It is not easy to stop an integration process which started more than 350 years ago, but thanks to their strong Armenian roots, Europe’s oldest Armenian community is fighting back to stop the tide of total assimilation. For the first time in decades, young professionals are trying to learn their native tongue and initiating contacts with Armenian communities outside Poland.
"We have lived in our own world for too long and it’s time to get back into the mainstream. We will remain Polish Armenians, but we should also energize the Armenian part of our heritage," Mathios Bohosiewicz, a young lawyer and community activist explains.
Bohosiewicz is one of the active members of Warsaw’s "Circle of Friends of the Armenian Culture", which, along with similar groups in other Polish cities like Gdansk and Krakow, are keeping the Armenian spirit alive.
"But we need to do more, because the very fabric of the Polish Armenian community is changing rapidly and we have to evaluate our priorities," Bohosiewicz said.
A typical Polish Armenian, Bohosiewicz was born into a society where assimilation was the password. There was no Armenian music, literature or culture as experienced by the newer communities in the United States, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Their traditions were intertwined with Polish culture along with their customs, food, literature and history. Their ancestors had moved to Poland before the 1600’s, intermarried and melted into the more powerful Polish way of life. But despite the assimilation, their Armenian roots did not die—even if in some cases their only link to their Armenian past was diluted by Polish blood.
There is nothing unique about Polish Armenians who stand up for their Armenian roots even if their grandfathers or grandmothers were half Armenian themselves.
Up until the early 1990’s the Polish Armenian community was "home grown" and had little or no contact with the outside world.
Today, some 100,000 illegal Armenian immigrants live in Poland along with an estimated 30,000 ethnic Polish Armenians, hundreds of recently-naturalized Armenians and young professionals who have stayed on after completing their education at Polish universities or become Polish citizens through marriage.
Some profound changes are taking place in the very fabric of the Armenian community in Poland, necessitating a fresh look and approach to deal with the new facts of life.
One such small, but very active, Armenian community is in the university town of Krakow in the south of Poland where a group of young professionals have embarked on a mission designed not only to keep the old Armenian heritage alive but also to save the children of the thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants living in the city.
Working under the umbrella of Krakow’s renamed Armenian Cultural Association, the group publishes a quarterly magazine on Armenian affairs, organizes regular lectures, makes radio and television appearances and keeps a close eye on Armenia-related stories and articles in the Polish press.
The group includes several young Armenian professionals who have settled in Poland since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
"When we first came to study here nine years ago, we had no contact with the old Polish Armenian community, but that has changed. They have since embraced us with open arms and helped us survive and now we are paying back," computer analyst Vahé Amirbekian said.
Amirbekian, along with fellow Armenian from Yerevan Mikael Nazloyan, an auditor with the international accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand, and Armenian Cultural Association members like Antoni Amirowicz and Adam Terlecki, embarked on a mission to encourage the children of the illegal immigrants to go to school.
The group started by writing to the Ministry of Education in Warsaw and began a dialogue with the authorities in Krakow and, after months of correspondence, received written guarantees that paved the way for the children of Krakow’s illegal Armenian immigrants to attend school without persecution.
With the written assurances in hand, the group went from one market-place to another, talking to the parents of the young children, guiding them through the education system and enrolling hundreds of young boys and girls in the city’s public schools.
"It took months to convince the people we talked to that sending their children to school does not open them to the risk of deportation. They were afraid at first, but we have succeeded in removing this fear to a great extent. Getting the children to school was an important mission, and we have succeeded," Amirowicz said.
On the public relations front, the Armenian Cultural Association has had at least six television appearances since 1993, focusing not only on cultural issues, but also developments in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
As one of the most active Armenian Associations in Poland, the Krakow group has also organized major conventions for all Armenians in Poland in 1991, 1992, 1994 and again in 1998.
"We cannot hide from the new realities and the major demographic changes that are taking place," Amirowicz said.
Working closely with Polish intellectuals who have also joined the Association, the group is presently involved in discussions with the Polish authorities on the prospects of opening an Armenian language school for the new immigrants and is preparing an Armenian-Polish textbook to help the children of Polish Armenians learn their native tongue.
"The Armenian language has been neglected for generations, and it’s time to change that," said Armenologist Prof. Andrzej Pisowicz, an Armenian Cultural Association member.
Pisowicz, a Pole, has studied Armenian at Yerevan University, and says he feels equally Polish and Armenian.
"You cannot choose your brother but you can choose your friends," he said.
"The very strong ties between Poland and Polish Armenians was a matter of choice. Armenians have been part of the Polish landscape since the 12th century but at the same time never denying their ethnic identity," Pisowicz said.
A look at the Polish Armenian community today is proof of that "marriage of cultures."
The Armenians of Poland became Catholics in the mid 1600’s, mainly through the union of their church with Rome, but at the same time kept their unique identity throughout the centuries despite the lack of contact with not only other Armenian communities around the world, but also the Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia.
"What the Polish Armenians created was a different branch of Armenians who were often more Polish than the Poles themselves," said Father Joseph Kowalczyk, the pastor of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in the southern Polish town of Gliwice.
Over the centuries, they lost their Armenian language. Their church services were gradually Polonized and so were their habits, food and music.
"There were some small Armenian communities which held on to their language a little longer than others, but today Armenian is no longer spoken and used outside the church context," said Father Kowalczyk, who is the only Armenian speaking priest in Poland.
Father Kowalczyk, whose mother was Armenian and father Polish, learned Armenian at the Levonian Seminary in Rome and later at the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate in Lebanon.
Today, he is busy collecting ancient artifacts and manuscripts relating to Polish Armenian community life which will soon be on display at the first Armenian museum under construction in Gliwice.
The other priest, Father Cezary Annusewicz who serves in the Armenian community in the northern Polish town of Gdansk, does not speak Armenian and conducts mass in Polish.
"But this does not make me less Armenian and soon I would like to learn the language to be able to serve Mass in the traditional Armenian classical (Grabar) language," he said.
As the Armenian Catholic church gets energized, a similar process is also visible across the other facets of community life.
A small group of volunteers are helping the newly-opened Armenian Embassy in Warsaw, which has become one of the focal points of Armenian life.
During a recent picnic organized by the Warsaw chapter of the Armenian community, several dozens of Polish Armenians mixed with new immigrants—a first step of an integration process between the old and new.
"We have to bring the two groups together. We each have a role to play and working together will help both of us," a community activist said.
At the picnic, the ethnic Armenian caterer served Khorovadz (barbecued meat) and several Armenian dishes as teenagers danced to Armenian tunes.
"For many of us this music is new and so is the food. These are part of our culture," he said.
Wladyslaw Zachariasiewicz is a 93 year-old retired accountant whose only link with his Armenian roots is through the Armenian church, the 800 years of Armenian history in Poland and a Christmas pudding.
But his son Wojciech, a successful young businessman who heads the Armenian community, is busy organizing an outreach program for new Armenian immigrants.
Joining forces with other Armenians in Warsaw and Krakow, he is also pushing for greater integration between the various communities across Poland.
There is already a change in attitudes between a traditional father and a son who is more in touch with the changing fabric of the Polish Armenian community—a change which is bringing the well-established Armenian community closer to their roots without losing their Polish identity and allegiance.
