Finding Gratitude in a Lost Homeland

For an eight-minute speech to her college community last fall, first-year student Nana Hayrumyan ’27 (Artsakh/Armenia, UWC Dilijan) shared what she had learned from an experience that is hard even to imagine. Her title: “Lessons in Gratitude from a Republic that Was Lost Overnight.”

Until early 2024, Nana was a citizen of Artsakh, also called Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny, self-declared republic in the Caucasus Mountains. Artsakh had endured periodic warfare with Azerbaijan, the nation that surrounded it; then Azerbaijan abruptly invaded, and tens of thousands of Artaskh’s ethnic Armenians fled on the only road out to neighboring Armenia. As a nation, Nana’s homeland ceased to exist.

“It is a republic that disappeared overnight—and that nobody spoke of,” Nana said in her speech, which won a college award for an address by a first-year student. “You may wonder, what could one possibly be grateful for at such times of suffering? I recall my grandmother, as a response.” 

During the blockade that preceded the invasion, as her family sat together by candlelight, Nana said her grandmother “disrupted the silence with a bold statement: ‘We are the happiest nation in the world.’

“Her reasoning was simple yet profound. At times of adversity, we were grateful for small joys, such as the return of electricity or a piece of chocolate, if you were lucky to find one.

“Being grateful in spite of suffering, unjust suffering, means turning poison into nectar,” she told the Hamilton community. “You become thoughtful of others…. Generosity becomes the natural extension of your gratitude.

“In the world we have, your choice matters the most now,” Nana concluded. “Let’s choose gratitude—and in that choice, find the strength to make a difference in other people’s lives.”

This profile is part of the “Undergraduates in Action” series from the 2025 Annual Report.