This book argues that Armenians around the world ? in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I ? developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial 1940s and 1950s.

Tsolin Nalbantian explores Armenians? discursive re-positioning within the newly independent Lebanese nation-state; the political-cultural impact (in Lebanon as well as Syria) of the 1946?8 repatriation initiative to Soviet Armenia; the 1956 Catholicos election; and the 1957 Lebanese elections and 1958 mini-civil war. What emerges is a post-Genocide Armenian history of ? principally ? power, renewal and presence, rather than one of loss and absence.