ARMENIAN REFUGEES IN THE SAMARA REGION IN 1915–1920-IES

The article is devoted to the history of the formation of the Samara regional Armenian diaspora in the period of the Genocide at the beginning of the 20^th century. The task of the study is to reconstruct the social portrait of Armenian refugees who were arriving to the Samara Region. On the basis of documents from the funds of the Central State Archive of the Samara Region (passports, refugee certificates, questionnaires), a database was created that allowed the task to be solved. The author used quantitative methods to determine the dynamics of the number of Armenian refugees who received certificates in Samara in the period 1915–1921, the distribution of refugees by gender, age, marital status, place of departure. According to calculations, the total number of Armenian refugees in Samara in 1915–1921 was more than 400 people.

As a result of the study, it was proved that the Armenian diaspora of the Samara Region in the years of the Genocide was formed from the refugees who arrived mainly from Eastern Armenia; Armenian refugees with their families began to arrive en masse to the Samara Region in 1919. Samara was the arrival center, but the refugees stayed also in the entire Samara province and neighboring regions. In terms of social composition, the refugees were representatives of the middle artisan strata, mostly the younger generation (the predominant age group was from 20 to 44 years); a quarter of the total number of refugees were children. Some of the refugees subsequently remained in the Samara Region, that is confirmed by statistical data and archival sources. The study allows us to characterize the period of 1915–1921 as an important stage in the formation of the Samara regional Armenian diaspora.