Armenians in Sweden

The Armenian community of Sweden as we know it today may be young in years, but its ties with this Scandinavian country go as far back as the 10th century AD. According to a Swedish legend dating from the 10th century, a navigator by the name of Petrus was so enchanted by the beau­ty of an Armenian princess, that he travelled to Armenia and married her.

Life is full of defining moments, and for Haig Aramian and Vrej Keusseian, the choice is between maintaining their national identity or letting the "good life" overwhelm their heritage. "In Sweden, like every­where else in Europe these days, it is easy not to live as an Armenian," Aramian explained. "I have asked myself why Do I want to be an Armenian.

Breaking the ethnic barrier is never an easy thing, especially with names like Der Hakopian and Zabounian in a country like Sweden where a mere lock of black hair not too long ago was enough to identify a person as a "foreigner". But Pierre Der Hakopian, renowned architect and diplomat, and Kevork Zabounian, an acclaimed painter, have done more than integrate into Swedish society, thanks not only to their talents, but also hard work and perseverance which have made them icons in their respective fields.

Sweden spares no effort to integrate its immigrant population, but for many of its young Armenians, the battle of defining their new identity has just begun. "It takes a generation or two for people to describe them selves as Swedish Armenians," says Aram Kurkjian, a 40 year old financial analyst the son of an Armenian father and a Swedish mother who was born and raised in Sweden. Isa-Lei Armine Moberg agrees. Her mother, an Armenian from Lebanon, came to Sweden in the 1960's to marry a Swede and raise a family of two boys and a girl.

People from a host of nations have made Sweden their home over the decades, constantly changing the demographics of a country where more than one million of its 8.8 million population are now foreign born or the first generation children of a foreign parent. The largest foreign national group in Sweden are the Finns, totaling an estimat­ed 320,000, who have settled in Sweden from as early as the 16th century. For them, integration has never been a real problem, unlike the new immigrants, especially those who flooded into Sweden after the Second World War.