The Armenian Genocide is the physical destruction of the Christian ethnic Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, which took place from the spring of 1915 to the autumn of 1916. About 1.5 million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. During the genocide, at least 664 thousand people died. There are suggestions that the death toll could have reached 1.2 million people. Armenians call these events Metz Yeghern "("Great Atrocity") or "Aghet"("Catastrophe").
Mass extermination of Armenians gave impetus to the origin of the term "genocide" and its codification in international law. Lawyer Rafael Lemkin, the author of the term “genocide” and the ideological leader of the United Nations (UN) anti-genocide program, has repeatedly stated that his youthful impressions of newspaper articles about the crimes of the Ottoman Empire against Armenians formed the basis of his convictions about the need to provide legal protection national groups. Thanks in part to Lemkin's tireless efforts, in 1948 the United Nations approved the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
Most of the killings of 1915-1916 were committed by the Ottoman authorities with the support of auxiliary troops and civilians. The government, controlled by the Unity and Progress political party (also called the Young Turks), aimed to strengthen Muslim Turkish rule in Eastern Anatolia by exterminating the large Armenian population in the region.
From 1915-1916, the Ottoman authorities carried out large-scale mass executions; also Armenians died during mass deportations due to hunger, dehydration, lack of shelter and disease. In addition, tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Armenian Christians were one of the many significant ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. In the late 1880s, some Armenians created political organizations that sought to obtain greater autonomy, which increased the doubts of the Ottoman authorities about the loyalty of the wide strata of the Armenian population living in the country.
On October 17, 1895, Armenian revolutionaries seized the National Bank in Constantinople, threatening to blow it up along with more than 100 hostages in the bank's building if the authorities refused to grant the Armenian community regional autonomy. Although the incident ended peacefully thanks to French intervention, the Ottoman authorities carried out a series of pogroms.
In total, at least 80 thousand Armenians were killed in 1894-1896.
MAD TURKISH REVOLUTION
In July 1908, a faction that called itself the Young Turks seized power in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople. The Young Turks were mainly officers and officials of Balkan origin who came to power in 1906 in a secret society known as Unity and Progress and transformed it into a political movement.
The Young Turks strove to introduce a liberal constitutional regime not related to religion, which would put all nationalities on an equal footing. The Young Turks believed that non-Muslims would integrate into the Turkish nation if they were confident that such a policy would lead to modernization and prosperity.
At first it seemed that the new government would be able to eliminate some of the causes of social discontent in the Armenian community. But in the spring of 1909, Armenian demonstrations demanding autonomy escalated into violence. In the city of Adana and its environs, 20 thousand Armenians were killed by soldiers of the Ottoman army, irregular troops and civilians; up to 2 thousand Muslims perished at the hands of the Armenians.
Between 1909 and 1913, Unity and Progress activists began to lean increasingly towards a sharply nationalist vision of the future of the Ottoman Empire. They rejected the idea of a multi-ethnic "Ottoman" state and sought to create a culturally and ethnically homogeneous Turkish society. The large Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia was a demographic obstacle to achieving this goal. After several years of political turmoil on November 23, 1913, as a result of a coup d'état, the leaders of the Unity and Progress party gained dictatorial power.
WORLD WAR I
Mass atrocities and genocide are often committed in times of war. The extermination of Armenians was closely linked with the events of the First World War in the Middle East and the Russian territory of the Caucasus. The Ottoman Empire officially entered the war in November 1914 on the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), which fought against the Entente countries (Great Britain, France, Russia and Serbia).
On April 24, 1915, fearing an allied landing on the strategically important Gallipoli Peninsula, the Ottoman authorities arrested 240 Armenian leaders in Constantinople and deported to the east. Today, Armenians consider this operation to be the beginning of genocide. The Ottoman authorities claimed that the Armenian revolutionaries had established contact with the enemy and were about to assist the landing of French and British troops. When the Entente countries, as well as the United States, which at that time still remained neutral, demanded explanations from the Ottoman Empire in connection with the deportation of Armenians, it called its actions precautionary measures.
Beginning in May 1915, the government expanded the scale of deportations, expelling the Armenian civilian population, regardless of the remoteness of their places of residence from the war zones, to camps located in the desert southern provinces of the empire [in the north and east of modern Syria, northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq] ... Many escorted groups were sent south from the six provinces of Eastern Anatolia with a high proportion of the Armenian population - from Trabzon, Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Diyarbakir, Mamuret-ul-Aziz, as well as from the province of Marash. Later, the Armenians were expelled from almost all regions of the empire.
Since the Ottoman Empire was an ally of Germany during the war, many German officers, diplomats and humanitarian workers witnessed the atrocities committed against the Armenian population. Their reaction was varied: from horror and the filing of official protests to individual cases of tacit support for the actions of the Ottoman authorities. The generation of Germans who survived the First World War remembered these horrific events in the 1930s and 1940s, which influenced their perception of the Nazi persecution of Jews.
MASS KILLING AND DEPORTATION
In obedience to the orders of the central government in Constantinople, the regional authorities, with the complicity of the local civilian population, carried out mass executions and deportations. Military and security personnel and their supporters killed most of the Armenian men of working age, as well as thousands of women and children.
During the escorted desert crossings, surviving old men, women and children were subjected to unauthorized attacks by local authorities, nomadic gangs, criminal groups and civilians. In the course of these attacks, robberies took place (for example, the victims were stripped naked, their clothes were taken from them, and their bodies were searched for valuables), rape, kidnapping of young women and girls, extortion, torture and murder were committed.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died before reaching the designated camp. Many of them were killed or kidnapped, others committed suicide, and a huge number of Armenians died from hunger, dehydration, lack of shelter or disease on the way to their destination. While some residents of the country sought to provide assistance to the deported Armenians, many more ordinary citizens killed or tortured the escorted.
CENTRALIZED ORDERS
Although the term "genocide" appeared only in 1944, most scientists agree that the massacres of Armenians correspond to the definition of genocide. The government, controlled by the Unity and Progress Party, used the state of martial law in the country to pursue a long-term demographic policy aimed at increasing the proportion of the Turkish Muslim population in Anatolia by reducing the number of Christians (mostly Armenians, but also Christian Assyrians). Ottoman, Armenian, American, British, French, German and Austrian documents of that time indicate that the leadership of the Unity and Progress party deliberately exterminated the Armenian population of Anatolia.
The Unity and Progress Party issued orders from Constantinople and enforced them with the help of its agents in the Special Organization and local administrations. In addition, the central government required close monitoring and collection of data on the number of Armenians deported, the type and number of housing units they left behind, and the number of deported citizens who entered the camps.
The initiative regarding certain actions came from the top members of the leadership of the Unity and Progress party, and they also coordinated actions. The central figures in this operation were Talaat Pasha (Minister of Internal Affairs), Ismail Enver Pasha (Minister of War), Behaeddin Shakir (Head of the Special Organization) and Mehmet Nazim (Head of the Demographic Planning Service).
According to government decrees, in certain regions the share of the Armenian population should not exceed 10% (in some regions - no more than 2%), Armenians could live in settlements, which included no more than 50 families, as far away as from the Baghdad railway. and from each other. To comply with these requirements, local authorities have repeatedly carried out deportations of the population. The Armenians crossed the desert back and forth without the necessary clothing, food and water, suffering from the scorching sun during the day and freezing from the cold at night. The deported Armenians were regularly attacked by nomads and their own escorts. As a result, under the influence of natural factors and purposeful extermination, the number of deported Armenians significantly decreased and began to comply with the established norms.
Motives
The Ottoman regime pursued the goal of strengthening the military positions of the country and financing of the "Turkishization" of Anatolia by confiscating the property of killed or deported Armenians. The possibility of property redistribution also stimulated broad masses of ordinary people to participate in attacks on their neighbors. Many residents of the Ottoman Empire considered the Armenians to be well-to-do people, but in fact, a significant part of the Armenian population lived in poverty.
In some cases, the Ottoman authorities agreed to grant the Armenians the right to live in the former territories, subject to their acceptance of Islam. While thousands of Armenian children were killed through the fault of the Ottoman authorities, they often tried to convert children to Islam and assimilate them into Muslim, primarily Turkish, society. As a rule, the Ottoman authorities avoided carrying out mass deportations from Istanbul and Izmir in order to hide their crimes from the eyes of foreigners and to derive economic benefits from the activities of the Armenians living in these cities in order to modernize the empire.
In 1915, 2 million Armenians lived in the weakened Ottoman Empire. But under the cover of World War I, the Turkish government systematically massacred 1.5 million people in an effort to unite the entire Turkish people, creating a new empire with one language and one religion.
The ethnic cleansing of Armenians and other minorities, including Assyrians, Pontic and Anatolian Greeks, is today known as the Armenian Genocide.
Despite pressure from Armenians and activists around the world, Turkey still refuses to recognize the genocide, stating that there was no deliberate killing of Armenians.
History of the region
Armenians have lived in the southern Caucasus since the 7th century BC and fought for control over other groups such as the Mongol, Russian, Turkish, and Persian empires. In the 4th century, the reigning king of Armenia became a Christian. He argued that Christianity was the official religion of the empire, although in the 7th century AD, all the countries surrounding Armenia were Muslims. The Armenians continued to practice Christians despite being conquered many times and forced to live under harsh rule.
The roots of the genocide lie in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. At the turn of the 20th century, the once widespread Ottoman Empire was crumbling along the edges. The Ottoman Empire lost all of its territory in Europe during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, creating instability among nationalist ethnic groups.
First massacre
At the turn of the century, tensions grew between the Armenians and the Turkish authorities. Sultan Abdel Hamid II, known as the "bloody sultan," told a reporter in 1890, "I will give them a box in their ear that will make them abandon their revolutionary ambitions."
In 1894, the box-in-the-ear massacre was the first of the Armenian massacres. Ottoman troops and civilians attacked Armenian villages in Eastern Anatolia, killing 8,000 Armenians, including children. A year later, 2,500 Armenian women were burnt in the Urfa Cathedral. Around the same time, a group of 5,000 people were killed after demonstrations asking for international intervention to prevent the massacres in Constantinople. Historians estimate that by 1896 more than 80,000 Armenians had died.
The Rise of Young Turks
In 1909, the Ottoman sultan was overthrown by a new political group, the Young Turks, a group seeking a modern, Westernized style of government. At first, the Armenians hoped that they would have a place in the new state, but they soon realized that the new government was xenophobic and excluded a multi-ethnic Turkish society. To strengthen Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks developed a secret program to exterminate the Armenian population.
World War I
In 1914, the Turks entered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The outbreak of the war will provide an excellent opportunity to resolve the "Armenian issue" once and for all.
How the Armenian Genocide began in 1915
Military leaders accused the Armenians of supporting the allies on the assumption that the people naturally sympathized with Christian Russia. Consequently, the Turks disarmed the entire Armenian population. Turkish suspicion of the Armenian people prompted the government to insist on "removing" Armenians from war zones along the Eastern Front.
The mandate for the annihilation of the Armenians, transmitted in coded telegrams, came directly from the Young Turks. On the evening of April 24, 1915, gunfire began as 300 Armenian intellectuals - political leaders, educators, writers and religious leaders in Constantinople - were forcibly removed from their homes, tortured, then hanged or shot.
The death march killed about 1.5 million Armenians, covering hundreds of miles and lasting several months. Indirect routes through the desert areas were specifically chosen to extend marches and preserve caravans in Turkish villages.
After the disappearance of the Armenian population, the Muslim Turks quickly took over what was left. The Turks destroyed the remains of the Armenian cultural heritage, including the masterpieces of ancient architecture, old libraries and archives. The Turks have leveled entire cities, including the once flourishing Harpert, Van, and the ancient capital of Ani, to remove all traces of three thousand years of civilization.
No allied power came to the aid of the Armenian Republic, and it collapsed. The only tiny part of historical Armenia that survived was the easternmost region because it became part of the Soviet Union. The Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide of the University of Minnesota compiled data on provinces and regions, which showed that in 1914 there were 2,133,190 Armenians in the empire, and by 1922 only about 387,800 people.
A failed call to arms in the West
At the time, international informants and national diplomats acknowledged the atrocities committed as atrocities against humanity.
Leslie Davis, US Consul at Garput, noted: "These women and children were driven out of the desert in the middle of summer, robbed and plundered with what they had ... after which all who did not die were killed near the city in the meantime."
Swedish Ambassador to Peru Gustaf August Kosswa Ankarsvard noted in his letter in 1915: “The persecution of the Armenians has reached the scale of a drag, and everything indicates that young Turks want to take this opportunity ... [to put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist in the destruction of the Armenian people. "
Even Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador to Armenia, noted: "When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations, they simply gave the death sentence to the whole race."
The New York Times also covered the issue with 145 articles in 1915 with the headlines "Turning to Turkey to Stop the Massacre." The newspaper described the actions against Armenians as "systematic," sanctioned "and" organized by the government. "
The Allied Powers (Britain, France and Russia) responded to the news of the massacre by issuing a warning to Turkey: "The Allied Governments announce publicly that they will hold all members of the Ottoman government, and their agents like them, personally accountable for such matters." The warning had no effect.
Since Ottoman law prohibited the photographing of Armenian deportees, photographic documentation documenting the seriousness of ethnic cleansing is rare. In an act of defiance, the officers of the German military mission recorded the atrocities taking place in the concentration camps. Although many of the photos were intercepted by Ottoman intelligence, lost in Germany during World War II or forgotten in dusty boxes, the Museum of the Armenian Genocide of America has captured some of these photos in an online export.
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Today, Armenians celebrate those who died during the genocide on April 24, the day of 1915, when several hundred Armenian intellectuals and professionals were arrested and executed as the beginning of the genocide.
In 1985, the United States named this day "National Day of Remembrance of Human Inhumanity towards Man" in honor of all the victims of the genocide, especially the one and a half million people of Armenian descent who were victims of the genocide committed in Turkey. "
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a hot issue today, as Turkey criticizes scholars for punishing deaths and blaming the Turks for death, which the government says was due to hunger and the brutality of the war. In fact, speaking of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, it is punishable by law. As of 2014, 21 countries as a whole have publicly or legally recognized this ethnic cleansing in Armenia as genocide.
In 2014, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed condolences to the Armenian people and said: "The incidents of the First World War are our common pain."
However, many believe the proposals are useless until Turkey recognizes the loss of 1.5 million people as genocide. In response to Erdogan's proposal, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said: “The refusal to commit a crime is a direct continuation of this very crime. Only recognition and condemnation can prevent the repetition of such crimes in the future. "
Ultimately, the recognition of this genocide is not only important for the elimination of the affected ethnic groups, but also for the development of Turkey as a democratic state. If the past is denied, genocide still occurs. In 2010, a Swedish Parliament resolution stated that "denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, cementing impunity for those responsible for the genocide and apparently paving the way for future genocides."
Countries that do not recognize the Armenian genocide
Countries that recognize the Armenian genocide are the ones that officially accept the systematic massacres and forced deportations of Armenians carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.
Although historical and academic institutions for the study of the Holocaust and genocide accept the Armenian Genocide, many countries refuse to do so in order to maintain their political relations with the Republic of Turkey. Azerbaijan and Turkey are the only countries that refuse to recognize the Armenian Genocide and threaten economic and diplomatic consequences for those who do it.
The Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex was built in 1967 on the Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan. The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, opened in 1995, presents facts about the horror of the massacres.
Turkey has been urged to recognize the Armenian Genocide on several occasions, but the sad fact is that the government has denied the word “genocide” as an accurate term for massacres.
Facts About Countries Recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Memorial and Criminalization of Denial
On May 25, 1915, the Allied authorities issued a statement, which states that the employees of the Ottoman government participating in the Armenian Genocide will personally be held accountable for crimes against humanity. Parliaments of several countries began to recognize this event as genocide from the second half of the 20th century.
The Left Bank and Green Turkish political party Green Left Party is the only one that recognizes the Armenian Genocide in the country.
Uruguay became the first country to be recognized in 1965 and again in 2004.
Cyprus was the country that recognized the Armenian genocide: first in 1975, 1982 and 1990. Moreover, she was the first to raise this issue at the UN General Assembly. Denial of the Armenian Genocide is also criminalized in Cyprus.
France also criminalized denial of the Armenian Genocide in 2016, recognizing it in 1998 and 2001. Following the adoption of the bill, which was criminalized on October 14, 2016, it was passed by the French National Assembly in July 2017. It provides for a sentence of a year in prison or a fine of 45,000 euros.
Greece recognized this event as genocide in 1996 and, in accordance with the 2014 act, the refusal of punishment is punishable by imprisonment for up to three years and a fine that must not exceed 30,000 euros.
Countries That Recognize the Armenian Genocide: Switzerland and Memorial Laws
Switzerland recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2003, when denial is a crime. Dogu Perincek, a Turkish politician, lawyer and chairman of the left-wing nationalist patriotic party, became the first person to be criminally charged with renouncing the Armenian Genocide. The decision was made by a Swiss court in 2007.
The Perince case was the result of his describing the Armenian Genocide as an international lie in Lausanne in 2005. His case was appealed to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. His decision was in his favor on the basis of freedom of speech. According to the court: "Mr. Perincek delivered a speech on the historical, legal and political nature in controversial debates."
Although he was sentenced to life in prison in August 2013, he was eventually released in 2014. After his release, he joined the Justice and Development Party and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Facts about the countries recognizing the Armenian Genocide and the memorial
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg announced the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in 2015 after the resolution was unanimously passed by the Chamber of Deputies.
Brazil's decision to recognize the massacres was approved by the Federal Senate.
In Bolivia, the resolution recognizing the genocide was unanimously approved by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bulgaria was another country to recognize the Armenian Genocide in 2015, but criticism followed. On April 24, 2015, the phrase “mass extermination of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire” was used in Bulgaria. They were criticized for not using the term "genocide". Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said that the phrase or idiom is the Bulgarian word for "genocide".
Germany has announced its recognition twice: in 2005 and 2016. The resolution was first adopted in 2016. In the same year, in July, the German Bundestag gave her only one vote against the event named "genocide".
10 facts about the Armenian genocide in 1915
Today, the Turkish government still denies that the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians represented it as "genocide." This is despite the fact that many scholarly articles and proclamations from respected historians testified that the events leading to the massacres, as well as the way the Armenians were killed, irrevocably make this moment in history one of the first Holocaust.
1. According to history, the Turkish people denied genocide, saying: "The Armenians were an enemy force ... and their massacre was a necessary military measure."
The "war" referred to is World War I and the events leading up to the Armenian Genocide - which were at the fore in the history of the Holocaust - leading up to the First World War for over 20 years.
One prominent Turkish politician, Dogu Perincek, came under fire for his denial of the Armenian Genocide while visiting Switzerland in 2008. According to The Telegraph, a Swiss court fined Perzchek after he called the genocide an "international lie." He appealed the charge in 2013 and the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss court's charges "violated the right to freedom of expression."
Currently, Amal Clooney (yes, the new Ms. George Clooney) has joined the legal team that will represent Armenia in this appeal. According to The Telegraph, Clooney will be joined by her head of chambers, Jeffrey Robertson, QC, who also authored the October 2014 book Inconvenient Genocide: Who Remembers Armenians Now?
Publishers at Random House said the book "... there is no doubt that the horrific events of 1915 were a crime against humanity that is now known as genocide."
The irony in Perinek's indignation at the charges against him is obvious; Perinek is a supporter of Turkey's current laws, which condemn citizens for talking about the Armenian Genocide.
Discussion of the Armenian Genocide is illegal in Turkey
In Turkey, discussing the Armenian genocide is considered a crime punishable by imprisonment. In 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan effectively threatened the deportation of 100,000 Armenians in response to a bill to commemorate the Armenian Genocide presented to the House of Commons.
Foreign Affairs Correspondent Damien McElroy details the events in the article. Erdogan made this statement, later called "blackmail" by Armenian MP Hrayr Karapetyan, after the bill was issued:
“Currently 170,000 Armenians live in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we tolerate the remaining 100,000 ... If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to return to their country, because they are not my citizens. I don't need to keep them in my country.
"This statement once again proves that in present-day Turkey there is a threat of Armenian genocide, therefore the world community should put pressure on Ankara to recognize the genocide," Karapetyan answered to Erdogan's subtle threats.
America was interested in marking events as genocide
Although the American government and the media called the killing of 1.5 million Armenians "atrocities" or "massacres," the word "genocide" rarely made its way into the American people, describing the events that took place from 1915 to 1923. That the words "Armenian Genocide" appeared in the New York Times. Petr Balakian, professor of humanities at Colgate University, and Samantha Power, professor at the Harvard School of the Kennedy government, wrote a letter to the editor of the Times, which was subsequently published.
In the letter, Balakian and Sila punish The Times and other media outlets for not reporting the atrocities that occurred in 1915 as genocide.
“The extermination of Armenians was recognized as genocide thanks to the consensus of scholars of genocide and Holocaust all over the world. Failure to acknowledge this trivializes a human rights crime of enormous magnitude, ”reads one excerpt of the letter. “This is ironic because in 1915 the New York Times published 145 articles on the Armenian Genocide and regularly used the words“ systematic ”,“ state planning ”and“ extermination ”.
Currently, the recognition of the events of 1915 by the United States as genocide of America is being considered by the US House of Representatives. The proposed resolution is summarized as the “Resolution on the Armenian Genocide”, but its official title is “H. Res 106 or Confirmation of the US Document on the Armenian Genocide Resolution ”.
The role of religion in the Armenian genocide
The religious origins of the Armenian Genocide date back to the 15th century, when the Armenian government was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire were mostly Muslim. Christian Armenians were considered minorities by the Ottoman Empire, and although they were “allowed to maintain some autonomy,” they were mostly treated as second-class citizens; that is, Armenians were denied the right to vote, were paid higher taxes than Muslims, and many other legal and economic rights were denied. In the leaders of the Ottoman Empire, insults and prejudices prevailed, since the unfair treatment of Armenians who found themselves in violence against Christian minorities.
In the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled and taken over by the Young Turks. Young Turks were originally formed as leaders who will guide the country and its citizens to a more democratic and constitutional place. Initially, the Armenians were delighted with this prospect, but later learned that the modernization of the Young Turks would include extermination as a means to “Turkize” the new state.
The Young Turk rule will catalyze what is now known as one of the world's first genocides.
The role of religion in this genocide was visible, as Christianity was constantly seen as a justification for the Holocaust perpetrated by the warlike followers of the Young Turks. Likewise, the extermination of Jewish citizens was considered a justification for Nazi Germany during World War II.
Slap from the Sultan
According to history, Turkish dictator Sultan Abdul Hamid II made this ominous threat to a reporter in 1890:
“I will settle these Armenians soon,” he said. "I will give them a slap in the face that will make them ... give up their revolutionary ambitions."
Before the Armenian Genocide in 1915, these threats were realized during the massacres of thousands of Armenians between 1894 and 1896. According to the Joint Human Rights Council, calls by Christian Armenians for reform led to "... more than 100,000 Armenian villagers were killed in widespread pogroms by the Sultan's special regiments."
The ruler of the Ottoman Empire was overthrown by a group called the Young Turks. The Armenians hoped that this new regime would lead to a just and just society for their people. Unfortunately, the group became the forwarders of the Armenian genocide during the First World War.
Young Turks
In 1908, a group of "reformers" calling themselves "Young Turks" overthrew Sultan Hamid and gained leadership in Turkey. Initially, the Young Turks' goal seemed to be one that would lead the country to equal and just, and the Armenians hoped for peace among their people in the light of the changes.
However, it quickly became apparent that the Young Turks' goal was to "lure" the country and eliminate the Armenians. Young Turks were the catalysts of the Armenian Genocide that took place during World War I and were responsible for the murder of nearly two million Armenians.
Many wonder why the crimes of the Young Turks are not regarded as crimes of the Nazi Party during the Holocaust.
Scholars and historians point out that the reason for this may be the lack of accountability of the crimes of the Turks. After the Ottoman Empire surrendered in 1918, the Young Turk leaders fled to Germany, where they were promised freedom from any persecution for their atrocities.
Since then, the Turkish government, along with several of Turkey's allies, has denied that genocide ever took place. In 1922, the Armenian Genocide came to an end, leaving only 388,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Causes and consequences of the Armenian genocide in 1915?
The term "genocide" refers to the systematic massacre of a specific group of people. The name "genocide" was not coined until 1944, when the Polish-Jewish lawyer Rafael Lemkin used the term during trials to describe crimes committed by top Nazi leaders. Lemon created the word by combining the Greek word for "group" or "tribe" (geno-) and the Latin word for "kill" (cide).
In a 1949 CBS interview, Lemkin stated that his inspiration for the term comes from the fact that systematic killings of specific groups of people “happened as many times in the past” as Armenians did.
Similarities Between Genocide and Holocaust
There is some evidence that the Armenian Genocide was the inspiration for Adolf Hitler before he led the Nazi party in an attempt to exterminate the entire people. This point has been the subject of much heated debate, especially with regard to Hitler's alleged quote regarding the Armenians.
Many genocidal scholars stated that a week before the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Hitler asked: "Who is talking about the annihilation of the Armenians today?"
According to an article published in the Midwestern Quarterly in mid-April 2013 by Hannibal Travis, it is indeed possible that, as many argue, the quote from Hitler was not actually or was somehow embellished by historians. Mercilessly, Travis notes that several parallels between the Genocide and the Holocaust are transparent.
Both used the concept of ethnic cleansing or cleansing. According to Travis, "while the Young Turks implemented" a clean sweep of internal enemies - native Christians, "according to the then German ambassador to Constantinople ... Hitler himself used" purification "or" purification "as a euphemism for extermination."
Travis also notes that even if Hitler's infamous quote about the Armenians never happened, the inspiration he and the Nazi party received from various aspects of the Armenian Genocide is undeniable.
What happened during the Armenian Genocide?
The Armenian Genocide officially began on April 24, 1915. During this time, the Young Turks recruited a deadly organization of individuals who were sent to persecute the Armenians. The composition of this group included murderers and ex-prisoners. According to the story, one of the officers gave instructions to name the atrocities that were to take place, "... the elimination of Christian elements."
The genocide was played out as follows:
The Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes and sent on "death marches", which involved trekking through the Mesopotamian desert without food or water. The marshers were often torn to pieces naked and forced to walk until they died. Those who stopped for a respite or respite were shot
The only Armenians who were rescued were subject to conversion and / or abuse. Some children of genocide victims were kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam; these children were to be brought up in the home of a Turkish family. Some Armenian women were raped and forced to serve as slaves in Turkish harems.
Celebrating the Armenian Genocide
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the brutal Holocaust in 1915, an international effort was made to commemorate the victims and their families. The first official 100th anniversary event was held at Florida Atlantic University in southern Florida. ARMENPRESS states that the company's mission is to "preserve Armenian culture and promote its dissemination."
On the West Coast, Los Angeles Councilor Paul Kerkorian will accept applications for an art competition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. According to West Side Today, Kerkorian stated that the competition "... is a way to honor the history of genocide and highlight the promise of our future." He continued: "I hope that artists and students who care about human rights will participate and help honor the memory of the Armenian people."
Abroad, the National Committee of Armenia (ANC) of Australia has officially launched its OnThisDay campaign, which will focus on honoring those affected by the Armenian Genocide. Asbares said ANC Australia has produced an extensive catalog of these newspaper clippings from Australian archives, including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Argus and other notable publications of the day, and will publish them daily on Facebook. ...
ANC Australia Executive Director Vache Kahramanian noted that the released information will include many articles detailing the “horrors” of the Armenian Genocide, as well as reports on Australia's humanitarian efforts during this time.
The situation today
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "... sent invitations to the leaders of 102 states whose soldiers fought in the First World War, inviting them to take part in the anniversary event to be held on April 23-24," while the Armenians will gather to commemorate the 100 anniversary of the genocide experienced in the Ottoman Empire. The invitation was greeted with grievances from the citizens of Armenia, who considered it "dishonest", "joke" and "political maneuver" on the part of Erdogan.
Genocide(from the Greek genos - clan, tribe and Latin caedo - I kill), an international crime, expressed in actions committed with the aim of destroying in whole or in part any national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Actions qualified by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as acts of genocide were committed repeatedly in the history of mankind since ancient times, especially during destructive wars and devastating invasions and campaigns of conquerors, internal ethnic and religious clashes, during the period of division peace and the formation of the colonial empires of the European powers, in the process of a fierce struggle for the redivision of the divided world, which led to two world wars and in the colonial wars after the Second World War 1939-1945.
However, the term "genocide" was first introduced into use in the early 1930s. XX century by a Polish lawyer, a Jew by birth Rafael Lemkin, and after the Second World War received international legal status as a concept that defines the gravest crime against humanity. R Lemkin under the Genocide meant the massacre of Armenians in Turkey during the First World War (1914-1918), and then the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany in the period preceding the Second World War, and in the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis during the war years.
The destruction of more than 1.5 million Armenians during 1915-1923 is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. in Western Armenia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, organized and systematically carried out by the Young Turkish rulers.
The Armenian Genocide should also include the massacres of the Armenian population in Eastern Armenia and Transcaucasia as a whole, committed by the Turks who invaded Transcaucasia in 1918 Gad, and the Kemalists during the aggression against the Armenian Republic in September-December 1920, as well as the pogroms of Armenians organized by the Musavatists. in Baku and Shushi in 1918 and 1920, respectively. Taking into account the number of victims of the periodic pogroms of Armenians committed by the Turkish authorities since the end of the 19th century, the number of victims of the Armenian Genocide exceeds 2 million.
Armenian Genocide 1915 - 1916 - mass destruction and deportation of the Armenian population of Western Armenia, Cilicia and other provinces of the Ottoman Empire, carried out by the ruling circles of Turkey during the First World War (1914 - 1918). The genocidal policy towards Armenians was conditioned by a number of factors.
The leading role among them was the ideology of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism, which from the middle of the XIX century. professed by the ruling circles of the Ottoman Empire. The militant ideology of Pan-Islamism was distinguished by intolerance towards non-Muslims, preached outright chauvinism, and called for the Turkification of all non-Turkish peoples. Entering the war, the Young Turkish government of the Ottoman Empire made far-reaching plans to create a "Big Turan". These plans meant joining the empire of Transcaucasia, North Caucasus, Crimea, Volga region, Central Asia.
On the way to this goal, the aggressors had to do away with the Armenian people, who opposed the aggressive plans of the pan-Turkists. The Young Turks began to develop plans for the extermination of the Armenian population even before the outbreak of World War II. The decisions of the congress of the party "Unity and Progress", held in October 1911 in Thessaloniki, contained a demand for the Turkishization of the non-Turkish peoples of the empire.
At the beginning of 1914, a special order was sent to the local authorities regarding the measures to be taken against the Armenians. The fact that the order was sent out before the start of the war is irrefutable evidence that the extermination of the Armenians was a planned action, not at all conditioned by a specific military situation. The leadership of the Unity and Progress Party has repeatedly discussed the issue of mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population.
In October 1914, at a meeting chaired by the Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat, a special body was formed - the Executive Committee of the Three, which was entrusted with organizing the extermination of the Armenian population; it included the leaders of the Young Turk Nazim, Behaetdin Shakir and Shukri. In contemplating a heinous crime, the Young Turk leaders considered that war provided an opportunity for its implementation. Nazim bluntly stated that such a convenient opportunity may no longer exist, "the intervention of the great powers and the protest of newspapers will not have any consequences, since they will face a fait accompli, and thus the issue will be resolved ... Our actions must be directed to exterminate the Armenians so that none of them survived. "
In undertaking the destruction of the Armenian population, the ruling circles of Turkey intended to achieve several goals:
- the elimination of the Armenian Question, which would put an end to the intervention of the European powers;
- the Turks got rid of economic competition, and all the property of the Armenian people would pass into their hands;
- the elimination of the Armenian people will help pave the way for the capture of the Caucasus, for the achievement of the great ideal of Turanism.
The executive committee of the three received broad powers, weapons, money. The authorities organized special detachments "Teshkilati and Mahsuse", which consisted mainly of criminals and other criminal elements released from prisons, who were supposed to take part in the mass extermination of Armenians.
From the very first days of the war, frenzied anti-Armenian propaganda unfolded in Turkey. The Turkish people were taught that the Armenians did not want to serve in the Turkish army, that they were ready to cooperate with the enemy. Allegations were spread about the mass desertion of Armenians from the Turkish army, about the uprisings of Armenians who threatened the rear of the Turkish troops, etc. Anti-Armenian propaganda especially intensified after the first serious defeats of the Turkish troops on the Caucasian front. In February 1915, Minister of War Enver gave an order to destroy the Armenians serving in the Turkish army (at the beginning of the war, about 60 thousand Armenians aged 18-45 were drafted into the Turkish army, that is, the most combat-ready part of the male population). This order was carried out with unparalleled brutality.
On the night of April 24, 1915, representatives of the Constantinople police department broke into the houses of the most prominent Armenians in the capital and arrested them. Over the next few days, eight hundred people - writers, poets, journalists, politicians, doctors, lawyers, lawyers, scientists, teachers, priests, educators, artists - were sent to the central prison.
Two months later, on June 15, 1915, in one of the squares of the capital, 20 intellectuals - Armenians - members of the Hnchak party were executed, who were presented with a trumped-up charge of organizing terror against the authorities and striving to create an autonomous Armenia.
The same thing happened in all vilayets (regions): over the course of several days, thousands of people were arrested, including all famous cultural figures, politicians, people of mental labor. The deportation to the desert areas of the Empire was pre-planned. And this was a deliberate deception: as soon as people moved away from their homes, they were ruthlessly killed by those who were supposed to accompany them and ensure their safety. The Armenians who worked in government bodies were fired one by one; all military doctors were thrown into prisons.
The great powers were completely embroiled in a worldwide confrontation, and they put their geopolitical interests above the fate of two million Armenians ...
From May to June 1915, the mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population of Western Armenia (the vilayets of Van, Erzrum, Bitlis, Kharberd, Sebastia, Diyarbekir), Cilicia, Western Anatolia and other areas began. The ongoing deportation of the Armenian population in fact pursued the goal of its destruction. US Ambassador to Turkey G. Morgenthau noted: "The true purpose of the deportation was robbery and extermination; this is indeed a new method of massacre. When the Turkish authorities ordered these deportations, they were effectively sentencing an entire nation to death."
The real purpose of the deportation was also known to Germany, Turkey's ally. In June 1915, the German ambassador to Turkey, Wangenheim, informed his government that if at first the expulsion of the Armenian population was limited to the provinces close to the Caucasian front, now the Turkish authorities extended these actions to those parts of the country that were not under the threat of enemy invasion. These actions, the ambassador concluded, the ways in which the expulsion is carried out, indicate that the Turkish government has as its goal the destruction of the Armenian nation in the Turkish state. The same assessment of the deportation was contained in the reports of the German consuls from the vilayets of Turkey. In July 1915, the German vice-consul in Samsun reported that the deportation carried out in the vilayets of Anatolia was intended to either destroy or convert the entire Armenian people to Islam. The German consul in Trebizond at the same time reported on the deportation of Armenians in this vilayet and noted that the Young Turks intended to put an end to the Armenian question in this way.
The Armenians who were withdrawn from their places of permanent residence were reduced to caravans, which were sent deep into the empire, to Mesopotamia and Syria, where special camps were created for them. Armenians were exterminated both in their places of residence and on the way to exile; their caravans were attacked by the Turkish rabble, Kurdish bandit gangs, eager for prey. As a result, a small part of the deported Armenians reached their destinations. But those who reached the deserts of Mesopotamia were not safe; there are cases when deported Armenians were taken out of the camps and slaughtered in the thousands in the desert. Lack of basic sanitary conditions, hunger, epidemics caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
The actions of the Turkish pogromists were distinguished by unparalleled cruelty. This was demanded by the leaders of the Young Turks. Thus, the Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat, in a secret telegram sent to the governor of Aleppo, demanded to put an end to the existence of the Armenians, not to pay any attention to either age, gender, or remorse. This requirement was strictly followed. Eyewitnesses of the events, Armenians who survived the horrors of deportation and genocide, left numerous descriptions of the incredible suffering that befell the Armenian population. The correspondent of the English newspaper "The Times" reported in September 1915: "From Sasun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Eintab, from Marash and Erzrum, there are the same reports of atrocities: about men who were ruthlessly shot, crucified, mutilated or taken to labor battalions, about children abducted and forcibly converted to the Mohammedan faith, about women raped and sold into slavery deep in the rear, shot on the spot or sent with children to the desert west of Mosul, where there is no food or water ... Many of these unfortunate victims did not reach their destination ... and their corpses accurately indicated the path they followed. "
In October 1916, the newspaper "Caucasian Word" published a correspondence about the massacre of Armenians in the village of Baskan (Vardo Valley); the author cited an eyewitness account: “We saw how they first tore off everything valuable from the unfortunate; then they undressed, and some were immediately killed on the spot, while others were taken away from the road, into remote corners, and then finished off. We saw a group of three women who embraced in mortal fear. And it was impossible to separate them, to separate them. All three were killed ... The screams and screams stood unimaginable, our hair stood on end, our blood froze in our veins ... " Cilicia.
The massacre of Armenians continued in subsequent years. Thousands of Armenians were exterminated, driven to the southern regions of the Ottoman Empire and held in the camps of Rasul - Ayna, Deir - Zora and others. The Young Turks tried to carry out the genocide of the Armenians in Eastern Armenia, where, in addition to the local population, large numbers of refugees from Western Armenia accumulated. Having committed aggression against Transcaucasia in 1918, Turkish troops carried out pogroms and massacres of Armenians in many areas of Eastern Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Having occupied Baku in September 1918, Turkish interventionists, together with Azerbaijani nationalists, organized a terrible massacre of the local Armenian population, killing 30 thousand people.
As a result of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Young Turks in 1915-1916, more than 1.5 million people died, about 600 thousand Armenians became refugees; they scattered across many countries of the world, replenishing the existing ones and forming new Armenian communities. An Armenian diaspora ("Diaspora" - Armenian) was formed.
As a result of the genocide, Western Armenia lost its original population. The leaders of the Young Turks did not hide their satisfaction with the successful implementation of the planned atrocity: German diplomats in Turkey informed their government that already in August 1915, Interior Minister Talaat cynically stated that "the actions against the Armenians have basically been carried out and the Armenian question no longer exists."
The relative ease with which the Turkish pogromists managed to carry out the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire is partly due to the unpreparedness of the Armenian population, as well as of the Armenian political parties, for the impending threat of extermination. The mobilization of the most combat-ready part of the Armenian population, men, into the Turkish army, as well as the elimination of the Armenian intelligentsia of Constantinople, facilitated the actions of the pogromists. A certain role was also played by the fact that in some public and clerical circles of Western Armenians they believed that insubordination to the Turkish authorities, who gave orders for deportation, could only lead to an increase in the number of victims.
The Armenian genocide carried out in Turkey caused enormous damage to the spiritual and material culture of the Armenian people. In 1915-1916 and subsequent years, thousands of Armenian manuscripts stored in Armenian monasteries were destroyed, hundreds of historical and architectural monuments were destroyed, and the shrines of the people were desecrated. The destruction of historical and architectural monuments on the territory of Turkey, the appropriation of many cultural values of the Armenian people continues to the present day. The tragedy experienced by the Armenian people affected all aspects of the life and social behavior of the Armenian people, firmly settled in its historical memory.
The progressive public opinion of the world condemned the villainous crime of the Turkish pogromists who tried to destroy the Armenian people. Public and political figures, scientists, cultural workers of many countries branded the genocide, qualifying it as the gravest crime against humanity, took part in the implementation of humanitarian aid to the Armenian people, in particular to refugees who have found refuge in many countries of the world.
After Turkey's defeat in World War I, the leaders of the Young Turks were accused of dragging Turkey into a disastrous war and brought to justice. Among the charges brought against the war criminals was the accusation of organizing and carrying out the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. However, the verdict against a number of Young Turk leaders was passed in absentia. after the defeat of Turkey, they managed to escape from the country. The death sentence against some of them (Talaat, Behaetdin Shakir, Jemal Pasha, Said Halim, etc.) was subsequently carried out by the Armenian people's avengers.
After the Second World War, genocide was qualified as the gravest crime against humanity. The legal documents on the genocide were based on the basic principles developed by the international military tribunal in Nuremberg, which tried the main war criminals of Nazi Germany. Subsequently, the UN adopted a number of decisions regarding genocide, the main of which are the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and the Convention on the Inapplicability of the Statute of Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, adopted in 1968.
Dönme - a crypto-Jewish sect brought Ataturk to power
One of the most destructive factors that largely determines the political state in the Middle East and Transcaucasia for 100 years is the genocide of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, during which, according to various sources, from 664 thousand to 1.5 million people were killed. And given that the genocide of the Pontic Greeks, which began in Izmir, during which from 350 thousand to 1.2 million people were killed, and the Assyrians, in which the Kurds took part, which took away from 275 to 750 thousand people, took place almost simultaneously, this factor is already for more than 100 years, it has kept the whole region in suspense, constantly stirring up enmity between the peoples inhabiting it. Moreover, as soon as there is even a slight rapprochement between the neighbors, giving hope for their reconciliation and further peaceful coexistence, an external factor, a third party, immediately intervenes in the situation, and a bloody event occurs, further fueling mutual hatred.
For an ordinary person who has received a standard education, today it is absolutely obvious that the Armenian genocide took place and that it is Turkey that is to blame for the genocide. Russia, among more than 30 countries, recognized the fact of the Armenian genocide, which, however, has little effect on its relations with Turkey. Turkey, in the eyes of an ordinary person, is absolutely irrational and stubbornly continues to deny its responsibility not only for the genocide of Armenians, but also for the genocide of other Christian peoples - Greeks and Assyrians. According to Turkish media reports, in May 2018, Turkey opened all of its archives to investigate the events of 1915. President Recep Erdogan said that after the opening of the Turkish archives, if someone dares to declare the "so-called Armenian genocide", then let him try to prove it based on facts:
"There was no 'genocide' against Armenians in the history of Turkey" , - said Erdogan.
Nobody will dare to suspect that the Turkish president is inadequate. Erdogan, the leader of a great Islamic country, the heir to one of the greatest empires, by definition cannot be like, say, the president of Ukraine. And the president of any country will not dare to take an open and open lie. This means that Erdogan really knows something that is unknown to most people in other countries, or is carefully hidden from the world community. And such a factor really exists. It does not touch on the event of genocide itself, it touches on the one who performed this inhuman cruelty and is really responsible for it.
***
In February 2018, on the portal of the Turkish "electronic government" (www.turkiye.gov.tr ), an online service was launched, where any Turkish citizen could trace his genealogy, learn about his ancestors in a few clicks. The available records were limited to the early 19th century, at the time of the Ottoman Empire. The service almost instantly became so popular that it soon collapsed due to millions of requests. The results obtained shocked a huge number of Turks. It turns out that many people who considered themselves Turks, in reality, have ancestors of Armenian, Jewish, Greek, Bulgarian and even Macedonian and Romanian origin. This fact, by default, only confirmed what everyone in Turkey knows, but no one likes to mention, especially in the presence of foreigners. It is considered bad form in Turkey to speak aloud about this, but it is this factor that now determines the entire domestic and foreign policy, the entire struggle of Erdogan for power within the country.
The Ottoman Empire, by the standards of its time, pursued a relatively tolerant policy towards national and religious minorities, preferring, again, by the standards of that time, non-violent methods of assimilation. To some extent, she repeated the methods of the Byzantine Empire she had defeated. The Armenians traditionally ruled over the financial area of the empire. Most of the bankers in Constantinople were Armenians. Many finance ministers were Armenians, it is enough to recall the brilliant Hakob Kazazyan Pasha, who was considered the best finance minister in the entire history of the Ottoman Empire. Of course, throughout history there have been interethnic and interreligious conflicts, which even led to the shedding of blood. But nothing like the genocides of the Christian population in the 20th century took place in the Empire. And suddenly such a tragedy happens. Any sane person will understand that this does not happen out of the blue. So why and who carried out these bloody genocides? The answer to this question lies in the history of the Ottoman Empire itself.
***
In Istanbul, on the Asian side of the city across the Bosphorus, there is the old and secluded Uskudar cemetery. Visitors to the cemetery among traditional Muslims will begin to meet and marvel at tombs that are unlike others and do not fit into Islamic traditions. Many of the tombs are covered with concrete and stone surfaces rather than earth, and have photographs of the deceased, which does not fit with tradition. When asked whose graves they are, you will be informed almost in a whisper that representatives of the Donmeh (converts or apostates - Tur.), A large and mysterious part of Turkish society, are buried here. The grave of the Supreme Court judge is located next to the grave of the former leader of the Communist Party, and next to them are the graves of the general and the famous educator. Dongme are Muslims, but not quite. Most of the modern denme are secular people who vote for the secular republic of Ataturk, but in every denme community there are still secret religious rites that are more Jewish than Islamic. No donme ever publicly confesses their identity. Themselves donme learn about themselves only after reaching the age of 18, when their parents reveal a secret to them. This tradition of zealous preservation of dual identities in Muslim society has been passed down through the generations.
As I wrote in the article"Island of the Antichrist: a springboard for Armageddon" , Donmeh, or Sabbatians are followers and disciples of the Jewish rabbi Shabbtai Tzvi, who in 1665 was proclaimed the Jewish messiah and made the biggest schism in Judaism in almost 2 millennia of its official existence. Avoiding execution by the Sultan, together with his numerous followers Shabbtai Tzvi converted to Islam in 1666. Despite this, many Sabbatians are still members of three religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Turkish donme were originally founded in Greek Thessaloniki by Jacob Kerido and his son Berahio (Baruch) Russo (Osman Baba). Later, the donme spread throughout Turkey, where they were called, depending on the direction in Sabbatianism, Izmirlars, Karakashlar (black-browed) and Kapanjilar (owners of scales). The main place of concentration of the donme in the Asian part of the Empire was the city of Izmir. The Young Turk movement consisted largely of the Donme. Kemal Ataturk, the first president of Turkey, was a donme and a member of the Veritas Masonic Lodge, a division of the Grand Orient of France.
Throughout their history, the Donmeh have repeatedly turned to the rabbis, representatives of traditional Judaism, with requests to recognize them as Jews, like the Karaites who reject the Talmud (oral Torah). However, they always received a refusal, which in most cases was of a political nature, not a religious one. Kemalist Turkey has always been an ally of Israel, which was politically unprofitable to admit that this state was actually run by Jews. For the same reasons, Israel categorically refused and still refuses to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emanuel Nachshon said recently that Israel's official position has not changed.
“We are very sensitive and responsive to the terrible tragedy of the Armenian people during the First World War. Historical debate on how to assess this tragedy is one thing, but the recognition that something terrible happened to the Armenian people is quite another, and it is much more important. "
Originally in Greek Thessaloniki, then part of the Ottoman Empire, the donme community consisted of 200 families. In secret, they practiced their own form of Judaism, based on the "18 Commandments" allegedly left by Shabbtai Zvi, along with the prohibition of mixed marriages with true Muslims. The Dönme never integrated into Muslim society and continued to believe that Shabbtai Zvi would one day return and lead them to redemption.
According to very conservative estimates of the denme themselves, now their number in Turkey is 15-20 thousand people. Alternative sources speak of millions of denme in Turkey. All officers and generals of the Turkish army, bankers, financiers, judges, journalists, policemen, lawyers, lawyers, preachers throughout the 20th century were dönme. But this phenomenon began in 1891 with the creation of the political organization of the Donme - the Committee "Unity and Progress", later called the "Young Turks", responsible for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the genocide of the Christian peoples of Turkey.
***
In the 19th century, the international Jewish elite planned to create a Jewish state in Palestine, but the problem was that Palestine was under Ottoman rule. The founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, wanted to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire on Palestine, but failed. Therefore, the next logical step was to gain control over the Ottoman Empire itself and its destruction in order to liberate Palestine and create Israel. It was for this that the "Unity and Progress" Committee was created under the guise of a secular Turkish nationalist movement. The committee held at least two congresses (in 1902 and 1907) in Paris, at which the revolution was planned and prepared. In 1908, the Young Turks began their revolution and forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II into submission.
The notorious "evil genius of the Russian revolution" Alexander Parvus was a financial advisor to the Young Turks, and the first Bolshevik government of Russia allocated Ataturk 10 million rubles in gold, 45 thousand rifles and 300 machine guns with ammunition. One of the main, sacred, reasons for the Armenian genocide was the fact that the Jews considered the Armenians Amalekites, the descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau. Esau himself was the elder twin brother of the founder of Israel, Jacob, who took advantage of the blindness of their father, Isaac, and stole the birthright from his elder brother. Throughout history, the Amalekites were the main enemies of Israel, with whom David fought during the reign of Saul, who was killed by the Amalekite.
The head of the Young Turks was Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who was a dönme and a direct descendant of the Jewish messiah Shabbtay Zvi. Jewish writer and Rabbi Joachim Prinz confirms this fact in his book The Secret Jews on page 122:
“The uprising of the Young Turks in 1908 against the authoritarian regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid began among the intelligentsia of Thessaloniki. It was there that the need for a constitutional regime arose. Among the leaders of the revolution that led to the creation of a more modern government in Turkey were Javid Bey and Mustafa Kemal. Both were ardent donme. Javid Bey became finance minister, Mustafa Kemal became the leader of the new regime and took the name Ataturk. His opponents tried to use his denmah affiliation to discredit him, but without success. Too many of the Young Turks in the newly formed revolutionary cabinet prayed to Allah, but their real prophet was Shabbtai Tzvi, the Messiah of Smyrna (Izmir - author's note). "
October 14, 1922TheLiterary Digest published an article titled "The Sort of Mustafa Kemal is" which stated:
“A Spanish Jew by birth, an Orthodox Muslim by birth, trained in a German military college, a patriot who studied the campaigns of the world's great military leaders, including Napoleon, Grant and Lee — these are said to be just a few of the outstanding personality traits of the new Man on Horseback, which appeared in the Middle East. He is a real dictator, correspondents testify, a man of the type who immediately becomes the hope and fear of nations torn to pieces by unsuccessful wars. Unity and power returned to Turkey largely thanks to the will of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Apparently, no one has yet called him "Napoleon of the Middle East", but probably sooner or later some enterprising journalist will do it; for Kemal's path to power, his methods are autocratic and elaborate, even his military tactics are said to be reminiscent of Napoleon. "
In an article entitled “When Kemal Ataturk Recited Shema Yisrael,” Jewish author Hillel Halkin quoted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk:
“I am a descendant of Shabbtai Zvi - no longer a Jew, but an ardent admirer of this prophet. I believe that every Jew in this country would do well to join his camp. "
Gershom Scholem wrote in his book Kabbalah on pp. 330-331:
“Their liturgies were written in a very small format so that they could be easily hidden. All sects were so successful in hiding their internal affairs from Jews and Turks that for a long time knowledge about them was based only on rumors and reports of outsiders. The donme manuscripts, revealing the details of their Sabbatian ideas, were presented and examined only after several donme families decided to fully assimilate into Turkish society and passed on their documents to Jewish friends of Thessaloniki and Izmir. As long as the donme were centered in Thessaloniki, the institutional framework of the sects remained intact, although several members of the donme were activists of the Young Turk movement that arose in that city. The first administration, which came to power after the Young Turk revolution in 1909, included three ministers - the donme, including the Minister of Finance Javid Beck, who was a descendant of the Baruch Russo family and was one of the leaders of his sect. One of the claims commonly made by many Jews in Thessaloniki (denied, however, by the Turkish government) was that Kemal Atatürk was of Donme origin. This view was eagerly supported by many of Ataturk's religious opponents in Anatolia. "
Rafael de Nogales, Inspector General of the Turkish Army in Armenia and Military Governor of the Egyptian Sinai during World War I, wrote in his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent on pages 26-27 that Osman Talaat, the chief architect of the Armenian Genocide, was dongme:
“It was a renegade Hebrew (donme) from Thessaloniki, Talaat, the main organizer of massacres and deportations, who, while fishing in troubled waters, succeeded in his career as a postal clerk a modest rank to the Grand Vizier of the Empire. "
In one of Marcel Tinayre's articles in L "Illustration in December 1923, which was translated into English and published as Saloniki, it is written:
“Today's Free Masonry donme, trained in Western universities, often professing total atheism, have become the leaders of the Young Turk revolution. Talaat Bek, Javid Bek and many other members of the Unity and Progress committee were donme from Thessaloniki. "
On July 11, 1911, The London Times wrote in the article "Jews and the Situation in Albania":
“It is well known that under the Masonic patronage the Thessaloniki Committee was formed with the help of Jews and Donme, or crypto-Jews of Turkey, whose headquarters are in Thessaloniki, and whose organization even under Sultan Abdul Hamid took a Masonic form. Jews such as Emmanuel Carasso, Salem, Sasun, Farji, Meslah and Donme, or Crypto Jews such as Javid Beck and the Balji family, were influential both in organizing the Committee and in its central body in Thessaloniki. These facts, which are known to every government in Europe, are also known throughout Turkey and the Balkans, where the trend to hold the Jews and the Donmeh responsible for the bloody blunders committed by the Committee».
On August 9, 1911, the same newspaper published a letter to its Constantinople edition, in which there were comments on the situation from the chief rabbis. In particular, it was written:
“I will just note that, according to the information I received from the true Freemasons, most of the lodges founded under the auspices of the Great East of Turkey since the revolution were from the very beginning the face of the Committee of Unity and Progress, and they were not then recognized by British Freemasons. ... The first "Supreme Council" of Turkey, appointed in 1909, contained three Jews - Caronry, Cohen and Fari, and three denme - Djavidaso, Kibarasso and Osman Talaat (the main leader and organizer of the Armenian genocide - author's note). "
To be continued…
Alexander Nikishin for
We went to Calvary with rapturous love,
And in the dark ages we fought alone.
Could we drink our blood to hell
And extinguish its crimson lights ...
“Armenian Bulletin”, 1916. No. 47
On April 24, the Turkish authorities began massacres, arrests and deportation of Armenians from Constantinople.
Subsequently, this date will become a day of remembrance for the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Even the term “genocide” itself was once proposed (by its author Rafael Lemkin) to denote the mass extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and only then the same word was used to refer to the extermination of Jews in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany. Further on how it was ...
The massacre of Armenians by the Turks began in the 1890s. The genocide can include the massacre in Smyrna and the actions of Turkish troops in the Transcaucasus in 1918.
In the joint Declaration of May 24, 1915, the allied countries (Great Britain, France and Russia), for the first time in history, the massacres of Armenians were recognized as a crime against humanity.
Simultaneously with the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the genocide of the Assyrians and the genocide of the Pontic Greeks took place.
The Armenians lived on the territory of modern Turkey when the Turks, as a nation, did not exist yet. The Armenian ethnos was formed by the 6th century BC. NS. in the territory of modern eastern Turkey and Armenia, in the region that includes Mount Ararat and Lake Van. Armenia became the first country to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion. The religious confrontation of Armenians, who did not want to abandon Christianity, during the numerous invasions of Muslims (Arab Abbasids, Seljuk and Oghuz Turks, Persians) and devastating wars led to a strong decrease in the Armenian population.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, the ethnonym "Turk" (Türk) was often used in a derogatory sense. The Turkic-speaking peasants of Anatolia were called "Turks", with a tinge of contempt for their ignorance.
When the Armenians became part of the Ottoman Empire, without being Muslims, they were considered second-class citizens - dhimmi. Armenians were forbidden to carry weapons, they had to pay higher taxes. Christian Armenians had no right to testify in court.
The hostility towards the Armenians was aggravated by unresolved social problems in cities and the struggle for resources in agriculture. The situation was complicated by the influx of Muhajirs - Muslim refugees from the Caucasus (after the Caucasian War and the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-78) and from the newly formed Balkan states. Expelled by Christians from their lands, refugees transferred their hatred to local Christians. All this and the problems that began in the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of the so-called "Armenian question".
The massacres that began in 1894-1896, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Armenians, consisted of three main episodes: the massacre in Sasun, the massacres of Armenians throughout the empire in the fall and winter of 1895, and the massacres in Istanbul and in the Van region, which were caused by protests of local Armenians.
In the Sasun region, Kurdish leaders imposed tribute on the Armenian population. At the same time, the Ottoman government demanded the repayment of state tax arrears, which had previously been forgiven given the facts of Kurdish robberies. The following year, Kurds and Ottoman officials demanded that Armenians pay taxes, but met with resistance, which the Fourth Army Corps was sent to suppress. At least 3,000 people were killed.
Protesting against the unsettledness of the Armenian problems in September 1895, the Armenians decided to hold a large demonstration, but the police stood in their way. As a result of the shooting, dozens of Armenians were killed and hundreds were wounded. The police caught the Armenians and handed them over to software - students of Islamic schools in Istanbul, who beat them to death. The massacre continued until October 3.
On October 8, Muslims killed and burned alive about a thousand Armenians in Trabzon. This event heralded a series of massacres of Armenians organized by the Ottoman authorities in Eastern Turkey: Erzincan, Erzurum, Gumushkhan, Bayburt, Urfa and Bitlis.