Misplaced Pages

#664335

157-807: Until the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of the Armenian population of Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire ) lived in the eastern parts of the country that Armenians call Western Armenia (roughly corresponding to the modern Eastern Anatolia Region ). Armenians are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey, together with Jews , Greeks , and Bulgarians . In addition to local ethnic Armenians who are Turkish citizens, there are also many recent immigrants from Armenia in Istanbul. There

314-436: A 2009 interview poll of 150 Armenian work migrants, the majority are women. In 2010, amid Armenia's push for the recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide as a genocide, Prime Minister Erdoğan threatened to deport the illegal immigrants back to Armenia, however the situation gradually thawed. Some Armenian immigrants do not discuss ever returning to their homeland having adapted to life in Turkey. Beginning in 2011, children of

471-465: A Turkish and Muslim middle class and build a statist national economy controlled by Muslim Turks. The campaign to Turkify the economy began in June 1914 with a law that obliged many non-Muslim merchants to hire Muslims. Following the deportations, the businesses of the victims were taken over by Muslims who were often incompetent, leading to economic difficulties. The genocide had catastrophic effects on

628-529: A brief period from 1919 to 1922 with Patriarch Zaven I Der Yeghiayan residing. Four Armenian Patriarchs served under the rule of the Young Turks. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, and despite a huge diminution in the number of its faithful during the Armenian genocide, the patriarchate remains the spiritual head of the largest Christian community presently living in Turkey. Today,

785-561: A cheap and efficient method, but it caused widespread pollution downstream. So many bodies floated down the Tigris and Euphrates that they sometimes blocked the rivers and needed to be cleared with explosives. Other rotting corpses became stuck to the riverbanks, and still others traveled as far as the Persian Gulf . The rivers remained polluted long after the massacres, causing epidemics downstream. Tens of thousands of Armenians died along

942-536: A community of a few dozen Armenians. Vakıflı Köyü ( Armenian : Վաքիֆ — Vakif ) is the only remaining fully ethnic Armenian village in Turkey . This village and 6 others managed to brave past the Armenian genocide in the Musa Dagh Defense . This particular village only exists as of now due to some of the population deciding to stay after Hatay province was invaded and annexed by Turkey in 1939, while

1099-694: A dilemma: If they obeyed, the Armenians expected to be killed, but if they refused, it would provide a pretext for massacres. Armenians fortified themselves in Van and repelled the Ottoman attack that began on 20 April. During the siege, Armenians in surrounding villages were massacred at Djevdet's orders. Russian forces captured Van on 18 May, finding 55,000 corpses in the province—about half its prewar Armenian population. Djevdet's forces proceeded to Bitlis and attacked Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac villages;

1256-734: A distinction between guilty and innocent Armenians. [To do so] was impossible. Because of the nature of things, one who was still innocent today could be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. — Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt , 4 May 1916 During World War I, the CUP—whose central goal was to preserve the Ottoman Empire—came to identify Armenian civilians as an existential threat. CUP leaders held Armenians—including women and children—collectively guilty for betraying

1413-404: A few weeks, until there were very few survivors. This strategy physically weakened the Armenians and spread disease, so much that some camps were shut down in late 1915 due to the threat of disease spreading to the Ottoman military. In late 1915, the camps around Aleppo were liquidated and the survivors were forced to march to Ras al-Ayn ; the camps around Ras al-Ayn were closed in early 1916 and

1570-870: A growing, exclusionary Turkish nationalism in the Young Turk movement, the ARF decided to ally with the CUP in December 1907. In 1908, the CUP came to power in the Young Turk Revolution , which began with a string of CUP assassinations of leading officials in Macedonia . Abdul Hamid was forced to reinstate the 1876 constitution and restore the Ottoman parliament , which was celebrated by Ottomans of all ethnicities and religions. Security improved in parts of

1727-431: A journalist working for the newspaper Agos, gave a little bit higher numbers, between 12,000 and 14,000 (in 2010). Diyarbakir (or Amida/Tigranakert) has three operating Armenian churches as of 2015– one Apostolic, one Catholic, and one Protestant- The largest amount for any city in Turkey excluding Istanbul. The city's modern Armenian community was established in the 1920s and 30s when all the Armenians that still lived in

SECTION 10

#1732772576665

1884-427: A lack of churches, and for identified Armenians who are Muslim, a fear of Turkish extremists. The wealth tax known as Varlık Vergisi , a Turkish tax levied on the non-Muslim citizens of Turkey by a law enacted on November 11, 1942, with the stated aim of raising funds for the country's defense in case of an eventual entry into World War II had devastating effect on the ethnic minorities of Turkey, and most importantly

2041-503: A new purple candle is lit with prayers and hymns. On the second day of Christmas, 7 January, families visit graves of relatives and say prayers. Turkey has hundreds of Armenian churches. However, the majority of them are either in ruins or are being used for other purposes. Armenian churches still in active use belong to various denominations, mainly Armenian Apostolic, but also Armenian Catholic and Armenian Evangelical Protestant. Turkey's Armenian community faces educational problems due to

2198-487: A pivotal role in the founding of the Communist Party of Turkey . There used to be Armenian activists in many other Turkish political parties as well. In 2015, three Turkish-Armenians, Garo Paylan ( Peoples' Democratic Party ), Markar Esayan ( Justice and Development Party ), and Selina Özuzun Doğan ( Republican People's Party )—were elected, and became the first Armenians to be elected as Member of Parliament to

2355-646: A result of state policy and stated that "humanity, civilizations are shuddering, and forever will shudder, in face of this tragedy". The postwar Ottoman government held the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal , by which it sought to pin the Armenian genocide onto the CUP leadership while exonerating the Ottoman Empire as a whole, therefore avoiding partition by the Allies . The court ruled that "the crime of mass murder" of Armenians

2512-652: A result of the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent separate peace with the Central Powers , the Russian army withdrew and Ottoman forces advanced into eastern Anatolia. The First Republic of Armenia was proclaimed in May 1918, at which time 50 percent of its population were refugees and 60 percent of its territory was under Ottoman occupation. Ottoman troops withdrew from parts of Armenia following

2669-450: A series of military defeats and territorial losses—especially during the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars —leading to fear among CUP leaders that the Armenians would seek independence. During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation

2826-467: A series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge. Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar , pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs. More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya , one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach

2983-623: A subordinate but protected place in society. Sharia law encoded Islamic superiority but guaranteed property rights and freedom of worship to non-Muslims ( dhimmis ) in exchange for a special tax . On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15–17.5 million. According to the Armenian Patriarchate 's estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in

3140-552: A systematic policy to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. This policy lasted until World War I. These conditions led to a substantial decline in the population of the Armenian highlands; 300,000 Armenians left the empire, and others moved to towns. Some Armenians joined revolutionary political parties , of which the most influential was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), founded in 1890. These parties primarily sought reform within

3297-412: A systematic state policy involving the bureaucracy, police, judiciary, and clergy, was a major structural component of the genocide. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Armenians were Islamized, and it is estimated that as many as two million Turkish citizens in the early 21st century may have at least one Armenian grandparent . Some Armenians were allowed to convert to Islam and evade deportation, but

SECTION 20

#1732772576665

3454-416: Is also an unknown number of officially Muslim citizens of the Republic of Turkey who have recently started to identify as Armenians based on their Armenian roots, after being Islamised decades or centuries earlier. They are referred as crypto-Armenians . Armenians living in Turkey today are a remnant of what was once a much larger community that existed for thousands of years, long before the establishment of

3611-466: Is based in Istanbul and in 2008 reported 3,650 followers. Armenians celebrate Christmas at a date later than most of the Christians, on 6 January rather than 25 December. The reason for this is historical; according to Armenians, Christians once celebrated Christmas on 6 January, until the 4th century. 25 December was originally a pagan holiday that celebrated the birth of the sun. Many members of

3768-755: Is reinforced by a constant flow of mostly illegal immigrants from Armenia who settle in Turkey in search of better job opportunities, where the difference in pay can be quite significant. Despite a negative public opinion in Armenia of "an Armenian who works for a Turk" as a result of the century-long uneasy relationship between the two countries, by 2010, there were between 22,000 and 25,000 Armenian citizens living illegally in Istanbul alone, according to Turkish officials, and an estimated total amount of 100,000. Many of them are employed in Turkish households to provide domestic services, such as cooking and cleaning. According to

3925-583: Is that Kumkapi is Apostolic , While Pangalti has a mix of Armenian and Roman Catholic , and Yesilköy is mostly Armenian Catholic, Roman Catholic and Syriac Orthodox. Kumkapi is also located in the Old city , while Pangalti is in the newer part , and Yesilköy is a neighborhood within Greater Istanbul next to the outer walls of the Fatih District. Iskenderun has one small Armenian church, and

4082-477: Is the largest in Turkey, a catalyst being due to the fact that it was the only place that Armenian Christians were at least somewhat protected at the time of the creation of Turkey post Armenian genocide . Other factors included the Patriarchate having its headquarters in the city, and the city's economy and quality of life attracting Armenian immigrants which allowed for the community to keep stable numbers in

4239-434: Is unknown, because the number of people who are Crypto Armenian is hard to determine, with numbers ranging from as low as 30,000 to several million depending on how broad the standards were to be considered Crypto Armenian in the studies made. However, the combined total of immigrant Armenians and those in the recognized minority would be estimated at 150–170,000. Another statistic could be the number of people who are members of

4396-671: The Americas and Australia , and increasing due to immigrants from Armenia looking for work (who are entirely Christian), and Crypto-Armenians who decide to identify openly as Armenians and convert to Christianity. However, most of that growth is not reflected in official data, because Crypto-Armenians are not listed as part of the recognized Armenian minority due to Turkish laws on the officially recognized (Armenians, Greeks, and Jews) minorities, which doesn't allow newly identified Armenians to change their Turkish identities they were given at birth. As for Armenian immigrants, most are unable to join

4553-539: The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople , being at 95,000. The officially recognized Armenian Christian population is estimated to be between 50,000 and 70,000, mostly living in Istanbul and its environs. They are almost always members of the Armenian Apostolic , Armenian Catholic or Armenian Evangelical churches. The number of Armenian Christians is both diminishing due to emigration to Europe ,

4710-588: The Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan 's invitation to attend the match, on 6 September 2008, the Turkish President Abdullah Gül paid a breakthrough landmark visit to Armenia that he said "promises hope for the future" for the two countries. The Armenians in Turkey used to be active in Turkish politics. The Turkish-Armenian Sarkis "Aghparik" Cherkezian and Aram Pehlivanyan (Nickname: Ahmet Saydan) played

4867-507: The Armenian diaspora and in modern Turkey. Partly because of this, Istanbul veritably became the cultural and literary center of the Western Armenians in the 19th and early 20th century. Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I . Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it

Armenians in Turkey - Misplaced Pages Continue

5024-666: The Grand National Assembly of Turkey since 1961. Hrant Dink , the Turkish-Armenian journalist, writer and political activist, and the chief editor and publisher of Agos had carved himself a position of that of a very prominent figure for conveying the ideas and aspirations of the Armenian community in Turkey not only for Turkish-Armenians but for many Armenians worldwide. His newspaper Agos had played an important role in presenting Armenian historical grievances through publishing of articles and opinions in

5181-614: The Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys. Many others were held in tributary valleys of the Tigris , Euphrates , or Murat and systematically executed by the Special Organization. Armenian men were often drowned by being tied together back-to-back before being thrown in the water, a method that was not used on women. Authorities viewed disposal of bodies through rivers as

5338-521: The Khabur valley, where their bodies would not create a public health hazard. The massacres killed most of the Armenians who had survived the camp system. The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest. Nevertheless, substantiated reports of mass killings were widely covered in Western newspapers . On 24 May 1915,

5495-649: The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak) and the Armenakan Party, the predecessor of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (Ramgavar Party). But the activities of all these Armenian parties were curtailed after the Armenian genocide . Ethnic-based political parties as well as religious-based political parties are prohibited in Turkey by law. The Armenians of Turkey were also highly critical of

5652-784: The Soviet occupation of Armenia prevented another genocide. The victorious nationalists subsequently declared the Republic of Turkey in 1923. CUP war criminals were granted immunity and later that year, the Treaty of Lausanne established Turkey's current borders and provided for the Greek population's expulsion . Its protection provisions for non-Muslim minorities had no enforcement mechanism and were disregarded in practice. Armenian survivors were left mainly in three locations. About 295,000 Armenians had fled to Russian-controlled territory during

5809-577: The Sultanate of Rum . Estimates for the number of Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire in the decade before World War I range between 1.3 (official Ottoman data) and 3 million (independent estimates). When Constantinople finally became part of the Ottoman Empire, financial support was given to the Apostolic Church by the Sultan, so it could build churches in the city, which prior to that

5966-476: The Triple Entente (Russia, Britain, and France) formally condemned the Ottoman Empire for " crimes against humanity and civilization", and threatened to hold the perpetrators accountable. Witness testimony was published in books such as The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (1916) and Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918), raising public awareness of the genocide. The German Empire

6123-488: The Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists . This genocide put an end to more than two thousand years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia . Together with the mass murder and expulsion of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey . The Turkish government maintains that

6280-502: The Turkish language addressed to the Turkish public opinion. His assassination in front of his newspaper offices on January 19, 2007, turned into an occasion for expression of national grief throughout Turkey and the rallying of great support for the concerns of the Armenian community in Turkey by the general Turkish public. Dink was best known for advocating Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and human and minority rights in Turkey; he

6437-712: The fourth century CE , establishing the Armenian Apostolic Church . Following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, two Islamic empires—the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire —contested Western Armenia , which was permanently separated from Eastern Armenia (held by the Safavids) by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab . The Ottoman Empire was multiethnic and multireligious, and its millet system offered non-Muslims

Armenians in Turkey - Misplaced Pages Continue

6594-405: The 1896 massacre . The constitution governing the Armenians was suspended by the Sultan. During the reign of the Young Turks (1908–1922), and after Sultan Abdulhamid II was deposed by the Young Turks, Patriarch Madteos III (Izmirlian) was permitted to return to Istanbul in 1908. The new Turkish administration also restored the constitution. In the initial period of the reign of the Young Turks,

6751-404: The ARF incite Russian Armenians to intervene on the Ottoman side. Instead, the delegates resolved that Armenians should fight for the countries of their citizenships. During its war preparations, the Ottoman government recruited thousands of prisoners to join the paramilitary Special Organization , which initially focused on stirring up revolts among Muslims behind Russian lines beginning before

6908-680: The Armenian Patriarchate served the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire with a line of Patriarchs in Constantinople. However, like the Greek Patriarchate, the Armenians suffered severely from intervention by the state in their internal affairs. Although there have been 115 pontificates since 1461, there have only been 84 individual Patriarchs. In 1896 Patriarch Madteos III (Izmirlian) was deposed and exiled to Jerusalem by Sultan Abdülhamid II for boldly denouncing

7065-556: The Armenian Patriarchs are recognized as the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Turkey and he is invited to state ceremonies. Five Armenian Patriarchs have served after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The last patriarch Mesrob II (Mutafyan) (Մեսրոպ Բ. Մութաֆեան) was retired by the synod on October 26, 2016, because of his illness which continued more than 7 years. A new patriarch

7222-454: The Armenian citizens living illegally in Istanbul have been allowed to attend local Armenian minority schools, but as they are not Turkish citizens, they do not receive diplomas at the end of the school term. According to the researcher Alin Ozinian number of Armenians living illegally in Turkey (in 2009) is 12,000 to 13,000 and not 70,000 to 100,000 as has previously been estimated. Aris Nalci,

7379-418: The Armenian community. The law came under harsh criticism, as property holders had to sell a lot of their assets at greatly deflated prices or such assets were confiscated by the authorities. The unpopular law was abolished on March 15, 1944. The traditional Armenian political parties were known to be very active in Ottoman political life, including the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF – Dashnagtsutiun),

7536-478: The Armenian leadership and anyone capable of organizing resistance, eventually resulted in the murder of most of those arrested. The same day, Talaat banned all Armenian political organizations and ordered that the Armenians who had previously been removed from Cilicia be deported again, from central Anatolia—where they would likely have survived—to the Syrian Desert . We have been blamed for not making

7693-482: The Armenians enjoyed a brief period of restoration of civil liberties between 1908 and 1915. However starting in 1915, the Armenians suffered great hardship under the Young Turk administration and the Armenian community of Turkey was decimated by mass deportations of its Armenian population and the Armenian genocide . In this critical period, the post of the Patriarch remained vacant from 1915 to 1919 to be restored for

7850-411: The Armenians had to be eliminated to save the empire. Massacres of Armenian men were occurring in the vicinity of Bashkale in Van vilayet from December 1914. ARF leaders attempted to keep the situation calm, warning that even justifiable self-defense could lead to escalation of killing. The governor, Djevdet Bey , ordered the Armenians of Van to hand over their arms on 18 April 1915, creating

8007-455: The Armenians with their Russian oppressors. Nomadic Kurds committed many atrocities during the genocide, but settled Kurds only rarely did so. Perpetrators had several motives, including ideology, revenge, desire for Armenian property, and careerism . To motivate perpetrators, state-appointed imams encouraged the killing of Armenians and killers were entitled to a third of Armenian movable property (another third went to local authorities and

SECTION 50

#1732772576665

8164-474: The Byzantines refused as they viewed the church as heretical. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were viewed as a separate millet , and given the status of second-class citizens , but were not usually mistreated until later in the empire's history. Many Armenians gained significant positions in the empire in professions such as banking, which they almost had a monopoly in. The oldest Turkish company, Zildjian ,

8321-618: The CUP in the perpetration of genocide. The Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants (IAMM) coordinated the deportation and the resettlement of Muslim immigrants in the vacant houses and lands. The IAMM, under the control of Talaat's Ministry of the Interior , and the Special Organization, which took orders directly from the CUP Central Committee, all closely coordinated their activities. A dual-track system

8478-586: The CUP's increasingly repressive governance. When news of the countercoup reached Adana , armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people, mostly Armenians, were killed in Adana and nearby towns. Unlike the 1890s massacres, the events were not organized by the central government but instigated by local officials, intellectuals, and Islamic clerics, including CUP supporters in Adana. Although

8635-519: The Hamidiye regiments in reserve. CUP leaders feared that these reforms, which were never implemented, could lead to partition and cited them as a reason for the elimination of the Armenian population in 1915. The 1912 First Balkan War resulted in the loss of almost all of the empire's European territory and the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans. Ottoman Muslim society was incensed by

8792-585: The Hopa and Borçka counties of Turkey's Artvin Province . In addition to Turkish, they speak a dialect of western Armenian they call " Homshetsma " or "Hemşince" in Turkish. "Hidden Armenians" and "crypto-Armenians" are umbrella terms to describe people in Turkey "of full or partial ethnic Armenian origin who generally conceal their Armenian identity from wider Turkish society." They are descendants of Armenians in Turkey who were Islamized and Turkified under

8949-518: The Liberation of Armenia . Penik died five days after he set himself on fire in Taksim plaza, the main square of Istanbul , Turkey , and his stance was reflected by the Turkish mass media as a protest of most Turkish-Armenians against such attacks. Nine people had been killed and more than 70 wounded in the attack on the Turkish airport. Another turbulent point for the Armenian community of Turkey

9106-698: The Mandate ended up in Syria, France, Armenia, the Americas and the rest of Europe, in that order. The Armenian population suffered a final blow with ongoing massacres and atrocities throughout the period 1920–1923, during the Turkish War of Independence . Those suffering the most were those Armenians remaining in the east and the south of Turkey, and the Pontic Greeks in the Black Sea Region . By

9263-494: The October 1918 Armistice of Mudros . From 1918 to 1920, Armenian militants committed revenge killings of thousands of Muslims, which have been cited as a retroactive excuse for genocide. In 1918, at least 200,000 people in Armenia, mostly refugees, died from starvation or disease, in part due to a Turkish blockade of food supplies and the deliberate destruction of crops in eastern Armenia by Turkish troops, both before and after

9420-534: The Ottoman Empire during the Second Balkan War in mid-1913, there was a campaign of looting and intimidation against Greeks and Armenians, forcing many to emigrate. Around 150,000 Greek Orthodox from the Aegean coast were forcibly deported in May and June 1914 by Muslim bandits , who were secretly backed by the CUP and sometimes joined by the regular army . Historian Matthias Bjørnlund states that

9577-512: The Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the Armenian highlands adjacent to the Russian border. Armenians were a minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and Kurdish Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian neighbors. According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially Constantinople , Smyrna , and Eastern Thrace . Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As middleman minorities , despite

SECTION 60

#1732772576665

9734-489: The Ottoman armies for the invasion of Russian territory, and tried to encircle the Russian Caucasus Army at the Battle of Sarikamish , fought from December 1914 to January 1915. Unprepared for the harsh winter conditions, his forces were routed, losing more than 60,000 men. The retreating Ottoman army destroyed dozens of Ottoman Armenian villages in Bitlis vilayet, massacring their inhabitants. Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians who he claimed had actively sided with

9891-414: The Ottoman economy; Muslims were disadvantaged by the deportation of skilled professionals and entire districts fell into famine following their farmers' deportation. The Ottoman and Turkish governments passed a series of Abandoned Properties Laws to manage and redistribute property confiscated from Armenians. Although the laws maintained that the state was simply administering the properties on behalf of

10048-421: The Ottoman government of the time ordered the deportation. These measures affected an estimated 75–80% of all the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire during World War I . Many died directly, while others died as a result of dehydration, disease, and starvation during the death marches. As for the remaining Armenians in the east, they found refuge by 1917–1918 in the Caucasus and within the areas controlled by

10205-424: The Russians, a theory that became a consensus among CUP leaders. Reports of local incidents such as weapons caches, severed telegraph lines, and occasional killings confirmed preexisting beliefs about Armenian treachery and fueled paranoia among CUP leaders that a coordinated Armenian conspiracy was plotting against the empire. Discounting contrary reports that most Armenians were loyal, the CUP leaders decided that

10362-601: The Southeastern third of Sur district was leveled due to being occupied by Kurdish Insurgents. The Armenian Church was raided by what is suspected to be Grey Wolves after most of the residents of Sur were forced to leave, and the district was occupied by the Turkish Army. This part of the district is being rebuilt and resold to Turkish and foreign investors. Also in Turkey are the Hopa Hemshinli (also designated occasionally as eastern Hemshinli in publications) are Sunni Muslims of Armenian origin and culture who converted to Islam during Ottoman and earlier rule, and mostly live in

10519-402: The Special Organization, and those farther away also involved local militias, bandits, gendarmes, or Kurdish tribes depending on the area. Within the area controlled by the Third Army , which held eastern Anatolia, the army was only involved in genocidal atrocities in the vilayets of Van, Erzerum, and Bitlis. Many perpetrators came from the Caucasus ( Chechens and Circassians), who identified

10676-483: The Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria . Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople ( French : Patriarche de Constantinople , Turkish : Konstantinopolis Ermeni Patriği ), also known as Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul , is today head of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople ( Armenian : Պատրիարքութիւն Հայոց Կոստանդնուպոլսոյ ), one of

10833-408: The absent Armenians, there was no provision to return them to the owners—it was presumed that they had ceased to exist. Historians Taner Akçam and Ümit Kurt argue that "The Republic of Turkey and its legal system were built, in a sense, on the seizure of Armenian cultural, social, and economic wealth, and on the removal of the Armenian presence." The proceeds from the sale of confiscated property

10990-452: The acting Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople , stated that 90% of Tunceli's population is of Armenian origin. Most of the Armenian survivors from Cilicia and the southernmost areas with Armenians like Diyarbakır ended up in northern Syria and the Middle East . All those who survived the death camps in/deportations to Deir ez-Zor ended up there as well. Armenians deported from areas that were under allied control by 1918, particularly

11147-411: The activist role that the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide (JCAG), Armenian Revolutionary Army (ARA) and other Armenian guerrilla organizations played in targeting Turkish diplomats and interests worldwide at the height of their anti-Turkish campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. The fears of the Turkish Armenians were justified with

11304-540: The advanced nature of Crypto Armenians, they cannot be classified as either Muslim or Christian. Some practice Crypto-Christianity , masquerading as Muslims, while many genuinely practice Islam. Most Cryptos who later identify as Armenians are Christian as well, with a common practice among those who confess their ethnicity being to have a Christian baptism performed. Still, some who confess do not change their religion, and continue on as Muslims. Others even practice both faiths depending on where they are. That may just be due to

11461-581: The age range of conscription. Unlike the earlier massacres of Ottoman Armenians, in 1915 Armenians were not usually killed in their villages, to avoid destruction of property or unauthorized looting. Instead, the men were usually separated from the rest of the deportees during the first few days and executed. Few resisted, believing it would put their families in greater danger. Boys above the age of twelve (sometimes fifteen) were treated as adult men. Execution sites were chosen for proximity to major roads and for rugged terrain, lakes, wells, or cisterns to facilitate

11618-483: The area around Konya in central Anatolia. In late March or early April, the CUP Central Committee decided on the large-scale removal of Armenians from areas near the front lines. During the night of 23–24 April 1915 hundreds of Armenian political activists, intellectuals, and community leaders were rounded up in Constantinople and across the empire . This order from Talaat, intended to eliminate

11775-467: The armistice. Armenians organized a coordinated effort known as vorpahavak ( lit.   ' the gathering of orphans ' ) that reclaimed thousands of kidnapped and Islamized Armenian women and children. Armenian leaders abandoned traditional patrilineality to classify children born to Armenian women and their Muslim captors as Armenian. An orphanage in Alexandropol held 25,000 orphans,

11932-634: The army , but many soldiers of all ethnicities and religions deserted due to difficult conditions and concern for their families. At least 10 percent of Ottoman Armenians were mobilized, leaving their communities bereft of fighting-age men and therefore largely unable to organize armed resistance to deportation in 1915. During the Ottoman invasion of Russian and Persian territory , the Special Organization massacred local Armenians and Assyrian/Syriac Christians . Beginning in November 1914, provincial governors of Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum sent many telegrams to

12089-552: The atrocities committed against Balkan Muslims, intensifying anti-Christian sentiment and leading to a desire for revenge. Blame for the loss was assigned to all Christians, including the Ottoman Armenians, many of whom had fought on the Ottoman side. The Balkan Wars put an end to the Ottomanist movement for pluralism and coexistence; instead, the CUP turned to an increasingly radical Turkish nationalism to preserve

12246-469: The beginning of 1916 some 500,000 deportees were alive in Syria and Mesopotamia. Afraid that surviving Armenians might return home after the war, Talaat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in February 1916. Another wave of deportations targeted Armenians remaining in Anatolia. More than 200,000 Armenians were killed between March and October 1916, often in remote areas near Deir ez-Zor and on parts of

12403-680: The camps to buy them from their parents. In the western Levant , governed by the Ottoman Fourth Army under Djemal Pasha, there were no concentration camps or large-scale massacres, rather Armenians were resettled and recruited to work for the war effort. They had to convert to Islam or face deportation to another area. The ability of the Armenians to adapt and survive was greater than the perpetrators expected. A loosely organized, Armenian-led resistance network based in Aleppo succeeded in helping many deportees, saving Armenian lives. At

12560-588: The central government pressing for more severe measures against the Armenians, both regionally and throughout the empire. These requests were endorsed by the central government already before 1915. Armenian civil servants were dismissed from their posts in late 1914 and early 1915. In February 1915, the CUP leaders decided to disarm Armenians serving in the army and transfer them to labor battalions . The Armenian soldiers in labor battalions were systematically executed, although many skilled workers were spared until 1916. Minister of War Enver Pasha took over command of

12717-676: The church continued to celebrate both holidays, and the Roman church changed the date of Christmas to be 25 December and declared January 6 to be the date when the three wise men visited the baby Jesus. As the Armenian Apostolic Church had already separated from the Roman church at that time, the date of Christmas remained unchanged for Armenians. The Armenians in Turkey refer to Christmas as Surp Dzınunt (Holy Birth) and have fifty days of preparation called Hisnag before Christmas. The first, fourth and seventh weeks of Hisnag are periods of vegetarian fast for church members and every Saturday at sunset

12874-429: The concealment or disposal of corpses. The convoys would stop at a nearby transit camp, where the escorts would demand a ransom from the Armenians. Those unable to pay were murdered. Units of the Special Organization, often wearing gendarme uniforms, were stationed at the killing sites; escorting gendarmes often did not participate in killing. At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where

13031-715: The demographics of Anatolia. Armenian homes, businesses, and land were preferentially allocated to Muslims from outside the empire, nomads, and the estimated 800,000 (largely Kurdish) Ottoman subjects displaced because of the war with Russia. Resettled Muslims were spread out (typically limited to 10 percent in any area) among larger Turkish populations so that they would lose their distinctive characteristics, such as non-Turkish languages or nomadism. These migrants were exposed to harsh conditions and, in some cases, violence or restriction from leaving their new villages. The ethnic cleansing of Anatolia—the Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide , and expulsion of Greeks after World War I—paved

13188-558: The deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide . As of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide , concurring with the academic consensus. The presence of Armenians in Anatolia has been documented since the sixth century BCE , about 1,500 years before the arrival of Turkmens under the Seljuk dynasty . The Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in

13345-555: The deportation of all Armenians throughout the empire, even Adrianople , 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) from the Russian front. Following the elimination of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia, in August 1915, the Armenians of western Anatolia and European Turkey were targeted for deportation. Some areas with a very low Armenian population and some cities, including Constantinople, were partially spared. Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance cooperated with

13502-545: The deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape , and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps . In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through

13659-416: The deportees, although some circumvented these prohibitions. Survivors testified that some Armenians refused aid as they believed it would only prolong their suffering. The guards raped female prisoners and also allowed Bedouins to raid the camps at night for looting and rape; some women were forced into marriage. Thousands of Armenian children were sold to childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews, who would come to

13816-476: The diet of Armenian refugees, to raise money for humanitarian efforts. Between 1915 and 1930, Near East Relief raised $ 110 million ($ 2 billion adjusted for inflation) for refugees from the Ottoman Empire. Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued. Both contemporaries and later historians have estimated that around 1 million Armenians died during

13973-412: The eastern provinces after 1908 and the CUP took steps to reform the local gendarmerie , although tensions remained high. Despite an agreement to reverse the land usurpation of the previous decades in the 1910 Salonica Accord between the ARF and the CUP, the latter made no efforts to carry this out. In early 1909 an unsuccessful countercoup was launched by conservatives and some liberals who opposed

14130-631: The emergence of the Armenian question in international diplomacy as Armenians were for the first time used by the Great Powers to interfere in Ottoman politics. Although Armenians had been called the "loyal millet" in contrast to Greeks and others who had previously challenged Ottoman rule, the authorities began to perceive Armenians as a threat after 1878. In 1891, Abdul Hamid created the Hamidiye regiments from Kurdish tribes, allowing them to act with impunity against Armenians. From 1895 to 1896

14287-545: The empire and found only limited support from Ottoman Armenians. Russia's decisive victory in the 1877–1878 war forced the Ottoman Empire to cede parts of eastern Anatolia, the Balkans , and Cyprus . Under international pressure at the 1878 Congress of Berlin , the Ottoman government agreed to carry out reforms and guarantee the physical safety of its Armenian subjects, but there was no enforcement mechanism; conditions continued to worsen. The Congress of Berlin marked

14444-437: The empire as the Balkans had. In January 1913, the CUP launched another coup , installed a one-party state , and strictly repressed all real or perceived internal enemies. After the coup, the CUP shifted the demography of border areas by resettling Balkan Muslim refugees while coercing Christians to emigrate; immigrants were promised property that had belonged to Christians. When parts of Eastern Thrace were reoccupied by

14601-844: The empire officially entered the war. On 29 October 1914, the empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers by launching a surprise attack on Russian ports in the Black Sea . Many Russian Armenians were enthusiastic about the war, but Ottoman Armenians were more ambivalent, afraid that supporting Russia would bring retaliation. Organization of Armenian volunteer units by Russian Armenians, later joined by some Ottoman Armenian deserters, further increased Ottoman suspicions against their Armenian population. Wartime requisitions were often corrupt and arbitrary, and disproportionately targeted Greeks and Armenians. Armenian leaders urged young men to accept conscription into

14758-511: The empire saw widespread massacres ; at least 100,000 Armenians were killed primarily by Ottoman soldiers and mobs let loose by the authorities. Many Armenian villages were forcibly converted to Islam. The Ottoman state bore ultimate responsibility for the killings, whose purpose was violently restoring the previous social order in which Christians would unquestioningly accept Muslim supremacy, and forcing Armenians to emigrate, thereby decreasing their numbers. Abdul Hamid's despotism prompted

14915-419: The empire's eastern provinces. Ottoman records show the government aimed to reduce Armenians to no more than five percent of the local population in the sources of deportation and ten percent in the destination areas. This goal could not be accomplished without mass murder. The deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims in their lands was part of a broader project intended to permanently restructure

15072-618: The empire, a belief that was crucial to deciding on genocide in early 1915. At the same time, the war provided an opportunity to enact what Talaat called the "definitive solution to the Armenian Question". The CUP wrongly believed that the Russian Empire sought to annex eastern Anatolia, and ordered the genocide in large part to prevent this eventuality. The genocide was intended to permanently eliminate any possibility that Armenians could achieve autonomy or independence in

15229-485: The empire. CUP leaders such as Talaat and Enver Pasha came to blame non-Muslim population concentrations in strategic areas for many of the empire's problems, concluding by mid-1914 that they were internal tumors to be excised. Of these, Ottoman Armenians were considered the most dangerous, because CUP leaders feared that their homeland in Anatolia—claimed as the last refuge of the Turkish nation—would break away from

15386-482: The end of the 1920s, only a sprinkling of non-converted Armenians left in Turkey were scattered sparsely throughout the country, with the only viable Armenian population remaining in Istanbul and its environs, Diyarbakir and Malatya , with those largely disappearing due to the Turkey-PKK War necessitating their migration to Istanbul. At the time of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Hatay Province

15543-639: The end of the school term, they do not receive diplomas. Among other institutions, Turkish Armenians also have their own long-running hospitals: The majority of Armenians in Turkey speak Turkish . Only about 18% of them can speak Armenian , and most of that number are bilingual, with some having Armenian as their first language , and others learning it as a second language . Western Armenian ( Armenian : Արեւմտահայերէն pronounced Arevmedahayeren ), Armenian : Արեւմտեան աշխարհաբար pronounced Arevmedyan Ashkharhapar , (and earlier known as Armenian : Թրքահայերէն , namely "Trkahayeren" ("Turkish-Armenian") are one of

15700-518: The face of discrimination and constant migration. The three most important areas where Armenians live in Istanbul are the Kumkapı quarter, Yeşilköy and Pangalti neighborhoods, as well as the Prince Islands . Kumkapi is the location of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, and is known for its many fish restaurants and historic Churches. One of the main differences between the areas

15857-582: The fact that at many times, Turkish-Armenian institutions and even religious centers were targeted by threats and actual bombings in retaliation of the acts of ASALA, JCAG, ARA and others. The Turkish-Armenian Artin Penik committed suicide in 1982 by self-immolation in protest of the terrorist attack on 7 August 1982 in Ankara 's Esenboğa International Airport by the Armenian Secret Army for

16014-454: The fact that he publicly condemned violent acts during his own trial and appealed to the Armenian militants to stop the violence. The Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) was set up in July 2001 a joint project of a number of Turkish and Armenian intellectuals and political experts to discuss various aspects of the Turkish-Armenian relations and approving a set of recommendations to

16171-550: The formation of an opposition movement, the Young Turks , which sought to overthrow him and restore the 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire , which he had suspended in 1877. One faction of the Young Turks was the secret and revolutionary Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), based in Salonica , from which the charismatic conspirator Mehmed Talaat (later Talaat Pasha ) emerged as a leading member. Although skeptical of

16328-501: The full Turkish curriculum in addition to Armenian subjects, mainly Armenian language, literature and religion. In September 2011, the Turkish government recognized the right of immigrant families from Armenia to send their children to schools of the Turkey's Armenian community. This move came as a result of lobbying of Deputy Patriarch Aram Ateşyan , according to whom there were some 1,000 children of Armenian immigrants in Turkey at that time. However, as they are not Turkish citizens, at

16485-568: The genocide , with figures ranging from 600,000 to 1.5 million deaths. Between 800,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were deported, and contemporaries estimated that by late 1916 only 200,000 were still alive. As the British Army advanced in 1917 and 1918 northwards through the Levant , they liberated around 100,000 to 150,000 Armenians working for the Ottoman military under abysmal conditions, not including those held by Arab tribes. As

16642-723: The genocide and ended up mostly in Soviet Armenia . An estimated 200,000 Armenian refugees settled in the Middle East, forming a new wave of the Armenian diaspora . In the Republic of Turkey, about 100,000 Armenians lived in Constantinople and another 200,000 lived in the provinces, largely women and children who had been forcibly converted. Though Armenians in Constantinople faced discrimination, they were allowed to maintain their cultural identity, unlike those elsewhere in Turkey who continued to face forced Islamization and kidnapping of girls after 1923. Between 1922 and 1929,

16799-478: The genocide endured exploitation, hard labor without pay, forced conversion to Islam, and physical and sexual abuse . Armenian women captured during the journey ended up in Turkish or Kurdish households; those who were Islamized during the second phase of the genocide found themselves in an Arab or Bedouin environment. The rape , sexual abuse, and prostitution of Armenian women were all very common. Although Armenian women tried to avoid sexual violence, suicide

16956-461: The governments of Turkey and Armenia on how to improve the strained relations between the two countries. Thousands of Turks joined Turkish intellectuals in publicly apologizing for the World War I era mass killings and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire . The unprecedented apology was initiated by a group of 200 Turkish academics, journalists, writers and artists disagreeing with

17113-404: The largest number in the world. In 1920, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople reported it was caring for 100,000 orphans, estimating that another 100,000 remained captive. Following the armistice, Allied governments championed the prosecution of Armenian genocide perpetrators. Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha publicly recognized that 800,000 Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin had died as

17270-469: The last to the CUP). Embezzling beyond that was punished. Ottoman politicians and officials who opposed the genocide were dismissed or assassinated. The government decreed that any Muslim who harbored an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed. Although the majority of able-bodied Armenian men had been conscripted into the army, others deserted, paid the exemption tax, or fell outside

17427-640: The law. Virtually all Armenians who are officially registered as part of the Armenian Minority are Christians , and are either of the Armenian Apostolic , Catholic , or less commonly Protestant denominations. The religion of others and those not officially part of the minority is elaborated on in the Demographics section. The Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul (officially Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople) is, since 1461,

17584-662: The logistics of the Ottoman Army. By late 1915, the CUP had extinguished Armenian existence from eastern Anatolia. On 23 May 1915, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians in Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum. To grant a cover of legality to the deportation, already well underway in the eastern provinces and Cilicia, the Council of Ministers approved the Temporary Law of Deportation , which allowed authorities to deport anyone deemed suspect. On 21 June, Talaat ordered

17741-455: The massacres went unpunished, the ARF continued to hope that reforms to improve security and restore lands were forthcoming, until late 1912, when they broke with the CUP and appealed to the European powers. On 8 February 1914, the CUP reluctantly agreed to reforms brokered by Germany that provided for the appointment of two European inspectors for the entire Ottoman east and putting

17898-576: The men were killed immediately, many women and children were kidnapped by local Kurds, and others marched away to be killed later. By the end of June, there were only a dozen Armenians in the vilayet. The first deportations of Armenians were proposed by Djemal Pasha , the commander of the Fourth Army , in February 1915 and targeted Armenians in Cilicia (specifically Alexandretta , Dörtyol , Adana, Hadjin , Zeytun , and Sis ) who were relocated to

18055-497: The mid-nineteenth century, Armenians faced large-scale land usurpation as a consequence of the sedentarization of Kurdish tribes and the arrival of Muslim refugees and immigrants (mainly Circassians ) following the Russo-Circassian War . In 1876, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II came to power, the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants as part of

18212-525: The middle class. Confiscation of Armenian assets continued into the second half of the twentieth century, and in 2006 the National Security Council ruled that property records from 1915 must be kept closed to protect national security. Outside Istanbul, the traces of Armenian existence in Turkey, including churches and monasteries, libraries, khachkars , and animal and place names , have been systematically erased, beginning during

18369-562: The minority because they are illegal immigrants. Due to those factors, the de jure number of Armenian Christians is much lower than the de facto amount. The Armenian minority is recognized as a separate "millet" in the Turkish system and has its own religious, cultural, social and educational institutions along with a distinct media. The Turkish Armenian community struggles to keep its own institutions, media and schools open due to diminishing demand from emigration and quite considerable economic sacrifices. The Armenian community of Istanbul

18526-572: The mountainous region of Dersim converted to Alevism . During the Armenian genocide , many of the Armenians in the region were saved by their Kurdish neighbors. According to Mihran Prgiç Gültekin, the head of the Union of Dersim Armenians, around 75% of the population of Dersim are "converted Armenians." He reported in 2012 that over 200 families in Tunceli have declared their Armenian descent, but others are afraid to do so. In April 2013, Aram Ateşyan,

18683-485: The newly established Democratic Republic of Armenia . They never returned to their original homes in today's Eastern Turkey (composed of six vilayets , Erzurum , Van , Bitlis , Diyarbakır , Mamuretülaziz , and Sivas ). Their descendants are known as Hidden Armenians and are present throughout Western Armenia , but particularly in Dersim ( Tunceli ). Through the 20th century, an unknown number of Armenians living in

18840-418: The official Turkish version of what many historians consider the first genocide of the 20th century. Their petition, entitled " I apologize ", was posted on a special website https://web.archive.org/web/20150815013428/http://www.ozurdiliyoruz.com/ . On the occasion of a World Cup qualifying match between the two national football teams of Turkey and Armenia in the Armenian capital Yerevan , and following

18997-598: The other 6 villages populations decided to leave. It is located on the slopes of Musa Dagh in the Samandağ district of Hatay Province , the village overlooks the Mediterranean Sea and is within eyesight of the Syrian border. It is home to a community of about 130 Turkish-Armenians, and around 300 people who are from the village who come back to visit during the summer. The Christian Armenian presence in Turkey

19154-474: The perceived success of the Greek deportations allowed CUP leaders to envision even more radical policies "as yet another extension of a policy of social engineering through Turkification ". A few days after the outbreak of World War I, the CUP concluded an alliance with Germany on 2 August 1914. The same month, CUP representatives went to an ARF conference demanding that, in the event of war with Russia ,

19311-817: The process also required the eradication of Armenian names , language , and culture , and for women, immediate marriage to a Muslim. Although Islamization was the most feasible opportunity for survival, it also transgressed Armenian moral and social norms. The CUP allowed Armenian women to marry into Muslim households, as these women would lose their Armenian identity. Young women and girls were often appropriated as house servants or sex slaves . Some boys were abducted to work as forced laborers for Muslim individuals. Some children were forcibly seized, while others were sold or given up by their parents to save their lives. Special state-run orphanages were also set up with strict procedures intending to deprive their charges of an Armenian identity. Most Armenian children who survived

19468-520: The recognized minority, but can also include Crypto Armenians who are not legally recognized as Armenian but identify as both Armenian and Christian, and Armenian immigrants to Turkey. Crypto Armenians are Armenians who are legally identified as Turks and are either Christian and openly recognize their identity, hide their identity and either practice Crypto-Christianity or Islam, Openly identify as Armenian but are Muslim, or don't know about their ethnicity at all. The combined total of all Armenians in Turkey

19625-401: The regime insisted on their destruction wherever their numbers exceeded the five to ten percent threshold, or there was a risk of them being able to preserve their nationality and culture. Talaat Pasha personally authorized conversion of Armenians and carefully tracked the loyalty of converted Armenians until the end of the war. Although the first and most important step was conversion to Islam,

19782-471: The religious head of the Armenian community in Turkey. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople has exerted a very significant political role earlier and today still exercises a spiritual authority, which earns it considerable respect among Oriental Orthodox churches . The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople recognizes the primacy of the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians , in

19939-608: The roads and their bodies were buried hastily or, more often, simply left beside the roads. The Ottoman government ordered the corpses to be cleared as soon as possible to prevent both photographic documentation and disease epidemics, but these orders were not uniformly followed. Women and children, who made up the great majority of deportees, were usually not executed immediately, but subjected to hard marches through mountainous terrain without food and water. Those who could not keep up were left to die or shot. During 1915, some were forced to walk as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) in

20096-546: The short lived French Mandate , which had control of southeastern Turkey and all of Cilicia according to the Sykes–Picot Agreement , were able to return to their homes to gather things or search for loved ones. After the fall of French Cilicia, Some of those returnees attempted to stay permanently after the Turks gained the territory back, but were all driven away by the early 1930s due to various reasons. Those who left

20253-671: The smallest Patriarchates of the Oriental Orthodox Churches but one that has exerted a very significant political role and today still exercises a spiritual authority. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople recognizes the primacy of the Catholicos of All Armenians , in the spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Armenian Church, the Etchmiadzin , Armenia , in matters that pertain to

20410-661: The spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Armenian Church, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin , Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia , in matters that pertain to the worldwide Armenian Church . In local matters, the Patriarchal See is autonomous . Sahak II Mashalian is the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople under the authority of the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians . The Armenian Catholic Archdiocese of Constantinople

20567-517: The status of Ottoman subjects regardless of religion. The reforms to equalize the status of non-Muslims were strongly opposed by Islamic clergy and Muslims in general, and remained mostly theoretical. Because of the abolition of the Kurdish emirates in the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman government began to directly tax Armenian peasants who had previously paid taxes only to Kurdish landlords. The latter continued to exact levies illegally. From

20724-527: The steadily decreasing number of students every school year and lack of funding. The number of Armenian schools decreases year by year. This number has fallen from 47 to 17 today with currently 3,000 Armenian students, down from 6,000 Armenian students in 1981. Schools are kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12), kindergarten through 8th grade (K-8) or 9th grade through 12th (9–12). Ermeni İlköğretim Okulu means "Armenian primary+secondary school". Ermeni Lisesi means "Armenian high school". The Armenian schools apply

20881-436: The summer heat. Some deportees from western Anatolia were allowed to travel by rail . There was a distinction between the convoys from eastern Anatolia, which were eliminated almost in their entirety, and those from farther west, which made up most of those surviving to reach Syria. For example, around 99 percent of Armenians deported from Erzerum did not reach their destination. The Islamization of Armenians, carried out as

21038-516: The surrounding areas consolidated by moving to Amida, forming a community consisting of 30 families in the 1980s in Sur, the historic district of Diyarbakir. It could also be assumed that many Crypto Armenians have been living here as well, because when the Apostolic church was restored in 2011 after years of abandonment, several thousand people came to celebrate mass there, including diasporans. In 2017,

21195-454: The survivors sent to Deir ez-Zor. In general, Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert; many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially dysentery , typhus , and pneumonia . Some local officials gave Armenians food; others took bribes to provide food and water. Aid organizations were officially barred from providing food to

21352-506: The threat of either death, displacement, loss of property or a combination of those during the Armenian genocide . Ways in which they were converted included orphans being taken in by Muslim families, Armenian women being taken as wives by soldiers, and entire families converting by joining communities that accepted them. Many Cryptos are totally unaware of their Armenian ethnicity, living as Turks or Kurds, while many know they are Armenian but hide it out of fear of discrimination. Considering

21509-427: The two modern dialects of the modern Armenian , an Indo-European language . The Western Armenian dialect was developed in the early part of the 19th century, based on the Armenian dialect of the Armenians in Istanbul , to replace many of the Armenian dialects spoken throughout Turkey. It was widely adopted in literary Armenian writing and in Armenian media published in the Ottoman Empire, as well as large parts of

21666-815: The war and continuing for decades afterward. The first arrivals in mid-1915 were accommodated in Aleppo . From mid-November, the convoys were denied access to the city and redirected along the Baghdad Railway or the Euphrates towards Mosul . The first transit camp was established at Sibil, east of Aleppo; one convoy would arrive each day while another would depart for Meskene or Deir ez-Zor . Dozens of concentration camps were set up in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia . By October 1915, some 870,000 deportees had reached Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Most were repeatedly transferred between camps, being held in each camp for

21823-550: The war of independence was "intended to complete the genocide by finally eradicating Armenian, Greek, and Syriac survivors". In 1920 Kâzım Karabekir , a Turkish general, invaded Armenia with orders "to eliminate Armenia physically and politically". Nearly 100,000 Armenians were massacred in Transcaucasia by the Turkish army and another 100,000 fled from Cilicia during the French withdrawal . According to Kévorkian, only

21980-422: The way for the formation of an ethno-national Turkish state. In September 1918, Talaat emphasized that regardless of losing the war, he had succeeded at "transforming Turkey to a nation-state in Anatolia". Deportation amounted to a death sentence; the authorities planned for and intended the death of the deportees. Deportation was only carried out behind the front lines, where no active rebellion existed, and

22137-428: The wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable. Armenians in the eastern provinces lived in semi- feudal conditions and commonly encountered forced labor , illegal taxation , and unpunished crimes against them including robberies, murders, and sexual assaults. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government issued a series of reforms to centralize power and equalize

22294-567: The worldwide Armenian Apostolic Church . In local matters, the Patriarchal See is autonomous . The seat of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople is the Surp Asdvadzadzin Patriarchal Church (Holy Mother of God Patriarchal Church) in the Kumkapı neighborhood of Istanbul. The first Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople was Hovakim I , who was at the time the Metropolitan of Bursa . In 1461, he

22451-416: Was "organized and carried out by the top leaders of CUP". Eighteen perpetrators (including Talaat, Enver, and Djemal) were sentenced to death, of whom only three were ultimately executed as the remainder had fled and were tried in absentia . The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres , which awarded Armenia a large area in eastern Anatolia , eliminated the Ottoman government's purpose for holding the trials. Prosecution

22608-416: Was a military ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. German diplomats approved limited removals of Armenians in early 1915, and took no action against the genocide, which has been a source of controversy. Relief efforts were organized in dozens of countries to raise money for Armenian survivors. By 1925, people in 49 countries were organizing "Golden Rule Sundays" during which they consumed

22765-533: Was acquitted by a German jury. The CUP regrouped as the Turkish nationalist movement to fight the Turkish War of Independence , relying on the support of perpetrators of the genocide and those who had profited from it. This movement saw the return of Armenian survivors as a mortal threat to its nationalist ambitions and the interests of its supporters. The return of survivors was therefore impossible in most of Anatolia and thousands of Armenians who tried were murdered. Historian Raymond Kévorkian states that

22922-628: Was brought to Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II and established as the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. Hovakim I was recognized as the religious and secular leader of all Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and carried the title of milletbaşı or ethnarch as well as patriarch . There have been 85 individual Patriarchs since the establishment of the Patriarchate: During the Ottoman Period (1461-1908),

23079-585: Was founded by an Armenian in the 17th century. Starting in the late 19th century, political instability, dire economic conditions, and continuing ethnic tensions prompted the emigration of as many as 100,000 Armenians to Europe , the Americas and the Middle East . This massive exodus from the Ottoman Empire is what started the modern Armenian diaspora worldwide. There was conflict between Armenians, Turks and Kurds between 1892 and 1915. The Armenian genocide followed in 1915–1916 until 1918, during which

23236-555: Was hampered by a widespread belief among Turkish Muslims that the actions against the Armenians were not punishable crimes. Increasingly, the genocide was considered necessary and justified to establish a Turkish nation-state. On 15 March 1921, Talaat was assassinated in Berlin as part of a covert operation of the ARF to kill the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The trial of his admitted killer, Soghomon Tehlirian , focused on Talaat's responsibility for genocide. Tehlirian

23393-407: Was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children. Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and 1909 . The Ottoman Empire suffered

23550-424: Was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence. On 24 April 1915, the Ottoman authorities arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from Constantinople . At the orders of Talaat Pasha , an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts,

23707-541: Was often critical of both Turkey's denial of the Armenian genocide, and of the Armenian diaspora 's campaign for its international recognition. Dink was prosecuted three times for denigrating Turkishness , while receiving numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists. At his funeral, one hundred thousand mourners marched in protest of the assassination, chanting "We are all Armenians" and "We are all Hrant Dink". Criticism of Article 301 became increasingly vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for repeal of

23864-519: Was often the only alternative. Deportees were displayed naked in Damascus and sold as sex slaves in some areas, constituting an important source of income for accompanying gendarmes. Some were sold in Arabian slave markets to Muslim Hajj pilgrims and ended up as far away as Tunisia or Algeria . A secondary motivation for genocide was the destruction of the Armenian bourgeoisie to make room for

24021-403: Was often used to fund the deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims, as well as for army, militia, and other government spending. Ultimately this formed much of the basis of the industry and economy of the post-1923 republic, endowing it with capital . The dispossession and exile of Armenian competitors enabled many lower-class Turks (i.e. peasantry, soldiers, and laborers) to rise to

24178-545: Was only possible in the absence of widespread resistance. Armenians who lived in the war zone were instead killed in massacres. Although ostensibly undertaken for security reasons, the deportation and murder of Armenians did not grant the empire any military advantage and actually undermined the Ottoman war effort. The empire faced a dilemma between its goal of eliminating Armenians and its practical need for their labor; those Armenians retained for their skills, in particular for manufacturing in war industries, were indispensable to

24335-530: Was part of Syria, and is why that area still has some established and officially recognized Armenian communities. Due to the Armenian Genocide and other events in Turkey during the last century, Turkish Armenians were killed, forced into hiding, and forcibly converted to Islam, which therefore split them into different groups. There are three groups- Armenian Christians, Crypto Armenians, and Muslim Armenians. Christian Armenians are in most cases part of

24492-457: Was the highly publicized public trial of the Armenian gunman and one of the perpetrators of the attack, the 25-year-old Levon Ekmekjian , who was found guilty and eventually hanged at Ankara 's civilian prison on January 30, 1983. He had been sentenced to death in September 1982 after having confessed that he had carried out the airport attack with another gunman on behalf of ASALA, and despite

24649-408: Was used to communicate orders; those for the deportation of Armenians were communicated to the provincial governors through official channels, but orders of a criminal character, such as those calling for annihilation, were sent through party channels and destroyed upon receipt. Deportation convoys were mostly escorted by gendarmes or local militia. The killings near the front lines were carried out by

#664335