Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide is a name given to a historic event where hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of ethnic Armenians were raped, slaughtered, and deported to concentration camps under the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Turkey (the successor state to the Ottoman Empire) has denied its responsibility, suggesting that genocide did not occur. Turkey says it was a confusing period where many people were killed because of political uprisings. Internationally, twenty-one countries have officially recognized the tragedy as genocide. This has been a problem in the Turkish-Armenian relationship,as well as the relationship with Israel, which is a close ally of Turkey.

Background

For centuries the Ottoman Empire controlled Armenia. Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Russians occupied the six Armenian vilayets, and Armenian nationalism was stimulated. In 1880, a revolutionary organization known as the Defenders of the Fatherland was organized in Erzurum. A few years later, in 1885, the Armenakan society was organized, and in 1887 the Hunchagian Party appeared. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktzutun) was formed in 1890.

The Armenians expected outside assistance in their efforts to break away from Ottoman rule and were led to carry out a number of rash actions. In August and September 1894, a series of massacres occurred in the vicinity of Sassun as a result of an uprising that was put down with ferocity by Kurdish irregular cavalry (Hamidieh regiments). The massacres soon spread, and in October and November 1895 there were pogroms at Trabzon, Erzurum, Bitlis, Kurun, Maras, and elsewhere. The essential cause of the massacres lay in the failure of the European powers to secure the reforms envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin for the Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The massacres caused an outcry in Europe, and ultimately Sultan Abdul-Hamid II appointed an investigating commission, joined by British, French, and Russian delegates, which produced a minor reform program. In August 1896 after an attack on the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople a massacre of Armenians occurred in the Ottoman capital; 4,000 to 6,000 Armenians were killed. By the end of 1896 it was estimated that as many as 200,000 had been massacred in the eastern provinces.

With the advent to power of the Young Turks in 1908, there was hope for improvement of the lot of the Armenians, but in April, 1909, there were massacres at Adana and other places of Lesser Armenia, sparked by peaceful demonstrations that inflamed nationalist Turks. Intermittent attacks took place in the following years.

World War I

The massacres climaxed in June and July 1915 during World War I, when Turkey and Russia were at war. The slaughter continued until after the end of the war.

Postwar

The Treaty of Sèvres,Sevres, Aug. 10, 1920, provided for an independent Armenia. However, the situation was drastically changed by Turkish military assaults and the establishment of a Soviet republic in Yerevan on Nov. 29, 1920. A treaty imposed on Armenia by Turkey on December 3 reduced Soviet Armenia to the province of Yerevan.

Memory

Diplomacy

Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Caucasus became a new field for Turkish foreign policy, and in this region relations with Armenia became the most critical and sensitive challenge. Despite the extreme negative historical legacy of the genocide, Turkey tried to establish a new basis for relations with Armenia, and there were some positive steps taken in this direction under the presidency of Levon Ter-Petrosian in Armenia. Disputes over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh became the decisive factor in bilateral relations. During the presidency of Ter-Petrosian's successor, Robert Kocharian, aside from the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, diaspora communities gained influence, which led to the genocide issue again becoming an important element in bilateral relations. Despite Kocharian's early hawkish rhetoric, during the second term of his presidency a détente arose in relations between the two countries, and the Turkish-Armenian Peace Commission founded in 2001 was a significant step in the direction of better relations.

Bibliography

• Auron, Yair. The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide (2005)
• Balakian, Peter. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (2003), 475 pp
• Dadrian, Vahakn N. "Patterns of Twentieth Century Genocides: the Armenian, Jewish, and Rwandan Cases." Journal of Genocide Research 2004 6(4): 487-522. Issn: 1462-3528 Fulltext: [[[Ebsco]]
• Hovannisian, Richard G. ed. The Armenian Genocide in Perspective (1988)
• Kirakossian, Arman J. ed. The Armenian Massacres, 1894-1896: U.S. Media Testimony (2004), 317 pp
• Panossian, Razmik. The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars. 2006. 442 pp.
• Severance, Gordon and Diana Severance. Against the Gates of Hell: The Life & Times of Henry Perry, a Christian Missionary in a Moslem World (2003)
• Winter, Jay, ed. America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (2004), 325pp