Armenian Genocide Commemorations List and related articles

[Yervant1]

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DUVAR, Turkey

Feb 27 2025

 

Turkish court acquits Diyarbakır Bar officials for Armenian genocide statement

A Turkish court acquitted former Diyarbakır Bar Association President Nahit Eren and ten board members of charges of "insulting the state" over a 2021 statement on the Armenian genocide anniversary. The bar faced a wave of lawsuits for its stance on the Armenian genocide since 2021.

Thursday February 27 2025 03:14 pm

A court in southeastern Turkey's Diyarbakır province on Feb. 27 acquitted the former administration of the Diyarbakır Bar Association for their 2021 statement on the Armenian genocide's anniversary. 

The 11 defendants including former Bar Association President Nahit Eren faced charges of "publicly insulting the state and its institutions."  

Diyarbakır Bar Association President Abdulkadir Güleç, board members, and representatives from the Human Rights Association (İHD), the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), the Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD), and the Rights Initiative also observed the proceedings.

The prosecutor argued that the legal elements of the alleged crime were not present and requested the acquittal of all defendants. Defense attorneys stated they had no objections to the prosecutor’s opinion and asked the court to rule accordingly.

Speaking at the hearing, Bar President Güleç said the association objected to all injustices and unlawful acts regardless of identity. He stated that the board issued its statement titled "We Share the Pain of the Great Catastrophe" on April 24 to reveal the historical truth and emphasized that it did not constitute a crime under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.

Former President Eren reiterated that their statement aimed to encourage Turkey to confront its past. "One of the most critical intersections of reckoning with history is the Armenian reality," he said.

"Our statement contained no derogatory remarks against any ethnic group or institution. As the Diyarbakır Bar Association, we have always highlighted past and present social issues and advocated for democratic solutions. These statements fall within the scope of freedom of _expression_ and align with our historical mission."

Following the defense statements, the court ruled for the acquittal of all defendants, stating that the legal elements of the crime were not met.

https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-court-acquits-diyarbakir-bar-officials-for-armenian-genocide-statement-news-65725

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Asbarez.com

 

“God cried”: Charles’ “destan” on the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

February 27, 2025 Jeanne Theoharis History, Special Reports, Family Histories 0

When our grandfather died in 1986, he left a manilla envelope in his desk for his youngest son, Jim. “My dad’s writings” was printed across the face, and inside were withered pages no one had ever seen, written in an Armenian script none of us could read.  

So, our Uncle Jim asked around to learn more about this document written by his grandfather, Garabed Artinian (who adopted the name Charles when he immigrated to the United States). He tried to re-learn the Armenian he had studied in college and conferred with other students and scholars. When he tracked down his old professors, they told him this was not any standard Armenian they knew—neither Western nor Eastern. His grandfather, they said, had written “Turkish words in Armenian letters.” No one seemed to know why. 

Charles, Assanet, Frank and Marie Artinian

At last, Jim found someone who could translate it. He took notes while they dictated passages—a process that took several sessions. These “writings,” they discovered, detailed the brutal massacres of Armenians in Adana by Turkish citizens, migrant workers and the Turkish military in 1909—an event that prompted our family to leave Anatolia and served as the prelude to the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923).  

But the document’s style was mystifying. This wasn’t a letter or the start of a memoir. There were lots of numbered paragraphs but not much clarity. Jim made a copy of the original manuscript, along with the provisional English and Armenian translations, plus a Turkish transliteration, and sent them to everyone he could think of. He heard nothing back. Eventually, Jim placed the manuscript and all his copies in an envelope and put it in his desk. 

Frank Artinian and his kids Nancy, Gary, Sue and Jim

There they sat for another 30 years, until Uncle Jim gave the envelope to his nephew, Robert.  Robert’s research led him to Bedross Der Matossian, a historian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who was writing a history of the Adana massacres. Robert emailed him a copy of the manuscript.

Professor Der Matossian asked to speak by phone. “Robert,” he said excitedly, “I have read everything from Adana—all the literary remains—and there is nothing like this among them. There are poems, sure, a few short poems. But nothing of this length and detail and erudition.” He marvelled that someone like our great grandfather, with just a seminary education, could compose a work of such sophistication. He asked to do a full translation and write an article about it.

 

Garabed (Charles) Artinian

 

Several things were immediately obvious to Der Matossian. First, the text of the document was written in Armeno-Turkish, the language that literate Armenians predominately used in the public sphere in the late Ottoman Empire. Before 1928, Turkish was written in Arabic, Armenian or other scripts, until President Kemal Ataturk passed a law to render Turkish using the Latin alphabet and bring Turkey closer to the West. 

 

It was likely the earliest literary witness to the Adana massacres from a survivor.

Second was the work’s genre. Our great grandfather, he said, had written a destan—a form of epic poetry that originated in Persia in the 13th century and was common in the Ottoman Empire to chronicle heroic events or lament catastrophes. A public art form, destans were often performed or sung. Five and a half weeks after the Adana massacres, which took his wife and child, Charles chose to compose a destan to chronicle the events and principals, pain and suffering, of Adana’s Armenians.

 

The author’s perspective was also clear. Der Matossian could tell the poem was written by someone living in the city of Adana at the time of the massacres, due to its granular level of detail. Though poetic, the account was strictly chronological—recording the prelude to the violence, its central events and the aftermath of the atrocities, while concluding with the date of writing: “June 4, 1909.” As such, Der Matossian explained, it was likely the earliest literary witness to the Adana massacres from a survivor.  

 

Garabed (Charles) Artinian’s parents Jacher and Mari Ouzoun-Artinian

 

According to modern estimates, over 20,000 people, mostly Armenians, were killed by Turkish and other Muslim people in Adana in southern Turkey in April of 1909. The previous July of 1908, the Young Turks had come to power in the Ottoman Empire on a constitutionalist platform, and hope surged for a new day of self-determination and democracy. Turks, Armenians, Kurds and many others rejoiced. But a strident sense of Turkish nationalism took hold. Fears of an Armenian uprising and a growing desire among Armenians for their own independent nation terrified the Young Turks. Rumors and conspiracy theories of a burgeoning Armenian uprising filled Turkish newspapers. These fears, along with economic jealousies (many Armenians in Adana, including our family, were landowners), erupted in Adana in April 1909.

Its prelude was the disarming of Adana’s Armenians and the forced closure of their stores. Then followed the burning of Armenian neighborhoods, the shooting of Armenian civilians and the looting of Armenian properties. While many of the victims in Adana died by rifle, fire dominated Charles’ recollection. He chose smoke as the first image of the opening line. Fire quickly spreads through the poem, just as it engulfed the Armenian neighborhoods of Adana. “They started the fire…the fire spread…all our people are in flames,” he wrote. For Charles, it was a monolith—“the fire and the massacre.”

A page of the destan

Alongside the fires, Charles set a lens on a singular outrage: the rape of Armenian women and girls, first by local Turks and migrant workers, then at the hands of the Turkish military. Charles had three sisters in Adana, along with a wife and child; we know only that one sister survived. “Girls were abducted… So many of the virgin girls are naked… Whoever listens cannot bear their wailing and cries,” he wrote. In one scene, fire and sexual violence unite, likely reflecting the work of perpetrators who aimed to conceal one act with another. “So many tall and beautiful ones, burned and destroyed you, ah, the fires,” Charles wrote.

Writing with a “betrayed pen,” Charles critiqued the Turkish authorities’ representations of Armenians and events on the ground. He condemned the rumor mongering of the Turkish newspaper Itidal for igniting the second wave of massacres. He castigated the dehumanizing rhetoric of the Turkish military, whose soldiers referred to the Armenians of Adana as “rodents” (a justification for their elimination) and “merchandise” (a pretense for their trafficking and rape).  He rebuked their Orwellian double-speak: “We are the army of freedom, they say; do not be afraid.” He exposed how Turkish degradation of Adana’s Armenians, in deed and word, had shaped international perceptions and trivialized Turkish atrocities. “‘You get used to it,’ they say to desperate people like us. Every little word like a thousand daggers.” 

Against this backdrop of dehumanization and disregard, Charles juxtaposed the experience of the Armenian survivors, starved and marched out of Adana: “Those who knew their original selves cried.” This telling articulation suggests that Charles’ decision to write was an attempt to reclaim the identity of the Armenian people. Scholars who study the narratives of enslaved African Americans from the 18th and 19th centuries have described a similar motivation—the act of writing yourself into being in a society that denies your humanity. Such writing is a tool of embodiment, carrying the weight of the truths that those in power have sought to efface.  

Garabed’s (Charles) original ship manifest documents from Argentina

In an epilogue to the poem, Charles records a circuitous boat trip around the Mediterranean, which begins on the date of the poem’s completion—from Iskenderun to Latakia, Tarablus, Beirut, Haifa, Jaffa, back to Beirut and then, perhaps, to Alexandria—attempting to escape what they had experienced in Adana. 

At some point, Charles met our great grandmother, Asanet Essayian, and from Cyprus or Alexandria (there are contradictory family stories and public records), they escaped Turkey for Argentina, where our grandfather was born in 1914. They lived there until 1917, when they immigrated to the United States with the help of Charles’ older sister, Nora—an American citizen already and the only other known survivor in his family. Throughout this long journey, the poem traveled with Charles. How it survived, we do not know. Charles died of a heart attack at 46 in 1925, but his poem would continue its journey without him.

Boat manifest of trip from Argentina to U.S. for Garabed (Charles) Artinian

 

Yet, he wrote his destan in the language of his perpetrators, to call on the world to act: “What a lamentation is this, hear Europe! What are you waiting for, oh America? We were all sacrificed on the road to freedom.”

At the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five, author Kurt Vonnegut explained that his novel had taken the shape it had “because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again.” An American soldier who survived the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945 as a prisoner of war, Vonnegut wanted readers to hear, smell and feel the horror and absurdity of the violence. Charles wrote his destan for similar reasons. It is 57 stanzas long, and all but the very last end with the word “cried.” In Adana, he wrote, “every living being cried,” “women cried,” “honorable daughters cried,” “fit and strong cried,” “great men cried,” even “God cried.” In the aftermath, “many souls from under the rubbles cried.” Charles heard the wailing and was determined to break the intended silence.

 

That Charles crafted an epic poem in Armeno-Turkish was significant. According to Der Matossian, most accounts from survivors of the Adana massacres were written later and in Armenian. As a former seminarian who had studied to become an Armenian Orthodox priest, Charles could write in Armenian. Yet he wrote his destan in the language of his perpetrators, to call on the world to act: “What a lamentation is this, hear Europe! What are you waiting for, oh America? We were all sacrificed on the road to freedom.” 

 

Robert Artinian with his uncle Jim Artinian

 

April marks the 116th anniversary of the Adana massacres and the 110th of the Armenian Genocide. But such catastrophes are not relics of the past. Recent years have witnessed ethnic cleansing in Artsakh, Myanmar, Gaza and Sudan, with more than 100,000 Armenians displaced from Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). 

So many of the conditions Charles described in his destan are present-tense realities—as is suppression of the truth. In China, where untold thousands of a minority Uyghur population have been subjected to mass imprisonment, there is no freedom of speech or press to document the extent of the crimes. In Gaza, at least 170 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023—an attempt to prevent documentation of events on the ground. 

In fall 2023, Professor Bedross Der Matossian published an article and translation of Charles’ destan into English and Turkish in the International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies. It is now accessible for anyone to read. The original will be placed in the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan. Charles believed in the power of the word. He physically carried it with him—from Adana throughout the Ottoman Empire to Buenos Aires and the United States.  Almost nothing else made it from that journey, but he made sure his account survived. 

 

A young Jeanne with her grandfather

 

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Jeanne Theoharis

Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and History at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center and the author or co-author of thirteen books and numerous articles on the civil rights and Black Power movements and the contemporary politics of race in the United States. Her new book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South, comes out March 25. Her New York Times-bestselling biography The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks won a 2014 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Biography/Autobiography and has been adapted into a documentary of the same name, for NBC-Peacock, where she served as a consulting producer.

 

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Robert Artinian

Robert Artinian is a private music teacher in metropolitan Detroit with an academic background in the history of religion, philology and linguistic philosophy. Over the past decade, he has developed a keen interest in genocide studies and Armenian migration after 1909, and is currently working to locate his family’s story in this wider historical landscape. In spite of these facts, his students appear to genuinely like him. For this and for them, he is extremely grateful.

 

 

https://armenianweekly.com/2025/02/27/god-cried-charles-destan-on-the-110th-anniversary-of-the-armenian-genocide/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIuQL1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHReW6SrYLJllMVe8RAQNimwE3VjjlQ8xAd08Y3rwglS8aQWpFs7VvxBKsQ_aem_SoM921hUmda51baWtd07Aw

[Yervant1]

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Sortir a Paris

March 13 2025

 

The genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire: the historical exhibition at the Shoah Memorial

 

From April 1, 2025, the Shoah Memorial will be presenting a new exhibition devoted entirely to the Armenian genocide, a dark chapter in the history of the 20th century.

 

To commemorate the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and as part of its commitment to historical remembrance, the Shoah Memorial is presenting an exhibition dedicated to this tragic event from April 1 to November 4, 2025.

 

The exhibition retraces the events that provoked, prefigured and led to the genocide of the Armenians in the 20th century: now considered a crime against humanity, genocide is still struggling to be recognized by some nations. Perpetrated between 1915 and 1916, over two-thirds of the Armenians then living on the territory of theOttoman Empire wereexterminated in inhuman conditions. Deportations, famines, death marches and massacres forced the survivors and their descendants to flee. Eighty years after the publication of the law of January 29, 2001, in which France recognized the Armenian genocide, the exhibition retraces, explains, documents and raises awareness of this genocide, in commemoration of the events.

Hanging outdoors along the Allée des Justes, the exhibition is open to all.

https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/what-to-visit-in-paris/exhibit-museum/articles/325590-the-genocide-of-the-armenians-of-the-ottoman-empire-the-historical-exhibition-at-the-shoah-memorial

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Armenpress.am

 

Europe18:15, 1 April 2025

European Parliament to debate 110th anniversary of Armenian Genocide at plenary session

Read the article in: العربيةفارسیՀայերենРусскийTürkçe

The 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide is among the topics to be discussed at the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg.

According to an Armenpress correspondent in Brussels, the debate is scheduled for April 3.

European Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi will deliver a statement on behalf of the European Commission.

 

 

 

Published by Armenpress, original at https://armenpress.am/en/article/1216045?fbclid=IwY2xjawJZbStleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHW9uJk-FLYDK4Z2EW03wETuVqHSTEjlKJd_yBz4ucb0xr9jokcT_x3Yolw_aem_fFVG2WAFetXjicPQ_QVefA

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The Sunday Guardian

April 13 2025

 

 

Name the horror: Time to recognise for what it was, Armenian genocide

 

ByVandit Singh

April 13, 2025

 

Aligned with the Central Powers during the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was faltering, grappling with territorial losses and internal strife. Dubbed as the Sick Man of Europe, it faced economic strain and relentless military pressures, particularly on its eastern front against Russia. This, coupled with the nationalist zeal of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which sought to preserve the crumbling Empire, fuelled paranoia and aggressive policies, setting the stage for a catastrophe. Starting in April 1915, the course of the coming months saw an estimated 1.5 million Armenians perish in a meticulously orchestrated effort involving mass executions, brutal death marches through the Syrian desert, and deliberate starvation. The figure shoots even higher if we also consider the Hamidian massacres (1894-96), named after the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which saw him unleash a wave of violence against Christian Armenians, slaughtering up to 300,000 in a brutal prelude to the genocide that followed. Fuelled by suspicions of an Armenian collusion with the Russians, and the underlying religious and cultural differences between the ruling Muslim Turks and the Christian Armenians, this annihilation targeted an entire community—men, women, and children—razing their cultural and religious heritage. What began in April 1915 as the arrest and eventual slaughter of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, metastasized into the horrors of rampant deportations, mass drownings, acts of rape and torture, state-sponsored Islamization and confiscation of properties as a deliberate act of erasure. These events came to be known as the Armenian Genocide of 1915-17 and was regarded by Pope Francis as “the first genocide of the 20th century”.

With the ultimate defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War coming as a sigh of relief for the surviving Armenian community, the ensuing revenge exacted by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in form of targeted political assassinations, as part of the Operation Nemesis, further highlighted the Armenian cause on the global stage. SoghomonTehlirian’s assassination of Talaat Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire and widely regarded as the primary architect of the genocide, was “the watershed moment” in this collective effort. The Ottoman Empire’s larger ethnic cleansing of its non-Muslim subjects carried out during the First World War and its aftermath, which also included the Assyrian and Greek genocides, ultimately paved way for the eventual formation of an ethno-national Turkish state in form of the Republic of Türkiye.

A century and a decade later, the genocide’s legacy endures, marked by recognition from 34 countries, and a persistent denial by Türkiye, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, underscoring its place as a pivotal, contested episode in human history. As the global community stands to acknowledge and commemorate the 110th anniversary of this tragic episode in human history, deliberation by India’s foremost policymakers for an official recognition of these events as a “genocide” would reflect our solemn stand against the ideologies which have also inflicted life-long wounds on our own cultural soul. Such a move would further push not only our bilateral ties with Armenia but also cement us as a stern advocate of historical justice within the democratic world. India and Armenia share historical ties spanning over two millennia, with the latter standing as one of the few countries to have publicly endorsed India’s position on the Kashmir conflict.

 

Numbering over 11 million today, the Armenian community is spread across the world, with a large majority of Armenians residing outside Armenia. Amidst the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the modern-day Republic of Armenia stands in a precarious position, one which calls for desperate action to rescue it from not only its geographical shackles of being a landlocked state, but also its much inferior economic

 

इस शब्द का अर्थ जानिये

 

 and military strength, vis-à-vis the Turkic alliance of Türkiye and Azerbaijan. To this day, Türkiye denies any allegation of a genocide, and instead terms the episode as “Events of 1915”, significantly undermining the brutality and magnitude of the atrocities, while downplaying any involvement of the Ottoman government. Its closest allies in form of Azerbaijan and Pakistan remain as the only other countries to explicitly deny any genocide. Far from some European states which went as far as to pay reparations for the sins of their forefathers, the Turkish policy of an emphatic rejection of any deliberate wrongdoing has further aggravated the phenomenon of “genocide denial” across the world, even in cases where the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. For the innocent Armenians massacred by the Ottomans, “genocide” isn’t a mere label, but a clarion call to affirm their annihilation as a deliberate act of evil and a recognition that strips away the veil of denial. As the scars of this horror still linger, the Armenian genocide stands as a solemn call for the international community to confront and acknowledge the uncomfortable chapters of history. Such recognition paves the way for reconciliation between estranged communities, fostering new pathways for cooperation and serving as a resolute safeguard against any potential recurrence of such human extremes.

 

https://sundayguardianlive.com/featured/name-the-horror-time-to-recognise-for-what-it-was-armenian-genocide#

[MosJan]

Ալիեւի այցէն ետք զարմանալի քայքայում...

Վատիկանը գաղտնազերծած է հայոց ցեղասպանութեան վերաբերեալ փաստաթուղթերը. թուրքերու կողմէ կատարուած վայրագութիւնները սարսափելի են։

Վատիկանը սկսած է հրապարակել ամենահին արխիւներու մէջ պահուող գաղտնի փաստաթուղթերը։

Անոնք հիմնականին մԷջ կը վերաբերին մօտ 400 տարի առաջ տեղի ունեցած իրադարձութիւններուն՝ սկսած 1621 թուականէն։ Անոնցմէ ամենահինը թուագրուած է 8-րդ դարով, կը հաղորդէ HaberTurk-ը։

100 գաղտնի փաստաթուղթերու ցուցահանդէսը, ներառեալ՝ օսմանեան կայսրութեան մէջ հայոց ցեղասպանութեան վերաբերող նիւթեր, կը գտնուին Քափիթոլիումի թանգարանին մԷջ եւ հանրութեան բաց՝ մինչեւ այս տարուան սեպտեմբեր ամիսը։

Վատիկանի արխիւի տնօրէն, եպիսկոպոս Սերճիօ Փականոյի խօսքով, փաստաթուղթերը կը պարունակեն հայերու մասին հսկայական տեղեկութւններ։

Հայերու ցեղասպանութեան վերաբերեալ՝ Փականոն նշած է, որ հրապարակուած փաստաթուղթերը կը վկայեն թրքական բանակի կողմէ հայերու ենթարկուած դաժան խոշտանգումներու մասին։

Յիշենք, որ 2011 թուականի ամռան Փականոն յայտարարած էր, որ այս փաստաթուղթերը կը ցուցադրուին Վատիկանի արխիւներու Lux ցուցահանդեսին մէջ (Arcane), 2026 թուականի փետրուարին ամիսին։

Փականոն յայտնած է, որ 1896 թուականին Հռոմի պապ Լեւոն XIII-ը կոչ ըրած է սուլթան Ապտուլ Համիտին՝ կարեկցանք ցուցաբերել եւ դադրեցնել հայերու ցեղասպանութիւնը:

Փականոն յայտնած է, որ հայերու ցեղասպանութեան վերաբերեալ մօտ հարիւր փաստաթուղթ, ներառեալ՝ Վատիկանի արխիւներէն թուրք զինուորներու գործողութիւններու մասին գրաւոր վկայություններ, կը հրապարակուին առանձին գիրքով։

Ան ներկայացուց այս գիքէն հատուածներ, ներառեալ՝ թուրք զինուոր Մուսթաֆա Սիւլեյմանի վկայութիւնը.

«Մենք մտանք հայկական գիւղեր եւ բոլորին անընդմէջ սպաննեցինք՝ առանց սեռի կամ տարիքի տարբերութիւն դնելու։ Մեր ետեւէն եկած քիւրտերը թալանեցին հայկական տուները։ Շատ տարեցներ եւ հաշմանդամներ թաքնուեցան գիւղի կեդրոնը գտնուող դպրոցին մէջ, բայց մեզ հրամայեցին սպաննել բոլորին։ Կելիյէկիւզան գյուղին մէջ սպաննուեցին կամ այրեցին 800 հայ։ Հայր Յովհաննէսի աչքերը ծակեցին, մորուքը, քիթը եւ ականջները կտրեցին։ Ես ինքս երեխաներ չեմ սպաննած. ես նույնիսկ երկու հայի փրկեցի։ Ես անոնց երեք օր թաքցուցի իմ վրանի մէջ, բայց օր մը մտայ այնտեղ եւ տեսայ անոնց անմահ մարմինները... »

Եպիսկոպոս Փականոն նաեւ ըսաւ, որ Վատիկանը կը հրապարակէ Առաջին համաշխարհային պատերազմի ժամանակ Օսմանեան կայսրութեան մէջ երիտթուրքերու տիրապետութեան ներքեւ իրականացուած հայերու ցեղասպանութեան արխիւները։

«Այս փաստաթուղթերը անբացատրելի ցաւ եւ սարսափ կը յառաջացնեն։ Թուրքերու կողմէ հայերու նկատմամբ կատարուած վայրագութիւններու մասին հաղորդագրութիւնները ինձ ամչցուցին ուրիշներէն», - ըսաւ եպիսկոպոսը։

Աղբիւր՝ newsNK

-- Դասական ուղղ. ԿԳ

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

 

[MosJan]

Tanner Aksham

 

A historical announcement from the Turkish historian Tanner Aksham on his page

For the first time, one of the most dangerous documented dimensions of the Armenian Genocide is being revealed with original evidence from within Turkish archives itself.

Prominent Turkish historian Taner Akçam has announced the completion of a major phase of a huge archival project that documented the sale and auction of seized Armenian properties in the beginnings of the Turkish Republic. He said, “We are very pleased to announce the completion of a major phase of our archival project on the sale and auction of confiscated Armenian property... ”

شف What does this archive reveal?

• Hundreds of original ads from newspapers

• Documenting public auctions for houses, land, shops, factories

• Properties issued after the evacuation and destruction in dozens of cities during the period 1920 - 1940.

These are not novels ... These are officially published documents in the newspapers of that era.

Aksham confirms: These documents allow researchers to observe how “economic looting and organized takeover became the foundational elements of the new republic. ”

Details of the project:

• Collection of materials: Researcher Saib Chetin Oglu after years of work • Digitization and translation: Supported by the Armenian Genocide Research Program at UCLA • Full English translation: With the efforts of Atela Tuigan •

The archive is now fully available in Turkish and English

Why is this project important?

Because this archive: • reveals a mechanism of confiscation of an organization, not randomness

• Proves that the economic takeover was an essential part of the process

• Gives any researcher or journalist direct access to the evidence

The most dangerous in Kalam Aksham:

These documents reveal that “economic looting and organized takeover have become the foundational elements of the new republic. "So, the matter wasn't a mess... Rather an integrated system to redistribute wealth on the ruins of displaced people.

Full Archive: UCLA Project

https://www.international.ucla.edu/.../stolenarmenianprop...

About Tanner Aksham

Historian and socialist Tanner Aksham received a PhD in 1995 from Hanover University for his thesis titled "Turkish National Movement and the Armenian Genocide in Istanbul between 1919 and 1922".

Aksham was born in Erdahan Governorate of Turkey in 1953, and he began his interest in Turkish politics at a young age. As the editor-in-chief of a student political magazine, he was arrested in 1976 and sentenced to ten years in prison. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of opinion. And a year later, he fled to Germany, where he obtained political asylum.

In 1988, he started working as a scientific researcher in sociology at the Hamburg Institute of Social Research. The subject of his first research was the history of political violence and torture in the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.

Between the years 2000 and 2002, Aksham was a visiting professor of history at the University of Michigan. He also worked as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota's Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center. He has been a member of Clark University History Department since 2008.

Scientific qualifications:

PhD in History, Hannover University 1996

BS in History, Middle East Technical University, 1975

The Armenian Genocide Research Program (AGRP) within The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA is pleased to announce the completion of a groundbreaking digital archive documenting the fate of Armenian properties confiscated during and after the Armenian Genocide. The archive, “The Auctioning of Stolen Armenian Properties: Emval-i Metruke,” is available on the AGRP’s website.

Drawing on a rare collection of newspaper notices from the 1920s and 1930s, the study examines how these so-called “Abandoned Properties”, referred to as Emval-i Metruke, were publicly auctioned, with announcements published in local newspapers across 34 cities and towns in the early decades of the Turkish Republic. The archive illuminates both the historical context of these “Abandoned Properties” and the now-completed effort to digitally archive and translate these records from Ottoman Turkish into modern Turkish and English.

Independent researcher Sait Çetinoğlu compiled these invaluable materials over many years, in addition to contributing an extensive introductory study on the mechanisms of property confiscation. With the support of the AGRP, this entire archive has now been digitized, translated and made fully searchable for the first time. All texts are available in both Turkish and English, with translations prepared by researcher Attila Tuygan and AGRP Program Coordinator Nanor Hartounian.

This research sheds light on the systematic expropriation and redistribution of Armenian wealth — an essential and parallel dimension of the genocide. It also confronts the archival challenges of recovering these fragmented records and invites collaboration from those who may have access to additional material.

To learn more and access the archive, please visit the AGRP’s website.

[MosJan]