Armenians in Lebanon

==Economy==
[[Armenian American]] historian [[Richard G. Hovannisian]] has described what he calls the "economic vivacity" of the Armenian community in Lebanon in terms of the hundreds of Armenian owned shops in Beirut. The city's business quarter closes down on April 24, on the anniversary of the Armenian genocide.<ref name=hovannisian1974>{{Cite journal| issn = 0026-3141| volume = 28| issue = 1| pages = 19–32| last = Hovannisian| first = Richard G.| title = The Ebb and Flow of the Armenian Minority in the Arab Middle East| journal = Middle East Journal| date = 1974| jstor = 4325183}}</ref>

In the years after [[World War II]], between 1946 and 1948, the [[Soviet Union]] sponsored a repatriation campaign encouraging Armenians living in [[diaspora]] to move to [[Soviet Armenia]]. In Beirut, which had a relatively large Armenian community, the repatriation campaign impacted the economy and destabilized the community. As Armenians emigrated from Beirut, property values [[deflation|deflated]] and lower income Arabs (some of them [[Shi'a]]) began to move into the Armenian quarters of the city. Hovannisian has written that "This unwelcome infiltration of culturally less developed and rapidly multiplying Muslim elements has been bemoaned by the affected Armenians for a quarter of a century."<ref name=hovannisian1974 />