Armenian children displaced from their homeland of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) participate in an identity-preservation program at the Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum in Yerevan, Armenia.
Guest contribution from Siranush Sargsyan
YEREVAN – The idea for the “Fairy Tales and Identity Preservation” initiative began with a question posed inside the Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum in Yerevan: what could be done for children forcibly displaced from Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) who had lost not only their physical homes, but much of the world that shaped them?
Following Azerbaijan’s attacks against Artsakh in 2020 and again in September 2023, some 150,000 Artsakh Armenians were forcibly displaced from their homeland, taking immediate refuge in Armenia. Among those were at least 30,000 children. Many of these children continue to struggle with integration, facing linguistic and social barriers that leave them feeling isolated from their peers.
The question was raised during a visit to the museum by representatives of L’Œuvre d’Orient, a French Catholic humanitarian organization that has supported displaced Armenians from Artsakh through emergency aid, educational and cultural programs, psychosocial initiatives for children, and projects aimed at preserving Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage following wars and genocide.
Lusine Gharakhanyan, the director of the museum and a psychologist by profession, identified preserving the Artsakh dialect. And the “Fairy Tales and Identity Preservation” initiative was born.
“Seven- and eight-year-old children are already struggling to pronounce certain dialect words in their pure form,” Gharakhanyan told CSI, with evident pain. “For example, iriknyak — the Artsakh dialect word for sun.”
The loss of such words signals the gradual erosion of memory, place and belonging, and for Gharakhanyan, language is inseparable from identity.
Safeguarding the Artsakh dialect is essential not only for cultural continuity, but also for supporting children as they integrate into a new social environment in Armenia without losing their sense of belonging.
The new program, the director emphasizes, represents a direct continuation of the legacy of the museum’s namesake: Armenian national poet Hovhannes Tumanyan.
In the steps of Tumanyan
One century ago, Hovhannes Tumanyan became a leading activist on behalf of another generation of orphaned Armenian children – those who survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
During the genocide, Tumanyan travelled to the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, where thousands of refugees and orphaned children from Western Armenia had gathered in desperation.
He helped organize relief efforts for families who had lost everything, overseeing the opening of a hospital and orphanage with 5,000 beds that sheltered nearly 3,000 children.
In his memoirs, Tumanyan described the sound of the cathedral bells in Echmiadzin, “The bells of Echmiadzin rang out like a vast lament. Never had I heard them sound so sorrowful. How far, I wondered, did this cry and this plea reach?”
Gharakhanyan says Tumanyan understood that children needed more than food and shelter to survive loss. Once the orphans were cared for physically, he focused on their emotional world — their sense of dignity, belonging and hope.
Known affectionately as the “father of orphans”, the poet created educational and homeland-themed games to help traumatized children recover from the violence and displacement they had endured.
More than a century later, the children arriving at the Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum from Artsakh carry many of the same wounds.
Fairy tale therapy
Led by a storyteller and a fairy tale therapist, “Fairy Tales and Identity Preservation” brings together educators, animators, linguists and psychologists. Drawing on their combined expertise, the team uses storytelling as a tool to help children process trauma and build connections in a new social environment.
The Museum’s program supports children forcibly displaced from Artsakh alongside local peers, combining integration with the preservation of a dialect at risk of disappearing.
Besides preserving the Artsakh dialect, the initiative provides psychological and emotional support to those children who were forcibly displaced.
At its core, the project aims to strengthen emotional resilience and a sense of belonging, while encouraging meaningful interaction between displaced and local communities.
Museum director Gharakhanyan emphasizes that a sense of community and belonging is foundational to a child’s development, providing a profound psychological force in the development of identity, self-worth and resilience. It helps children believe in themselves, in life, and in the possibility of a future.
It is no coincidence, organizers say, that throughout the sessions the children speak in the Artsakh dialect — a language that has become both a refuge and a form of resistance.
During the first phase of the project, five animated adaptations of fairy tales by Hovhannes Tumanyan were produced in the Artsakh dialect. The direct beneficiaries of the therapy sessions were children aged seven to fourteen.
Each animation features displaced children not only as narrators, but as creative contributors, allowing them to take ownership of the stories and weave their own experiences into the work.
The twelve participants in the first phase of the program came from Dizak Art, a cultural organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of displaced Artsakh Armenians through educational and artistic programs.
The animations premiered at the Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum on May 17, during Yerevan’s annual Museum Night.
Public screenings followed in schools in Sevan and Martuni in Armenia’s Gegharkunik province, as well as additional screenings in the capital and around the country.
Focus on orphans
In the second phase of the program, organizers are working exclusively with children who not only experienced displacement, but who also lost parents during the Artsakh wars.
For this phase, the organizers partnered with Hayordi Charitable Organization, which works specifically with children who lost parents during the war and supports their families through a range of long-term assistance programs.
Each session is led jointly by a storyteller and a fairy-tale therapist. While the storyteller introduces and discusses the tales, the therapist guides the children through emotional and psychological exercises designed to help them process grief, articulate feelings and reinterpret traumatic experiences through storytelling.
Before participating in the thirteen member group sessions, the participants also receive individual therapy.
Organizers say the creation of new animated fairy tales in the Artsakh dialect serves a dual purpose: preserving an endangered form of speech while giving displaced children a platform through which to express identity, memory and loss.
The selected tales are translated into the dialect by the project’s linguist to ensure linguistic authenticity and cultural sensitivity.
One of the therapeutic methods used in the sessions is known as the “Box of Emotions.” During recent meetings, orphaned children recreated memories connected to their parents — an exercise intended to help them confront loss through carefully-guided psychological techniques.
“The goal is not only for children to process grief,” Gharakhanyan says, “but to continue living with purpose, with willpower, and with a strong sense of identity.”
According to her, throughout the sessions the children repeatedly speak about returning to Artsakh — the homeland many still see as inseparable from the memory of their parents.
“In every meeting, the children express their determination to go back to Artsakh and continue the dreams of their fathers. Many of them say they want to become soldiers like their fathers,” she says.
“They remember Artsakh with love, and they still believe good must prevail — that one day they will continue their lives in their birthplace.
Siranush Sargsyan is a freelance journalist from Artsakh and a leading voice on conflict and culture impacting the Armenian world. She is currently pursuing her MA in Human Rights Advocacy at the Nova School of Law in Lisbon. You can follow her on X @SiranushSargsy1
