aurguplu

arpa, i give you the honour of being the master chekishtirer (that last bit is english). 1. the "o" in the first syllable comes there from the fact that the root is "yoğur-". now o/u and ö/ü can be interchangeable in the first syllables of some bisyllabic turkish words: gözel/güzel, yörümek/yürümek, yoğurmak/yuğurmak. the first examples of the first two are anatolian, whereas the first of the third pair is istanbul türkçesi. dairy products throughout most of the known world must have developed independently pretty much the same way. after all the raw material is the same (cattle/sheep/goat milk) and many of the things done to churn it must have originally been associated with the way they were stored. for instance, many peoples store milk and butter in bags made from cow gut linings, and there is some enzyme/yeast that turns the milk into cheese or yoghurt, which are forms of curdled milk, anyway. so the europeans and other guys (and you) might perfectly have invented the process on their own, but ours is from central asia. this is a bit like discussing who first invented shish kebab. 2. i was joking with my pastermein, pastermesis you don't seem to have got it. anyway, basturma was originally raw meat covered with some hot spice to preserve it and put under the saddle (hence the name). it had the great advantage of holding out for very, very long (the spices) and being eminently portable. the method of transport was also the method of preparing it. of course we got a bit finer in anatolia when we alighted from our horse and settled down, and now it is made in barrels (and kayseri is most famous for it). 3. "yogh" is armenian for oil? my god, what about our "yağ" (it does come from central asia, this one: i'll check it tonight). i suggest you check the etymology (may be it was originally with l, like aghtamar originally being altamar (my keyboard doesn't have the slashed l or the dotted l but i hope you know what i mean)). cheers,

quote:Originally posted by Arpa:Sinan. aka Sinan the Great, Khoja Mimar, Kosa Mimar Sinan was born May 9, 1490 in Aghrnas, region of Kesaria. Died June 8, 1588 Polis. His exploits and genius is a matter of record. He was the chielf archtect of Sultanate from 1539 on. In his "Autobiography" ( the book of that title) he reveals the fact that he was born in an ARMENIAN family. As a young boy he was abducted and sent to Istanbul as an "ajemi oghlan". Following his elementary education he was inducted into the military academy (1503) He served in th ranks of the "yenicher" with distinction and earned the rank of captain. His specialty was structural engineering, specifically bridge construction. In 1573, by the edict of Sultan Selim II Armenians of Kesaria were ordered exiled to Cyprus. Due Sinan's intervention and his good offices at the sultanate his family was spared the fate by the order of the Sultan to "spare the family of the chief royal architect". This is archived in a series of June 5, 1930 to May of 1931 in the journal "Turk Tarihi Enjumieh Mejmusas" of those dates. Perhaps Ali can look them up if they are still intact and unmolested. The fact that Ali's sources describe Sinan as anything but Armenian is not new. Read any (Turkish) archeological (trash)treatise, you will see Assyrians, mentioned, Hitties and even Urartuans may be acknowledged, Byzantians and Romans are paid tribute but Armenian or Ermeni will not even be mentioned. Even Armenian script will be explained and dismissed as an "old exotic and exctinct language that has not yet been deciphered". What a bunch of COWARDS!! Of course!! All the above memntioned cuLtures have bitten the dust, the only surviving one, the only ones whose ghosts are still alive, the only one that may still assert its claim on the land is ... ERMENI. Ali, can your compatriots pronounce the word? Let's hear it. E R M E N I arpa: ERMENİ (if you don't put the dot it becomes ermenı, which i guess you are not). happy now? i'll check the source you refer to, my source was aptullah kuran, not known to be an establishment guy to the best of my knowledge. also, i would like to know what the source is re to his birthdate because as far as i know they do not know even the year in which he was born for certain. i know about sinan's autobiography, but don't have a facsimile/edited copy of it and certainly didn't know about the 1930s türk arihi encümeni publication. i'll check them. anyway, as i said, popular culture still refers to him as "ermeni" so if it is correct, you have nothing to worry, the establishment has not been able to erase the memories of his origins. relax & take care,

re orenag mj's and arpa's statements re the origin of the word are in line with the paper i had written ages ago (that the word is armenian). my source had derived the armenian word from middle persian and as i stated above i know neither armenian nor old persian to check. the thorny problem is the existence of the word in central asia, and unless it can be proven to have migrated from anatolia during the middle ages (which is not impossible, as the stories of nasreddin hoca migrated to sinkiang (chinese turkestan) under the name of "epenti" (from turkish "efendi" which is from greek "authentes" (pronounced "aftendis" in byzantine greek). i shall have a good look at it if/when i get back to linguistics. does anyone know whether the armenian root has anything with old persian? anyway, thanks for the info.

quote:Originally posted by Arpa: quote:Originally posted by MJ:Yes, indeed. I guess I was having a blackout. Of coarse it is used as an equivalent of "for example." Now, you make me even more doubtful in Ali's theory. Why are you surprised?You know that Ali comes from a culture that has raised the art of rewriting history to new heights. If you let him he may convince you that Yerevan is a Turkish word based on "yer", earth/place. BTW, he has never referred to my comments that Agri Dag is from the Armenian Aghori(Agori) Ler. I'm sure he knows about the village of Agori at the foot of Ararat. It was ruined in 1915 but the khachkars and ruins of the church of Sourb Hakob are still evident. arpa, i hadn't referred to your comments re agori ler because i have missed it apparently. i have no sound knowledge where the name comes from, and an armenian origin is of course entirely possible and expectable. or did you expect me to say something like it meant "pain mountain" in turkish because some guy got pain in his legs while trying to climb it? by the way, i had heard from a kurd that it was a kurdish word meaning "fire mountain" (fire is "agir" in kurmandji). anyway, i have no theories concerning the origin of the name "agri". it may very well be armenian.

dear hagarag, i understand your frustration and indignation with the levantines and the whole region. it is indeed very hypocritical and drives me up the wall as well. but the more you attack them, the more stubborn they will get in their resistance to new ideas. someone like tigrannes should find his answers on his own, not by outside pressure. i will tell you a very moving experience i had during the 1999 earthquake where i was working as a volunteer: i made for the region (izmit-gölcük on the marmara) with a group of turkish yuppies from istanbul in an air-conditoned jeep, and was then transferred to a military base to be sent by military helicopter over to gölcük. there were a few guys waiting there to be dispatched as craft became available. one of them was a very religious looking young guy with a skullcap and a huge beard. during our brief conversation he said something that affected me: "i saw one thing during this disaster. brother, this nation loves one another." this was a particularly important remark for me, for the religious guys (and religion in power in general) receives more or less the same press in turkey as turks receive in armenian circles, and we (the secularists) receive the same press in religious literature as turks do in armenian literature. in turkish we have a saying if you call a man a madman for forty days, he'll go mad". likewise, if you call the other side "hypocrite, bigot, enemy" etc. they will eventually become that, because it is human nature. also we should not forget that as there are many men who would like to marry virgins, there are also many women who would like to stay virgin until married. after all, the point of life is the pursuit of happiness, isn't it? let them find one another and be happy. cheers,

As to Armenian churches being converdted to mosques, it will take at least four bulldozers to accomplish the job. Armenian churches have the cruciform shap and the altar invariably points to the east. A legacy of our "arevapoasht"(sun worsipping) past? Whereas a mosque must face to the south, Mecca. Sevgili Ali, you must suffer of that terminal Turkish ilment of amnesia. You forget that (Ermeni) Mimar Sinan was commissioned to refurbish Byzantine churches to conform to Islamic specifications and that the Armenian architect Trdat spread the Armenian architectural tecnic as far as Rome. Did we learn from the Parthians or tha Sassanians is immaterial as long as it was an Armenian that took it to Europe. That reminds me of "Turkish coffee". It was an Armenian that introduced it to Vienna, but the idiot, as we have come to be, introduced it as a "Turkish staple", as at that time the prevailing atmosphere was; Armenia/Armenian... who/what? You mean Turk-ish?? Has anything changed???!!! Not if we still maintain that yogurt is Turkish word and that basturma is a Turkish delicacy. When did they learn how to cook on pit fired with camel/horse dung?[/QB] arpa jan (intended to be the armenian version of "sevgili ali), 1. it is not "aurgup". it is ürgüp. it was procopios before we showed up, and probably something else, because the place was inhabited by hittite times and according to byzantine historians, local languages (most probably offshoots of hittite) survived in central and eastern anatolia (urgup is in cappadocia, of fairy chimney and rock-cut churches fame, near kayseri). cappadocia had a large greek othodox population before the population exchanges in the 1920s (karamanlı) who had never spoken greek and spoke a bizarre form of turkish. also in the same region or close to it there was efkere, an armenian town up to 1915. 2. your comments on the shapes of armenian churches and the necessity of four bulldozers confirm my point. 3. mimar sinan: this is a still debated topic, the extant documents (one dictated by sinan himself) showing him as a greek convert (devşirme). there is a popular tradition in turkey that refers to him as armenian, but the above mentioned document refutes this. mind you, there would have been no trouble on the part of the turkish authorities to admit if he were an armenian. after all, the same opinion accepts him as greek, which is hardly any better from the turkish nationalistic point of view. besides, sarkis balyan (the one who built the dolmabahçe palace and numerous other structures, including mosques and imperial tombs) was an armenian, and a book written by the late pars tuğlacı on the balyan family is in every good bookshop (and beyond my budget, damnit). 4. i know about trdat and it is now being mentioned even in turkish sources (maybe these are translations). 5. turkish coffe reached vienna after our (first? second?) siege of the place. we had left all heavy baggage on our way back, and the viennese took them into the city and discovered these mysterious brown beans. i don't know the rest of the story very well, it may have indeed been an armenian who showed them how to prepare it, but then again, why isn't coffee in vienna prepared our style (i had drunk a cup there ages ago)? what makes turkish coffe turkish is the way to prepare it, otherwise as everyone knows, the beans originally came from abyssinia (ethiopia) then passed on to the arabs. and if it were armenian or greek coffee, then why are the arabs calling our way of preparing it "qahwa turki" (yes, i was there, too: in egypt and the lebanon)? 6. yoğurt is a turkish word as far as i know, which comes from yoğurmak "to knead" (in modern turkish) and "to move, knead, shake, make walk" in old turkish. since it is prepared by a process where you curdle milk by keeping te container in rhythmic motion, the etymology is perfectly sound as far as i can see. mind you, anyone who reared cattle or sheep and milked them produced stuff very similar to yoğurt, so we cannot really claim that we invented it. but of course, being nomadic cattle and sheep breeders, we had every reason to invent our variety of it. 7. basturma: turkish for "pressed, jerked" (from basturmak). in fact, your transliteration of it (basturma) is closer to the original than the current turkish form "pastırma". i would appreciate if you could furnish me with an armenian etymology for it (an armenian verb "basturmel"?), and if we had a greek, we could hear his version, too and have some fun (ancient greek verb "pastermein/bastyrmein (y stands for ypsilon)" (to press, to jerk) conjugation: pastermo (long o), pastermis, pastermi, pastermeim, pastermite, pastermon (my plurals may be shaky). but of course, if my greek is still there, the noun from such a verb would be "pastermesis/bastyrmesis" like "genesis, stasis" etc. of couse we half-witted barbarians were too underdeveloped to pronounce the whole word and left the "-esis" out, so we had "basturma". right? i can't wait for your etymologies. take care,

quote:Originally posted by hagarag:Ali, You see, Tigrannes III is a HYPOCRITE. Such is the case of so many of those in the Us and elsewhere who claim that the are CHRISTIANS. The majority of these so-called Christian leaders became ministers primarily for the tax write-offs. The are unlike the image we have of Jesus as the day is to the night. Tigrannes states that he will kill any odar who goes near his sister and claims to be a Christian. He is clearly full of S---T. hagarag, i wouldn't necessarily call tigrannes a hypocrite. after all, change hye to turk and his outlook is the one of the typical turk (or arab/kurd/persian, even greek to some extent). we have that mentality around the mediterranean basin and we shouldn't forget that in antiquity, or not-so antiquity, much of the rest of the world had a similar mentality, too. i am sure it was there when christianity was born, and traces of double standards of this kind have even made it to the civil codes of the most civilised nations, not necessarily middle eastern. for instance, according to the english civil code, a marriage would be automatically annulled if the wife were found to be pregnant by another man at the time of the wedding. if the converse were true (man having a bun cooking on another oven) the woman would have no such redress. i gather there is plenty of evidence for our species to have been polygamous originally, and the move to monogamy is a fairly recent one in terms of human history. we have probably been polygamous and patriarchal for about 99,000 years of our 100,000 or so years of existence on this planet, and our outlook, behaviour, traditions, even our biology is shaped accordingly (the human species is as far as i know the only mammal species that does not have a "mating season"). now we are moving to a monogamous existence and equality of sexes, and during that transition time contradictions and controversies will inevitably surface. also, judaism, christianity and islam are all religions from the semitic part of the world, who are known to have had a very strict approach to female chastity very early on (female chastity was and is considered to be the most important badge of a man's honour). our religions clearly state female chastity as a necessary part of good religious practice, and today the "alternative" views come from cultures where christianity/islam/judaism are being diluted by other influences. i myself do believe that the current thinking will eventually prevail or at least not be suppressed/scorned etc., but i wouldn't necessarily call a christian/muslim/jew a hypocrite for having trouble to square the two conflicting viewpoints. we have exactly the same problem in turkey and many people (especially men) have exactly the same opinion and reaction as tigrannes. so while i disagree with tigrannes on his views on this particular subject, i see him as someone perhaps having trouble as he adheres to a world view that was formed two millennia earlier but lives today, rather than a hypocrite. cheers,

nope Domino refer to the above two posts (by boghos and me). frankly, the one boghos pointed out is the only one i know of. there are tons of greek churches converted to mosques, but i had never seen/heard of an armenian one. i am not joking, and not saying there wasn't any, but they were apparently not that numerous. as stated above, i would appreciate more info on that if you have any.

dear boghos, thanks for the info. i didn't know about that one. i take my point 1) back. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by bellthecat: quote:Originally posted by aurguplu:by the way, when was the earliest dated armenian structure of the conical dome shape built? anyone knows? cheers, Probably some time in the 10th century, mid 10th century perhaps. A lot of churches had their roofs remodeled in later centuries - the roof of the dome was made steeper and pointed, originally they were shallower and more rounded. (For an example, compare the model of the church on the facade of the Acht'amar church with the present design of the roof.this is interesting. are these the first known armenian churches with conical domes, or the earliest extant/known examples of armenian architecture? i had read somewhere that a very few pagan structures have survived in ROA, and was always puzzled by the fact that none of the references i had about armenian churches and/or other buildings in turkey much predated the 10th century. is this correct? cheers,

mj, i would be happy if you could provide me with info what "zororinag" means and whether it can be analysed back to an armenian root. the explanation i had provided above may of course be wrong (i know no armenian to check) and both views were propounded during the republic but the issue had got tangled in left-wing - right wing politics concerning the language reform, so we probably do not have reliable info on it over here. the source advocating an armenian origin for "örnek" said that the armenian form "orenag" from which it had derived had in turn derived from the old persian "avdenag". since i am not a specialist of either armenian or old persian, i cannot comment on it. on the other hand "ör-enek" sounds like a perfectly turkish word and just the word you would coin to describe the motifs on textiles, which is what it apparently originally meant. cheers,

quote:Originally posted by gamavor:Bellthecat, Please explain to me which part of my post is derogatory or offensive. To say something like this it should be a lie. Which part is not true. That turks "reshaped" many Armenian churches into mosques, that Ali's original family name steams probably from Turkmenistan, or the fact that turks are barbarians. Which one is not true? i tell you which ones: 1. i don't know of a single turkish mosque converted from an armenian mosque, probably with good reason, because as far as i can see the shape of the armenian churches would not support a muslim-style congregation. there are examples of greek churches turned into mosques, and some very early ottoman mosques scarcelyy distinguishable from byzantine churches, but this is at least partly because some greek shapes partially fit the need for muslim worship. if there are any armenian churches turned into mosques, please tell me which ones. 2. my original family name doesn't stem from turkmenistan. it stems from ürgüp in cappadocia. if this is going to make you happy, ürgüp is a corruption of the greek "procopios", which in turn is very likely to have been a corruption of some hittite or luwian name (i had seen in one - turkish - source that it came from the hittite "ur-kup" meaning soft stone, but since i know no hittite and haven't seen it elsewhere i take it with a huge grain of salt. 3. i won't get into yet another row about whether we are barbarians or not. it's getting boring.

hi i listened to nairi's advice and started to post in threads other than genocide (coming out of everyone's ears now, i guess). re this virginity thing: tigranness iii could just be a turk (sorry, tiggy), a kurd, a persian, or an arab with that attitude. you can hear exactly the same reasoning in all those places re virginity (and exactly the same silence re men's virginity). just a reminder: do you know guys that hymen-sewing (sorry ladies) is a very lucrative branch of medicine in these countries? there are quite a few doctors in all of these countries who got pretty rich on that. guys let's face one thing: we are simple creatures. no man ever fought a woman and won. we think single lane, they think multiple lanes. if a woman has had sex before marriage and has then married a man who can't stand the idea, the man has no hope of finding out about it unless from some third source or unless the woman confesses. also, i see the same paradox is valid for armenian men as for us: women who have sex before marriage are worthless, how about men? and now, if your culture is anything like ours, your young men keep their sisters at home and brag to their fellow young man about their women's chastity and ... how many women they slept with. since most sisters have brothers, and since most brothers keep them at home, there are not all that many women to have sex with around anyway, so life is kind of difficult for the young men. they go after chasing tourist girls, and before there were tourist girls ... you know what they were doing those days, don't you? i have found that of those women i had sex with those that had the most experience were most fun. and the near-virgins (one or two guys before me) were a bit dull, actually. i don't think god punishes us for making ourselves and (at least) another person happy, especially if we are not hurting any third party. there are plenty of other guys to punish if he so wills, and frankly speaking i have rarely if ever seen (in my country at least) a guy who advocates that sort of thing (that non virgins are worthless) and whose other ideas i like. also tigranness, you had said that killing someone was against your religion (and i understand you are very religious) and later on say that anyone who puts a finger on your sister gets killd. how do the two square? thanks, cheers,

arpa i wasn't having "an ulterior motive" or "an axe to grind" when i was referring to the drums of armenian churches. i was using the terminology by godfrey goodwin, a historian on ottoman architecture. o.k. let's call it "the main body" or "the octagon" or the cylinder" if you want. or if there is a special word for it that you know of in english, i am prepared to use it. cheers,

the word "kümbet/gümbet" in turkish is from persian "gunbad". i don't know if this word is armenian. i understand a fair proportion of the armenian vocabulary is of persian origin, so this might just be another persian word common to the middle east. the word "orenag/örnek". this is an intersting one on which i had written an essay when i was a high scholl student. at that time i myself had thought the word was armenian. the armenian orenag is derived from old persian avdenag meaning the same think. but lo and behold, precisely the same word (örnek) appears in central asian turkish as "örenek" and originally meant "weaving pattern" (the motifs on carpets), and is thought to have derived from the turkish root ör- "to weave" with the suffix "-enek" (a common deverbal noun forming suffix). as far as i know the controversy still lingers on. it may very well be that the two words are similar by chance (though i am inclined to discount that possibility) and so far i can't make head or tail of either argument. comments welcome. by the way, when was the earliest dated armenian structure of the conical dome shape built? anyone knows? cheers,

i was expecting some intelligent discussion, all i got is a stream of insults again... anyway, steve made a few good points, and i shall address them, and then the word "kümbet/gümbet". i understand the point about the tent ornamentation/structure being absent from the gümbets and this weakening the case. but if you look at tents carefully (i have seen a few real ones, plus pictures of many others) they do not have much of an external structure apart from a few ropes, but even these are absent from some examples (they are run from the inner covering to the bottom to the pikes). the gümbets resting on an octagonal base and being connected to that base by way of triangles is i guess an islamic element, at least it is found in islamic architecture from very early on. no, pre-islamic turks were not buried in tents, they were usually buried (the practices differed from region to region and religion to religion) in underground chambers, but a tent-like element rendered in stone above the burial chamber has been recorded in a few places. and since a squat cylinder topped by a low conical dome is the characteristic tent shape among turks, and a looser one where the dome appears lobed is another characteristic shape, the comparison is not at all that out of place i think. the main issues here are 1. that broadly the same form (usually decorated with glazed tiles) is found in central asia with many variations, some of which do very clearly look like a tent rendered in stone (especially some from urgench). 2. the similarities and differences in surface decoration (of those rendered in stone) and other architectural elements like colonnades (these are armenian i guess). 3. the use of rubble as an infill in armenian churches and its presence or absence from the seljuk/central asian examples. do you know anything about this? the most important issue, of course, is whether these elements were present in central asian architecture (the earlier periods of which, i.e. before the 6th century a.d., were not turkic) before they appeared amongst the armenians and the turks. this is possible and such cross-cultural influences can be found in quite a few other traditions. for instance, the onion spires of russian churches are ultimately (very ultimately) derived from a reed hut type somewhere in india (that of the taj mahal is also derived from there, but probably through a different route). the cupola common to byzantine architecture and later adopted by islamic architecture with modifications was originally from somewhere in northern syria. in the centuries preceding the turkic conquest of much of present-day central asia (i.e. before 6th century ad) most of the place was under iranian rule. armenia was also under iranian rule/vassalage in the same periods and cultural elements may very well have flown one way or the other, so we don't have to rush to prove or disprove whether it was turkic or armenian. i merely asked that question because it keeps puzzling me, not to prove that it is turkic or to disprove that it is armenian. itelligent comments are welcome. by the way, i am sure the turkish architects never thought of the minaret-missile connection!

dear thoth, thanks. the kütahya guys became famous after the decline of iznik in the late 16t century. and as far as i know, the armenians in jerusalem (those who do the tiles) were originally sent from kütahya by some sultan to do some repair work there. there was some web site featuring their works, but frankly speaking between you and me, that blue and that red could have been richer (as far as i can see from the web site). take care (& thanks for passing my message to mj),

the superficial similarity between the drums of the armenian churches and the seljuk kümbets (mausolea) have long been noted. in the past, it was customary to ascribe the similarity to armenian influence on seljuk turks, and during the early republican period it was customary to deny it (on the part of the turks). with the fall of the soviet union and the emergence of the central asian states, however, much architectural material dating from before the seljuk conquest of anatolia and azerbaijan came to light that looked just like the seljuk stuff in turkey. so minds got confused once more. recently i read in an old book by talbot-rice (famous art historian couple) something to the effect that the architecture of the whole area, which was under parthian and then sassanian rule, and thus politically unified, could have sprung from a common third source, and/or might have something to do with the conical nomad tents commonly seen in the region (these are turkic, though) that admittedly do bear a very strong similarity to the forms in stone. does anyone know anything about this subject? cheers,

one of the most salient aspects of the famous iznik tiles (çini) is the bright red paint that expands to form a convex surface underneath the glaze. it was in use throughout the classical period (first half of the 16th century) and then disapeared (for instance kütahya had a different red). it has recently been rediscovered by the iznik foundation in turkey. although referred to as mercan kırmızısı (coral red) in turkish, it was also referred to as "gilermeni" (armenian clay) if i am not mistaken, and i heard several times that it was armenian. i have only one book on iznik written by a non-turk (julian raby) and several others written by turkish authors, and the armenian connection, if there was one, is not discussed as far as i can see. does anyone know anything about this paint, and also, about any armenian glazed tile production prior to turkish arrival? also, does anyone know anything about wares produced by iznik and kütahya for armenian customers (easter eggs etc) (there was some). cheers,

quote:Originally posted by nairi:Ali, I thought you promised to spend some time on other threads as well. What happened? yepp, you're right. this one just caught my attention and i got inexorably drawn to it. let's see in the arts section. cheers,

mj, brilliant points. no disagreements, just developments. 1. human rights tend to go hand in hand with increased material wealth and fair distribution of it coupled with an increased level of education. here are a few numbers: i) over three quarters of turks have never read a book. ii) over two thirds have never studied beyond primary school (which was until recently 5 yeas in turkey). iii) more than half have no hobbies, no interests, no occupation beyond professional work. in a soccer-crazy country, 48% of the population has never been to a contest. iv) turkey's population has doubled in thirty years from 35 m to 70 m, whereas newspaper circulation stayed the same or even declined, at 3-4 m/day. v) over 82% of the young population would leave the country if the opportunity arose. v) over 80% live at or below subsistence level. vi) average turkish life expectancy is 62 years (male) and 67 years (female) respectively. anyone making comments on turkish statesmen, intellectuals, politicians soldiers, activists etc. should bear in mind that this is the raw material that they are working with. there have been several discussions in this forum where the priorities of some members regarding morality have clashed with my priorities regarding practicality. i hope this will serve as an eye-opener to illustrate the nature of our terrain here. regarding the scenarios: 1. if the current secular nationalist regime collapses, it would be replaced by a religious one almost without a doubt. this is not because the turks are fanatical but because they are predominantly rural. rural people tend to be religious all over the world. such a regime would offer approximately the same prospects as the taliban, the mullahs in iran, or the saudis. 2. if the imminent war in iraq results in the country's dismemberment and the emergence of a kurdish state (which seems most likely) turkey can either 1) get into yet another war and you can say goodbye to peace and stability in the region, 2) attempt to reform itself quickly to msake itself attractive to its kurds to prevent them from wanting to go over (low chance), 3) disintegrate (high probability). if turkey disintegrates 1) your much-cherished historic armenia will largely stay in kurdish hands, and 2) you will very probably share no border with us but one with kurds. since any emerging kurdistan will be unlikely to have any hopes of joining anything like the eu and the western interest there will soon after vanish, that country would slip into decay and turn into yet another middle eastern failure (do not forget that the kurds, unlike you, do not boast a well-qualified, capable population that can stand on its own feet, like the jews or you. these guys are basically nomads.). the main reason why turkey, despite its many shortcomings, is - let's face it - a lot better than iran, iraq, syria, saudi arabia etc. is because turkey has aspirations to get somewhere better and more civilised, whereas these other countries obviously don't. i am afraid that a kurdistan would be far more likely to join them in the club than a smaller, healthier turkey that would emerge from such a split. if i were an armenian i would probably still prefer turkey to stay in one piece and change internally than it to disintegrate, leaving me together with very, very strange bedfellows.

quote:Originally posted by THOTH:This whole Huchnack thing is far overplayed. Obviously their methods were despicable - but besides some killings and making a good excuse for the CUP racists - any actual impact of their activites was quite minimal. It should be acknoledged certainly (but for what it was). I find it funny though that many Turks who are somewhat more informed on the Genocide seem to want to keep coming back to these activities of (a very few) Armenian gangs as legitimate justification for Turkish anger, fear and reprisal - (but what of the even more numourous Muslim ones who preyed on innocent citizens during this period?). The facts are that these activities were basicaly inconsiquential - but provided a convinient excuzse - then and now. thoth, i agree with the hunchak thing being overplayed by turkey - though to what extent we may disagree with. the thing is those who had such designs on the armenians needed a justification for it and they got it. my questions - which kaan didn't answer - were 1) whether the murder of an entire nation - which it was - was "justifiable" or "necessary" on the grounds of the actions of some savage gangs and the perceived threat they presented, and 2) if it were - as he seems to imply - then why wasn't the same tactic employed against the pkk which admittedly has been a far more serious threat to turkey than the hunchaks had ever been. these questions still await explanation. meanwhile, even though the hunchak thing is overblown it certainly was there. both sides have to own up to what is theirs and armenians shouldn't worry (and turks shouldn't hope) that this would change the genocide into something else. it wouldn't.

this is the gist of the article as far as i can understand: 1. the hinchaks wanted independence from the ottoman empire and since armenian forces were not sufficient for it, they deemed european intervention on behalf of the armenians was necessary. 2. to get european intervention, european interest had to be aroused, and for this they had to do what the balkan christians had done: commit atrocities against the local muslims, and the ottomans would "pay back with interest added", which would cause the outraged christian europeans to intervene on their behalf to throw off the muslim turkish yoke. it had worked in the balkans, why wouldn't it work in armenia? 3. they then set out to implement the plan. kaan's (implied) conclusions: the armenians provoked the turks to attack, and hence are responsible for what happened to them. my conclusions: 1. the hinchaks were a savage bunch who cared as much for armenian lives as for turkish lives. 2. the hinchaks predicted correctly that if they behaved like animals, the ottoman government would behave like an animal, too. 3. the ottoman government of the time failed to observe the distinction between a terrorist group with no legitimacy and hence given responsibility towards anyone and a legitimate state with a given responsibility toward its subjects. my question to kaan: 1. the pkk has been doing for 15 years what the hinchaks did then. it has now been crushed without a million innocent kurds dead (total death toll, turk and kurd, military and civilian: 29,000). could the same not be done then? 2. would pkk actions, in your opinion, have justified the total eradication of the kurdish race from anatolia (this is what happened to the armenians)? if not, why? 3. how does this apply back to the armenian situation? thanks.

Domino, i will look again at the 1878 treaty later on tonight, but i understand that the lines many contributors adhere to here that 1) the majority of armenians did not have land and other claims from turkey prior or on the eve of genocide, and that 2) the fears of turkey that armenians could/would/did side with russia and/or other great powers was unfounded and was just a pretext to "justify" the liquidation of the armenian population in the empire were not accurate. so you did contrive to overthrow the ottoman empire and place yourselves under the russians long before both the hamidian massacres and the ag? loyal nation? comments?

1. Do you recognize that Ottoman Armenians were entitled to Sovereignty? No. My strongest reason for that is that they had ceased to be the numerical majority in most of the lands they had claimed long before they first had such claims, and that change in demographics was not the result of either a genocide or any other large-scale massacre in the near past (please note here that the Armenians were a numerical majority in these places long before the Hamidian massacres in the 1890s). Note that I am not using an argument such as "swordright" or any other right of the Ottoman Empire, for I agree that if you treat one segment of the population as inferior to another and use wanton violence against that population, you use the moral right to rule over them, and that was the case with the Ottoman Empire of Sultan Hamid. 2. Do you recognize that Karabagh Armenians are entitled to Sovereignty? Yes, on the following grounds: 1) they constitute 95% of the population in NKR, 2) they had had some sort of an independent/autonomous status on and off in the last few centuries, 3) their placement under Azeri rule was by the Soviets and neither the Armenians nor the Azeris (I am sure they did it to keep an ongoing dispute ongoing, so as to keep both nations at eachother's throats so that they couldn't unite in any way to throw off the Russian yoke), 4) after what transpired, it takes a person even more naïve than me to expect these guys to live in the same place without tearing eachother apart, especially as long as their national ambitions are not fulfilled. 3. Do you recognize that Karabagh Armenians are entitled to having Karabagh joined with Armenia if they chose so? Yes, upon condition that the "joining" will not be over Azeri teritory outside NKR gained through conquest and not settled by agreements. The best scenario for both of these nations would be NKR to have a land corridor to ROA and Azerbaijan to have one to Nakhichevan and by extension to Turkey. There will be many people/factions on both sides that will oppose such an arrangement on the grounds that it would involve loss of territory, but frankly speaking if I were a non-Turk and non-Armenian this is probably the best solution I would come up with. Of course, if NKR chooses to politically unite with ROA with or without such a land bridge, it is entirely their own decision and frankly speaking pretty much none of Azerbaijan's business once they have become fully independent. 4. Do you recognize that Karabagh Armenians are entitled to appealing to military means to liberate their lands? Yes, and Azerbaijan is entitled to appealing to the very same means to keep itself in one piece. The winner wins, and so far it appears that NKR has won. Good for them. 5. Do you recognize that Karabagh Armenians are entitled to creating security zone so far as Azerbaijan doesn’t recognize their right for sovereign existence? No. This echoes the Israeli line re the West Bank and Gaza, and, more significantly, our line with Northern Cyprus, and no-one buys it in our cases, why should it be bought in yours? Do you recognise that if you expect me to answer "yes" to the above question, you entitle me to push with the same logic in Cyprus with the Greeks and enlist you as an ally (horror of horrors)? 6. Do you recognize that by blockading Armenia Turkey is violating the most basic rules of human cohabitation and declaring itself as the enemy of Armenia? No. South Africa was blockaded by sanctions during apartheid, and Iraq is now as it is a threat to regional security and its own people. No-one but these nations themselves complained about it at the time. Armenia, after all, is a supporting party to a territorial conflict in NKR for which it had received UN condemnation, and as I had stated before numerous times, we still have not received a clear & unequivocal statement from ROA regarding OUR (Turkey's) territorial integrity. Conflicting statements occasionally pop up. You cannot be blamed for taking measures against a state which doesn't fully recognise your territorial integrity (and hence by extension your very existence), especially if they do not involve military means, and our measures don't. 7. Do you recognize that by refusing to face the issues related to Armenia and Armenians Turkey is manifesting itself as a coward state? Yes. What do you think I am trying to do over here, sticking my neck out to do my bit to get the country recognise the AG? 8. Do you recognize that Armenia is entitled to the right of having land and other claims towards Turkey? I would prefer to answer this question in full after you have clarified what the "other" claims are, but as far as the land claims go, theoretically yes, as we are entitled to refute them and use whatever legal means we have at our disposal to make these claims be dropped from the governmental agenda of ROA (I would agree with you that Turkey should not hold any land claims made by anyone other than the ROA against ROA and use it as a pretext to deny the genocide or refrain from establishing diplomatic relations with ROA, but ROA must drop these claims if its wants to have normalised relations with Turkey). In fact, politicians are so emotionally charged up in this issue that they cannot see the domestic political gains to be made out of it if approached intelligently. 9. Do you recognize that if you flip flap on these serious issues, run away from the serious issues while trying to provide resolution to the existing problems, if you don’t give straight answers to straight questions, then it is legitimate for us to consider you a dishonest person or, perhaps, a coward? Yes. But then again you have to 1) show that I am flip-flapping (which as you can see you have failed so far), 2) show that I am running away from serious issues (which one am I running away from? AG? I have stated my position, and it remains firm. Land claims? I have stated it, too, and it remains firm, too. NKR? There it is, just above. The fact that the answer is "no" doesn't mean that I am running away from answering it. When you say "no" to a stance of mine, am I accusing you of running away?), 3) show me one crooked answer I gave to a straight question. Where is it? If you can prove these points, yes, you would be right in considering me a dishonest person or a coward or both (well one is pretty much the same as the other anyway). But go on, prove it. Be my guest. I am not the one who is flip-flapping MJ, it's you. My position is crystal clear: AG recognition yes, land claims no (or rather, "no" to any land claims made and yes to any method to enforce it save military as long as you don't resort to military means to enforce them yourselves), NKR: yes to its sovereignty, no to its acquisition of territory OUTSIDE NKR without bilateral agreement with Azerbaijan re land bridges. And it has never been anything other than that (well, perhaps I wasn't that clear on NKR previously, apologies). I have recognised AG from the outset, and never attempted to justify it as you have claimed a thousand times and I have refuted a thousand times. The genocide was the wholesale killing of an entire people because they were Armenians, without regard as to whether they were guilty of rebellion (or anything) or had land claims or not. This is why it is not justifiable, because there wasn't a crime that the entire Armenian nation, or the bulk of it, had committed in the first place (the question whether an entire nation can commit a crime is of course relevant here). If the Ottomans had singled out those that had actively pursued the separatist agenda and punished them (and not necessarily by killing) and then set out to reform the conditions that gave rise to such claims in the first place, they stood a good chance of solving the problem without drenching themselves in innocent blood. It's your position that's flip-flapping, MJ: first you invite me to discuss land claims. Then, when you get a clear no, you accuse me of being the same as the denialist bunch. Later on, when there is another thread where the land issue pops up one way or the other (and I may have been responsible) you deny that you had land claims in the first place, and brand any person who would do such as an idiot, and at the same breath you accuse me of being a denialist, apologist, hardliner, establishment, and what not. Then I shove your own postings containing land claims under your nose, and all you can say is that you stand by what you wrote (you conspicuously forgot to comment on your own words regarding an"idiot" and accused me of calling you one, no, I just wanted to show the contradiction you fell into). Why didn't you before, then? As you see I have not rushed to answer, and frankly speaking if I had the results would have been different and I would have to eat my words (or "lick what I spat out" as we say in Turkish). I expect you do the same. Do not forget that I do not disrespect you or see the above matter as a sign of your character, but I see you clearly contradicting yourself there. Don't worry. It happens to us all from time to time, myself included. And as we are discussing a very explosive and emotionally charged topic, such things are sometimes inevitable. Take care,