remembering the armenian genocide

8/9/2019 Remembering the Armenian Genocide

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Remembering the Armenian

Genocide

In 1918, U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthauwrote, I am

confident that the whole history of the human racecontains no such horrible episode as this. The greatmassacres and persecutions of the past seem almostinsignificant when compared with the sufferings of theArmenian race in 1915."

What happened to the Armenians at the hands of theOttoman Empire, and who are the Armenians? TheArmenians are an ancient people who have existed since

before the first century C.E. Armenia has gained and losta tremendous amount of territory throughout its long andturbulent history. Boundaries of the past have extendedfrom that of the present-dayRepublic of Armenia andthrough most of modern day Turkey. The nameArmenia was actually given to the country by its


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neighbors; inhabitants of Armenia refer to it asHayastan derived from the name Haik, a descendent ofNoah (from the Bible), and stan which means land inPersian. The Armenian language is unique from other

Indo-European languages, with its own distinct letters andgrammar.

Christianity is a deeply rooted aspect of Armenian historyand culture. Armenia was the first nation to adoptChristianity as a state religion, in 301 C.E. This earlyChristian identity has greatly influenced Armenianculture, setting it apart from most of its neighboringpeoples. The majority of Armenians belong to theArmenian Apostolic Church, an orthodox form ofChristianity.

Although Armenia was at times a kingdom, in moderntimes Armenia has been an independent country for onlya few years. It first gained independence in 1918, afterthe defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, but thisended when Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet

Union as a Soviet state in 1920. With the dissolution ofthe Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia was the first state todeclare its independence, and remains an independentrepublic today. Armenia is a democracy and its bordersonly include a very small portion of the land that washistoric Armenia.

Early Massacres

The Seljuk Turks began to inhabit Anatolia [the

westernmost lands of Asia] as early as the eleventhcentury and by 1453 their descendants, the Ottoman

Turks, had captured Constantinople [now Istanbul], firmlyestablishing the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empirewas a multinational state that incorporated several ethnicgroups including the Armenians. The Armenians were


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second-class citizens of the Ottoman Empire and whilethey were granted some freedoms, including the ability topractice Christianity, they were faced with extra taxesand discriminatory laws extending to their participation in

the justice system, government, and their civil andproperty rights.

By the mid-1800s, as the idea of constitutionalism sweptthrough Europe, some Armenians began to demand morerights. Most Armenians saw themselves as members ofthe Ottoman Empire, and a few organized groups ofintellectuals protested the discriminatory laws, seekingreform from the government, though not an independentsovereign state.

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empireexperienced a period of decline, during which it lostterritories to Russia, Great Britain, and new statescreated by nationalities that had once been part of theOttoman Empire, such as Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, andRomania. Early in the century, Russia had gained some of

the eastern Armenian provinces, including Tiflis, whichbecame a cultural center for Russian Armenians. RussianArmenians became increasing interested in supportingArmenians within the Ottoman Empire in their quest forhuman rights. The newly created Ottoman Armenianpolitical organizations received some support fromRussian Armenians and Russia in their quest to gain equalrights under Ottoman law.

The Treaty of Berlin (1878) included a clause that wouldprovide more rights for Ottoman Armenians, butunfortunately these rights were never granted, as theSultan was empowered by the treaty to serve as theprotector of the Armenians. This was in contrast to theterms of the earlier Treaty of San Stefano, which the


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Treaty of Berlin replaced, and which had assigned theRussians the responsibility of ensuring that theArmenians in Ottoman territory would gain more rights.

The reason for the change was that the presence of

Russian troops in the region was of concern to GreatBritain and the other Great Powers of Europe whowanted to deter the expansion of Russia.

After the Treaty of Berlin, Ottoman Armenians continuedto protest discriminatory laws and eventually the Sultanresponded to these protests with massacres. Massacresof the Armenians began in the late nineteenth centuryunder Abdul-Hamid II, the last of the Ottoman Sultansactually to rule the Empire. The worst massacres of theArmenians during this time occurred from 18941896after a tax protest by Armenians. They are now known asthe Hamidian Massacres and some believe represented aforeshadowing of the genocide to come.

During the Hamidian Massacres, 100,000300,000Armenians were killed in towns and villages throughout

areas of the Ottoman Empire. Thousands of Armeniansfled and found refuge in Europe and the United States.Some who stayed converted to Islam in order to savetheir own lives.

The massacres caught the world's attention because oftheir unique nature. Armenians were unarmed andadhered to the perimeters set forth by the Ottomangovernment. The massacres were publicized in

newspapers throughout the world. The U.S. media paidparticular attention to the events. The New York Times aswell as other news sources regularly published articlesabout the brutal killings, coverage that would continuethrough the Armenian genocide.


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Many American missionaries and diplomats who workedthroughout the Ottoman Empire witnessed the atrocitiesfirsthand and helped mobilize relief efforts for theArmenians. Aid for Armenian victims became the first

international mission of the American Red Cross.

Later during the genocide, a society known as the NearEast Relief would raise more than 100 million dollars inassistance to Armenians; the funds collected savedcountless Armenian lives in the 1890s and during thegenocide, which at the time represented more moneythan all the aid raised to help Tsunami victims this year.

The funds collected saved countless Armenian victims'lives, but that was the only aid Armenians would see.

Hope to Despair

In 1908, Armenians and other minorities of the OttomanEmpire began to rejoice in what promised to be a new eraof tolerance and the establishment of a participatorygovernment in the Ottoman Empire.

Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, and Kurds had begunworking with a group of Turks to challenge the authorityof the Sultan. This group was known as the OttomanLiberals and the Turkish coalition of the group adoptedthe name Young Turks. In 1908, one of the Young Turkgroups, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP),marched on Constantinople, and overthrew Sultan Abdul-Hamid.

Over the next year, the Ottoman Empire developed aconstitutional government providing equal rights for all ofits citizens. While there were concerns about this newgovernment, Armenians hoped that the constitutionwould protect them from the violence they endured underthe Sultan. However, as time passed, advocates of


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liberalism in the government lost out to a grouppromoting authoritarian rule and a radical policy of

Turkification.

In April 1909, Armenian hopes were dashed as Hamidiansupporters in the city of Adana carried out a massacre ofArmenians. Adana was heavily populated by Armeniansand had at one time been part of Armenian territory.Despite attempts at resistance, in the end almost 30,000Armenians were killed and nearly half the city destroyed.

The Armenian Genocide

The culprits of the Adana Massacre were never punished

and after 1909, an extreme nationalist politicalmovement promoting a policy of Pan-Turkism (Turkeyfor the Turks) gained backing from Turkish populationsthroughout the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the OttomanEmpire, now known as the sick man of Europe, wasweakened by the loss of its lands in south-eastern Europein the Balkan Wars of 19121913.

One of the Ottoman Empire's greatest enemies wasRussia, as Russia was constantly threatening the securityof the Ottoman borders and controlled parts of theeastern edge of the Ottoman Empire that were populatedby Armenians. Since the Russians had advocated forArmenian reforms in the past and because the RussianArmy did have Armenians serving as soldiers, theOttoman government was concerned about the chance ofOttoman Armenians committing traitorous acts. This fear

helped to fuel Turkish public sentiment against theArmenians.

The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in 1914,fighting against Russia in campaigns that straddledterritory inhabited by Armenians on both sides of the


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border. The Ottoman Empire was badly defeated byRussia in a campaign in the winter of 19141915, and thegovernment then made the Armenian community ascapegoat for the military losses that had occurred at the

hands of the Russians.

By the spring of 1915, leaders of the ruling party, theCUP, seized the opportunity of a world preoccupied bywar to erase the Armenian presence from almost allOttoman lands. The CUP was a triumvirate led by Mehmet

Talaat, Ismail Enver, and Ahmed Jemal.

Beginning on April 24, 1915 (now commemorated as the

beginning of the Armenian genocide), Armenian civilleaders, intellectuals, doctors, businessmen, and artistswere rounded up and killed. Once these leaders of theArmenian communities were killed, the genocide planwas put into motion throughout the empire. WhileArmenian men, for the most part, were quickly executed,Armenian women experienced even greater brutalities.

Using new technologies, such as the telegraph and the

railroads, CUP leaders sent orders to province leaders togather women and children and either load them ontotrains headed for the Syrian Desert or lead them onforced marches into the desert. Embarking with little foodand few supplies, women and children had little hope ofsurvival.

On these journeys, Turkish gendarmes regularlysubjected Armenian women to sexual violence. Special

militias were created by the government to carry out thedeportations and murders, and Turkish and Kurdishconvicts who had been set free from jails brutalized andplundered the deportation caravans winding through thesevere terrain. Some women and children were abductedand sold, or raised as Turks by Turkish families. Some


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Armenians were rescued by Bedouins and Arabs whosympathized with the Armenian situation. Sympathetic

Turkish families also risked their own lives to help theirArmenian neighbors escape.

Within months, the Euphrates and Tigris rivers becameclotted with the bodies of Armenian women and children,polluting the water supply for those who had not yetperished. Dysentery and other diseases were rampantand those who managed to survive the march foundthemselves in concentration camps.

By 1918, most of the Armenians who had resided in this

historic land were dead or in the Diaspora. Under theorders of Turkey's new leader, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk),the remaining Armenians in western Cilicia (the region ofthe Ottoman Empire originally inhabited by Armenians)were expelled, as were the Greek and Assyrianpopulations.

By 1923, a 3,000-year-old civilization had virtually ceasedto exist. One and a half million Armenians, more than half

of the Armenian population on its historic homeland, weredead, and the Armenian community and personalproperties were lost, appropriated by the government,stolen by others or deliberately destroyed. Only a smallnumber of Armenians remained in the former Ottomancapital of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

The Denial

The term genocide was not created until 1944. It wasdevised by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, who hadbeen strongly influenced by his study of the Armeniancase and the persecution of the Jews under Nazi rule. In1946, the United Nations adopted the language and two


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years later the Convention on the Prevention andPunishment of the Crime of Genocide was passed.

Despite the affirmation of the Armenian genocide by the

overwhelming majority of historians, academicinstitutions on Holocaust and Genocide Studies,governments around the world, and the United Nations,the Turkish government still actively denies the Armeniangenocide. Among a series of actions enacted to counterArmenian genocide recognition and education, thegovernment even passed a 2004 law known as Article305, which makes it a criminal offense, punishable by upto 10 years in prison, to discuss the Armenian genocide.

Most of the survivors of the Armenian genocide have nowpassed away. Their families still continue to demandrecognition for the suffering inflicted upon their belovedancestors over ninety years ago.

Sara Cohan is the Education Director ofThe GenocideEducation Project, a nonprofit organization that assistseducators in teaching about human rights and genocide,

particularly the Armenian genocide.
http://www.genocideeducation.org/http://www.genocideeducation.org/http://www.genocideeducation.org/http://www.genocideeducation.org/

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