“Sudan?!”
Question: Ու՞ր տեղէն Հայ է ընտանիքդ:
(Oordeghen Hye eh undanikd = From where is your family Armenian?)
Answer: Կէսը Իրաքէն և միւս կէսը Սուդանէն:
(Gese Iraqen, yev mooys gese Sudanen = Half from Iraq, the other half from Sudan)
Response: Սուդան՛։ Հոն՞ ալ Հայ կայ:
(Sudan?! Hon al hay ga? = Sudan?! There are Armenians there too?)
Hearing this dialogue is the norm when I meet other Armenians and through it I came to understand that Sudan’s Armenians were mostly unknown, and definitely not in the cadre of Western Armenian cultural centres such as Beirut, Aleppo, Istanbul, Cairo, Paris or Los Angeles. Yet it’s stories deserve to be told and preserved, a realisation that led to this project.
Description: “Հայ Մարմն. Միութիւն Ընդդէմ Հիղալի/Armenian Athletic Club against Highali 16/4/1939”
Location: Khartoum, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1939
Source: sudanahye archive via private collection
How did we get here:
So how did we get here - writing a blog post to introduce the Sudanese-Armenian Heritage Project. Having understood that the Sudanese-Armenian community was something rare and little known about in the Armenian world, I listened attentively to the stories my family and family friends told about Armenian life on the Nile when they gathered in London. Without YouTube or digital archives, I had only my imagination to reconstruct these stories—stories that, in my childhood mind, took on a life of their own to portray a warm, spirited and diverse Sudan. What I imagined was in sharp contrast to the often stark and one-dimensional portrayal of Sudan in the media.
They described a warm climate, a vibrant Armenian social and cultural life, and friendships across ethno-religious lines—all set against the majestic backdrop of the Nile in all its beauty. Despite having studied history at university, I somehow evaded the passing calls they made for someone to write down these stories or to collect all their photos. But Sudan was also still a reality for some, with some family members living there or coming and going occasionally. I never thought that the heritage of this community would be at risk one day. But I also never thought, a country described to me so positively would face the scale of crisis it does now.
Description: Armenians celebrating New Years Eve at the Greek Club
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
Source: sudanahye archive via private collection
Fast forward to April 2023, the glimmers of hope won following the revolution of 2019 was derailed as the civil war begun with catastrophic consequences for the people and cultural heritage of Sudan. The news of the conflict faded into background news in western media, with the conflict and the ‘world’s largest human displacement crisis’ becoming what was dubbed by a UN Official as the ‘forgotten war’. For the Armenian community the war led to the dispersion of the few Armenians left in Sudan and the tragic deaths of Zvart and Arpi Yegavian in their homes in April 2023 a stark reminder of the fragility of our histories—not just the recorded ones, but the lived experiences that disappear with each loss.
My family and friends from the Sudanese-Armenian community could only convey a fraction of the pain they felt seeing the condition of their beloved country, and that in turn is only a fraction of the pain of millions experiencing violence, famine or migration. Spurred by a desire to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of this community and Sudan, I found myself trawling the internet to find information about the Sudanese-Armenian Community. Beyond a few brief articles online, some photos on Facebook or a handful of sources in Armenian or Arabic, I could not find a comprehensive contemporary resource I was seeking that paid homage to the legacy of this community. Those comments that someone should write down these stories rang loudly and I embarked on the journey that eventually became ‘sudanahye’, the Sudanese-Armenian Heritage Project.
On sudanahye:
The name sudanahye literally translates to ‘Armenian from Sudan’. It is representative of the almost inherent nature of diaspora to Western Armenian identity that we so casually suffix ‘hye’ (meaning Armenian) onto a country or city to make us Armenian from that place. This inherent diasporan nature is primarily owed to the Armenian Genocide and the subsequent dispersion of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire - a pattern of conflict, genocide and dispersion we have seen far too often and continue to see today. It seemed a fitting and simple name considering the objective to preserve the cultural heritage of the Sudanese-Armenians. The name for the project is deliberately not capitalised to avoid seeming like any official body or authority on things related to the community, Sudanahye is an identity, sudanahye is this project to shine light on what that identity means and how it was forged.
The project will be many things to many people. For us, inspired by projects such as Houshamadyan or Sudan Memory, this project aims to document the history of this community to preserve their heritage but also to contribute to the wider missions of preserving Armenian and Sudanese cultural heritage. To the Sudanese-Armenians, it is an opportunity to reflect on life in Sudan and contribute to a intangible legacy for the community. For the people of Sudan, we hope it provides a different lens with which to reflect on Sudan’s past and in turn help foster positive narratives for the future. For Armenians, the peaks and troughs of life in exile shown by the project will provide a fresh perspective on the refraction of Armenian diasporic identity, in addition to providing an opportunity to learn the history of a nation who welcomed Armenian refugees following the Armenian Genocide. For everyone interested, we hope the project evokes emotions and provides a unique way to understand and engage with both Sudanese and Armenian history.
Description: St Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
Source: Jirayr Bozadjian
On method:
As standard in many research projects the first step is to conduct a comprehensive literature review to understand what is known already. In the study of history these are called secondary sources, sources (such as books) that interpret and analyse primary sources which are first hand accounts of events.
From this it was understood from this that the base of primary sources for this project was limited. Considering the initial inspiration for this project was the personal stories and the need to address the gap in the social and cultural history of the Sudanese-Armenian community, the project will centre on the development of an oral history archive (defined by the Oxford Dictionary as ‘the collection and study of historical information using sound recordings of interviews with people who remember past events’).
A picture tells a thousand words. Photographs are more than just historical records—they are frozen moments that evoke the sights, sounds, and emotions of the past. That’s why this project places such emphasis on building a comprehensive photo archive. Furthermore with the ascent of social media - photos, visuals and aesthetics more broadly have become even more relevant in culture and story-telling and provide an accessible route for all to engage with the project. This project will collate a photo archive of Armenian life in Sudan to add colour to the stories from the oral history archive.
Other primary sources will also be explored to develop a comprehensive history for this project such as newspaper archives and governmental archives to seek out more primary accounts of events.
As described in the ‘About’ section, this project is intended to be more then a comprehensive history, by being multimedia in nature it will seek to utilise the latest communication methods to ensure accessibility to a wide audience and experiment with visuals to present diaspora history in a way that reflects the reality of this diaspora community being both Armenian and Sudanese. Future blog posts will also detail how these methods and the multimedia elements will help bring Sudanese-Armenian history to life.
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We would love to hear from you, whether it be a reflection, a story you want to share or you just want to have a chat, send us an email at vahe@sudanahye.com.