The Armenians In The Ottoman Empire

[DominO123]

I do not agree entirly with him. But it worths reading, as a Turkish historian that recognise the genocide.

 

 

 

 

The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

 

By Fikret Adanir

 

Note: Translated from German, the orginal essay title is Aremnier im Osmanischen Reich, consider that this translation may not be conform to the original, since Domino has translated it by using a translator, and correcting it later himself.

 

 

 

1

 

An adequate study of the history of the Turkish-Armenian relations in the late Ottoman period is still pending in Turkey. In contrast to this, the literature developed outside of Turkey focuses preferentially on the events of 1915, which marks the end in the history of the Turkish-Armenian relationship: As well known, the Ottoman government already took the fatal decision in the early phase of the First World War - when the Caucasus front had broken down and the the landing of troops at the Dardanel was approaching - to deport the Armenian population of Anatolia. One had up to then not experienced a relocation of this extent in the history of the Ottoman Empire. In view of the fact that the Deportation in the wartime was arranged, in regions, which the infrastructures was completely underdeveloped and in addition to the antagonistic groups of peoples settled, it is to assume that the responsible persons for the death of the majority of people in the deportation, if not planned, has given so nevertheless a such result. In any case the concerned ones here committed an extraordinary war crime, for which our present discourse keeps the designation "genocide".

 

My following, limited remarks are to be understood now as attempt to light up some aspects and phases of this development which led to the crisis, which is to be regarded as a condition for the actual disaster to the crisis in the Turkish-Armenian relations to the eve of the First World War -. Finally I will begin to cut the question, why particularly the academic historiography in Turkey has heavily placed itself on the question of the Armenian genocide.

 

 

2

 

First, a historical outlining of the event: The muli-ethnic condition of the Ottoman was at the center of the 19 century transformation of its economic, social and political structures. To answer our question particularly, the conditions in which the politico-national change were made is of importance. In the year 1839 the equality of all was announced before the law without difference of the social position and the affiliation to an ethnical-cultural or religious group. The Ottoman Empires reforms, was primarily because of the pressures of the imperial powers, submitted thereby a "nation-state" conception, which implied an unconfessiuonalisation of the political structures on a long-term basis in favor of the territorial political consciousness. In the long run it was to be hoped that the citizens would define themselves politically as "Ottomans", with which the realization of a Ottoman "nation-state" would have considerably moved them closer to eachothers.

 

This "Ottomanistic" reform was an integralist ideology of many people that was hard to succeed was, however, it was to be established on a long-term basis. Because the replacement of the old denominant secularistic territorial state could not lie in the interest of the national liberations movement of the Christian peoples, whose elite worked increasingly on the "liberation" of their medieval "nations". Under the impression of the agreement movements in Italy and Germany thereby the tendency became generally accepted to understand themselves in each case as a descending community and to lodge a complaint by means of historical arguments to determine territories for their own nation also with the realm of the Ottoman peoples.

 

The Russian expansion into the Caucasus and the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78 marks a turning point in this development. Already since the Crimean war, an emigration of the Muslims from the Crimean penensula and the Caucasus was to be observed. Millions which majoritary consisted of Circassians and Chechens were driven out – a deportation with a tribal structure, where they found themselves refuge in Asia minor. The catastrophic defeat of the Ottoman resulted also of a massive driving out of the Muslims from the Balkans. In short: In the last quarter of the 19 century, practically continuous refugee waves confronted the Ottoman government with hardly solvable settlement and integration problems. The refugees were predominantly not Turks, but member of islamized authonomious populations, e.g. Circassian Muslims, Chechens, Caucasians, Georgians, the Muslim Greeks from Crete, the Muslim Bosnians, Albanians or the Muslims from Bulgaria. Anyhow the past political reforms was thoroughly discredited including the alleged solidarity of Ottoman peoples under these conditions. If it had come occasionally already in former times in the outbreaks of the social envy against the wealthier non-Muslim that were from now one considered deeply suspects to form a "fifth columns."

 

3

 

The national politics of Abdulhamids II. (1876-1909) can be estimated only before this background being entitled. With its integration of politics based on Islam was actually anticipated by the Islamic shaped nationalism in the years of the world war. First of all this Sultan pushed on it, demographic conditions particularly in strategically sensitive zones, as for instance at the straits to change in the direction of ethnical-denominational and homogenisation.

 

Secondly, for the Sultan, a basic ecnonomico-nationalistic attitude was characteristic. The non-Muslims commercial background was regarded increasingly as a kind of "bourgeoisie", which served not the native country, but the interests of the foreign countries.

 

Thirdly, Abdulhamid II, was considered, also as a protagonist of the Islamism and Panislamism; he saw a basis for political loyalty for all non-Turkish Muslim peoples like the Kurds and Arabs. The integrative strength of this new policy lay in the ideological stress of Islamic basic values. In relation to the Christian culture he moved the achievements of the Islamic civilization into the foreground. In view of the imperialistic expansion of England, France and Russia in Muslim areas of Africa and Asia he succeeded to re-activate and give to the Kalif the title of leader for all Muslims a new image and the Kalifa faded for a long time.

 

 

4

 

These points clarifies more the the Muslim part of the Ottoman society toward the end of 19 century completely disconcerted into an orientation crisis which was apprehended, which from the confrontation what was felt as a superior civilization, evenly the western, resulted. Above all the intelligencia suffered from this distress, maily because they had to be modern and at the same time Muslim. The movement sucked. The Young Turks, formed in exile, wins their meaning in this context in the end of the 19 century. Following the French positivists one bent in these circles to see in religion the root of all evil and particularly reacted due to a biological-materialistic world view of the Islamic environment.

 

Politically the young Turks were primarily adjusted against the autocracy of the Sultans. Already at this point their unanimity ended. While a majority, Christians Syrian among them and the Armenians, for which a decentralization with appropriate regional autonomy was even possible, this goal sake to request from the European great powers a military intervention, as "centralistic" and "applied unionistic", by respecting the Ottoman sovereignty. This centralists should succeed in 1908, the remaining groups however above all, the Armenian revolutionary federation (Dashnaktsitiun) had that on their program. The re-establishment of the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and the re-establishment of the parliament postponed since 1878 was the core of this program. On such basis in summer 1908 a spectacular "people fraternization" was observed, which was the Young-Turks revolution.

 

 

5

 

The young Turks were not primarily political, meanwhile by any means should solve the national question. The opposite interests came in the parliamentary elections in the late autumn 1908 openly to light. The hostile attitude from neighbour states and some great powers - as for instance the Annexion of Bosnia and the Herzegovina by Austria Hungary was a further factor, which contributed to the destabilization of the new regime.

 

In addition, the weakness of the regime is to be attributed to the lack of a Muslim middle class, which could have served as carriers of the new constitutional system, a middle class that was yet missing. The young Turks were culturally alienated thereby from the Muslim masses, whose interests was to articulate them. Trailers of positivistic teachings and various social conceptions, bent them, as already suggested, to it, the arrears industrial union give a realm to the Islamic religion to attribute. Like that it was not coincidental that the anti-young-turk groups grewed increasingly on Islamic circles, while the young Turks went under the protection of the military. Consequently the regime accepted increasingly an authoritarian courses; its strictly centralistic measures were particularly rejected by the regional elite. The Albanian rebellions led also to the Entmachtung of the young-Turkish committee already in the year 1911. The beneficiaries were the Balkans Christian states, which attacked the Ottoman Empire in the autumn 1912, in order to divide its European possession between themselves.

 

 

6

 

The Ottoman defeat in the Balkans, from contemporary observers, was primarily attributed to the lack of national motivation of the Muslims and the "betrayal" of non-Muslim soldiers in the Ottoman army. Using political disorientation due to the military debacle, the young-Turkish committee at the beginning of of 1913 seized power again, in order to govern the country until 1918, alone. One thing was now decided, a transformation of the economy to introduce society and politics in a national sense. Not least under the impression of a new refugee wave from the areas occupied by the Balkans federation armies, refugees which left for places populated of Christians, and this resulted of hostile excesses. Those that were also among the refugees, who lived in the winter 1913/14 in largest emergency formed gangs which was directed against Greek villages in the environment of Smyrna. This resulted of an exodus of the Greeks from Asia minor - a development, at which the unionists were not indifferent. Obvious one had to be ready, also unusually hard measures including "ethnical cleaning", should the "national interests" it appeared to be necessary.

 

 

7

 

This radicalization showed up still more clearly in the course of the negotiations to grant autonomy to the "Armenian provinces" in the years 1913 and 14. The main problem was that the Armenians, nearly everywhere in relation to the Muslim population were in the minority, it was insisted that only the established population in the future autonomous provinces should receive citizen rights, which equaled an untenable snubbing of the nomadic Kurds. Furthermore the Armenian leadership wanted to reach that the Muslim refugees – the Circassians and Georgians - were excluded from the territory of the future autonomous province. Thereupon Cemal Pascha, a member now of the all determining young-Turkish Triumvirats, warned the Armenian official contacts to not implement their national interests in the confidence on support of the European powers inconsiderately, otherwise de Muslim could seize weapons, as a reasult heavy massacres could be the consequences.

 

 

8

 

This aggravation of the young-Turkish-recent relations carried out itself in a time, in which the Ottoman Empire was militarily very weakened and completely isolated with regard to foreign policy. The Triviet Enver, Talat and Cemal wished themselves an alliance with the Great powers powers Russia, Great Britain and France, since they feared danger coming from those sides. Indeed the Entente powers pursued their interests of expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire that was not ready to commit itself to keep status quo. Thus the military wing of the commitee, which was always bent a control with the Central Powers, finally won the upper hand.

 

The alliance question once clarified, from the Young-Turk guidance it was decided that they will implement their national program: It concerned achieving the full national sovereignty. In addition the hated regime of the surrenders should be likewise cancelled, as those of the the "Armenian provinces" to grant autonomy. Also they judged that the time for the nationalization of the economy came.

 

 

9

 

In short: Driving out, massacres and murder, directed against Armenians of Asia minor in the First World War, are understandable as a denouement of an action processus connection. The uncoupling of their prehistory reduced by this disaster disaster of 1915 discribed by the proverb "hour of zero", therefore to myth. On the other hand it is obvious that a historisation of the events, how it shows up in my outlining encounters with many refusal, because thereby the differentiation between perpetrators and victim threatens to disappear.

 

Nevertheless I would like to stress that the otherwise usual differentiation between perpetrators and victims because of the complexity of the situation in the late Ottoman Empire becomes hardly fair. The Muslims, whom we can here completely generally regard as perpetrators, are regarded as victims. They had been often even driven out. Still more importantly: they had fear to be again driven out in view of the fact that in Asia minor, as intended in the Treatyt of Sevres in 1920, beside relatively large Armenia also the establishment of a Greek state was intended.

 

 

10

 

It is this last point, which makes particularly heavy for the officials in Turkey just like many intellectuals in the country to have a better attitude with the question of the genocide. One considers: The revision of the Treaty of Sevres Sevres of 1920 by Treaty of Lausanne in 1923,whereby hopes for the establishment of an Armenian and Greek state in Asia minor was disappointed, in Turkey today as the essential condition for the establishment of the Republic of Turkey is noticed. Furthermore one considers the personnel continuity of the young-Turkish cadres, which had to answer for the destruction of the Armenian communities in Asia minor in the First World War, existed as well for the the elite of the Kemalist republic. It is also not surprising that the tendency which can be observed in western journalism to manufacture a direct connection or at least a parallelism between the tragedy of the Armenian people in first World war and the destruction of the European Jews in the Second World War in which Turkey is vehemently rejected.

 

On the other hand it is however not to be surveyed that itself the attempts to regard the history of the Turkish-Armenian relations more differentiated into which last decades increased. Thus authors, who refer to the civilian-social deficits of the republic because of the fact that the Armenians and Greeks have been driven out. Others question the alleged role of non-Muslim middlemen in history in principle. Lately quite successful publications is refered in which the political establishment of Kemalist Turkey openly reproached, the genocide of the Armenians that is systematically denied. The defiance remains existing however the impression that the public opinion is altogether not yet ready in Turkey to see a Genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkish history.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Akgam, Taner: Türk ulusal kimliöi ve Ermeni sorunu, Istanbul 1992.

 

Akgam, Taner: Armenien und der Völkermord: die Istanbuler Prozesse und die türkische Nationalbewegung, Hamburg 1996.

 

Berkes, Niyazi: The Development of Secularism in Turkey, Montreal 1964.

 

Dadrian, Vahakn N.: German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide. A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity, Cambridge, MA, 1996.

 

Dadrian, Vahakn N.: The History of the Armenian Genocide. Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, Providence, Rl, and Oxford, 3rd, rev. ed., 1997.

 

Dasnabedian, Hratch: Histoire de la Föderation Revolutionnaire Armenienne Dachnaktsoutioun (1890-1924), Milano 1988.

 

Davison, Roderic H.: Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876, Princeton, N.J., 1963.

 

Deringil, Selim: The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909, London 1998.

 

Devereux, Robert: The First Ottoman Constitutional Period. A Study of the Midhat Constitution and

Parliament, Baltimore 1963.

 

Dündar, Fuat: Yttihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanlary iskän politikasy (1913-1918), Istanbul 2001.

 

Gürün, Kamuran: The Armenian File. The Myth of Innocence Exposed, London-Nicosia-lstanbul 1985.

 

Hanioölu, M. Pükrü: The Young Turks in Opposition, New York-Oxford 1995.

 

Hanioölu, M. Pükrü: Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908, Oxford-New York 2001.

Hovannisian, Richard G.: Armenia on the Road to Independence 1918, Berkeley 1967. Hovannisian, Richard (ed.): The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, New Brunswick, N.J., 1986. Hovannisian, Richard G. (ed.): The Armenian Genocide. History, Politics, Ethics, New York 1992.

 

Hovannisian, Richard (ed.): Remembrance and Denial: The Gase of the Armenian Genocide, Detroit 1998.

 

Kansu, Aykut: The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey, Leiden 1997

 

Kansu, Aykut: Politics in Post-Revolutionary Turkey, 1908-1913, Leiden 2000.

 

Karpat, Kemal H.: The Politicization of Islam. Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, Oxford-New York 2001.

 

Kieser, Hans-Lukas: Der verpasste Friede. Mission, Ethnie und Staat in den Ostprovinzen der Türkei, 1839-1938, Zürich 2000.

 

Kieser, Hans-Lukas und Dominik J. Schaller (eds.): Die Armenische Völkermord und die Shoah, Zürich 2002.

 

Kügük, Cevdet: Osmanly diplomasisinde Ermeni meselesinin ortaya gykyby (1878-1897), Istanbul 1984.

 

McCarthy, Justin: Death and Exile. The Ethnie Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims 1821-1922, Princeton, N.J., 1995.

 

Melson, Robert: Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, Chicago 1992.

 

Nalbandian, Loise: The Armenian Revolutionary Movement. The Development of Armenian

Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1963.

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[THOTH]

An interesting erspective - but incomplete - and in many ways lacking serious analysis...thanks for posting anyway...Who is this guy...and what is the point of this articale anyway...its not very clear to me...

[DominO123]

Fikret Adanir is heading the Armenian-Turkish historical union in Germany, what is misterious is that this historian that is more relativistic than some other Turkish historians that would call it genocide, he puts the Armenian losses due to the Ottoman empire decision, to be more than a million, while he is one of the only Turkish historian that ever did that, among those that recognise it.

 

Do you remember Piggeti, do you not see any similarities between Adanirs arguments and his?

 

There is many truth in what he says, but he skip the important issues, sounds a little like Bertkay, when he refer to the special organisation, but is easy to tell that the government ordered an extermination, or wanted an extermination, while he himself refer to one archive that specify that massacres in one city in particular were premedited.

 

But, read one more time his essay, are you not feeling that what he writes is not what he really thinks? I don't know I feel some forced restrain in his writting, he recognise the genocide more than he want to protray in this essay.

[THOTH]

Agree - I was thinking exactly what you said - he is restraining. This is not untypical i don't think...and yes his arguments are much along the lines of Piggeti's. Still -much better this position to begin a discussion of issues then one totally defined by national myth and ignorance...

[yalpa]

Domino,

 

Could you elaborate a bit on what you disagree with in Adanır's article, if it is not too much to ask?

[DominO123]

Yalpa, my diasgreement in Adanirs article is more what it does not say, or escape, rather than what it does say. I know that the article is about the Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire, but still, I do remark that he does escape some points.

 

If you remember well, in the past, I did refered to another work(BTW, I gave the wrong work title on a footnote in one of my essays I posted to you) of his, he does the same thing on the other work as well. My critics with Adanir were always the same, and they always were more about what he didn't wrote rather than what h did wrote. He's silence on many subjects, like for example the government implication. I am writting something that treat this, I know you have to wait after me again. All my time about the subject right now is about OCDing works and finishing one work, so my answers will sound to be given in a random way(sometimes requiring a long time to answer, others, pratically instantanious), but I do wish to answer you.

 

Just one point I want to make, and it is Sunys point that Dadrian was not clear about the foundation of the Special organization, and the role it played in the 1913 war. When I have reread this, I was really surprised by Sunys point, because it appears to me that he mixed the two different special organisations, the first one that was put in practice by the government, the second one was build during WWI by the Ittihadist that acted as the government. Suny rather ciriticised this last work of Dadrian, and not the overal studies, where it is clear that there was a distictive differences between the two special organisations, and that Dadrian concentrated on the second one.

 

You don't mind I write here? I am just giving you short answers, when my answer is ready I will be posting them on your board. About your question of if I agree with Suny about the lack of premeditation from "the" before the war. It really depend, I do agree that there was no plan set to destroy the Armenians before the war, as there was discussions with the Armenian revolutionary commities and organizations with the Ottoman empire, and the Ottoman empire trying to have an accord with the Armenians, and as reward a true recognised Armenian province that would include Russian Armenian provinces as part of the Ottoman empire.

 

But, there is a "But," it is not because there was no plan set, that it necessarly means that the Ittihadists didn't had that in mind before the war, many did have that in mind, it was a possibility. The real premeditation was during the war, when members of the special organization that had as charge to creat troubles in the Russian front, were charged now to escort the Armenians... this is when there has been two compleat distinct special organisations... the second has one purposes, and it was the destruction of the Armenians.

 

Many in the government did had in mind that entering in the war could be used as pretext to destroy the Armenians, in that,I do agree with Dadrian, but I do not think that it was to use it as pretext that the war was declared.

 

From Adanir to thise unrelated topic. But not so unrelated, I do think that Adanir escapes those important events, like the foundation of the special organisation, and the other organization controled by the restrictive branch of the Ittihad that had as aim to destroy the Armenians.

[yalpa]

Domino,

 

Thanks for your reply. I will come back to it. Two things for now. First of all, as I mentined it before, we do not have to continue our discussion in my forum, if this is a better place for you. I use the other forum mostly as a storage place for now. I can always copy-paste what we write here. Secondly, which sources or whose arguments are you using in regards to two different special organizations? I would like to look into this. Are they mostly Dadrian's works?

[DominO123]

Domino,

 

Thanks for your reply. I will come back to it. Two things for now. First of all, as I mentined it before, we do not have to continue our discussion in my forum, if this is a better place for you. I use the other forum mostly as a storage place for now. I can always copy-paste what we write here. Secondly, which sources or whose arguments are you using in regards to two different special organizations? I would like to look into this. Are they mostly Dadrian's works?

The first sources I am using is the one from the verdict of the military tribunal making the difference between those two special organizations(I can post it if you wish), the second one, of course is what one would conclude reading Dadrians works, the reason I use Dadrians argument, is because Suny do criticise it by refering to Dadrians last work, and one of the critics are about his questioning of the role of the organisation in the Balkan war. When it is clear that the role of the second special organization had nothing to do with the first one, if you remember in the past, I refered to a German heading one of the branchs of the special organization, this person was relayed to the second type of special organiztion, as he report what his task was, while the first one has previously nothing to do with the deportation of the Armenians, since they were put in action in order to sabotage Russian communications, spying them, etc... this special organization was the same that was put in practice previously.

 

The second one was established by the ministryt of war, and it was Envers own design.

[yalpa]

Domino,

 

Yes, if it is not much trouble, I would like to have the copy of the verdict of the tribunal. Thanks.