Armenian Diaspora and Its Identitary Strategies : Khodjas, Amiras, Guilds

The article focusses on the analysis of crafts and professions that occurred in particular Armenian communities and diaspora centres in modern history. In this respect, it is possible to discover a certain trend to carry out some types of professions, which then determined the social status and the social position. Influential Armenian merchants (khodjas) acted not only as mediators who connected several cultures due to their minority position, but also as benefactors and philanthropists who supported the Armenian Apostolic Church first, and then even the first generations of Armenian revivalists. Their virtual monopoly for trading in silk, gold and jewellery helped them create international trade networks the effect of which became evident both in West-European cities and in the Far East. Judging from period travellers’ reports, the share of Armenian city elite was quite distinct in Ottoman and Persian cities; (according to European authors) they represented the “visible minority” which most reference works from that time refer to and whose image became, due to frequent descriptions, an integral part of the European discourse concerning Orient, or Christian Orient by extension. Armenian merchant dynasties of amiras became the main motor for Ottoman industrialization; the Armenians in the role of sarrafs (bankers) guaranteed both sultans’ and European banks’ loans.