Between Nationalist Absorption and Subsumption: Reflecting on the Armenian Cypriot Experience

Abstract

First paragraph: The Armenian community is one of the three recognized national minorities of Cyprus, together with the Maronites and the Latins (Roman Catholics), identified in the 1960 constitution (Article 2 and 3) as "religious communities" and considered part of the state fabric. In the broad context of dominant opposing nationalisms—Turkish and Greek—a minority position can theoretically act as a challenge to exclusionary narratives. Minorities can test and interrogate the nuances and limits of "imagined communities" and illustrate life on the margins— necessarily liminal, pragmatic and adaptable. In the landscape of codependent Greek and Turkish nationalisms, the Armenians (and other minorities) can be assumed to represent an "other" way of being Cypriot.