Armenian National Identity

The concept of national identity since the end of XX century underwent significant changes and is featured with two opposing trends: huge globalization process and fierce struggle against it, i.e. for national identity. In my view, national identity, being an important, even crucial factor routinely throughout history, largely lost its role today. What are the perceptions of national self-identification in modern Armenia? To understand the concept of national identity, one should first of all consider what is “nation”. Having thought of multiple definitions of “nation”, I will try to specify Armenian national self-identification phenomenon in terms of territorial commonality, single language, cultural continuity, single religion and common state.
From the very beginning of the human history various nations’ formation process was determined by very certain factors, such as necessity of survival for kindred and clans, necessity of defending their territories and their economic and cultural linkages. The most effective means to preserve and to maintain all this were to consolidate military forces, tied up by single religion and Church, by common
As witnessed by the Greek geographer Strabo, by the first century BC Armenian people (Samuelian, 2000) “of various extractions spoke Armenian, although their customs were like the Medes”. In the meantime there was no Armenian alphabet, so Greek and Syriac letters were in use. In parallel to that a comprehensive system of Armenian pre-Christian religion, consisted of Greek myths, Persian Zoroastrianism beliefs as well as of ancient Urartu cults. In other words, by the 4th century the community of ethnic Armenians, dwelling in a certain territory, speaking a single language and sharing similar culture didn’t have most powerful nation cementing tools – single religion and single