Victoria Abrahamyan’s “Armenian Refugees in French Mandate Syria: Statelessness and Nation-Building in the Middle East” published

2026-02-25 - 19:04

I.B. Tauris, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, has announced the publication of Dr. Victoria Abrahamyan’s Armenian Refugees in French Mandate Syria: Statelessness and Nation-Building in the Middle East. The book is part of the series Armenians in the Modern and Early Modern World, edited by Bedross Der Matossian of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In the aftermath of the World War I, the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish War of Independence, Syria became home to thousands of Armenian refugees. In this history covering 1920 to 1948, Abrahamyan examines the experiences of Armenian refugees in the Syrian Jazira as they navigated competing state-building efforts led by the French mandate authorities, Syrian nationalists and Soviet Armenia. The book highlights the refugees’ agency amid internal conflicts and diverse loyalties. It sheds light on the intricate power struggles over their legal status and belonging, particularly through competing French and Soviet postwar refugee settlement schemes in a strategic frontier between Western powers, the Soviet bloc and Turkey. Drawing on Armenian, Arabic, Russian and French sources, the book explores how the Armenian refugee community responded to the rise of Arab nationalism in Syria, challenging sectarian interpretations of their place and reception in interwar Syria. By situating this history within the broader context of Armenian experiences in the Eastern Mediterranean and the role of refugees and displaced populations in postwar Middle Eastern state-building, the study offers a resource for students and scholars of Armenian and Middle Eastern history. Abrahamyan said the book “seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of the Armenian refugee experience in interwar Syria, challenging conventional Western narratives — that portray Armenian refugees as voiceless — as well as dominant Arab nationalist accounts. The book explores the formative post-Genocide years, showing how Armenian refugees played a crucial role in shaping state- and nation-building processes in interwar Syria. Positioned at the intersection of competing state-building projects led by the French mandate, Syrian nationalists and Soviet authorities in Yerevan and Moscow, Armenian refugees and their leaders exercised remarkable agency — navigating, negotiating and, at times, resisting these pressures. In this sense, the book represents a History from Below.” Victoria Abrahamyan The book situates the Armenian refugees within broader geopolitical struggles and examines how French authorities, the League of Nations, Turkey, Soviet Armenia, the Soviet Union and Syrian actors sought to influence their settlement and political trajectory. It traces the history of Armenian refugee settlements under the French mandate and their intricate connections to repatriation efforts initiated by Soviet authorities. By linking the Armenian refugees’ experience to global power dynamics, the book explores the relationship between displacement, state-building and foreign intervention in Syria to control populations, resources and trade routes. Reflecting on the early decades of the 20th-century — when various powers vied for control over Armenian refugees — offers a lens not only for understanding Syria’s past but also for grasping the enduring relevance of displacement, agency and geopolitics today. “Victoria Abrahamyan’s ‘Armenian Refugees in French Mandate Syria’ is a pioneering analysis of displacement, agency and state formation after genocide and imperial rule. Focusing on the Syrian Jazira from 1920 to 1948, the book portrays Armenian refugees as active agents rather than mere victims, engaging with the ambitions of the French Mandate, Syrian nationalists, Turkey and Soviet Armenia,” said Der Matossian, editor of the series. “Using multilingual archival materials, Abrahamyan demonstrates how refugees influenced — and were influenced by — conflicts over settlement, repatriation, identity and sovereignty along a complex geopolitical border. By placing the Armenian experience within broader Middle Eastern and global power contexts, this work presents a vivid ‘history from below’ that challenges traditional narratives about refugees’ contributions to the development of modern Syria and