Do you think the Turks recognized the Armenian genocide? No, no one is trying to incite ethnic hatred. In this article we will try to find out what happened back in 1915.
Negative attitude
Many of those who have come across Armenians at work or in everyday life envy their cohesion. Some say that Armenians live in a small area and that no one understands their language. Therefore, it is believed that this is why the people are well organized.
Negation
Why don't Turks like Armenians? Why don't they recognize the people? Let's find out what happened in Turkey in 1915. Soon after the country entered World War I, all Armenian law enforcement officers, as well as military personnel, were arrested and then shot along with their families (an ancient Eastern tradition).
The same fate befell all famous Armenians living in Istanbul. After this, the mass extermination of the people living scatteredly on Turkish lands began. Pogroms swept across the country, resulting in the killing of half a million people.
It is known that the composition Ottoman Empire Western Armenia was also included, on whose territory one and a half million Armenians lived. They were all killed. The massacre was carried out under the motto: “People must be destroyed, but gardens and crops must not be touched.”
The Turks preserved the gardens for the Kurds, who later settled on these lands. As a result, western Armenia ended its existence and became part of Turkish Kurdistan. And the eastern one turned into modern Armenia.
After Ataturk, the savior of nations and specific people, came to power, a commission was established to investigate the Armenian genocide. During her work, the following conclusions were made:
- The inhabitants were slaughtered, but the territory remained. According to world law, these lands must be returned.
- Few Armenians lived in Turkey (maximum two hundred thousand). The war began, and this people, whose treachery and dirty maneuvers are in their blood, themselves provoked numerous skirmishes.
- The patient Turkish people are people of broad souls who instantly forget grievances. In the Ottoman Empire at that time, a single multinational family was building a new beautiful society. That is why there can be no talk of genocide.
It is known that in Turkey it is prohibited to mention the existence of Western Armenia. Under Turkish law, speaking publicly about her is a criminal offense. This point of view has been the official position of the country from the time of Ataturk to the present day.
Armenian genocide
Many cannot answer the question why Turks do not like Armenians. The genocide was prepared and carried out in 1915 in areas supervised by the top of the Ottoman Empire. The destruction of people was carried out through deportation and physical destruction, including the displacement of civilians in an environment leading to inevitable death.
Why is Remembrance Day in Armenia considered the most important date? We will consider this issue further, and now we will describe in detail the terrible events of those years. The Armenian genocide was committed in several stages: the disarmament of soldiers, the selective deportation of people from border areas, the mass expulsion and extermination of residents, and the introduction of a resettlement law. Some historians include actions Turkish army in Transcaucasia in 1918, murder in the 1890s, massacre in Smyrna.
The organizers are considered to be the leaders of the Young Turks Dzhemal, Enver and Talaat, as well as the head of the “Special Organization” Shakir Behaeddin. In the Ottoman Empire, along with genocide ancient people the destruction of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians took place. Most of the world's Armenian diaspora was made up of people who fled from the Ottoman kingdom.
At one time, the author Lemkin Raphael proposed the term “genocide,” which served as a synonym for the mass murder of Armenians in Turkish territory and Jews in lands captured by the German Nazis. The extermination of the Armenians is the second most studied act of genocide in history after the Holocaust. In the collective Declaration of May 24, 1915 of the allied countries (Russia, Great Britain and France), this mass destruction was recognized for the first time in history as an atrocity against humanity.
Conditions
Now let’s find out what historical prerequisites preceded the genocide of the ancient people. The Armenian ethnos matured by the 6th century BC. e. in the lands of Armenia and eastern Turkey, in the area covering Lake Van and Co. 2nd century BC. e. Armenians under the rule of King Artashes I united, forming the state of Greater Armenia. It had the largest territory during the reign of Emperor Tigran II the Great, when the cordon of his power expanded from the Euphrates, Palestine and the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east.
At the beginning of the 4th century. n. e. (the generally accepted date is 301) this country (the first in the world) officially adopted Orthodoxy as the state religion. The Armenian alphabet was created in 405 by the scientist Mashtots Mesrop, and in the 5th century the Bible was written in the new language.
The establishment of Orthodoxy became a decisive factor that united the Armenian ethnic group after the loss political system, and the Apostolic Church became the most important institution of national life.
It ended its existence in 428, and until the 7th century its western lands were ruled by the Byzantines, and its eastern lands by the Persians. Since the middle of the 7th century, an impressive part of this country was controlled by the Arabs. The Armenian kingdom regained its sovereignty in the 860s under the rule of the Bagratid dynasty. The Byzantines captured Ani, the capital of this country, in 1045. Prince Ruben I founded it in 1080 and Prince Levon II took the title of king in 1198.
The Egyptian Mamluks captured Cilicia in 1375, and the independent power ceased to exist. The church conflict of the Armenians, who did not want to renounce Christianity during the multiple invasions of Muslims (Persians, Oghuz Turks and Seljuks, Arab Abbasids) into the territory of historical Armenia, mass migrations and devastating wars led to a decrease in the population in these lands.
The Armenian Question and Türkiye
And yet: why don’t Turks like Armenians? Living in the Ottoman Empire, they were not Muslims and were therefore considered dhimmis - second-class subjects. Armenians paid colossal taxes and were not allowed to carry weapons. And those who converted to Orthodoxy did not have the right to testify in court.
Of course, it is difficult to answer the question why Turks do not like Armenians. It is known that 70% of the people they persecuted, living in the Ottoman kingdom, consisted of poor peasants. However, among Muslims, the image of a successful and cunning Armenian with impressive commercial talent extended to all representatives of the nationality without exception. Hostility was aggravated by the struggle for resources in the agricultural sector and unauthorized social objectives in cities.
These actions were complicated by the influx of Muslims from the Caucasus - the Muhajirs (after the Turkish-Russian and 1877-78 years) and from the newly emerged Balkan countries. Refugees expelled from their territories by Christians took their anger out on local Orthodox Christians. The Armenians' claims to collective and personal security and the parallel deterioration of their position in the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of the "Armenian question" as part of a more general eastern problem.
Turks and Armenians are opposing nations. In the Erzurum region in 1882, one of the first associations in Armenia, the “Agricultural Society,” was established, designed to protect the people from robberies committed by Kurds and other nomads. The first political party "Armenakan" was created in 1885. Its platform assumed the acquisition of local self-determination of people through propaganda and education, as well as military specialization to combat state terror.
In 1887, the social-democratic bloc “Hnchakyan” appeared, which sought, with the help of revolution, to liberate Turkish Armenia and create an independent socialist state. In Tiflis in 1890, the first congress of the most radical union, Dashnaktsutyun, was held, the program of which stipulated autonomy within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, equality and freedom of all residents, and in the social segment referred to the founding of peasant communes as the basic elements of a new society.
Extermination in 1894-1896
The massacre of Armenians began in 1894 and continued until 1896. Massacres occurred in Istanbul, Sasun and the Van region, the pretext for which was the indignation of settled Armenians. Across all regions of the empire in 1895, hundreds of thousands of souls were destroyed. The least studied and most bloody is the second stage. The administration's percentage of involvement in the killing spree remains the subject of angry debate to this day.
Preparations for the extermination of Armenians
Perhaps the Turks started the Armenian genocide because they needed to look for a new identity after the Ittihat revolution that occurred in 1908. Imperial Ottoman unity was undermined by a constitution that equalized the rights of various types of residents of the Porte and deprived the Turks of great power status. In addition, this ideology yielded to the aggressive principles of Islamic doctrine and pan-Turkism. In turn, the positions of the Islamic worldview were undermined by the atheistic views of the leaders of Ittihat and the fact of the existence of the nearby Shiite country of Persia.
The poet and sociologist Gökalp Ziya formulated the principles according to which the Ottoman Empire took part in the First World War. It was he who was the most authoritative ideologist of the Young Turks. His views extended to the country of Turan, which was inhabited by Turkish-speaking Muslims. He believed that the territory of Turan should have contained the entire area of the Turkic ethnic group. This doctrine actually excluded non-Turks not only from the government, but also from civil society. It was unacceptable for Armenians and other national minorities in Turkey.
For the main inhabitants of the empire, the most convenient was pan-Turkism, which, as basic rules was accepted by almost all Ittihat leaders. The Armenians identified themselves, first of all, from a religious position. They were probably mistaken in thinking that Turkism was better than Islam.
During the Balkan War of 1912, these people were mostly inclined towards the principles of Ottomanism, and Armenian soldiers (more than 8,000 volunteers) played an important role in the Turkish army. Most of the soldiers, according to the stories of the English ambassador, showed extraordinary courage. In addition, the Armenian blocs “Dashnaktsutyun” and “Hnchakyan” began to adhere to the anti-Ottoman point of view.
The Turks do not want to recognize the Armenian genocide. How did it start? In 1914, on August 2, Türkiye entered into a secret agreement with Germany. One of his conditions was the transformation of the eastern borders. This nuance was necessary for the formation of a corridor leading to the Islamic peoples of Russia, which hinted at the destruction of the Armenian presence in the reformed domains. This policy was announced to all the people by the Ottoman leadership after entering the war in 1914, on October 30. The appeal contained an order for the easy merger of all representatives of the Turkish race.
A couple of hours after the signing of the secret German-Turkish military treaty, Ittihat announced a general mobilization, which resulted in the conscription of almost all healthy Armenian men into the army. Further, after entering the First World War, the Ottoman Empire found itself embroiled in fighting on many fronts. The raid on the lands of Persia and Russia increased the area of violence against the Armenians.
First deportations
Turks, Armenians, 1915... What happened then distant time? In mid-March 1915, French-British forces attacked the Dardanelles. In Istanbul, preparations have begun to move the capital to Eskisehir and evacuate local residents. The leadership of the Ottoman Empire was afraid of the merger of Armenians with the allies, so they decided to deport the entire hated population between Eskisehir and Istanbul.
At the end of March, the “Special Organization” began to prepare the massacre of these people in Erzurum. She sent the most radical Ittihat emissaries to the provinces, who were supposed to conduct anti-Armenian agitation. Among them was Reshid Bey. It was he who, through extremely inhumane means, including detention and torture, sought out weapons in Diyarbakir, and then turned into one of the most unbridled killers.
The eviction of Armenians began on April 8 from the city of Zeytun, whose residents had enjoyed partial independence for centuries and were in confrontation with the Turkish authorities. Their expulsion provides an answer to main question, associated with the timing of the preparation of the genocide. A small part of the Armenians were deported to the city of Konya, located near Iraq and Syria - places where the rest of the people were deported a little later.
The murders were accompanied by a wave of robberies. Merchant Mehmet Ali testified that Azmi Cemal (governor of Trebizond) and Asent Mustafa embezzled jewelry worth 400,000 Turkish gold pounds (approximately $1,500,000 US dollars). The US Consul in Aleppo reported to Washington that a monstrous plan of theft was operating in the Ottoman Empire.
The consul in Trebizond reported that every day he sees a horde of children and Turkish women following the police and seizing everything they can carry away. He also said that the house of the Ittihat commissioner in Trebizond was littered with jewelry and gold obtained as a result of the division of the loot.
By the end of the summer of 1915, most of the Armenians inhabiting the empire were killed. The Ottoman authorities tried to hide this, but refugees who reached Europe reported the extermination of their people. In 1915, on April 27, the Armenian Catholicos called on Italy and the United States to intervene to stop the killings. The Armenian massacre was condemned by the Allied powers, but in the conditions of war they could do nothing to help the long-suffering people.
In England, after an official check, a documentary book “Attitude towards Armenians in the Ottoman Empire” was published; in the USA and Europe, people began to raise funds for refugees. The liquidation of Armenians in western and central Anatolia continued after August 1915.
Conspirators
We practically found out why the Turks killed Armenians. In Boston in 1919, at the IX Congress of Dashnaktsutyun, it was decided to exterminate the leaders of the Young Turks who took part in the murders. The operation was named after the ancient Greek Nemesis. Most of the conspirators were Armenians who managed to escape the genocide. They fervently desired to avenge the death of their families.
Operation Nemesis was quite effective. Its most famous victims were one of the members of the Turkish triumvirate, Talaat Pasha, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Talaat, along with the rest of the Young Turk leaders, fled to Germany in 1918, but was liquidated in Berlin by Tehlirian Soghomon in March 1921.
Legal side
The Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Armenia interested the whole world with their confrontation. The Collective Declaration of May 24, 1915 of the allied countries is proof of this.
Awareness of the genocide is the most important goal of Armenian lobbying organizations, and, in addition to the recognition itself, the demand for reparations from Turkey and territorial claims were announced. To achieve acceptance, lobbyists attract the participation of influential individuals and parliamentarians, founded institutions that deal with this issue, put pressure on the leadership of different countries, and widely publicize this issue in society. Almost all members of the Armenian diaspora are direct descendants of victims of the genocide. This organization has sufficient material resources with which it can resist Turkish pressure.
America adopted resolutions on the mass extermination of Armenians three times. This genocide is recognized by the European Parliament, the parliamentary coalition of South American countries, the UN Subcommission for the Protection and Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities, and the Parliament of Latin America.
Recognizing the destruction of the Armenian people is not a mandatory requirement for Turkey to join the EU, but some experts believe that it will have to fulfill this condition.
Important date
The Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey was set for April 24 by the European Parliament in 2015. In Armenia, this date is a non-working day and is of great importance. Every year, on the anniversary of the expulsion of the Armenian intelligentsia from Istanbul, millions of people around the world pay tribute to the memory of the fallen people.
Some historians distinguish two periods in the history of genocide. If at the first stage (1878-1914) the task was to retain the territory of the enslaved people and organize a mass exodus, then in 1915-1922 the destruction of the ethnic and political Armenian clan, which was hindering the implementation of the pan-Turkism program, was put at the forefront. Before the First World War, the destruction of the Armenian national group was carried out in the form of a system of widespread individual murders combined with periodic massacres of Armenians in certain areas where they constituted an absolute majority (the massacre in Sasun, murders throughout the empire in the fall and winter of 1895, the massacre in Istanbul in Van area).
The original number of people who lived in this territory is a controversial issue, since a significant part of the archives was destroyed. It is known that in the mid-19th century in the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslims made up about 56% of the population.
According to the Armenian Patriarchate, in 1878, three million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. In 1914, the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey estimated the number of Armenians in the country at 1,845,450. The Armenian population decreased by more than a million due to massacres in 1894-1896, the flight of Armenians from Turkey and forced conversion to Islam.
The Young Turks, who came to power after the 1908 revolution, continued their policy of brutally suppressing the national liberation movement. In ideology, the old doctrine of Ottomanism was replaced by no less rigid concepts of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism. A campaign of forced Turkification of the population was launched, and non-Turkish organizations were banned.
In April 1909, the Cilician Massacre occurred, a massacre of Armenians in the vilayets of Adana and Allepo. About 30 thousand people became victims of the massacre, among whom were not only Armenians, but also Greeks, Syrians and Chaldeans. In general, during these years the Young Turks prepared the ground for a complete solution to the “Armenian question”.
In February 1915, at a special meeting of the government, the Young Turk ideologist Dr. Nazim Bey outlined a plan for the complete and widespread destruction of the Armenian people: “It is necessary to completely exterminate the Armenian nation, without leaving a single living Armenian on our land. Even the word “Armenian” itself must be erased from memory..."
On April 24, 1915, on the day now celebrated as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide, mass arrests of the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and political elite began in Constantinople, which led to the complete destruction of an entire galaxy of prominent figures of Armenian culture. More than 800 representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently killed, including writers Grigor Zohrab, Daniel Varuzhan, Siamanto, Ruben Sevak. Unable to bear the death of his friends, the great composer Komitas lost his mind.
In May-June 1915, massacres and deportations of Armenians began in Western Armenia.
The general and systematic campaign against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire consisted of the expulsion of Armenians into the desert and subsequent executions, death by bands of marauders or from hunger or thirst. Armenians were subjected to deportations from almost all the main centers of the empire.
On June 21, 1915, during the final act of deportation, its main inspirer, Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, ordered the expulsion of “all Armenians without exception” living in the ten provinces of the eastern region of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of those who were considered useful to the state. Under this new directive, deportations were carried out according to the "ten percent principle", according to which Armenians were not to exceed 10% of the Muslims in the region.
Process of expulsion and destruction Turkish Armenians culminated in a series of military campaigns in 1920 against refugees returning to Cilicia, and in the Smyrna (modern Izmir) massacre in September 1922, when troops under Mustafa Kemal massacred the Armenian quarter in Smyrna and then, under pressure from the Western powers, allowed evacuate the survivors. With the destruction of the Armenians of Smyrna, the last surviving compact community, the Armenian population of Turkey practically ceased to exist in their historical homeland. The surviving refugees scattered around the world, forming diasporas in several dozen countries.
Modern estimates of the number of victims of the genocide vary from 200 thousand (some Turkish sources) to more than 2 million Armenians. Most historians estimate the number of victims to be between 1 and 1.5 million. Over 800 thousand became refugees.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of victims and survivors, since since 1915, fleeing murders and pogroms, many Armenian families changed their religion (according to some sources - from 250 thousand to 300 thousand people).
For many years now, Armenians around the world have been trying to ensure that the international community officially and unconditionally recognizes the fact of genocide. The first is a special decree recognizing and condemning terrible tragedy 1915, adopted by the Parliament of Uruguay (April 20, 1965). Laws, regulations and decisions on the Armenian genocide were subsequently adopted by the European Parliament, State Duma Russia, the parliaments of other countries, in particular Cyprus, Argentina, Canada, Greece, Lebanon, Belgium, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Venezuela, Lithuania, Chile, Bolivia, as well as the Vatican.
The Armenian genocide was recognized by over 40 American states, the Australian state of New South Wales, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario (the city of Toronto inclusive), the Swiss cantons of Geneva and Vaud, Wales (Great Britain), about 40 Italian communes, dozens of international and national organizations, including including the World Council of Churches, the League for Human Rights, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanities, and the Union of Jewish Communities of America.
On April 14, 1995, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a statement “On condemnation of the genocide of the Armenian people in 1915-1922.”
The US government exterminated 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, but refuses to call it genocide.
The Armenian community in the United States has long ago accepted a resolution by Congress recognizing the fact of genocide of the Armenian people.
Attempts to pass this legislative initiative were made in Congress more than once, but they were never successful.
The issue of recognition of genocide in the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey.
Armenia and Turkey have not yet established diplomatic relations, and the Armenian-Turkish border has been closed since 1993 on the initiative of official Ankara.
Turkey traditionally rejects accusations of the Armenian genocide, arguing that both Armenians and Turks were victims of the 1915 tragedy, and reacts extremely painfully to the process of international recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
In 1965, a monument to the victims of the genocide was erected on the territory of the Catholicosate in Etchmiadzin. In 1967, the construction of a memorial complex was completed on the Tsitsernakaberd hill (Swallow Fortress) in Yerevan. In 1995, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute was built near the memorial complex.
The words “I remember and demand” were chosen as the motto of Armenians around the world for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and the forget-me-not was chosen as the symbol. This flower in all languages has a symbolic meaning - to remember, not to forget and to remind. The flower's cup graphically depicts the memorial in Tsitserkaberd with its 12 pylons. This symbol will be actively used throughout 2015.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
While, together with Serzh Sargsyan and Vladimir Putin in memorial complex On April 24, on the “Tsitsernakaberd” (“Swallow Fortress”) mountain in Yerevan, in memory of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, leaders of states that recognized this crime against humanity gathered; a so-called “peace summit” was held in Turkey.
TURKISH SUMMIT
“Unfortunately, Turkey continues its traditional policy of denial, year after year “improving” its tools for distorting history: the centenary of the Gallipoli battles this year is celebrated for the first time on April 24, while they began on March 18, 1915 and continued until the end of January 1916 year,” Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan noted back in January in his response letter to Prime Minister Erdogan to the invitation to the summit, pointing out Turkey’s true goal - to divert the attention of the world community from the events of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
And in a recent interview with the Turkish newspaper Hurriet, the Armenian president continued the theme of the “peace summit”:
“For us, the 100th anniversary of the Genocide is not a matter of competition. If Ankara's goal is to ensure the participation of as many heads of state as possible in its events in order to divert attention from the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we are pursuing a much more far-reaching and serious goal - to create a platform for preventing similar crimes against humanity in the future. Unlike Turkey, we do not blackmail, threaten, or force the international community to take part in our events. All those who take part in our events are guided not by political or economic interests, but by the principles of morality and universal human values,” arminfo quotes Sargsyan as saying.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S PROPHECY
In a letter to Cleveland Goodley Dodge dated May 11, 1918, the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, less than a year before his death, made a prophetic prediction: “... the massacre of the Armenians - greatest crime this war (World War I - edit.), and if we fail to act against Turkey, then we are pandering to it... The failure of a radical struggle against Turkish horror means that all talk about a future world in the whole world is nonsense.”
And so it turned out...
6 million lives were taken by the Holocaust, organized by Hitler, who, not without reason, is credited with the following phrase regarding the possible condemnation of mass murder: “After all, who talks today about the extermination of the Armenians?”
Then there was the US war in Vietnam, the atrocities of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the massacre of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, the current extermination of Russian speakers in south-eastern Ukraine, the massacre of the civilian population of Syria - including Armenians, Copts and Kurds...
ORIGINS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN TURKEY
April 24 is a mourning date in history, speaking of the first purposeful large-scale extermination of people on national and religious principles, which began a century ago. On April 12, Pope Francis in his sermon called the Armenian genocide one of the three most terrible disasters and crimes of the 20th century.
However, the genocide of 1915-1923 was preceded by two “preparatory” solutions to the “Armenian question” in Ottoman Turkey... How and why did this become possible? Who planned and carried out the massacres?
Armenia, which adopted Christianity as the state religion in 301, suffered for its choice and continues to suffer to this day. Christianity for the Armenian people has become something more than a religion. It became his soul, his mentality. Until the end of the 19th century, most books were published in Grabar - Church Armenian. From time immemorial, schools and universities operated in monasteries and churches. Poets and philosophers, astronomers and mathematicians worked here.
And khachkars - cross-stones with a unique stone ligature around a flowering cross - inspired optimism and faith. That faith that the conquerors could not destroy - neither the Persians, nor the hordes of Tamerlane, nor the Arabs, nor the Seljuk Turks. It was not possible to make the Armenians either apostates or assimilate.
Khachkars near the cell of Gregory the Illuminator in the rock monastery of Geghard in Armenia, founded by this saint in the 4th century. Photo: K. Markaryan
However, it was especially difficult for the Armenians when Turkic tribes invaded their ancestral lands from the Far East and Central Asia. With the fall of Constantinople (Constantinople), the capital of Greater Armenia's ally, Byzantium, hard times began. Christian churches were turned into mosques: minarets were erected around them, and the faces of saints in churches were painted over. The Ottomans treated the infidels (Armenians, Greeks, Slavs and other peoples) as second-class citizens.
Islamic fundamentalism strengthened and took shape by the second half of the 19th century, and flourished during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid. The Armenians, who hoped for help from Christian Russia, became especially hated by the Turks.
After the next Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78. The Balkan peoples were freed from the Turkish yoke. But the situation of the Armenians did not change. The Congress of Berlin, called to revise the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, which concluded Russian-Turkish war, took place under strong pressure from Germany, Britain and Austria-Hungary. Russia would not have started a new war against the coalition. Therefore, we had to forget about improving the situation of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.
But not the Turks. In the 18 years after the Berlin Congress, the population of Western Armenia, which was under Turkish occupation, decreased by approximately 500-600 thousand as a result of systematic pogroms.
British Prime Minister (1916-1922) Lloyd George wrote the following in his collection “The Truth about Peace Negotiations”:
“According to the Peace of San Stefano (1878), Russian troops were to occupy Armenia until the necessary reforms were carried out [by the Turks]. This decree was repealed by the Berlin Treaty of 1878, which was entirely the result of our threatening pressure and was glorified by us as greatest triumph England, who brought “honorable peace.” Armenia was sacrificed on the triumphal altar we erected. The Russians were forced to leave; the unfortunate Armenians were again oppressed by the heel of their old oppressors, who pledged to “carry out improvements and reforms in the provinces inhabited by Armenians.”
We all know how these obligations were violated for forty years, despite repeated protests from the country that was the main culprit in returning Armenia to Turkish rule. The policy of the British government led with fatal inevitability to the horrific massacres of 1895–1897 and 1909 and to the terrible massacre of 1915. As a result of these atrocities, unparalleled even in the history of Turkish despotism, the Armenian population in Turkey decreased by more than a million.”
Lloyd George did not take into account that the genocide continued in the early 1920s, claiming at least another half a million civilian lives, which were dealt with by the regular army of the Ottoman Empire.
ARMENIANS – AN OBSTACLE ON THE WAY TO GREAT TURAN
Both in the Ottoman Empire and in today's Turkey they never refused to create the so-called Great Turan - a pan-Turkic state that would include Transcaucasia, North Caucasus, Crimea, Volga region, Central Asia up to Altai with part of Mongolia...
The implementation of these plans was always hindered by the Armenians, who, in addition, also sympathized with the Russians. Therefore, it was decided to destroy the Armenians, who, unlike the Georgians, practically did not succumb to Turkification.
This was done in the most Jesuitical way and with a material background. Turkish officials who left the Balkan countries after their liberation from the Ottoman yoke were offered to settle... in areas densely populated by national minorities, primarily in the Armenian quarters of cities and villages. The conflicts that began, which troops rushed to suppress, ended with the physical destruction of those who disagreed... and the seizure of their property.
The solution to the “Armenian question”, invented in this way under Sultan Abdul Hamid at the end of the 19th century, was made their banner by the Young Turks who came to power in 1908, led by Kemal Pasha, who later received the name of Atatürk (the father of all Turks).
Plans for the destruction of the Armenian population were developed in October 1911 at the congress of the Union and Progress Party (Ittihad ve Terakki) and finally took shape under the veil of the First World War.
In September 1914, at a secret meeting chaired by the Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat Pasha, a special body was formed - the Executive Committee of Three, which included the leaders of the Young Turks Nazim, Behaetdin Shakir and Shukri.
Nazim, understanding the benefits of the fight between world powers among themselves, said at that meeting: “If we are content with partial massacres, as was the case in 1909 in Adana and other areas, then instead of benefit it will bring harm, since we risk awakening the elements that we are also going to sweep away.” from the road - Arabs and Kurds; the danger will triple and the implementation of our intention will be difficult. I told you several times at this meeting and now I repeat: if the cleansing is not general and final, then harm instead of benefit is inevitable. The Armenian people must be destroyed at the roots, so that not a single Armenian remains on our land and this very name is forgotten. Now there is a war, there will be no such opportunity again. The intervention of the great powers and the noisy protests of the world press will go unnoticed, and if they find out, they will be presented with a fait accompli, and thus the issue will be settled. This time our actions must take on the character of total extermination of the Armenians; it is necessary to destroy every single one... Our country must be cleansed of non-Turkish elements. Religion has no meaning or meaning to me. My religion is Turan” (from excerpts from the memoirs of the Young Turk figure Mevlan-zade Rifat - genocide-museum.am).
In February 1915, Minister of War Enver Pasha gave the order to exterminate the Armenians who served in the Turkish army. At the beginning of the war, about 60 thousand Armenians aged 18 to 45 were drafted into the army - the most combat-ready part of the male population...
To exterminate the Armenians, a 10,000-strong special punitive organization “Teshkilat-i Makhsusa” was created.
Having destroyed the male conscripts, the Turks then began to deal with the remaining old men, women and children.
In 1915, on April 24, more than 600 representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently killed in Constantinople. This is where the countdown to the final solution to the “Armenian question” by the Turks began...
The lists of those subject to destruction included people of different political views and professions: writers, artists, musicians, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, businessmen, political and religious leaders. The only thing that united them was their nationality and position in society.
And the civilian population, without allowing people to take any food or belongings, was allegedly deported to new places of residence - to the deserts of Mesopotamia. Along the roads they robbed, raped, killed, burned alive, ripped open the bellies of pregnant women...
The name of the Der-Zor desert became a household word - 200 thousand Armenians were killed here alone. Concentration camps were created where people were systematically slaughtered. The Germans will then put this on stream, using gas chambers and crematoria...
Germany, Turkey's main ally, largely condoned and supported the extermination of the Armenians. The real goals of the deportation of Germany were known. For example, the German consul in Trebizond in July 1915 reported on the deportation of Armenians in this vilayet and noted that the Young Turks intended to put an end to the “Armenian question” in this way.
The German Protestant pastor Fischer casually narrated: “A group of Armenian women from the Van orphanage were hanged on trees and then scalped... A newborn child was chopped into pieces with an ax, which they used to strangle the child’s mother, pushing these pieces into her mouth. The rest of the girls in the orphanage were dishonored and killed.”
And the famous Armenian writer Hovhannes Tumanyan wrote about what he saw in the Van vilayet: “Nails were stuck into the foreheads of the children, the Turks laid out the people’s bodies cut into parts and arranged games, half of the body was placed in a cauldron and boiled so that the living part could see and feel , the body was cut into pieces with hot metal and fried over a fire, roasted alive. Children were killed before the eyes of parents, and parents were killed before the eyes of children.”
RUSSIA, GENERAL ANDRANIK AND THE PEOPLE'S AVENGERS
At the same time, Nicholas II opened the borders of the empire to Armenian refugees. People tried to find housing and work. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were saved in this way.
Detachments of Armenian volunteers who did not have Russian citizenship fought in the tsarist army on the Transcaucasian front. Under the leadership of commander Andranik Ozanyan, a native of the Ottoman Empire (later major general of the Russian army), the Armenian squad fought heroically. Then the Armenian volunteer corps was formed.
Andranik himself for personal courage in battles in 1915-1916. was awarded the St. George Medal of the IV degree, the St. George Cross of the IV and III degrees, the Order of St. Stanislav, II degree with swords, and the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree.
General Andranik
I note that monuments to the general were erected in many countries that fought against the Turkish yoke. Streets and squares of cities were named after him, films about the hero were made and books were written.
But it all ended with the Bolsheviks coming to power and the conclusion of peace with Turkey. General Andranik did not accept this when he went into exile...
In August 1915, Talaat Pasha cynically declared that “actions against the Armenians have basically been carried out and the “Armenian question” no longer exists.”
But it was not there. In some areas of Western Armenia, Armenian rebels bought rifles, if possible, from Kurdish tribes and began to put up stubborn resistance. (In Ottoman Turkey, only Muslims had the right to own weapons.)
The Armenian fedayeen defended Sasun, Mush, Van, Shatakh, Musa-Dag, Shapin, Ajn, Aintap... As long as they could hold out against a regular army equipped with artillery. Books have been written and films made by foreign authors about the heroic pages of the Armenian resistance...
But there was no condemnation of Turkey or punishment of those responsible for the crimes by the international community. All states sought their preferences in the First World War and in alliance with Turkey. There was no time for the Armenians here...
Bolshevik Russia also helped the Turkish “comrade Red Army soldiers” with huge amounts of money, food shipments (even during the famine in the Volga region), and all kinds of weapons. For the time being, Ataturk willingly played along with Lenin, who was trying to stay in power at any cost. Turkish troops even dressed themselves in budenovki, posing as ardent supporters of communism (at the same time slaughtering the “reds” on the sly in Turkey itself), allegedly ready to “fan the world fire of revolution.”
The genocide created a wave of refugees in different countries Europe and America. Leaving their homes, people hid deep in their hearts the bitterness of parting with their homeland and the thirst for revenge on the murderers.
Having failed to achieve support from the “civilized world,” the Armenians opened their account to the Ottoman barbarians. Retribution overtook them until the 1970s.
Ideologist of genocide Talaat Pasha was shot by student Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin on March 16, 1921 (the Berlin court acquitted him).
Enver Pasha was killed in 1922 in Turkestan by red commanders Akop (Yakov) Melkumov and Georgy Agabekov.
Cemal Pasha was killed on June 25, 1922 in Tiflis: the act of retaliation was carried out by Stepan Tsakhikyan and Petros Ter-Poghosyan.
Said Halim Pasha(former Prime Minister of Turkey) was assassinated on December 6, 1921 in Rome by Arshavir Shirakyan.
Shakir Bey, the main ideologist of Ittihad, was assassinated on April 17, 1922 in Rome. He was punished by Aramon Yerkanyan and Arshavir Shirakyan.
Türkiye STABLY DOES NOT RECOGNIZE GENOCIDE
However, neither acts of retaliation, nor calls to Turkey from world powers and the recent appeal from members of the European Parliament to recognize the Armenian genocide have yet yielded any results.
Prime Minister Erdogan only expressed his sympathy for the pain of the Armenian people a couple of times, but at the same time noted that the First World War was to blame for everything (remember the words of the Young Turk ideologist Nazim that the war would write off everything?), and that many Turks also died.
It’s as if German Chancellor Merkel now did not recognize the Holocaust and only expressed her sympathy for the death of the Jews, saying that the Second World War was to blame for everything, that many Germans also died...
Just the wording “Armenian genocide” makes Ankara furious and recalls its ambassadors from countries that recognize this crime against humanity at the state level.
This happened after the recent mass of Pope Francis in Rome for the murdered Armenians, when the Turkish ambassador was recalled from the Vatican.
And after the Austrian parliament adopted a resolution on April 23 condemning the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey also recalled its ambassador. Will this also be done for Germany? Indeed, in Berlin on April 24, the day of the 100th anniversary of the genocide, the Bundestag overwhelmingly approved a resolution in which the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire was characterized as genocide, Reuters reports.
Let me note that Chancellor Angela Merkel also participated in the meeting of the German parliament.
“Germany has its share of blame for the events of those years,” said Bundestag Speaker Norbert Lamert, adding that real world cannot be established without restoring justice to the victims of the Genocide, Tert.am reports.
I wonder if Ankara will dare to recall its ambassador from Moscow as well? At least, this is the question asked even by the Turkish newspaper Hurriet, recalling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s greeting on April 22 to the participants of the “World without Genocide” memorial evening, in which he clearly calls genocide genocide.
And on April 24, at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan, Vladimir Putin said the following:
“Today we mourn together with the Armenian people. In the hundreds Russian cities, I want to emphasize this, dear friends, more than 2,000 memorial events will be held in hundreds of Russian cities. They will be attended not only by representatives of the large Armenian community in Russia, numbering about 3 million people, but also by tens of thousands of people of other nationalities. Russia’s position has been and remains consistent: we have always believed that there is no, and cannot be, any justification for the mass murder of people,” NTV quotes the Russian president as saying.
Vladimir Putin speaks at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex. Yerevan, April 24, 2015. Photo by the press service of the President of Russia.
Ankara's reaction was expected.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite all our warnings and calls, regarded the events of 1915 as genocide. Such statements are unacceptable from Turkey’s point of view,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
We are waiting for further steps. Then you have to be consistent...
Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, First Lady of Armenia Rita Sargsyan and the presidents of Armenia - Serzh Sargsyan, Russia - Vladimir Putin, Cyprus - Nikos Anastasiadis, France - Francois Hollande lay flowers at Tsitsernakaberd. Photo by the press service of the President of Russia.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande, who also arrived in Yerevan, emphasized: “On this day, April 24, paying tribute to the memory of the victims of the genocide, I want to tell our Armenian friends: we will never forget this tragedy. I call for resistance to such evil and universal recognition of genocide.”
However, some experts point out that Turkey refuses to admit its fanaticism a century ago because of economic reasons: it does not want to return the lands taken from the Armenians. And this is the fertile Ararat valley with the biblical Mount Ararat, where the Armenian people lived for more than one millennium.
However, Armenia has never made territorial claims against Turkey or any other country. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated this in the same interview with the Turkish newspaper Hurriet.
“There is no such task in the foreign policy agenda of our country and there never was; we are a full member of the international community and follow all global legal norms, but our Eastern neighbor, ignoring all these norms, keeps our border in a blockade, which is the last closed border in Europe,” - arminfo quotes the words of the Armenian president.
Eternal flame“Tsitsernakaberd”... Photo by the press service of the President of Russia.
Serzh Sargsyan pointed out that Yerevan’s territorial claims to Ankara are being discussed not in Armenia, but in Turkey: “Why are they doing this, you should draw your own conclusions”...
Political observer on the prospects for resolving the conflict, the aggravation of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, the history of Armenia and Armenian-Turkish relations websiteSaid Gafurov talks with political scientist Andrei Epifantsev.
The problem of genocide: “Armenians and Turks behaved the same way”
Armenian genocide
— Let's start right away with the conflict topic... T Tell me right away, was there any genocide of Armenians by the Turks or not? I know that you have written a lot on this topic and understood this topic.
“What is certain is that there was a massacre in Turkey in 1915 and that such things should never happen again.” My personal approach is that the official Armenian position, according to which it was a genocide caused by the terrible hatred of the Turks towards the Armenians, is incorrect in a number of ways.
Firstly, it is quite obvious that the cause of what happened was largely the Armenians themselves, who staged an uprising before this. Which began long before 1915.
All this stretched on from the end of the 19th century and covered, among other things, Russia. The Dashnaks didn’t care who they blew up, Turkish officials or Prince Golitsyn.
Secondly, it is important to know what is usually not shown here: the Armenians, in fact, behaved like the same Turks - they carried out ethnic cleansing, massacres, and so on. And if all the available information is combined together, you get a comprehensive picture of what happened.
— The Turks have their own genocide museum, dedicated to the territory that was “liberated” by the Armenian Doshnak units with the help of English gold and Russian weapons. Their commanders actually reported that there was not a single Turk left there. Another thing is that the Dashnaks were then provoked to speak out by the British. And, by the way, the Turkish court in Istanbul, even under the Sultan, condemned the organizers of mass crimes against Armenians. True, in absentia. That is, the fact of a mass crime took place.
- Certainly. And the Turks themselves do not deny this, they offer condolences. But they do not call what happened genocide. From the point of view of international law, there is the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, signed, among other things, by Armenia and Russia. It indicates who has the right to recognize a crime as genocide - this is the court in The Hague, and only it.
Neither Armenia nor the foreign Armenian diaspora has ever appealed to this court. Why? Because they understand that they will not be able to prove this genocide in legal or historical terms. Moreover, all international courts - the European Court of Human Rights, the French Court of Justice and so on, when the Armenian diaspora tried to raise this issue with them, they refused. Only since last October there have been three such ships - and the Armenian side lost all of them.
Let's go back to the first half of the twentieth century: even then it was obvious that both the Turkish and Armenian sides resorted to ethnic cleansing. Two American missionaries sent by Congress after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire saw a picture of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Armenians.
We ourselves saw in 1918 and 1920, before Soviet power was firmly established, either Armenian or Azerbaijani purges. Therefore, as soon as the “USSR factor” disappeared, they immediately received Nagorno-Karabakh and the same purges. Today this territory has been cleared to the maximum. There are practically no Armenians left in Azerbaijan, and no Azerbaijanis in Karabakh and Armenia.
The positions of Turks and Azerbaijanis are fundamentally different
— Meanwhile, in Istanbul there is a large Armenian colony, there are churches. This, by the way, is an argument against genocide.
— The positions of the Turks and Azerbaijanis are fundamentally different. At the ethnic level, at the everyday level. There is currently no real territorial conflict between Armenia and Turkey, but there is one with the Azerbaijanis. Secondly, some events took place 100 years ago, while others took place today. Thirdly, the Turks did not set themselves the goal of physically destroying the Armenians, but of calling them to loyalty, albeit through savage means.
Therefore, there are many Armenians left in the country, whom they tried to Turkify, so to speak, to Islamize, but they remained Armenians within themselves. Some Armenians survived and were resettled away from the battle zone. After World War II, Türkiye began to restore Armenian churches.
Now Armenians are actively going to Turkey to work. The Turkish government had Armenian ministers, which is impossible in Azerbaijan. The conflict is now taking place over very specific reasons - and the main thing is land. The compromise option that Azerbaijan offers: high degree of autonomy, but within Azerbaijan. So to speak, Armenians must become Azerbaijan. The Armenians categorically do not agree to this - it will again be a massacre, deprivation of rights, and so on.
There are, of course, other settlement options, for example, as was done in Bosnia. The parties created a very complex state, consisting of two autonomous entities with their own rights, army, and so on. But this option is not even being considered by the parties.
Monostates, states created on the basis of an ethnic project, are a dead end. The question is this: history is not finished, it continues. For some states it is very important to gain dominance of their people on this land. And after it is provided, it is already possible to develop the project further, attracting other peoples, but on the basis of some kind of subordination. In fact, the Armenians now, after the collapse Soviet Union, and the Azerbaijanis, in fact, are at this stage.
Is there any solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem?
— The Azerbaijani official line: the Armenians are our brothers, they must return, that is, there are all the necessary guarantees, let them leave us only external defense and international affairs. Everything else will remain with them, including security issues. What is Armenia's position?
Here everything comes up against the fact that Armenia and the Armenian society have the position of the historical land - “this is our historical land, and that’s all.” There will be two states, one state, it doesn’t matter. We will not give up our historical land. We would rather die or leave there, but we will not live in Azerbaijan. Nobody says that nations cannot make mistakes. Including Armenians. And in the future, when they are convinced of their mistake, they will probably come to a different opinion.
Armenian society today is, in fact, very divided. There are diasporas, there are Armenians of Armenia. Very strong polarization, more than in our society, an oligarchy, a very large spread between Westerners and Russophiles. But there is complete consensus regarding Karabakh. The Diaspora is spending money on Karabakh, there is powerful lobbying for the interests of Karabakh Armenians in the West. The national-patriotic upsurge remains, it is fueled and will persist for a long time.
But all national projects have their moment of truth. In the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, this moment of truth has not yet arrived for either side. The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides are still on maximalist positions; each of the elites has convinced its people that victory is possible only on maximalist positions, only by fulfilling all our demands. "We are everything, our enemy is nothing."
People, in fact, have become hostages of this situation, and it is already difficult to win back. And the same mediators who work in the Minsk Group face a difficult task: to persuade the elite so that they turn to the people and say - no, guys, we must lower the bar. That's why there is no progress.
— Bertolt Brecht wrote: “Nationalism cannot feed hungry stomachs.” The Azerbaijanis correctly say that the most affected by the conflict are the ordinary Armenian people. The elite profit from military supplies, while the lives of ordinary people are getting worse: Karabakh is a poor land.
- And Armenia is not a rich land. But for now, people choose guns from the “guns or butter” option. In my opinion, a solution to the Karabakh crisis is possible. And this solution lies in the division of Karabakh. If we simply divide Karabakh, although I understand that it is difficult, but nevertheless: one part for one, the other part for another.
Legitimize, say: “The international community accepts this option.” Perhaps calculate the percentage of the population at the time of 1988 or 1994. Divide, solidify boundaries and say that anyone who starts a conflict that violates the existing status quo will be punished. The issue will resolve itself.
Prepared for publication by Sergey Valentinov
The Turkish genocide of the Armenians of 1915, organized on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, became one of the most terrible events of its era. Representatives were subjected to deportations, during which hundreds of thousands or even millions of people died (depending on estimates). This campaign to exterminate the Armenians is today recognized as genocide by most countries throughout the world community. Turkey itself does not agree with this formulation.
Prerequisites
Massacres and deportations in the Ottoman Empire had different backgrounds and reasons. 1915 was due to the unequal position of the Armenians themselves and the ethnic Turkish majority of the country. The population was discredited not only on national but also on religious grounds. The Armenians were Christians and had their own independent church. The Turks were Sunnis.
The non-Muslim population had the status of dhimmi. People who fell under this definition did not have the right to carry weapons and act as witnesses in court. They had to pay high taxes. The Armenians, for the most part, lived poorly. Mostly they were engaged agriculture on their native lands. However, among the Turkish majority there was a widespread stereotype of a successful and cunning Armenian businessman, etc. Such labels only aggravated the hatred of ordinary people towards this ethnic minority. This complex relationship can be compared to the widespread anti-Semitism in many countries at the time.
In the Caucasian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the situation worsened further due to the fact that these lands, after the wars with Russia, were filled with Muslim refugees, who, due to their everyday unsettled conditions, constantly came into conflict with local Armenians. One way or another, Turkish society was in an excited state. It was ready to accept the upcoming Armenian genocide (1915). The reasons for this tragedy lay in the deep division and hostility between the two peoples. All that was needed was a spark that would ignite a huge fire.
Beginning of the First World War
As a result of an armed coup in 1908, the Ittihat Party (Unity and Progress) came to power in the Ottoman Empire. Its members called themselves Young Turks. The new government began to hastily search for an ideology on which to build its state. Pan-Turkism and Turkish nationalism were adopted as the basis - ideas that did not imply anything good for Armenians and other ethnic minorities.
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of its new political course, entered into an alliance with the Kaiser’s Germany. According to the treaty, the powers agreed to provide Turkey with access to the Caucasus, where numerous Muslim peoples lived. But there were also Armenian Christians in the same region.
Assassinations of Young Turk leaders
On March 15, 1921, in Berlin, an Armenian, in front of many witnesses, killed Talaat Pasha, who was hiding in Europe under an assumed name. The shooter was immediately arrested by German police. The trial has begun. The best lawyers in Germany volunteered to defend Tehlirian. The process led to widespread public outcry. At the hearings, numerous facts of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire were again voiced. Tehlirian was sensationally acquitted. After that, he emigrated to the USA, where he died in 1960.
Another important victim of Operation Nemesis was Ahmed Dzhemal Pasha, who was killed in Tiflis in 1922. That same year, another member of the triumvirate, Enver, died while fighting the Red Army in modern-day Tajikistan. He fled to Central Asia, where for some time he was an active participant in the Basmach movement.
Legal assessment
It should be noted that the term “genocide” appeared in the legal lexicon much later than the events described. The word originated in 1943 and originally meant the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi authorities of the Third Reich. A few years later, the term was formalized according to the convention of the newly created UN. Later, the events in the Ottoman Empire were recognized as the Armenian genocide in 1915. In particular, this was done by the European Parliament and the UN.
In 1995, the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was recognized as genocide in the Russian Federation. Today, this same point of view is shared by most US states and almost all countries in Europe and South America. But there are also countries where they deny the Armenian genocide (1915). The reasons, in short, remain political. First of all, modern Türkiye and Azerbaijan are on the list of these states.