could not arrange for their repatriation, he was to arrange for them to be received and distributed to countries which might receive them.  The conference of the League of Nations which he convened resulted in the agreement of member states of the League to issue a ‘Nansen certificate’.  It was first to be applied to Russian refugees.

By 1924, the scheme was extended to Armenian refugees, victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 ⁵, especially the more than 320,000 Armenian refugees that had fled to Greece and Syria ⁶.

The Nansen Passport in use

The Nansen Passport allowed the holder to travel to a safe country and to find work there.  Its aim was to relieve pressure on refugee gathering hot-spots and to create a re-distribution system amongst the member countries of the League that was equitable.  The agreement of the member states created a form of free movement area within which Nansen Passport holders could move freely.  The passport was used from 1921 to the start of the Second World War and at its peak was recognised by 51 nation states.

The aim of the passport was two-fold: to provide a safe haven during times of turmoil, but eventually to allow the passport holder to return to their home country and help rebuild it.  But this second aim was abandoned when the abuse and maltreatment returnees suffered became apparent ⁷.

The Nansen Armenians

Nansen’s initial plan was to repatriate many of the Nansen Armenian refugees back to Soviet Armenia.  Soviet Armenia was the successor to the Armenian Republic created by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which set out the terms for the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.  The Armenian Republic then became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, established in 1920, but it represented (and modern-day Armenia represents) only approximately 15% of Armenia’s historical territory.  Much of what was known as Western Armenia was subsumed into Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne removing the possibility of Armenian repatriation to that part of former Armenia.

For this, and other reasons, Nansen’s repatriation plans were not successful. In the end, only 10,000 Armenians were repatriated to Soviet Armenia ⁸.  Approximately 3 million Armenians live in present-day Armenia which until 1991 was known as Soviet Armenia.  The other 6 million of the 9 million Diaspora live outside Armenia.

A quick look at the long table in the Wiki page for the Armenian Diaspora shows how far Armenian refugees have scattered.  Although many settled in Soviet Russia, many are also further afield, in the US, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, France, Argentina, Mexico, Ethiopia and Canada ⁹.  In Syria and Lebanon, more than 40,000 Nansen Armenians were able to settle in villages constructed at Nansen’s instigation for that purpose ¹⁰.

Can we apply the principles behind the Nansen Passport to events today?

People separated from their homeland, those that are forcibly disposed from their homes, are torn from their family, and face the loss of their cultural and ethnic identity, invariably suffer hardship and trauma that can be felt for generations.  The causes and reasons for such suffering will vary, and has varied, throughout history.  Each instance of such suffering stands in its own right, and rightly does not invite comparisons or competition with any other.

The causes may be different, but a way to mitigate (a little bit) the suffering and to help ensure the survival of a lost people or culture, could potentially be the same.  The Nansen Passport is a document that gave rights.  The Nansen Armenians had the right to work, the right to free movement, the right to a refuge.  But it did not create citizens of its refugees (unless the state giving refuge chose to do so).  This rights-giving document could yet be useful in managing current migration movements.   It could also help to manage the current, and future, displacement of those suffering the effects of climate change and who may soon find their home permanently submerged by rising waters, never to be seen again ¹¹.

The objectives behind the Nansen Passport live on, for example, in the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration ¹².  The objectives of the Compact echo the Nansen Passport scheme which gave right to work and free movement to the Nansen refugees such as the Armenian people fleeing genocide. Signatories to the Migration Compact agree to:

“foster inclusive and cohesive societies by empowering migrants to become active members of society and promoting the reciprocal engagement of receiving communities and migrants in the exercise of their rights and obligations towards each other, including observance of national laws and respect for customs of the country of destination”.  

The signatories also promise to ensure that all migrants have proof of legal identity and adequate documentation, just as the Nansen Passport did.

Remembering the future

The Nansen Passport did not create citizens of the refugees in the countries to which they travelled. Whether citizenship was granted there was a decision for each state.  But it was, as Lettevall describes it, a “pragmatic solution to a practical problem” ¹³.

Nansen Passports have not been issued for a long time.  Today, national and supranational authorities, including the United Nations, issue travel documents for stateless people and refugees and certificates of identity.  But the Nansen Passport went further, by espousing the idea of a neutral citizenship to deal with the specific problem of a scattered people.  With so many scattered today, it may be time, once again, to revive it, the humanitarian principles, and the humanity, behind it.