The Armenian Community of the Don in the Late 18th – Early 21st Centuries: From a Self-Governing Colony to a Multi-Component Ethnic and Cultural Minority

Abstract

The article examines the historical dynamics of the Armenian population of the Don region and out lines the major stages and phases of this process. During the period stretching from the last quarter of the eighteenth through the first half of the nineteenth century, the group of Armenians resettled to the Don region from Crimea formed a colony which later (in the second half of the nineteenth – early twentieth centuries) transformed into a diaspora and still later, during the Soviet time, turned into a dispersed ethnic minority. However, these metamorphoses apply principally to the urban part of the population. Rural settlements, ever since the second half of the nineteenth century up to the present, continued to develop as territorial communities of old-timers steadily reproducing their ethnic and cultural specificity. The further ethnic and cultural revival observed in the late twentieth century and the significant replenishment of the community by migrants from various regions of the Caucasus con siderably strengthened the nationally oriented core of the Armenian population of the Don region and continue to contribute to the reinforcement of its intergroup ties. At the same time, during the past 10–15 years, there has been observed a certain trend toward cultural and linguistic russification, espe cially noticeable in the urban milieu.