Commentary: Our Debt of Gratitude to Fridtjof Nansen

As President Wilson’s 14 Points were not adopted and the Sevres Treaty was not ratified, many stateless persons were left to fend for themselves to survive and to resettle in other countries. At that point, Nansen’s presence on the world political scene gave a glimmer of hope to the war refugees, among them, of course, the Armenians. In 1921, the Council of the League instituted a High Commission for Refugees and asked Nansen to head it. Nansen devised a way to help those refugees by inventing his eponymous passport, which was recognized by 52 governments.

In his capacity as high commissioner, he negotiated the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, after Kemalist forces dumped Armenians and Greeks into the sea, following the razing of Smyrna.

Later on, Nansen took a direct interest in the lives of the Armenians as the League of Nations invited him to save the remnants of the Armenians people from extinction. He drew up a political, industrial and financial plan for creating a national home for the Armenians. In 1925, Armenia was already under Soviet rule and any help within its borders was suspect for Western countries.

Equally suspicious were the Soviet rulers who scrutinized every foreign humanitarian endeavor to detect some political motives behind the deeds. Nansen was able to convince Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, to allow the commission of experts to travel to Armenia to develop the arid territory into a livable national homeland. The plan was to implement an irrigation plan in the Sardarabad region to resettle 50,000 refugees. The result of the survey was published in 1927 by the League of Nations in a document titled, “Scheme for the settlement of Armenian refugees.”

The plan was not allowed to be implemented by the League of Nations, as the Soviets had been developing their own irrigation programs for Armenia. However, in the meantime, Nansen was able to resettle 10,000 Armenian refugees in Yerevan and 40,000 in Syria and Lebanon.

Nansen published a book in 1927 outlining his mission to Armenia, titled Armenia and the Near East. The book covers the entire trip to the delegation traveling through Greece, Turkey, Georgia and eventually Armenia. Reading the book one is convinced that Nansen’s interest goes beyond the goal of the mission, as he delves into the detailed history of every country and city visited on the way. Arriving in Armenia, Nansen surveys the terrain for the irrigation plans, but he also relives the history of the land with some lyrical passages on the landscape. The last part of the book is a condensed history of Armenia, revealing a deep knowledge of the land and an unfettered empathy toward its people.

However, he makes a very poignant remark, defining an almost fatal flaw in the character of the Armenian people: “It has been the tragic destiny of the Armenian people to always distinguish themselves in the service of foreigners, whereas they have failedto govern their own country in any length of time.”

As Armenia honors Nansen’s memory, hopefully, it will benefit also from his message to come to grips with the challenge of modern times for self-government.