Nostalgic Sounds for Diasporic Youth: Armenian Children’s Songs in Italy

Which affective and political implications does nostalgia foster in diasporic music when addressed to youth—a group often associated more with aspiration than with reflection? This paper explores that question through an analysis of Children’s Songs (1980), a collection of Armenian choral pieces for young singers by Armenian-Venetian composer Avedis Nazarian. A key figure in the Italian-Armenian cultural milieu, Nazarian was both an educator and an advocate for Armenian cultural recognition and independence. Published in Venice, his Children’s Songs comprise twenty short works that fuse Armenian monodic idioms with Western compositional techniques. The lyrics span a range of themes, most notably a nostalgic longing for the Armenian homeland—as heard in the song Hayreni Karot (“Longing for Armenia”). Composed while Armenia remained under Soviet rule, the collection carries political weight, envisioning a future re-united diasporic community through the voices of children. This nostalgic affect acquires civic and temporal complexity, invoking a lost pre-diasporic past unexperienced by its performers, who are simultaneously positioned as the cultural future of the Armenian diaspora. I argue that Nazarian’s Children’s Songs reveal challenging temporal tensions at the heart of diasporic nostalgia, bridging inherited memory and aspirational desire through the politics of futurity embedded in youth music. Situated in displacement, the collection articulates layered negotiations of Armenian belonging—revealing nostalgia not as simple retrospection, but as a generative force within diasporic cultural production.