In the summer of 2022, I began reading a book about modern Azerbaijani political history written by a professor based in Turkey. I didn’t manage to finish the book before I had to return it to the Toronto Public Library, which, in hindsight, I really regret. I think it’s important to gain exposure to different sources, especially ones you wouldn’t normally encounter. The book was published in 2011, and it analyzed how Azerbaijani nationalism evolved throughout the 20th century, their fossil-fuel production-driven industrialization, and some reasons they lost the First Artsakh War. I am sure that by now, there are many more recent and relevant books published post-2020 and post-2023. However, large chunks of the book were devoted to analyzing Soviet Armenia, and those remain intriguing. One section claims that in the Gorbachev era, ethnic nationalism occurred only in select Soviet republics. The book blames this localized rise in nationalism on “ancient hatreds” and intellectuals instigating hatred. In this section, for the first time in my life, I am introduced to the Armenian poet Silva Kaputikyan. The book introduces her as a political activist who served on the Armenian Supreme Soviet from 1975 to 1980. It quotes her discussing how Soviet authorities actually allowed Armenian nationalist expression, noting that during a 1964 trip to America, she handed Armenian political texts to a “ Dashnak woman.” The woman was astonished that texts discussing Armenian questions and tragedies were published under Soviet rule. I want to acknowledge that this is not the ideal way to be introduced to an Armenian intellectual figure. I was not introduced to Kaputikyan in a neutral setting. I wasn't introduced to her actual writing, her broader ideas, or an unbiased historical context that would add nuance. Not to say that it’s wrong to read about Armenian writers from non-Armenian sources (I mean, Victoria Rowe is a non-Armenian researcher and I promoted her). But in this context, Kaputikyan is introduced to serve a specific narrative. The facts shared about her are selected solely to support the narrative, and the framing immediately accuses her: She’s a crazy nationalist who took advantage of permissive Soviet policies to fan the flames of conflict. Are there better sources on Kaputikyan available? Of course. The Toronto Public Library carries two of her books; there’s her house-museum in Yerevan; probably lots of others. But the books are in Armenian (a language most of Toronto doesn’t read), the house-museum is two connecting flights away (expensive and time-consuming), and few sources tie everything into a cohesive narrative as that book did. Confronting knowledge gaps in the diaspora Being a diasporan means constantly confronting knowledge gaps. An anglophone Toronto-Armenian is separated from the homeland by language, distance, and time. Even when well-intentioned, the Armenian history taught in the diaspora can feel strikingly incomplete. We often recount a simplified timeline that starts pre-Christianity with the conflict between Hayk and Bel, moves through paganism and Zoroastrianism, lands on Saint Gregory the Illuminator, and highlights Vardan Mamikonian defending our faith. Then comes the sharp, devastating crescendo of 1915, followed by the First Republic, and then a sudden, glaring blank space. If you are lucky, you might learn how some Armenian intellectuals who survived the genocide later perished in the Stalinist purges. You might hear brief mentions of Armenian contributions to the Second World War. But for many in the North American diaspora, Soviet Armenia is a black box. The First Republic went in, and the Second Independent Republic (1991) came out. A history textbook based on the average ‘traditional’ diaspora Armenian’s understanding might leave the entire Soviet era blank and skip straight to the First Artsakh war. This leaves massive knowledge gaps regarding the big questions: How much autonomy did Armenians actually have to self-govern in the Soviet Union? In what ways did their cultural expression thrive, and in what ways was it suppressed? Some diaspora Armenian intellectuals of the 1980s offered conflicting and often unsubstantiated or superficial answers. But if we do not answer these big questions with a cohesive narrative, someone else will gladly do it for us. “Being a diasporan means constantly confronting knowledge gaps. An anglophone Toronto-Armenian is separated from the homeland by language, distance, and time . Even when well-intentioned, the Armenian history taught in the diaspora can feel strikingly incomplete.” These knowledge gaps cannot be filled solely by the supposed ‘new’ diaspora (those who lived in Soviet Armenia and then emigrated in the 1990s/2000s) and their personal anecdotes. There’s a scene in George Orwell’s 1984 that perfectly summarizes why. In the dystopian world of 1984 , Winston wanders into a pub in the prole district and strikes up a conversation with an older man, buying him a beer. He hopes the old man, who was an adult before the Revolution, can give him a definitive answer about whether life was genuinely better or worse before the Party took power. However, the conversation proves incredibly frustrating for Winston. Instead of providing meaningful historical insights about freedom, poverty, or the overall standard of living, the old man can only recall trivial, disjointed details. He complains about the metric system replacing pints with half-litres, reminisces about top hats, and shares minor, fragmented personal anecdotes. Winston realizes that the grand historical truth he is searching for is lost not just because the Party rewrites history books, but because the people who lived through the past remember only small, insignificant fragments of their daily lives. Unlocking history through cartoons Speaking of small, insignificant fragments of daily life: children’s cartoons. Soviet Armenian children’s cartoons are arguably the most accessible historical artifact we have from that era. These videos are available for free on YouTube, with some videos even subtitled in English. Those who were children in the Soviet Union in the 1970s/80s largely love these cartoons, as they are nostalgic reminders of a simpler time in their personal lives. I can imagine many in that generation will not appreciate what I am about to do. What if, instead of treating these cartoons as nostalgic but insignificant, or dismissing them as pure propaganda, we analyze them as a primary source on Armenian cultural production in the Soviet Union and see where that leads us? Of course, if taken to extremes, this is wildly inappropriate. I seriously hope that 50 years from now, no one is analyzing SpongeBob SquarePants to find out how I lived. But cultural products are not produced out of thin air, and there are grains of truth from surrounding daily life in all media (SpongeBob, after all, works a menial, repetitive job and struggles to form a meaningful friendship with his social equal/coworker Squidward—dynamics not completely irrelevant to 21st-century North American life). If the medium is the message, then The Found Dream ( Գտնված երազ ) as a representative of the medium presents a summary of what Soviet Armenian children’s cartoons tell us. The film itself is a sweet story about a girl who travels into a magical, painted world to find sleep for her restless grandfather. This perfectly represents the function of these cartoons as soothing evening entertainment for children before bed. But the simple fact that these cartoons exist at all, and are so well produced, shows how the 1970s and 1980s allowed for some genuine Armenian expression through Armenfilm, the state film studio. The cartoons are fluidly animated in color rather than stop-motion, and they are available with Armenian dialogue, text, and original soundtracks. The Found Dream even includes a familiar superstition about wishing upon a shooting star. Then there is Pingvinashen ( Պինգվինաշեն ). This one is about a misbehaving penguin whose parents are at their wits’ end, so they send him to kindergarten, where he promptly gets kicked out. He ends up on a journey, grows up, becomes self-sufficient, and finally returns to his parents. It is a great short film about coming of age, featuring a very catchy song the penguin sings while waddling around. For our purposes, it is important to note that the kindergarten teacher speaks Armenian. This subtly highlights the availability of Armenian schools and education in the Soviet Union as the default public option for kids in Armenia. This stands in contrast with the diaspora, where the option for Armenian education was strictly opt-in and often came with heavy financial and logistical barriers. Even in imaginary worlds, Soviet cartoons showcase the values and “moral of the story” that were passed down to kids. The Puy-Puy Mouse ( Պույ-Պույ մկնիկը ) can be interpreted as a warning against greed and literal overconsumption. The Lesson ( Դասը ) teaches respect for nature. And so on… Turns out, an interesting collection of primary sources on Soviet Armenian upbringing is right under our noses, accessible to the North American diaspora. Our excuses for ignorance were mostly made up. Expanding access to our own stories In 2023, I visited Silva Kaputikyan’s ex-husband’s house-museum in Gyumri. In 2026, I am able to listen to an interview with Armenian historian Hrant Ter Abrahamyan, entirely in Armenian. Our ability to access previously inaccessible information constantly evolves. Institutionally available information is also constantly changing. The Toronto Public Library in 2022 did not impress me with its catalogue. Since starting university in 2023, I have moved on to using the library resources available to me through the University of Toronto. But I recently went back and checked, and there are some new books available for checkout [1] worth mentioning. One is Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev's Kremlin , a book published in 2025 about a Soviet Armenian figure credited with helping guide Khrushchev to allow greater cultural expression for nationalities. I also found a new copy of The Agony of a People: Haig Toroyan’s Eyewitness Account of the Armenian Genocide by Zabel Yessayan, translated into English for the first time by Arakel Minassian in 2025. There is even a brand-new 2026 graphic novel called Armaveni by Nadine Takvorian. Takvorian is a first-generation Armenian-American author and illustrator from a Bolsahye family originally from Istanbul, and this graphic novel is her debut work exploring Armenian identity. More Armenian-language (and recently published Armenian-themed) books are available through the Toronto Public Library than most people think. We can only hope they aren't underutilized, and the value of keeping them in circulation is obvious. Maybe I’m worried about an outdated medium. In an algorithmic, increasingly AI-generated content-dominated world, maybe caring about books in public libraries in Toronto (which is not even an influential, major diaspora player like the communities in the United States, Russia, or France in the minds of some) is small-minded. But then again, maybe the concept of a “propaganda war” as a whole is outdated. Institutional voices tell us the diaspora is temporary. It feels as though the functions of the diaspora, one of which was the propaganda war to support genocide recognition and awareness, are no longer necessary or wanted. I don’t know what the diaspora’s formal response is. Maybe we are too decentralized to have representation qualified to respond, and maybe there are bigger, more materially tangible fish to fry. But I do know that constantly re-exposing ourselves to community trauma to educate outsiders is not a healing process. For too long, we have carried the heavy burden of pushing back against systemic, government-funded denialism, often sanitizing our own history just to appeal to mainstream audiences. We must reject the notion that the diaspora is on trial to prove our worth or the historic truth. Instead, we must prioritize media created by and for Armenians for our own sake. By shifting our creative focus inward, we bypass the exhausting pressure to perform for a mainstream audience that does not fully grasp our context. Armenian cultural production does not need to be ‘propaganda’. It does not need to be purely informative or purely positive, or cater to the lowest common denominator of cultural knowledge. We can build a diverse, multilingual Armenian cultural ecosystem that meets our intellectual needs—our needs for social commentary, cultural criticism, and narrative therapy on top of existing primary cultural products. “ Institutional voices tell us the diaspora is temporary . It feels as though the functions of the diaspora, one of which was the propaganda war to support genocide recognition and awareness, are no longer necessary or wanted. I don’t know what the diaspora’s formal response is . Maybe we are too decentralized to have representation qualified to respond, and maybe there are bigger, more materially tangible fish to fry.” Whether it is Armenian cartoons created in the 1970s or Armenian graphic novels created 50 years later, our storytelling powerfully reclaims our history and shapes our self-perception. We need to do it ourselves, for ourselves. ֍ Notes: [1] Availability status may vary depending on the item; some new titles may be listed as “on order” and not yet available for immediate checkout. You can still place a hold on these items. This article was published in Torontohye’s Sept. 2026 (#229) issue. Maps and figures courtesy of the author. Videos courtesy of the NCCA.