The Armenian Genocide
The Victimization of the Armenians between 1853 and 1913
By Christian Tak
Master Thesis
Student number: 5947774
Supervisor: Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör
Second Reader: Dr. Karel Berkhoff
December 2013
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
University of Amsterdam
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1
Structure of Thesis .................................................................................................................. 1
Relevance and Justification .................................................................................................... 2
Literature, Sources, and Data ................................................................................................ 3
Operationalization and Methodology ..................................................................................... 3
Pitfalls and Limitations .......................................................................................................... 3
Chapter One: Armenians Between Repression and Rebellion ................................................... 4
Armenian History Before 1853 ............................................................................................... 4
Demographics of the Armenians ............................................................................................ 6
Political and Social Status of the Armenians ......................................................................... 8
Armenian Cultural Identity ..................................................................................................... 9
Rule and be Ruled ................................................................................................................. 13
Chapter Two: Inclusion and Exclusion in the Late Ottoman Empire ...................................... 14
Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire ............................................................................. 14
Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire ..................................................................................... 16
The Treatment of Armenians Between 1853 and 1913 ......................................................... 20
Caught Between Turkish Nationalism and European Indifference ...................................... 23
Chapter Three: The Armenians in Late Ottoman Public Discourse......................................... 24
1853 - 1875: Inclusion in the Late Tanzimat Era ................................................................. 26
1876 - 1907: Polarization in the Hamidian Era................................................................... 30
1908 - 1913: Discriminatory Discourse by the CUP ........................................................... 32
Genocidal Rhetoric in Late Ottoman Discourse .................................................................. 34
Chapter Four: Explaining the Victimization of the Armenians ............................................... 36
The Impact of Late Ottoman Public Discourse .................................................................... 36
Why the Armenians? ............................................................................................................. 39
Ongoing Debate on the Origins of the Armenian Genocide ................................................ 41
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 43
Armenians and the Ottoman Empire Before 1853................................................................ 43
Turkish Nationalism ............................................................................................................. 44
Ottoman Public Discourse Between 1853 and 1913 ............................................................ 44
Victimization of the Armenians............................................................................................. 45
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 47
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 48
Literature .............................................................................................................................. 48
Sources.................................................................................................................................. 52
Introduction
In 1915-16, over a million Armenians perished as a result of state-approved and -directed
violence by the Ottoman government. Before the genocide, Armenians and Ottoman Turks
had lived together within Ottoman borders for centuries. How, after centuries of relative
peace, could the Armenians become victim of genocide at the hands of their own
government? Genocide is a complex phenomenon. It has many causes, and is often preceded
by a radicalizing of relations between victims and perpetrators. My aim in this thesis is to
explain the origins of the Armenian genocide. What events and developments in the late
Ottoman Empire created the conditions in which genocide could be committed? How did
relations between Armenians and Ottoman Turks change in the decades before the genocide?
These questions have led me to the central question of this thesis: how were the Armenians
within the Ottoman Empire victimized between 1853 and 1913?
This is a complex and broad question. I have therefore discerned some factors and
preliminary thoughts that will help me answer the question of this thesis. I expect the
Armenians within the late Ottoman Empire to be relatively wealthy, while also having a
strong sense of cultural identity. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, was in a deep state
of crisis in the nineteenth century. These two concepts might help explain possible hostile
attitudes towards the Armenians. Secondly, a common phenomenon amongst genocidal
regimes is a high degree of perceived threat -almost paranoia- from both internal and external
enemies.1 The primary external enemy of the Ottoman Empire was Russia, were the
Armenians considered the primary internal enemy? If so, to what extent were these two
enemies equated?
Structure of Thesis
In order to answer the central question, four questions need to be answered which will all
cover a chapter in this thesis. Firstly, who is the victim group that is made ‘the other’? In the
first chapter, the position of the Armenians in the latest stages of the Armenian genocide will
be described in terms of demographics, political and social status, and culture. I will
especially focus on Armenian culture, and try to get to the core of the cultural identity of the
Ottoman Armenians.
Secondly, how were the early stages of the Armenian genocide created? In the second
chapter, the crisis within the Ottoman Empire that preceded and caused the early stages of the
Armenian genocide will be explained. I will do so by dealing with the rise and fall of the
Ottoman Empire, the emergence of Turkish nationalism, and the treatment the Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire between 1853 and 1913.
Thirdly, how were the Armenians victimized between 1853 and 1913 through
symbolization? To answer this question, I will focus on the symbolization of the victim group.
What is the power of ideology and discourse? What discriminatory rhetoric can be uncovered
in late Ottoman discourse? These questions -amongst others- will be answered in the third
chapter.
The fourth and last question is: how can the symbolization of the Armenians be
explained? In the fourth chapter, the findings from previous chapters will be brought together.
1
Alvarez, A., Governments, Citizens, and Genocide (Indiana 2001) 134.
1
I will first discuss how effective late Ottoman discourse was. Secondly, I will answer the
research question based on a synthesis of the findings from previous chapters. Finally, I will
place my findings within the scholarly debate on the origins of the Armenian genocide.
Relevance and Justification
This thesis is relevant for a number of reasons, of which I will name three here. First of all, a
lot of research still needs to be done. the Armenian genocide was arguably the first modern
genocide. While the Holocaust was the most extensive, large-scale genocide that Europe
witnessed in the twentieth century, some argue that the Armenian genocide set an example for
Hitler, and even inspired him.2 The state of research on the Holocaust is advanced, and most
of its events have been meticulously studied. The Armenian genocide, meanwhile, is still an
under researched field of study both in Turkish- and in Genocide studies.3 A lot of research
has been done on the latest stages and the dissolving of the Ottoman Empire in Turkish
studies, and the Armenian genocide has largely been the domain of genocide scholars. My
aim is not to treat these two topics as separate fields of study, but to explain the origins of the
Armenian genocide by reviewing long-term developments within late Ottoman society.
Recently, historian Nicholas Doumanis has published a work on the destruction of MuslimChristian coexistence in the late Ottoman Empire.4 His work is primarily based on oral
history, and explains late Ottoman trends on a personal, or micro-level. This thesis, on the
contrary, will explain the victimization of the Armenians on a national level.
Secondly, this thesis focuses on the origins of the Armenian genocide. A lot of studies
have focused on the events of 1915-16, and take World War I or the rise of the Young Turk
movement in 1908 as a starting point. This study aims to explain how long-term
developments could have led to the victimization of the Armenians. Therefore, I have chosen
1853 as a starting point. In that year, the Crimean war broke out. An outcome of the war was
that the Ottoman Empire became an important force on an international level, which would
ultimately be of paramount importance for the treatment of the Armenians, as will be
demonstrated later. This study does not answer how the Armenian genocide unfolded, but
what events and developments could have led to the genocide by focusing on the process of
victimization of the Armenians.
Thirdly, this thesis is relevant because it contributes to the debate on the origins of
genocide. The debate on the origins of the Armenian genocide is still polarized, and opinions
differ greatly. The Armenian genocide is often explained with single causality, as will become
clear later in this thesis. Some perceive it as the inevitable result of ethnic hatred that was
bound to spill at some point, while others argue that it was an unexpected outburst in the
midst of war that ended a period of peaceful coexistence. I will argue that neither of these
explanations fits the Armenian genocide, and offer another explanation.
2
For more information on this discussion, see: Travis, H., ‘Did the Armenian Genocide Inspire Hitler?’. In:
Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2013) 27-35.
3
Üngör, U.U, ‘Fresh Understandings of the Armenian Genocide: Mapping New Terrain with Old Questions.’ In:
Jones, A., New Directions in Genocide Research (London 2011) 27.
4
Doumanis, N., Before the Nation. Muslim-Christian Coexistence and its Destruction in Late Ottoman Anatolia
(Oxford 2013)
2
Literature, Sources, and Data
This thesis will largely be based on the existing body of literature. In the first chapter, both
data on demographics and literature on the position of Armenians living in the Ottoman
Empire before the Armenian Genocide will be used. Some important authors for this chapter
are Anne Redgate, Ton Zwaan and Clifford Geertz. The emphasis in the second chapter is on
literature. I will use historical works on the Ottoman Empire in general, and on the period
1853-1913 in particular. Important authors for this chapter are David Kushner, Stanford Shaw
and Selim Deringil, amongst others. In chapter three, I will use both literature and primary
sources. Some primary sources that are useful here are translated works of Turkish writers
such as Ziya Pasha, Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan and Ziya Gökalp. In the fourth and last chapter,
the findings from earlier chapters will be analyzed. The theories from Ervin Staub on ideology
and an article by Robert Melson on recent developments in Armenian genocide studies are
key in this chapter.
Operationalization and Methodology
The method for the first chapter is straightforward. The available data will be analyzed and
compared to assert the position of the Armenians within the Ottoman Empire in the late stages
of the Ottoman Empire. The cultural identity of the Armenians is key in this chapter, I will
apply the theories of anthropologist Clifford Geertz to get to the core of the Armenian
identity. In the second chapter, an historical account of the Ottoman Empire in the early stages
of the Armenian Genocide will be offered, based on literature. Also, the concept of
nationalism will be explained, followed by an assessment of Turkish nationalism. In the third
chapter, I will first explain discriminatory and genocidal rhetoric. Subsequently, I will apply
discourse analysis on the available late Ottoman discourse uncover the symbolization of the
Armenians in Ottoman public discourse between 1853 and 1913. In the fourth and last
chapter, I will describe what events and developments influenced late Ottoman literary
culture, and synthesize my findings from previous chapter. I will also analyze the scholarly
debate here, in order to determine to what extent my findings clash or agree with existing
opinions.
Pitfalls and Limitations
Lastly, two potential limitations and pitfalls need to be acknowledged. My largest limitation is
that I do not command the Turkish language. However, an enormous body of literature in
available in English. Also, many of the primary sources I plan to use have been translated to
English. Caution is required though, especially since the Armenian genocide is a heavily
politicized field of study. All literature and translated sources will therefore be critically
assessed.
A possible pitfall is that the period under review in this thesis is too large, and that this
will be at the expense of an in-depth analysis of individual events. There will probably be
events and developments between 1853 and 1913 that deserve more attention than given here.
However, it is not my aim to clarify a single event, but to uncover long-term developments
leading up to the Armenian genocide.
3
Armenians between Repression and Rebellion
The aim of this thesis is to explain the process of victimization of the Armenians that
preceded the genocide of 1915-16. In order to answer this question, the first thing that needs
to be determined is who these victims were. How large was the group of Armenians, and
where did they live? What was their status and cultural identity? These questions will be
answered in this chapter, by dealing with the position of the Armenians living within the
Ottoman Empire before the events of the first World War.
In this chapter, I will argue that Armenian history is characterized by foreign rule, and
struggles to remain differentiated from these rulers. A few things need to be kept in mind
here. Not the perpetrator, but the victim group is central in this chapter, and its aim is to
explain who exactly this victim group was. Although this is a straightforward question, the
answer is not. Demographic information and -to a lesser extent- the political status of the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire are well-documented and leave not much room for
interpretation. The social status and cultural identity of the Armenians is more difficult to
ascertain because the Armenians -like any other group of people- were not a static,
homogenized group of people but a changing and dynamic entity. Nonetheless, an effort will
be made here to portray the Ottoman Armenians as a whole in an accurate way by carefully
assessing and comparing the available sources and literature.
This chapter is structured as follows. First, a brief overview of Armenian history from
ancient to early modern times will be offered to provide the proper context. Secondly, I will
offer demographic information on the Armenians as a group. Thirdly, the political and social
status of the Armenians will be discussed. In the final paragraph, the cultural identity of the
Armenians will be explained, by applying the theories of anthropologist Clifford Geertz.
Armenian History Before 1853
The Armenians were first mentioned in a rock-cut inscription in 518 B.C.5 Although the
origins of Armenia remain uncertain, its birth can be dated somewhere around the seventh
century B.C. At that time, most Armenians were farmers and herders. Although there were
not many cities in early Armenia, those Armenians who lived in the cities were generally
active in crafts and commerce.6 In the third and fourth century the Armenians were
Christianized. In this same period, the Armenians created their own alphabet, literature and
religious organization.7 Despite -often violent- efforts between 300 and 500 to convert the
newly Christianized Armenians to Zoroastrianism, the Armenians succeeded in maintaining
their Christian faith, while also retaining a certain degree of political autonomy.8
In the sixth century, during the reign of Emperor Justinian, Armenia was fully
incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. This situation would not last however, since ArabMuslim conquests of the Middle-Eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire effectively
5
Russell, J., ‘The Formation of the Armenian Nation’. In: The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times,
Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (2004) 19.
6
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Civilisering en
decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam 2001) 207.
7
Zwaan, ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs’, 207.
8
Zekiyan, B.L., ‘Christianity to Modernity’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 41-42.
4
incorporated Armenia under Islamic Rule in the seventh and eighth century. Under Islamic
rule, Armenians were considered second-class citizens, but they were allowed to practice their
faith. Also, the Armenian Church arguably gained greater recognition under Islamic rule than
under its previous rulers.9 The subsequent four centuries were coined the Bagratuni Age (8041180), during which the Armenians successfully followed a policy of balance by retaining
independence while also accepting Byzantine and Arabic influences. The Bagratuni Age was
followed by the Cilician Age (1180-1441), which was characterized by religious and literary
greatness in Armenia according to anthropologist Boghos Zekiyan. He has based this
judgment on the body of literature that was produced by Armenian writers in this period. The
writings of St. Nerses Shnorhali and Nerses of Lambron, two important Armenian religious
figures, were especially important.10 During these same ages, two key battles (the 1071 battle
at Mankizert and the1453 battle at Constantinople) were fought, in which the Byzantine
Empire was ultimately defeated and Islamic rule steadily increased in the Middle-East. This
ultimately caused the Armenians to be dispersed to Cilicia, (Eastern) Anatolia and Syria.11 By
the end of the Middle Ages, rule over Armenia had changed hands several times. This trend
would continue in the following centuries as well, during which Armenia would fall under
Persian, Ottoman and Russian rule.
Some scholars argue that recurring elements in early modern history of Armenia are
modernism and renaissance. Zekiyan, for example, writes that Armenian capitalism
blossomed in the seventeenth century. This was followed by a period of humanism, or
renaissance, which lasted until the 1840s.12 The historian Henry Sarkiss offers a narrative
similar to that of Zekiyan. Sarkiss argues that the period from 1500 to 1863 was a period of
Armenian renaissance, caused by the widespread dispersion of the printing press in the
sixteenth century, and highlighted by the revival of Armenian literature in the eighteenth
century.13 Although generalizations often lead to simplifications, it is probably safe to say that
Armenian history before 1853 is characterized by relative wealth, both financially and
literary. The Armenians were almost uninterruptedly subjected to many different rulers
though, and they had to struggle to retain some level of authority and identity, which is also
what historian James Russell argues.14
In 1853, Armenia was still part of the dwindling Ottoman Empire despite earlier partly successful- efforts by Russia to annex Armenia. Although Armenians lived throughout
the Ottoman Empire, they were largely concentrated in Eastern Anatolia, the Eastern region of
the Empire. In the decades that would follow, the Armenians were (further) stigmatized,
massacred and eventually almost destroyed by its Ottoman rulers. The historic events between
1853 and 1913 that led to the genocide of the Armenians will be analyzed in detail in later
chapters. In order to understand these events and the entire process of victimization, the
9
Zekiyan, B.L., ‘Christianity to Modernity’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 42.
10
Zekiyan, ‘Christianity to Modernity’, 53-54.
11
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Civilisering en
decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam 2001) 208.
12
Zekiyan, ‘Christianity to Modernity’, 41-64.
13
Sarkiss, H.J., ‘The Armenian Renaissance, 1500-1863’, in: Journal of Modern History vol.9 no.4 (1937) 433-48.
14
Russell, J., ‘Early Armenian Civilization’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 23-25.
5
Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire will first be described here in terms of
demographics, political and social status, and cultural identity.
Demographics of the Armenians
Demographics refers to the quantitative, statistical information on any population, such as
gender, age, ethnicity, languages, home and land ownership, location and relative population
size, to name the most common factors. In this paragraph, I will first discuss Armenian
ethnicity, and how to define the Armenians as a group in general. Secondly, I will describe the
(relative) population size of the Armenians, followed by where they were largely
concentrated. Finally, I will briefly set out the issue of land and home ownership amongst
Armenians in the nineteenth century.
The Armenians are an ethnic group. In reality though, there was hardly a
homogeneous Armenian ethnicity, since ethnicity is a difficult concept to grapple
comprehensively. The anthropologist Fredrik Barth argues that ethnic boundaries are set up
and maintained by people who feel they share the same set of criteria. These criteria are
subject to evaluation and judgment.15 In other words, the activities and social life of the
Armenians are what defines their ethnicity, not simply their blood or lineage. This explains
why there were, and still are, unification troubles amongst the Armenians within the Ottoman
Empire. One possible determining factor is language. As will be shown later in this chapter,
there was no single Armenian language spoken by everyone who considered themselves to be
Armenian. Another possible determining factor is religion, but this also proves to be
problematic. This is illustrated by the existence of a group of people named the Hemshin. The
Hemshin are considered to be an autonomous ethnic group of Armenians, but they were also
predominantly Muslim.16 Moreover, the Armenians originate from the area surrounding
mount Ararat, but they had been living amongst and marrying with people from other
ethnicities such as the Turkish, Iranians, Russians and Syrians to name a few. This means that
the argument of Armenian blood, or ‘ethnic purity’, is no reflection of reality. I do not believe
I can give a comprehensive definition of Armenian ethnicity here, nor is that my intention
because that is exactly what genocidal regimes have tried to do in their quests for ‘racial
purity’. Suffice to say here, there was friction between Armenians who believed to be a
linguistically homogeneous group, and those who felt that being Armenian meant to belong to
the orthodox Christian faith.
The second question that needs to be answered is how many Armenian lived in the
Ottoman Empire in the last decades of the twentieth century. This information has been
recorded and researched by multiple historians. Justin McCarthy warns for the risks involved
in using the data available on the size of the Armenian population. He argues that it is
impossible to be absolutely sure how many Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, because
the numbers provided after World War I by the Armenian Patriarchate had to legitimize
Armenian claims for an independent Armenian State, and are therefore too high. Numbers by
the Ottoman government are also unreliable. They offer low numbers of Armenians to
15
Barth, F., Ethnic Groups and Social Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Boston 1969)
15.
16
Vaux, B., Hemshinli: The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians (Harvard 2001)
6
downplay the massacres of the Armenians.17 Also, the Ottoman government regularly altered
its borders in the nineteenth century in order to manipulate the ratio between Christian and
Muslim subjects.18 By combining the findings from different historians, an educated guess
can be made on the total number of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire though.
Historian Mesrob Krikorian has described the contributions of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire, in particular those living in Eastern Anatolia and Syria in the period
between 1860 and 1900. The Ottoman Empire was divided in ‘vilayets’, which were
administrative divisions. Krikorian offers data on each vilayet in terms of structure, relative
population size and professions of the Armenians living within these vilayets. According to
him, there was a total of 2,66 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in 1882, of
which 1,63 million were living in the six eastern (Armenian) provinces. From 1894 to 1896,
the Ottoman government tried to repress the Armenians. This resulted in the massacre of
approximately 80,000 to 100,000 Armenians, and tens of thousands more killed indirectly.19
In 1912, the total number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had been reduced to 2,1
million, of which 1,16 million in the six eastern provinces.20 Two other historians, Raymond
Kevorkian and Paul Paboudjian, estimate the number of Armenians living in the Empire in
1912 to be 1,914,620.21 By combining these numbers, an estimate of around two million
Armenians in 1912 -before the genocide- is reasonable.
The third issue that needs to be addressed is where the Armenians were concentrated.
Although Armenians lived throughout the Ottoman Empire, they were largely concentrated in
six vilayets in the eastern region of the Ottoman Empire, commonly referred to as the
Armenian vilayets or the Armenian provinces.22 In the vilayet of Van, which bordered the
Persian Empire in the far eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians were actually
the largest ethnic group before the genocide. Furthermore, the figures offered by Krikorian
show that approximately two-thirds of all Armenians were concentrated in the Armenian
vilayets. The events of 1894-96 most plausibly explain the decrease in population size of the
Armenians between 1882 and 1912, which is also what Hovannisian argues.23 The Ottoman
Empire consisted of dozens of different ethnic and religious groups, of which the Armenians
are just one example. A few other groups were the Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Georgians,
Arabs and Assyrians.24 Unfortunately, population numbers of these groups are notoriously
unreliable, so I am not able to offer an exact overview of the size of these groups. What is
certain though is that the Turks were the majority group, while the Armenians, together with
17
McCarthy, J., Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (New
York 1983)
18
Dadrian, V.N., Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian Conflict (New Brunswick 1999)
139-144. In: Üngör, U.U. The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950
(Oxford 2011) 16.
19
Bloxham, D., The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman
Armenians (Oxford 2005) 51.
20
Krikorian, M.K., Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire 1860-1900 (London 1977)
21
Kevorkian, R.H. and Paboudjian, P.B., Les Armeniens dans I'Empire ottoman a la veille du genocide (Paris
1992)
22
These Armenian Provinces were Van, Erzurum, Mamuretülaziz, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Sivas.
23
Hovanissian, R.G., Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkeley 1967) 36.
24
Üngör, U.U. and Potatel, M., Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property
(2011) 15-16.
7
the Kurds, were the largest minorities in the eastern region of the Empire.
The last demographic factor to be discussed here is home and land ownership.
Unfortunately, no exact figures are readily available on home ownership of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire. However, such a number alone would not reveal much about the Armenian
community within the Ottoman Empire. The historians Uğur Üngör and Mehmet Polatel have
researched the expropriation of Armenian property by the Ottomans, and their findings help
give an idea on the amount of land and buildings which were owned by Armenians before the
genocide. For example, no less than a total of 41,458 houses and buildings owned by
Armenians within the Ottoman Empire were confiscated before and during the genocide in
1915 and 1916.25 On a micro-level, the land owned -and confiscated- by Armenians was also
enormous. For example, in the city of Adana alone over 180,000 square meters of property
was forcefully transferred from Armenian hands.26 Although these numbers do not help
determine home and land ownership of the Armenians in relative numbers, they give some
insight in Armenian ownership in the Ottoman Empire and the wealth of the Armenians.
Political and Social Status of the Armenians
Another aspect of Armenian life under Ottoman rule to be discussed here is the political and
social status of the Armenians as a group. The Ottoman Empire was a patriarchal society27
with a millet-system, in which only those who practiced Islam enjoyed full citizenship and
rights. However, Jews and Christians, who were referred to as dhimmis, had to pay a special
tax and were treated as protected subjects in return.28 The Armenians were first recognized as
a millet, a protected minority, in 1461. The Sultan appointed an Armenian patriarch, who had
authority over the Armenians.29 In addition, the Armenians had two or three representatives in
the administrative councils. In theory, it seems as though the Armenians were protected and
well-represented in the local authorities. In reality however, the Turkish members of these
councils were always in the majority, which is why the Armenians were unable to defend
their rights and lives according to Krikorian.30 Balakian agrees with Krikorian, and he
believes that non-Muslims were discriminated against at every social and political level in
nineteenth century Ottoman Empire.31 This is why, under pressure of the European powers,
two reform acts were passed in 1839 and 1856 to protect minorities such as the Armenians.32
Unfortunately, this was to no avail, as will be demonstrated in later chapters in this thesis.
Since the Armenians were predominantly Christian, they were ‘people of the book’ as
well. This meant that they were allowed to practice their own religion and other habits.
Politically, Armenians were marginally represented in the local authorities and their practices
25
Üngör, U.U. and Potatel, M., Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property
(2011) 71-72.
26
Üngör and Polatel, Confiscation and Destruction, 173-174.
27
A patriarchal society is a society in which the male is the central authority figure, with decision-making power
concentrated around the man while women hold a more subordinate role.
28
Kaplan, B.J., Divided by Faith (Cambridge 2007) 240.
29
Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis The Rise and
Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808 (Los Angeles 1976) 152.
30
Krikorian, M.K., Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire 1860-1900 (London 1977) 102.
31
Balakian, P., The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide (London 2003) 4-5.
32
Dadrian, V.N., The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the
Caucasus (Oxford 1995) 19-20.
8
were tolerated, as long as their loyalty to the Sultan was ensured. The social status of the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was ambivalent at best. Armenians were considered by
many to be inferior to Muslims, and often referred to as ‘dogs’ and ‘cattle for the Sultan’.33
This clearly implies that the Armenians were viewed as by many to be only useful for the
revenues they generated for the Empire. Another important element was the fact that
Armenians were not allowed to bear firearms or to ride horses,34 to ensure that they would not
pose a violent threat. This was also a symbolic measure however. The right to bear firearms
and ride a horse is very important in patriarchal societies, and this was an effective way to
confirm the inferior social status of the Armenians. A general conclusion on this paragraph is
that while the economic strength of the Armenians was relatively high, their social and
political strength was actually quite low. This made them vulnerable to threats as a group, and
helped to ease the implementation of the genocide in later decades.
Armenian Cultural Identity
In this paragraph, the aspect of Armenian life which is perhaps hardest to grasp will be
discussed: the cultural identity. When discussing cultural identity, there are a few things to
keep in mind. Firstly, what exactly is culture? Originally, culture referred to "that complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society."35 This definition only deals with those
aspects which are manifested outwardly, and do not account for interaction between people
and society or between social and ethnic groups. This is why this definition is considered to
be outdated by social scientists these days. In the 1970s, Geertz came up with a revolutionary
new definition of culture which is still in use today. Geertz argues that culture revolves
around ‘webs of significance’. He believes that people are both suspended in their culture and can therefore not escape it- while also having the ability to create and modify their own
culture.36 In essence, culture is about its visible traits, the beliefs by its people, and the
interaction between these traits and beliefs. I will use the definition of Geertz in this
paragraph, because he not only deals with culture in the traditional sense, but also helps
determine the cultural identity of the Armenians as a group.
Secondly, the present-day definition of culture is bound to the concept of the NationState, which is why many today speak of the German or the French culture, for example.
Under the millet-system in the Ottoman Empire, many ethnicities lived together. Although
they shared some commonalities -they swore allegiance to the Sultan for example- every
group contributed some unique aspects to Ottoman society. This is why it is hard to defend
the existence of a homogeneous ’Ottoman culture’ in the same sense as most people now
believe in a national culture. In the late nineteenth century the Armenians -the minority grouphad been living under the rule of the Muslim Ottomans -the majority- for centuries,
consequentially forming a symbiosis. The Armenian people, and therefore also the Armenian
33
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Civilisering en
decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam 2001) 217-218.
34
Poulton, H., Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (London 1997)
46.
35
Tylor, E.B., Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language,
Art, and Custom (1871)
36
Geertz, C., The Interpretation of Cultures (New York 1973) 5.
9
culture, have inescapably adapted itself under Ottoman rule in this period. I will nonetheless
try to ascertain in what ways the Armenians distinguished themselves from the other ethnic
groups and their hosts, the Muslim Ottomans. In order to achieve this, three aspects of
Armenian culture will be discussed which I will argue are key in this respect: religion,
language and customs.
Most Armenians, although not all, are Christians. The Armenians consider themselves
to be the children of Mount Ararat, which supposedly makes them the first Christians in
existence. There is no consensus on the conversion date of the Armenians to Christianity.
Many Armenians claim that the Armenians converted to Christianity in 301, which is also
what Adrian Hastings argues in his book on Christianity.37 Other scholars, such as historian
Razmik Panossian, dispute this claim and argue that it is likelier to assume that the Armenians
converted around 314-15 after the edict of Milan was proclaimed in 313.38 The date of
conversion is important, because it dictates the nature of the conversion. A later conversion
date implies that the Armenians did not convert independently, but only after approval of the
Roman authorities. An early conversion, in 301, would mean that the Armenians were the first
of all people to convert to Christianity.39 The latter version is understandably something many
Armenians prefer to believe. After the Armenians converted, they did not adapt to an existing
form of Christianity, but instead developed their own religious organization.40 The historian
Anne Redgate claims that from the fifth to the ninth century, Armenians have struggled to
remain differentiated from ‘the other’, which were first the Zoroastrians and later the Muslim
Arabs.41 After the tenth century, Armenian Christianity was firmly established. Despite some
instances of repression, for example when the Armenians were persecuted by the Orthodox
church in the Moldova province of the Ottoman Empire from the fourteenth century
onwards,42 the Armenians were generally allowed to practice their faith within Ottoman
borders on certain conditions.
Another cultural trait that needs to be addressed in this paragraph is language. The
Armenians developed their own language in antiquity. The Armenian alphabet is believed to
be invented by Mesrob Mashtot around 404.43 It consists mainly of loan-words from the
Iranian languages, which is why the Armenian language was thought to be an Iranian
language for a long time. However, in the nineteenth century linguist Heinrich Hubschmann
demonstrated that Armenian is actually an Indo-European language. Russell has also studied
the Armenian language in detail, and he also believes that early Armenia was linguistically
37
Hastings, A., A World History of Christianity (2000) 289.
Panossian, R., The Armenians From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars (London 2006) 42.
39
Russell, J., ‘Early Armenian Civilization’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 39.
40
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Civilisering en
decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam 2001) 207.
41
Redgate, A.E., ‘Myth and Reality: Armenian Identity in the Early Middle Ages’. In: National Identities vol. 9 no.
4 (2007) 281-306.
42
Toth, I.G., ‘Between Islam and Orthodoxy: Protestants and Catholics in south-eastern Europe’. In: Po-Chia
Hsia, R., The Cambridge History of Christianity: Reform and Expansion 1500-1660 (New York 2007) 543.
43
‘Saint Mesrop Mashtots’. In: Encyclopeadia Brittanica. URL:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/377039/Saint-Mesrop-Mashtots (accessed 22 November 2013)
38
10
heterogeneous, and a uniform Armenian language developed not before the early ages A.D.44
The development of the Armenian alphabet and body of literature proved to be key for the
Armenian cultural cohesion in later centuries according to historian and sociologist Ton
Zwaan.45 Zekiyan takes this argument a step further, and he states that the invention of the
Armenian script is the most important and emblematic event in the life of the Armenian
people’.46 Although language was undoubtedly an important factor in the cohesion of
Armenians throughout the Empire, this notion needs to be nuanced as well, since there were
variances within the Armenian language. The Armenian language which was spoken in the
eastern region of the Empire was based on the dialect of the Yerevan region, and differed
from the western Armenian language, which was based on the speech of Constantinople.47
The ‘common’ Armenian language, which was used by Armenians in everyday life as a
means of communication, also needs to be discerned from the ‘classical’ Armenian language,
which was used by the Armenian church in liturgical services and in printings.48 To make
matters even more complicated, many Armenians spoke a second language, depending on
where they lived. For example, the Armenians living in Istanbul were active in trade and
commerce, which means that they had to speak Ottoman Turkish as well in order to
effectively perform their profession. This shows that the Armenian language was a highly
diverse one, which help explain the problems the Armenians encountered in their unification
efforts within the Ottoman Empire.
Lastly, a few other cultural traits and customs which were characteristic for the
Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire need to be dealt with here. Redgate discusses the
creation of unity and identity in Armenia in the early Middle Ages. She argues that the
Armenian aristocracy traditionally had a rural character, because most of them lived in and
around the Caucasus in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, which is predominantly a
rural area.49 There was also a large community of Armenians living in Istanbul, which played
an important political and commercial role in the Byzantine period there.50 These trends
would carry on into the nineteenth century. Most Armenians by then were still living outside
the city, and were active as peasants. Those Armenians living in the cities held professions as
merchants, craftsmen or traders.51 The Armenians were especially known for their pottery and
silk.52 Since the late middle ages the Armenians had been living in diaspora, scattered
throughout the Ottoman Empire. Aram Arkun discusses Armenian identity in the nineteenth
44
Russell, J., ‘Early Armenian Civilization’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 26-30.
45
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Civilisering en
decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam 2001) 207.
46
Zekiyan, B.L., ‘Christianity to Modernity’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and Present in
the Making of National Identity (2005) 51.
47
Arkun, A., ‘Into the Modern Age: 1800-1913’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and
Present in the Making of National Identity (2005) 74.
48
Panossian, R., The Armenians From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars (London 2006) 64.
49
Redgate, A.E., ‘Myth and Reality: Armenian Identity in the Early Middle Ages’. In: National Identities vol. 9 no.
4 (2007) 292.
50
Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis The Rise and
Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808 (Los Angeles 1976) 152.
51
Üngör, U.U. and Potatel, M., Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property
(2011) 16.
52
Üngör and Polatel, Confiscation and Destruction, 18.
11
century Ottoman Empire, and he argues that an Armenian ‘awakening’ took place in the
nineteenth and early twentieth century. Written language, schooling, books and newspapers
created a new type of unity amongst the Armenians which was lacking earlier. In order to
determine in what way Armenian culture can best be characterized, I need to turn to Geertz
again. He states that in order to properly understand culture, it is necessary to:
‘specify the internal relationships among the elements and characterize the whole
system in a general way -according to the core symbols around which it is organized,
the underlying structures of which it is a surface expression, or the ideological
principles upon which it is based.’53
So, one or more overarching elements in Armenian history, language, and religion need to be
discerned to get to the core of Armenian culture. Firstly, Armenian history is characterized by
foreign rule and repression. From antiquity to the twentieth century, the Armenians fell under
Arab, Byzantine, Ottoman and Russian rule. The Armenians were a minority group in all
these instances, and could therefore not defend their lives -or their culture- with force. They
had no choice but to accept these rulers, and had to rely on political play to minimize Arab
and Byzantine influence. Secondly, a number of historians has shown the importance of
language in the cohesion of the Armenians. Although the Armenian language was partly
developed with the use of existing Iranian languages, it is still an autonomous language used
only by Armenians. Thirdly, religion is perhaps even more important than language for the
Armenian identity. Under Ottoman rule, many non-Muslims -especially those active in trade
and commerce- were converted to Islam.54 Many Armenians were active in commerce, and
throughout times there have been attempts -both peaceful and violent- to convert the
Armenians to other religions. Despite these efforts, the Armenians were able to retain their
Christian faith. As stated before in this chapter, there is no consensus on the conversion date
of the Armenians. This is not because this was just another historical event, but because this
date is a symbolic one for the nature of the Armenian people. Many Armenians believe in an
early conversion around 301, which means that the Armenian conversion to Christianity was
not an act of docility but one of rebellion. Panossian also acknowledges the importance of
religion for the Armenian identity, and he states that the paradigm of Armenia as ‘the first
Christian nation’ is still the cornerstone, or core myth, of being Armenian.55 When combining
these elements, a constant interaction between repression and rebellion most aptly defines the
sentiments -or ideological principles- of the Armenian people throughout history, and
therefore the Armenian cultural identity. Although this rebellion might not have always
reflected reality -many Armenians were also content living under Ottoman rule-56 it was
nonetheless perceived by many Armenians. Therefore, rebellion was central to the Armenian
cultural identity, the Armenian ethnicity, and what it meant to be an Armenian.
53
Geertz, C., The Interpretation of Cultures (New York 1973) 17.
Redgate, A.E., ‘Myth and Reality: Armenian Identity in the Early Middle Ages’. In: National Identities vol. 9 no.
4 (2007) 292.
55
Panossian, R., ‘The Past as Nation: Three Dimensions of Armenian Identity’. In: Geopolitics vol. 7 no. 2 (2002)
130.
56
Arkun, A., ‘Into the Modern Age: 1800-1913’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and
Present in the Making of National Identity (2005) 66.
54
12
Rule and be Ruled
The Armenians living under Ottoman rule formed an ethnic group of approximately two
million people, concentrated mainly in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire and around
Istanbul. Although Armenia was incorporated in the Ottoman Empire in late Medieval times,
the history of the Armenians goes back to antiquity. To understand the process of
victimization of the Armenians, it is important to realize that the Armenians have been ruled
by others throughout history. This helps explain why the Armenians were adept at both
assimilating to Ottoman culture while still retaining their own religion, language and customs.
The high degree of (perceived) independency and autonomy amongst Armenians could also
explain, at least partly, why they were perceived as a threat by their Ottoman ruler, a notion
that will be further developed in later chapters.
13
Inclusion and Exclusion in the Late Ottoman Empire
In order to explain the process of victimization of the Armenians in the latest stages of the
Ottoman Empire, I have established who this victim group was. This brings me to the second
step of explaining the victimization of the Armenians: explaining what created the early
stages of the genocide. This chapter deals mainly with the perpetrators of genocide -the
Ottoman Turks, or Young Turks to be more precise- in the period between 1853 and 1913,
and the events in this period that further aggravated the already strained relations between the
Ottomans and the Armenians.
The core argument in this chapter is that between 1853 and 1913, failed Ottoman
attempts at reform and the rise of nationalism -even racism- created the conditions for the idea
of a utopian future for Turkey. In this future, Muslim Turks were to be included, while other
religious and ethnic groups, especially the Armenians, were excluded. The Armenian
genocide of 1915-16 was the result of a complex set of conditions, and not the direct result of
Ottoman policy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Therefore, no deterministic
explanation will be offered here that draws a straight line between the failed Ottoman reforms
of 1839 and 1856 and the genocide. Rather, this chapter will show what events and
developments between 1853 and 1913 helped cause the idea that the Armenians were a threat
to the existence of the Empire.
This chapter is structured as follows. First, an overview of the history of the Ottoman
Empire between the fourteenth and nineteenth century will be offered to provide the proper
context for later developments. Because of its limited size, individual figures and events will
not be discussed in detail in this chapter. Rather, focus will be on long-term developments in
terms of economic, political, and military strength of the Ottoman Empire.
Secondly, the rise of Turkish nationalism in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century
will be discussed. Finally, I will explain how nationalism caused the Ottoman treatment of
minorities in general, and of the Armenians in particular, to radicalize between 1853 and
1913.
Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire originated around 1300, and the first three centuries after it came into
existence were characterized by a rapid ascend to power. The Ottoman Empire grew out of a
principality in Anatolia, and was named after its tribal leader, Osman.57 Anatolia and the
surrounding territory had been ruled by Byzantine Christians in previous centuries. In the
eleventh century however, the Muslim Turks gained territory from the Byzantine rulers, and
chased them out of Anatolia in the battle of Mankizert in 1071.58 The success of the Ottoman
Empire in its early centuries had multiple reasons. Firstly, Osman and his successors were
capable leaders with strong organizational skills. Orhan, who ruled from 1324 until 1362 and
was the son of Osman, firmly established the Empire as he conquered both land in Asia and
Europe. When he died in 1362, the Ottoman Empire had already acquired the characteristics
57
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Zwaan, T.,
Civilisering en decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam
2001) 205-206.
58
Imber, C., The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (2002) 4-5.
14
that it would keep until the twentieth century in terms of shape and structure.59 Secondly, the
Ottomans took advantage of the declining Byzantine power.60
The first important blow the Ottomans dealt the Byzantines was through the
aforementioned battle of Mankizert. In 1453, The Ottoman army led by Mehmed II conquered
Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Byzantine Empire. The fall of Constantinople
gave the Ottomans definitive hegemony in the Near East.61 Under Mehmet II, who ruled from
1451 to 1481, the absolute rule of the Sultan further expanded, as he gained unlimited and
unprecedented authority over his Ottoman subjects. After its fall, Constantinople was quickly
renamed Istanbul and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.62 The enormous power of
the Ottoman Empire would carry over into the sixteenth century, and was arguably largest in
the span between 1520 and 1566, under the rule of Suleyman I. After Suleyman’s death in
1566, the Empire would continue to grow until 1683.63 But although the Empire would
continue to expand in the seventeenth century, its power in terms of economic and military
strength had begun to stagnate.
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire fought many
battles at the border regions with Iran and Hungary. These battles were hard-fought, and
showed that the Ottoman military was no longer as superior as it was before the sixteenth
century.64 In 1589 there was a major military rebellion in Istanbul now known as the
‘Beylerbeyi incident’, coined after the name of the district where the incident took place. This
rebellion was caused by discontent over the economic and financial crisis within the Empire.
These revolts would keep repeating itself throughout the seventeenth century.65 The
seventeenth century was not only a century of economic woes, but also one of political crisis.
In the first half of the century, the Sultan was repeatedly confronted with rebellious
governors.66 In 1640 Sultan Murad IV died, and his brother and successor Ibrahim ‘the Mad’
ascended to the throne and -despite his epithet- brought back some political stability to the
Empire.67 This stability would not last long however, since a political crisis arose again in
1654 in Istanbul. This crisis would last the rest of the seventeenth century.68
The seventeenth century was a century of stagnation for the Empire. The eighteenth
century would be one of outright decline. In 1699, the treaty of Karlowitz was signed,
concluding the Austro-Ottoman war that had started in 1683. This treaty formally
acknowledged the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, and marked the beginning of its rapid
decline. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was drained by long
59
Imber, C., The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (2002) 8-10.
Zwaan, T., ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In: Zwaan, T.,
Civilisering en decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en vervolging (Amsterdam
2001) 209.
61
Inalcik, H. and Quataert, D., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire vol. 1: 1300-1600
(Cambridge 1994) 11.
62
Inalcik and Quataert, History of the Ottoman Empire vol 1, 17-19.
63
Zwaan,‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs’. In: Civilisering en decivilisering, 205.
64
Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 67.
65
Faroqhi, S., ‘Crisis and Change, 1590-1699’. In: Inalcik, H. and Quataert, D., An Economic and Social History of
the Ottoman Empire vol. 2: 1600-1914 (Cambridge 1994) 414.
66
Faroqhi, ‘Crisis and Change’, 413-418.
67
Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 82-83.
68
Faroqhi, ‘Crisis and Change’, 419-420.
60
15
periods of expensive warfare, leaving the Ottoman rulers baffled at the successes of the
European powers.69 In the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was not only in a military
crisis, but also had to deal with another deep political crisis. Internally, the power of the
Grand Vizier -the most powerful man in the Empire besides the Sultan- was contested by the
imperial Harem and the Eunuch in charge there over and over in the first half of the
eighteenth century, causing political instability. Externally, the European powers were
increasingly outperforming the Ottoman Empire in many respects. The Ottoman model of
extreme centralization of power, which had worked very well until the sixteenth century, had
become dysfunctional.70 The historian Erik-Jan Zürcher has identified another problematic
aspect of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century; its relatively
small number of inhabitants. At the end of the eighteenth century, the number of Ottoman
inhabitants is estimated at 25 million. This was a very low number compared to the fast
growing population in Western Europe at that time. This further strained the Empire’s
military and economy means.71 Historian Bruce McGowan argues that a lack of confidence
best characterizes the Ottoman eighteenth century.72
This paragraph has shown that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman
Empire was in a deep state of crisis, and had lost a lot of its former greatness and glory. Over
the past centuries, the ruling elite had proven unable to solve the crisis with their conservative
practices and policy of multi-ethnic coexistence.
Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire
In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire -which was referred to as the ‘Sick Man of
Europe’- was being outdone by the powers of Europe in almost every aspect. Western Europe
was colonizing and carving up entire continents, with England and France leading the way.
This caused great territorial losses for the Ottoman Empire. The inability of the Sultan and his
order to steer away from this crisis paved the way for a relatively new set of ideas to flourish
in the Ottoman Empire: nationalism. Below, I will explain in more detail why nationalism
emerged in the Ottoman Empire, and how a specific type of Turkish nationalism was created
and adopted. But before explaining how nationalism changed Ottoman society, I will first
describe how Ottoman society functioned before the rise of nationalism in terms of powerstructure, religion, and interethnic relations.
Pre-nineteenth century Ottoman society was a patrimonial society. The Sultan was at
the head of the state, and appointed on hereditary basis. He had absolute and unlimited power,
answered to no one but Allah, and the Empire and all internal affairs were considered to be an
extension of the Sultans own household. The Grand Vizier was his right hand, and the secondmost important figure in the Empire. One step down the ladder was the ruling elite. This elite
had special privileges, was exempted from paying taxes and had the right to bear arms. Those
belonging to the ruling elite were direct servants of the Sultan, and fulfilled either military or
religious duties. At the bottom of the ladder of hierarchy were all other inhabitants of the
69
Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis The Rise and
Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808 (Los Angeles 1976) 225.
70
McGowan, B., ‘The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812’. In: Inalcik, H. and Quataert, D., An Economic and Social
History of the Ottoman Empire vol. 2: 1600-1914 (Cambridge 1994) 639-644.
71
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 9.
72
McGowan, ‘The Age of the Ayans’, 645.
16
Empire, who made up the mass, which was strictly separated from the ruling elite. The mass
had to pay taxes, and was generally not allowed to bear arms.73 The inhabitants of the Empire,
both Muslims and non-Muslims, were represented in local politics through patriarchs. They
were nonetheless exposed to arbitrary measures, and lived at the mercy of the Sultan,
especially before 1839.74 Hierarchy in Ottoman society was based on political status to a great
degree, but was also determined by religion. The Ottoman Empire was not secularized, and
Islam was the official state religion. Although people from different religions and ethnicities
lived together in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the dominant and official religion. In the late
nineteenth century, almost three-quarters of the Ottoman inhabitants was Muslim.75 Being
part of a religious group carried implications for one’s social status in the Ottoman Empire.
Everyone had to swear allegiance to the Sultan, this was one of the preconditions for those
belonging to a millet, a non-Muslim religious community, to enjoy a certain degree of
autonomy. In spite of this oath, the historian Azar Gat argues that the true loyalty of the
inhabitants, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was not with the Sultan. According to him, their
allegiance was based primarily on their religious identity and local ties, and a sense of
belonging to a nation or serving the Sultan was of secondary importance.76
The Muslim Ottomans were considered, both by the people and the law, to be superior
to non-Muslims, also known as dhimmis. Religious minorities such as the Armenians were
conquered people, and their very existence in the Empire was at the grace of Muslim
benevolence.77 This is a key aspect of Ottoman society to keep in mind in order to thoroughly
understand the process of victimization of the Armenians, because this means that even before
the rise of nationalism in the Empire, the notion of inequality amongst different ethnicities
was self-evident and had widespread support. The problems the Empire was facing in the
early nineteenth century were evident, and addressing them was an urgent matter for the
Ottoman authorities. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Sultan Mahmut II took the
first cautious steps towards rebuilding a strong Empire, and he successfully centralized power
around his person. He died in 1839, and his son Abdulmeçit was appointed. The succession of
Abdulmeçit ushered in a new period for the Ottoman Empire now known as the Tanzimat, or
reform period, one that would last until 1876. In this period, attempts were made to pass
centralizing and modernizing reforms through reform laws.78 These reforms will be discussed
in more detail in the next paragraph, but suffice it to say here is that the reforms failed both in
modernizing the Empire and protecting the Christian minorities. This caused discontent
amongst the Ottoman subjects, who turned to another option: nationalism.
The nineteenth century was a century in which traditional and centuries-old religious
beliefs were challenged and undermined in many European countries. This was caused in part
by the rise of nationalism, which replaced conventional religion in many ways. In essence,
73
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 11-12.
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 167.
75
Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic
The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808-1975 (Los Angeles 1977) 241.
76
Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 167.
77
Doumanis, N., Before the Nation. Muslim-Christian Coexistence and its Destruction in Late Ottoman Anatolia
(Oxford 2013) 24.
78
Zürcher, Turkey, 50.
74
17
nationalism is the belief that people derive their identity from their nation, and owe it their
primary loyalty.79 According to Gat, nationalism and ethnicity are closely related, and
nationalism is part of a broader phenomenon: political ethnicity.80 Although scholars agree
that nationalism was an important factor in the transformation of the Ottoman Empire into
modern Turkey, there has been debate on when exactly nationalism was introduced into
Ottoman politics. An oft-heard misconception is that nationalism emerged in the Ottoman
Empire not until the Balkan-wars broke out in 1912-13. This assertion supports the arguments
put forwards by deniers of the Armenians genocide, because it implies that the genocide of
1915-16 was a sudden and unplanned outbreak of violence, a discontinuation with previous
centuries of harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims.81 This theory is unconvincing,
because it does not explain how the massacres of Armenians in 1894 could have taken place,
or why the Ottoman Union Society -later named the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP
from here on)- which orchestrated the genocide was already founded in 1889.82 The historian
David Kushner was the first to show extensively how Turkish nationalism actually emerged
and developed in the Ottoman Empire between 1876 and 1908.83 He was followed by fellow
historian Donald Bloxham, who also argued that nationalism was already on the rise in the
Ottoman Empire in the last quarter century in the Ottoman Empire.84
Now that it has been established when nationalism emerged in the Empire, it is
important to explain why it did. I will argue that the rise of Turkish nationalism had three
major causes. First of all, the loyalty of the Ottoman inhabitants was based on religion and
local ties before the rise of nationalism. Nationalism had remarkable success in Europe in the
nineteenth century. There, it aided the creation of strong Nation-States such as France and after 1871- Germany. The Turks, who were both anxious and impressed by the success of
Europe, realized that nationalism could be a powerful tool in unifying and mobilizing all
Muslim Turks on an Empire-wide scale for their own cause. This would later be an important
reason for the CUP to adopt nationalism, because they felt that it would help them in the
creation of a strong, centralized state.85 Secondly, nationalism was a means to alter the
power-structure within the Empire. All the power in the Empire was concentrated around the
Sultan, and the military and religious elite. In the wake of the crisis, many Ottoman Turks
were dissatisfied with the rule of the Sultan and the traditional system of privileges for only a
few. They had no means to improve their conditions, because strict hierarchical rules
prevented them from participating in politics.86 Nationalism offered them a chance to take
matters into their own hands, and enforce equal treatment for all Muslim Turks. Thirdly,
Bloxham explains the rise of nationalism in the Empire from an international point of view.
He argues that the rise of nationalism, and the Turkish-Armenian polarization that resulted
79
Noble, T.F.X. et al., Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries Volume 2: since 1560 (Wadsworth 2008) 655.
Gat, A., Nations. The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge 2013) 3.
81
Hanioğlu, S.M., ‘Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908’. In: Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards
Postnationalist Identities (New York 2006) 3-4.
82
Hanioğlu, ‘Turkism and the Young Turks’, 7-8.
83
Kushner, D., The Rise of Turkish Nationalism, 1876-1908 (London 1977)
84
Bloxham, D., ‘Determinants of the Armenian Genocide’. In: Hovannisian, R.G., Looking Backward, Moving
Forward. Confronting the Armenian Genocide (New jersey 2003) 24.
85
Kévorkian, R., The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History (London 2011) 190.
86
Ahmad, F., ‘The Young Turk Revolution’. In: Journal of Contemporary History vol. 3 no. 3 (1968) 19.
80
18
from this, was partly the result of European interference in internal matters of the Empire.
This interference caused the Empire to partially lose its sovereignty, which fueled nationalist
tendencies.87
The last question that needs to be answered in this paragraph is what Turkish
nationalism was. The rise of Turkish nationalism manifested itself between 1876 and 1908 in
multiple ways. The historian Selim Deringil explains that after 1876, a world of symbols was
created within Ottoman borders, which constantly reinforced the pact between Islam and
Ottomanism. Sultan Abdülhamid II, for example, was not only portrayed as the ruler of the
Empire, but also the protector of Islam during his reign.88 Turkish symbols were also
employed by the imperial center, which altered decorations and ornaments that were
traditionally religious to transform them into specific Turkish symbols.89 Also, Ottoman
writers and intellectuals started writing about nationalism in this period,90 something that will
become clear in later chapters in this thesis. Turkish nationalism is characterized by three
aspects which I argue are key. The first aspect is myth-making. Turkish nationalism, perhaps
like any form of nationalism, leaned heavily on myths. In the latest decades of the nineteenth
century, Turkish studies became increasingly popular in the Empire, causing the Ottoman past
to be ‘rediscovered’ and glorified.91 Ziya Gökalp, one of the founders of the CUP movement,
also believed that the way to modernity was by combining these glorious, or glorified,
elements of an Ottoman past with modern European elements.92 The second element of
Turkish nationalism was the way that it utilized religion. The Turkish nationalist writings in
the late nineteenth century had a predominantly secular character, and the leaders of the CUP
were all atheist or agnostic.93 The leaders and other members of the CUP, known as the
Young Turks, were not inherently anti-religious however. On the contrary, Islam was to be
one of the pillars on which the future of Turkey would be build according to them. They
‘Turkified’ the Islam for their cause, which meant that they created the idea that only Muslim
Turks were members of the genuine form of Islam. This receptive stance towards religion
would become even more pronounced in 1914, when the CUP declared the Jihad, a holy war,
against all infidels within the Empire borders. 94 A third and last element that was of key
importance for Turkish nationalism was the racial element it embodied. Between 1876 and
1908, high functions in bureaucracy and court were held predominantly by non-Turkish men.
This was a source of dissatisfaction amongst Turks, and aided the polarization of relation
between Turks and non-Turks. This could explain why -like religion- Turkish nationalism
became intertwined with the idea of the primacy of the Turkish race. This is reflected in the
writings of Gökalp. He was especially intrigued by German nationalism, but since the
87
Bloxham, D., ‘Determinants of the Armenian Genocide’. In: Hovannisian, R.G., Looking Backward, Moving
Forward. Confronting the Armenian Genocide (New jersey 2003) 25.
88
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 18-19.
89
Hanioğlu, S.M., ‘Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908’. In: Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards
Postnationalist Identities (New York 2006) 5-7.
90
Landau, J.M., Pan-Turkism in Turkey (London 1981) 28.
91
Landau, Pan-Turkism, 29.
92
Kévorkian, R., The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History (London 2011) 195-199.
93
Dadrian, V.N., The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford 1995) 5.
94
Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, 212.
19
superiority of the Aryan race was a central notion in German nationalism in the late
nineteenth century, Gökalp had to adapt this to a variant in which the Turkish race, not the
Aryan race, was the dominant and chosen race.95 His vision for the future of Turkey was
based on three pillars; nationalism, racial thought, and religion. This resulted in Muslim
Turkish Nationalism.96
In this paragraph, I have argued that Turkish nationalism altered the meaning of what
it meant to be an Ottoman from an inclusive to an exclusive notion. When nationalism
emerged, the term Ottoman no longer referred to simply an inhabitant of the Empire, but to a
Muslim Turk. The idea of coexisting on unequal footing under the millet-system was replaced
by the idea of a strong nation of unified Muslim Turks. A key person in this process was Ziya
Gökalp, who largely formulated the ideology behind the CUP movement. His ideas -which
will be discussed in detail in later chapters- were not entirely new however, since Turkish
nationalist thought can be traced back as early as the 1870s. I will now explain how the new
ideas discussed above translated themselves into action.
The Treatment of Armenians Between 1853 and 1913
It is impossible to discuss in detail the treatment of the Armenians within the Ottoman Empire
between 1853 and 1913 in this thesis. Rather, some of the major events between 1853 and
1913 that had an impact on the way that minorities -the Armenians in particular- were treated
will be discussed in this paragraph.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman government continuously tried to
solve the Empire-wide crisis through reforms. The first important reform act was the Gülhane
Hatt-I Şerife act, or Tanzimat edict, which passed in 1839. The Tanzimat edict promised
equality before the law of all Ottoman subjects. Moreover, this edict also stated that -for the
first time in Ottoman history- the Sultan would respect the rule of law.97 Zürcher, however,
questions the sincerity of the edict, and believes that it served in part to prevent outside
intervention, especially from Russia. It might also have served to gain European support.98
The second important reform law was passed in 1856, the Islâhat Hatt-I Hümâyûnu act. This
law, again, promised equal treatment for all Ottoman subjects. For example, it stipulated that
both Muslims and non-Muslims could join the Ottoman army, and that both were entitled to
the same positions in government and schools. In practice though, long-standing traditions
and reluctance on the side of Christians themselves prevented them from becoming fully
integrated in Ottoman society.99 The law of 1856 was vaguely formulated, and historian
Vahakn Dadrian argues that this was done deliberately. He argues that the act was aimed to
please the European powers, but that granting political rights to Christian groups, such as the
Armenians, was not the actual purpose of the Ottoman authorities.100 Historian Şükrü
Hanioğlu also acknowledges that the reform attempts of the Tanzimat era (1839-76) did not
95
Kévorkian, R., The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History (London 2011) 195-199.
Üngör, U.U., The Making of Modern Turkey (Oxford 2011) 31.
97
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 45.
98
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 51.
99
Shaw, S.J., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic
The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808-1975 (Los Angeles 1977) 100.
100
Dadrian, V.N. The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford 1995) 33.
96
20
effectively put a stop to the implementation of Turkish elements in the Empire.101 Therefore,
the official goal of the reform acts -the promotion of equality and the protection of minoritiesexisted mainly on paper, and aforementioned historians agree that these acts did not do much
to improve the position of minorities. In reality, the reform acts were attempts to repair an
outdated education and taxation system, while at the same time boosting the economy and
minimizing the power of the Sultan.
After these reforms laws passed -and largely failed-, the Crimean War was fought
from 1853-56. This war was primarily a dispute over religion, with Russia demanding the
right to protect members of the Orthodox church within the Ottoman Empire. In the end, the
war proved to be one without a winner, although the peace treaty of 1856 dictated that the
Ottoman Empire was guaranteed independence and integrity on all parts by the European
powers.102 In effect, the Ottoman Empire became a party to be reckoned with in Europe after
the Crimean War. The treaty of 1856 was immediately followed by revolts from dissatisfied
Christian subjects over the outcome of the war. Ottoman authorities immediately took
repressing measures, which led to the massacre of approximately 5000 Christians in 1860 in
and around the city of Damascus.103
In 1877-78, the Empire was again plunged into war with Russia, this time during the
Russo-Ottoman War. An immediate outcome of this war is that territory that historically
belonged to Armenia, Kars and Ardahan, was transferred to Russia.104 Another outcome,
which is more important for our purposes, was that the Russo-Ottoman war caused the
Armenian Question to become an international issue.105 Dadrian explains why the RussoOttoman war was a turning point in the treatment of Armenians. In 1878, the year the RussoOttoman war ended, the treaty of Berlin was signed. This treaty, and article 61 in particular,
stipulated that the Armenians had to be protected from Kurds, amongst others, and that the
European nations had to superintend the wellbeing of the Armenians. This treaty posed a
threat to the Ottoman Empire, which constantly feared intervention for their ill-treatment of
the Armenians within the borders.106
Not only did the Ottoman authorities fear external repercussions after the treaty of
Berlin was signed, it also feared internal threats. After the Russo-Ottoman war, the Armenians
started to express their aspirations and grievances not through the traditional body of church,
but through nationalist parties. The historian Davide Rodogno argues that this is why the very
existence of the Armenians intensified the Turks’ fear for further territorial losses.107 The
tensions between Ottoman Turks and the Armenians kept mounting in the following decades,
and the Armenian Committees, which consisted of organized nationalist Armenians, were
101
Hanioğlu, S.M., ‘Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908’. In: Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards
Postnationalist Identities (New York 2006) 5.
102
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 53-54.
103
Zürcher, Turkey, 55.
104
Arkun, A., ‘Into the Modern Age, 1800-1913’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and
Present in the Making of National Identity (2005) 66.
105
Hovannisian, R.G., ‘The Armenian Question in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1914’. In: Hovannisian, R.G., The
Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to
the Twentieth Century (New York 1997) 206–212.
106
Dadrian, V.N. The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford 1995) 44-45.
107
Rodogno, D., Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire 1815-1914 (Princeton
2012) 185-186.
21
considered to be terrorists by the Ottoman government and the Young Turks. These Armenian
nationalists did not want to overthrow the Ottoman Empire or join Russia in a pact against the
Turks, but mainly sought to improve the condition of the Armenians within the Empire.
Nonetheless, Ottoman authorities feared the Armenian emancipation movement, and struck
down hard on the Armenians, resulting in the massacres between 1894-96. This violence was
reactionary, and ordered by Sultan Abdülhamid II who was desperately clinging to the status
quo.108 In these massacres, coined after the name of the Sultan, a total of approximately
100,000-200,000 Armenian men, women and children were killed to supposedly restore
domestic order and security.109 News and details of the massacres reached Europe, but despite
article 61 of the Berlin treaty, there was no unified response or act of intervention from
Europe.110
After a decade of relative peace, the rule of Sultan Abdülhamid II was overthrown in
1908, and the CUP came to power. During their rise, the Young Turks of the CUP were
considered to be liberals aiming to form a parliamentary democracy. This is why initially,
Armenian parties such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation sought to align itself with
the CUP, hoping for equal treatment and freedom for the Armenians within the Empire. In
reality though, the CUP was a movement with the primary goal of saving the Empire from
collapse, and it would later implement one-party rule to do so.111 Unrest broke out over the
change of regime, and many Kurds and Muslims loyal to the old order of the Sultan believed
the new measures -taken by the CUP- to be contrary to Islamic law and in favor of the
Armenians.112 The rise of the CUP thus caused a counter reaction by those belonging to the
old regime in 1909, an incident now known as the ’31 March Incident’. This uprising caused
the relations between the conservatives and Young Turks to quickly radicalize.113 After the 31
March incident, tensions spilled over into violence resulting in the death of approximately
20,000 Armenians and 4,000 Muslims during the Adana massacres.114 Initially, the
Armenians were unsure what had caused these massacres and who was to blame. The
massacred seemed to be the result of an anarchy of violence between Christians and Muslims,
and there was no real evidence that they were orchestrated by an official body or party.
However, local CUP leaders participated in the massacres of both Muslims and Christians,
and Kévorkian finds it likely that they granted the perpetrators of the massacres impunity for
their actions.115
Tensions kept mounting steadily after 1909 between the Armenians and the CUP. The
CUP pursued a more radical approach of emphasizing Islam and Turkism in their politics,
while many Armenians, who felt alienated and excluded, resorted to radical nationalism.116
108
Holslag, A., In Het Gesteente van Ararat (Soesterberg 2010) 131-132.
Kévorkian, R., The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History (London 2011) 11.
110
Rodogno, Against Massacre, 191-192.
111
Hanioğlu, S.M., ‘The Second Constitutional Period, 1908–1918’. In: Kasaba, R., The Cambridge History of
Turkey Volume 4. Turkey in the Modern World (2008) 62-67.
112
Arkun, A., ‘Into the Modern Age, 1800-1913’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The Armenians: Past and
Present in the Making of National Identity (2005) 86.
113
Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, 71.
114
Estimates on the number of Armenians killed during these massacres vary. However, scholars such as
Zürcher, Arkun and Hovannisian have all come up with an estimate of 20.000 fatalities.
115
Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, 111-114.
116
Arkun, ‘Into the Modern Age’, 87-88.
109
22
This trend would continue until after the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 had ended, when the
nationalist tendencies of the CUP became even more pronounced and exclusive.117
Caught Between Turkish Nationalism and European Indifference
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Turkish nationalism emerged as a powerful new
current in the Ottoman Empire. The idea of an Empire where Muslims and non-Muslims, all
considered Ottomans, could coexist was replaced by the idea of creating a nation that would
consist of Muslim Turks exclusively. Between 1839 and 1876, the Ottoman Empire
repeatedly signed treaties which stipulated that no harm would be inflicted upon the
Armenians and other Christian minorities. The Empire was pressured by the European powers
to sign these treaties, and they proved to be to no avail. The violence against the Armenians
intensified in each war and conflict, culminating in the Hamidian massacres of 1894-96 and
the Adana massacres of 1909. After these events, the cautious alliance between the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation and the CUP that had been formed in 1908 was long forgotten. The
Armenians turned to nationalism as a means of self-defense, but the scale of the massacres
and the lack of international response proved to be a grim precursor for their future within the
Empire.
117
Bloxham, D., The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman
Armenians (Oxford 2005) 4.
23
The Armenians in Late Ottoman Public Discourse
In the previous chapters, it has been made clear who both the victims and the perpetrators
were in the Armenian genocide, and what caused the treatment of the Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire to radicalize in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early
twentieth century. The third step in explaining the process of victimization of the Armenians
in this period, is to show how the victim group was symbolized by the perpetrator. This
chapter will explain how the Armenians were made ‘the other’ through public discourse
between 1853 and 1913 by the Ottoman Turks, and how the position of the Armenians
changed during this time span.
Through the use of discourse analysis, I will argue that the period of 1853 to 1913 can
be divided into three rudimentary phases. The first phase is the period between 1853 and
1875, in which writers emphasized the importance of the Islam, and the inclusion of both
Muslim Turks and Christian minorities. The second phase lasted from 1876 to1907, during
which writers put forward the idea of the supremacy of ethnic Turks, and interreligious
relations within the Empire started to become polarized. The third and last phase ran from
1908 until 1913, a phase that was characterized by discriminatory and genocidal rhetoric by
Turkish writers and politicians.
A few side notes are in order here. Genocide is caused by many factors, and although
ideology is of paramount importance, it is only one of many causes. This means that even if
the discourse under discussion in this chapter discriminates against and marginalizes the
Armenians as a whole -or even encourages to take action against them- it does not fully
explain why the genocide occurred in 1915-16. Therefore, I will not argue that nationalist,
racist and anti-Armenian discourse led directly to the destruction of the Armenians. However,
popular writings affect public opinion, and vice versa. This means that the way that
Armenians were portrayed in public discourse reflect certain tendencies and broadly held
beliefs within late Ottoman society, and help explain the causes of the Armenian genocide.
This chapter is structured as follows. Firstly, I will explain in general what
discriminatory rhetoric is, and how this can be deducted from writings. Secondly, I will
analyze the writings of Ottoman Turks during the late Tanzimat period that lasted from 1853
until 1875. Thirdly, the writings of Turkish Nationalists in the Hamidian era, the period
between 1876 and 1907, will be analyzed. In the last paragraph, Ottoman public discourse
from the phase between 1908 and 1913 is under review.
Changing Rhetoric
How can rhetoric be characterized? When does rhetoric stop being discriminatory, and start
becoming genocidal? You could argue that in fact, genocidal rhetoric is simply discriminatory
or racist rhetoric followed by genocide. According to this logic, rhetoric is deemed genocidal
based on the subsequent chain of events, not on its own merits. There is a difference between
discriminatory or racist rhetoric, and genocidal rhetoric, however. The act of genocide is a
conscious effort to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.118
118
This is part of the official definition of genocide, formulated by Raphael Lemkin and enforced in the
Genocide Convention of 1948 in Paris.
24
The idea that the total destruction of one group can lead to a utopian future is key in each
genocide, and this utopian future is impossible to achieve by the very definition of the word.
Of all major twentieth century genocides, the Armenian genocide has come closest to
attaining this goal though from the viewpoint of the genocidal regime. Not only has the
Young Turk movement massacred the majority of the Armenian population during World
War I, but the Ottoman Empire was successfully transformed into a fairly homo-ethnic
Turkish society afterwards. Moreover, the act of genocide has gone virtually unpunished for
the Young Turks. According to genocide scholar Eric Weitz, all major twentieth-century
genocides, starting with the Armenian genocide, were extremely deadly because they were
linked to mass-based social movements.119 This proves to be true in the case of the Armenian
genocide, which was in part the result of the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire.
Discriminatory or racist rhetoric ‘merely’ states that one group has primacy over another
group. Genocidal rhetoric not only advocates these ideas, but also approves or encourages the
total destruction of a group of people, and aims to gain the public support the genocidal
regime needs for its causes.
Now that the use, or misuse, of genocidal rhetoric is clear, the specific elements that
make up genocidal rhetoric will be discussed. Genocide is a terrible act, and while consent or
indifference from the general public suffices, the perpetrators need to be convinced that it is
an absolutely crucial and justifiable act. I will argue, based on the discourse that is under
review in this chapter, that this process of justification can be broken down in the following
three concepts. The first concept is exclusion versus inclusion. The ‘other’ is defined, and the
targeted group is constantly reminded that there is a clear division between them and us. This
concept, known as ‘othering’, is part of human behavior and -if isolated- does not necessarily
lead to harmful or violent action. The second concept is an irrational fear or perceived threat
of ‘the other’, which does not correspond with reality. This fear or threat can be expressed in
multiple ways. Small, but actual differences between the perpetrator and victim group -for
example in crime rates and level of prosperity- can be magnified and explained as part of an
inherent trait of the victim group. Also, claims that are false or impossible to prove are
presented as fact, for example that the other is acting in a deviant manner or plotting schemes
to overthrow authority. The third concept is the dehumanization of the other, which facilitates
their destruction. For example, if the victim group is equated with vermin or disease, then the
only logical solution is its eradication. In short, genocidal rhetoric is the defining, exclusion
and dehumanization of the victims, the idea that they are a threat to a utopian future for us,
and that they should therefore be destroyed as a whole.
In the following paragraphs, a very specific type of discourse is under review, namely
translations of late Ottoman texts. This is why a method is necessary to correctly interpret the
meanings of these texts. Discourse Analysis, DA in short, is such a method. It offers the
proper tools to demonstrate what the author is arguing, and how he or she symbolizes the
Armenians. The linguist Jan Blommeart argues that inequality is the deepest effect of power,
because power selects and differentiates, includes and excludes. This inequality is ventilated
through voice, which needs to be understood in terms of the set of socio-economic rules and
119
Weitz, E.D., ‘Utopian Ideologies as Motives for Genocide’. In: Shelton, D.L., Encyclopedia of Genocide and
Crimes Against Humanity (Detroit 2005) 1124-1127.
25
norms and power conditions.120 Blommeart distinguishes five -rather abstract- basic
theoretical principles pertaining language.121 In order to operationalize these principles, I have
divided them into two categories, external and internal principles. The first two principles are
external, and relate to the position of the reader and the society that he or she is part of. In the
case of the late Ottoman Empire, inequality was at the very core of the position of every
inhabitant. Inequality could be found at every level, and was etched firmly in an Ottoman
society that was virtually untouched by enlightened values. For example, there was inequality
between ethnic groups. Ethnic Turks were superior by law, while other minorities -such as the
Armenians- were considered second-rate citizens. There was also inequality based on social
status, with the Sultan at the very top, and the mass at the bottom. Other types of inequality in
Ottoman society were based on profession, sex and religion. Ottoman writings can therefore
only be understood correctly by taking into account that inequality between Ottoman subjects
was a self-evident matter.
The last three principles that Blommaert distinguishes are internal principles, and
pertain to the actual writings, the message that the author is trying to spread and the repertoire
that both the writer and the reader possesses. This is an area where Critical Discourse
Analysis, CDA in short, comes in. CDA is a method of analysis in which power, especially
institutionally reproduced power, is central.122 In this chapter, Ottoman texts which were
written by government officials, politicians and identity entrepreneurs will be used. This
means that these writings all come from representatives of the dominant group in nineteenthcentury Ottoman society, which is why CDA is an effective method to analyze them. In
essence, CDA conceives discourse as a social phenomenon, and focuses on the intersection of
on the one hand language, discourse and speech, and on the other hand social structure.123 So
CDA not only analyses discourse in isolated fashion, but takes social and power relations into
account too.
Consequentially, I will focus on two aspects in the analysis of Ottoman writings.
Firstly, in what specific way are the Armenians depicted in the texts? Can a certain pattern or
trend be uncovered by focusing on recurring terms or expressions? Secondly, how do the
authors write about the social order within the Empire in a more general way? Would they
like to maintain the status quo, or are they trying to alter relations between Ottoman Turks and
the Armenians? A combination of the aforementioned internal and external principles will
provides the proper tools to effectively uncover the symbolization of the Armenians in
Ottoman writings.
1853 - 1875: Inclusion in the Late Tanzimat Era
The starting point of the first phase is 1853, the year the Crimean War broke out. This first
phase lasted until 1875, the year before Abdülhamid II came to power which effectively
ended the Tanzimat, or reform period. In this phase, literature served as a tool for reorienting
Ottoman society. Writers were generally intellectuals, who expressed their political ideas and
made suggestions for further reforms. The body of literature produced in this phase was
120
Blommaert, J., Discourse: a Critical Introduction (Cambridge 2005) 2-5.
Blommaert, Discourse, 13-15.
122
Blommeart, Discourse, 24.
123
Blommeart, Discourse, 25-27.
121
26
political, and helped spread the reformist ideas to the public.124 Edward Browne, a
contemporary British Orientalist, offered an explanation why Turkish literature was more than
merely aesthetic in the late Tanzimat Era. Europe was blooming and highly successful in
many respects. At the same time, the ties between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe
were strengthened in this period. Ottoman intellectuals felt it was their responsibility to learn
and spread Western European ideas, in order to achieve similar successes for the Empire.125
The three most important Turkish authors in this period were Ibrahim Şinasi, Námiq Kémal
and Ziya Pasha. Şinasi (1826-71) was an Ottoman author, journalist and translator, who
studied in Paris before returning to Constantinople, where he wrote his works from 1859
onwards. Kémal (1840-88) was a Turkish poet and thinker. He lobbied for a constitutional
regime, and he infused the ideas of liberty, progress and patriotism amongst Turkish
intelligentsia.126 Ziya Pasha (1829-80) was a Turkish poet and reformist, and perhaps the most
famous of the three. He also studied and translated from French, and started working with
Şinasi and Kémal from 1867 onwards.127
The first author to be discussed here is the earliest of the three, Ibrahim Şinasi. His
most famous poem is a hymn.128 This poem, which is religious and autobiographical,
immediately reveals that Şinasi was influenced by Romanticism, which is characterized by an
emphasis on the individual, emotional, personal and transcendent experiences in life.129 Şinasi
elaborates on his fear and respect for Allah, and how the world and universe are elusive and
majestic places. Şinasi does not comment on social relations -nor on the Ottoman Empire in
general-, but he does state that ‘Fixed are some and others wandering by the Omnipotent
decree; each one is a shining proof that God in very truth doth be.’130 Words of similar
meaning can be found in one of Şinasi’s prayers, in which he repeatedly praises Allah, and
states that all one can hope to achieve is sense ‘some of His light’. In summary, Şinasi was
preoccupied with Islam, Allah131 and the transcendent, while more earthly matters such as
politics did not seem to be of much interest to him. Şinasi acknowledges that some people are
‘fixed’ while other ‘wander’, which might -given the religious nature of his poems- be a
reference to Muslims and non-Muslims.132 Nowhere in the works assessed here does Şinasi
explicitly preach exclusion of social, ethnic of religious groups, however.
The second literary figure from the Tanzimat period under review here is Námiq
Kémal. Although he was a disciple of Şinasi, his writing is both different in style and content.
In one of Kemal’s quatrains, he writes that: ‘While life remains to me I’ll serve the people,
constant in my aim. Repeated in the nation’s heart, eternal is the hero’s name.’133 Also, in his
124
Inci, H., ‘Literature in the Late Ottoman.’ In: Ágoston, Gábor, and Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman
Empire (New York 2009)
125
Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909) 4-5.
126
Inci, H., ‘Literature in the Late Ottoman.’
127
Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, 8-11.
128
A hymn is a religious song, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer.
129
‘Romanticism’. In: Encyclopeadia Brittanica. URL:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/508675/Romanticism (accessed 22 November 2013)
130
Şinasi, I, ‘Hymn’. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909) 35-36.
131
The author has translated the Turkish word for ‘Allah’ to ‘God’. Şinasi was a Muslim, and he was therefore
obviously referring to Allah.
132
Şinasi, I, ‘Prayer’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978) 161-163.
133
Kémal, N, ‘Quatrains’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978) 161-163.
27
poem ‘From the Kaside to the Fatherland’, Kémal writes that ‘…a nation may be humbled,
and yet not lose its worth. A jewel is still precious, though trampled in the earth.’ These
passages are particularly interesting because Kémal refers to the nation, yet it is not clear what
type of nation Kémal is referring to here. In any case, he was not yet nationalistic in the sense
that term is used nowadays, because he wrote about the individual, and not about the Turks as
a group.134 A second recurring theme that can be uncovered from Kémal’s work is patriotism.
One possible explanation is that Kémal was influenced by the Crimean War, which was
waged during his years of reaching adolescence.135 Also, the Empire was under constant
Russian threat during Kémal’s active years. A third aspect of Kémal’s work are his practical
and political aims. While Şinasi primarily taught his readers to be pious, Kémal actively
encouraged his readers to save the Empire from its downfall, by fighting despotism and
tyranny.
The last, and politically most outspoken writer to be discussed here is Ziya Pasha. This
poet had similar political ideas as Kémal did, and he also considered himself to be a Turkish
patriot.136 Pasha’s displeasure was directed primarily at the Ottoman government and its
officials. He was also concerned with the inability of the masses to understand government
rulings and decrees, and therefore their inability to defend their rights.137 This critical stance is
reflected in his prose, as he notes in two of his poems that values such as integrity, honesty
and faithfulness no longer seem to be important. Ziya Pasha, a religious man, also denounces
the belief that ‘Islam provides, it now appears, the fetters to all progress’.138 Although it was
not of central importance to him, Pasha did not shy away from the topic of social relations and
the Armenians. In the Zafer-Namé (‘The Book of Victory’), Ziya Pasha heavily criticizes Ali
Pasha, who was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire for five stints between 1852 and
1871.139 According to Ziya Pasha, Ali Pasha prevented the Ottoman people from becoming
independent, and took ridiculous measures that granted self-government to minorities.
Furthermore, Ziya Pasha stated that ‘[Ali Pasha] held the soldiers back, nor let one pursue the
foe…’140.
The orientalist Elias Gibb has interpreted these words, and explains what Ziya Pasha
meant by them. According to Gibb, Ali Pasha was being held in check by the European
powers, and therefore he did or could not punish Greek and Armenian rebels in a way that
Ziya Pasha deemed fitting.141 Also, after the massacre of Christians in Damascus in 1860, Ali
Pasha ordered -pressured by Europe- that the Turkish governor of Damascus be executed, an
act which Ziya Pasha despised. The following passage is another good example of Pasha’s
criticism towards the Ottoman government and relations between Turks and minorities:
134
Kushner, D., The Rise of Turkish Nationalism: 1876-1908 (London 1977) 27.
Kushner, Turkish Nationalism, 54.
136
Inci, H., ‘Literature in the Late Ottoman.’ In: Ágoston, Gábor, and Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman
Empire (New York 2009)
137
Kushner, Turkish Nationalism, 58.
138
Pasha, Z., ‘Gazel’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978) 164.,
Pasha, Z., ‘From the Terkib-i Bend’. In Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978) 164-165.
139
‘New Ottoman literature (1839–1918)’. In: Encyclopeadia Brittanica. URL:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/610052/Turkish-literature/274914/New-Ottoman-literature1839-1918 (accessed 22 November 2013)
140
Pasha, Z., From the Zafer-Namé. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909) 99.
141
Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909) 99.
135
28
‘Full soon will these gypsies sit on the couch of the Grand Vezir,
It is but the Jews alone that form the exception here.
For of Greeks and Armenians both doth he make Bey and Mushir;
The equality of rights to perfection brought hath he.142
This stanza, obviously written in a satirical way, reveals Pasha’s discontent over social
relations within the Empire. He also makes it clear that he believes that minorities are not
worthy of becoming Bey or Mushir, which were high political and military titles.
The first aspect that becomes apparent while evaluating late Tanzimat discourse is that
first and foremost, these writers were both political and highly critical. They considered
themselves to be Turkish Ottoman patriots, who wanted to prevent the downfall of their
Empire, which they believed to be head locked by the European powers and ruled by an
incompetent Grand Vizier. Also, the first signs of nationalism can be detected in the works of
Şinasi, Kémal and Pasha, or at least a sense of belonging to a nation which had yet to be
defined. The second aspect put forward in this phase is the reemphasis on Islam as an
essential component of Ottoman society.143 In hindsight, this might be considered the first
ominous sign of a society heading towards the violent exclusion of all Christian, but these
comments were relatively harmless on its own merits. The third, and for the purposes of this
thesis most important aspect, is how the writers dealt with social and interethnic relations. The
most outspoken of the three in this respect was Ziya Pasha, who called for harsh punishment
of minority rebels and criticized the millet-system for granting too much self-government to
Christians. However, none of the writers from this period preached ethnic hatred or even
called for the exclusion of minorities. This is especially remarkable since already in 1858,
Ahmed Pasha, who was an important political figure, wrote that:
‘Since the time of Yavuz Sultan Selim [Selim I] the Sublime State has held the
caliphate and it is thus a great state founded on religion. However, because those who
founded the state before that were Turks, in reality it is a Turkish state (bir devlit-i
Turkiye'dir). And since it was the House of Osman that constituted the state this means
that the Sublime State rests on four principles. That is to say, the ruler is Ottoman, the
government is Turkish, the religion is Islam, and the capital is Istanbul, If any of these
four principles were to be weakened, this would mean a weakening of one of the four
pillars of the state structure.’144
These comments are highly important, since they reveal that the idea of the primacy of the
Turks was already put forward by Turkish politicians since the end of the Crimean War. None
of the writers reviewed in this paragraph shared these ideas though -at least not on paper-,
which is why this first phase can best be characterized as a phase of inclusion of all social and
ethnic groups within public discourse.
142
Pasha, Z., Zafer-Namé. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909) 105-106.
Poulton, H., Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (London 1997)
55.
144
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 169.
143
29
1876 - 1907: Polarization in the Hamidian Era
The second phase in the period under review in this chapter started in 1876, when the despotic
and authoritarian Sultan Abdülhamid II came to power. His reign would last until 1908,
during which he would centralize power around him while he faced an increase in western
influences within the borders of his Empire. The Sultan wanted to use Islam as a means to
unite the Ottoman Muslims against both internal threats and western influences.145 Deringil
argues that in practice, the centralization of power by Abdülhamid II meant that passive
obedience from the Ottoman subjects would no longer suffice, but that they now had to
conform to a normative order that was imposed on them.146 In other words, in order for the
Ottoman Empire to become a true nation, all its Muslim subjects had to actively become part
of the same national narrative.
There were three major influences on Ottoman literary culture in this period,
influences which encouraged a more nationalist approach than before. The first influence was
an increase in European works on Turkey, which fueled awareness of a Turkish identity
within the Empire. The second influence was the rediscovery of Chagatai literature. Chagatai
is an extinct Turkish language, and in the Hamidian period intellectuals used Chagatai to
differentiate between authentic Turkish words and words of Arabic and Persian origin.147 The
third and last influence came from the Sultan, who imposed strong censorship in order to
control the narrative put forward by writers in this period.148
Translated literary sources from the Hamidian period are scarce. An exception to this
is the work of Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (1852-1937), one of the most famous literary figures
from this period. Tarhan was a poet and playwright who was educated in both Istanbul and
Paris. His work reveals an ambiguous stance towards the Armenians. In the latest stages of the
Empire, Armenians played an important role in theater and entertainment,149 and Tarhan
cooperated with many of these Armenians. When Tarhan visited Istanbul in 1911, the
Armenian publisher Tokatliyan even organized a party for him.150 Tarhan, however, privately
condemned Armenian terrorism strongly and approved of the Hamidian massacres. After
these massacres had taken place, Tarhan wrote a letter in which he stated that:
‘May Allah give the Armenians their just deserts! There seems to have been another
big incident. These people seem to have turned into anarchists towards us. Among the
rains, and arrows and the stones raining on our country, a bomb was just what we
needed. Those damned Armenians brought that, too. According to me, they are all
fools of English vice and disorder.’151
145
Poulton, H., Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (London 1997)
58-59.
146
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 11.
147
Kushner, D., The Rise of Turkish Nationalism: 1876-1908 (London 1977) 58-60.
148
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 93.
149
De Bruijn, P., The Two Worlds of Eşber: Western Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman Turkish Poetry by
Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997) 11-12.
150
De Bruijn, The Two Worlds of Eşber, 11-12.
151
Mardin, Y., Abdülhak Hamid’in Londrasi (Istanbul 1976). In: De Bruijn, P., The Two Worlds of Eşber: Western
Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman Turkish Poetry by Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997) 101.
30
Tarhan limited these kind of opinions on politics and the Armenians to private
correspondence, while his poetry and literature is to a certain extent similar to that of Ibrahim
Şinasi. Tarhan was also influenced by Romanticism and classical writers such as Victor Hugo,
Charles Baudelaire and William Shakespeare.152 In many of his poems, he deals with themes
such as man facing nature and the glorification of a mythical past. He also writes about his
own experiences in both Europe and the Ottoman Empire, for example in his poem ‘Auteuil’
in which Tarhan describes his time in Paris.153 Tarhan’s most famous work is a play about
medieval warfare, battle and the betrayal of the protagonist and main character Eşber, after
whom the play is titled. The play was published in 1880, and it reveals that Tarhan was very
critical and sensitive about warfare, which is why some of Tarhan’s peers accused him of not
being patriotic. Petra de Bruijn has extensively studied this play, and she argues that Tarhan’s
aversion of war was caused by the disastrous outcome of the Russo-Ottoman war of 187788.154 Just like Şinasi, it’s safe to say that Tarhan was concerned with the aesthetic traits of
poetry and romanticizing the Turkish past, not with contemporary politics and Turkish
nationalism.
Literature is only one aspect of public discourse, another valuable source is the body
of documents produced by government officials. These documents better reflect the changing
dynamics between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Hamidian era than the body of literature.
Between 1876 and 1909, tensions between Muslims and Christians were quickly rising. The
edicts of 1839 and 1856 had determined that subjects from all religions were equal before the
law, which caused Muslims to increasingly feel that their position of superiority was being
undermined. This is why between 1876 and 1909, a systematic propaganda campaign was
launched which aimed to ‘correct the beliefs’ of heretics.155 Although officially, the Ottoman
administration declared that there were to be no forced conversions to Islam, documents show
that conversions of Christians to Islam initiated by local Ottoman authorities did take place.
After a mass conversion of Christians to Islam in the Seyhan area in the province of Adana in
1892, the following official report was issued to the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul:
‘After repeated unsuccessful attempts through the centuries to bring them back to the
true path, eighty villages of the Yezidi and thirty villages of the Shi'a have acceded to
the honour of the True Faith. Yesterday, their leaders, with total freedom of
conscience, accepted my invitation to come to Mosul and become Muslim. This
morning, as the military band played the Hamidiye march, and rank upon rank of
ulema intoned the holiest of prayers proclaiming the One True God, a great crowd of
notables and military personnel gathered around the municipality offices. As a guard
of honour stood to military salute, the Müftü asked each one in turn if he accepted
152
De Bruijn, P., The Two Worlds of Eşber: Western Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman Turkish Poetry by
Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997) 150-151.
153
Tarhan, A.H., ‘Auteuil’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978) 168.
154
De Bruijn, The Two Worlds of Eşber, 134-137.
155
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 48-49.
31
Islam of his own free will. Upon each confirmation the crowd shouted, 'Long Live the
Sultan!’156
After centuries of relative religious freedom within the borders of the Empire, conversions
from Christianity to Islamism -and vice versa- had become a worrisome issue in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century for Ottoman authorities. This can best be explained at the
background of some important issues the Empire was facing at that time. The Ottoman
Empire was in a deep state of crisis. While the population of the European powers was
booming, the Ottoman population had dwindled to a mere twenty million people at the end of
the nineteenth century. This made the issue of Muslims converting to Christianity more
pressing than it was before. More importantly, the Sultan was implementing a policy of
unification based on religion in the Hamidian era. Conversions to Christianity, no matter how
marginal, directly undermined this policy and weakened the body of the in-group, the Muslim
Ottoman Turks. With the implementation of a nationalistic policy, notions of a Turkish race
and ethnicity became more important as well. Deringil explains that in this period, the
Ottoman Empire veered towards a 'nationally imagined community’. Ottoman identity was
assuming an increasingly Turkish character, a notion which was incompatible with religious
conversions.157 In summary, between 1876 and 1907 the Armenians were marginalized,
sometimes forced to change religion and even massacred during the events of 1894-96. Their
very existence within Ottoman borders, however, was still tolerated. This was about to change
as well, as would become clear after the rise of the CUP in 1908.
1908 - 1913: Discriminatory Discourse by the CUP
The third and last phase ran from 1908 to 1913, during which conflicting parties tried to seize
control of the Empire. The fate of the Armenians had not yet been determined at this point in
time, which is why I argue here that the years 1908-13 formed a transitional period, during
which Ottoman public discourse changed from polarizing to discriminatory or outright
genocidal. In 1908, the CUP performed a coup d’état which ended the reign of Sultan
Abdülhamid II. This coup ended the absolute monarchy of the Sultan, and ushered in the
beginning of a constitutional monarchy. The harsh censorship measures taken in the Hamidian
era immediately relaxed, and hundreds of newspapers and periodicals were published as a
direct result of this newfound literary freedom.158 The literature that was published during this
phase served intellectual and political purposes, similar to the intentions of writers during the
Tanzimat era. In 1913, the CUP took full political and military control over the Empire. A
new severe regime of censorship was imposed, which ended a short five-year span of relative
freedom of speech.159
The most important figure behind the CUP movement was the sociologist Ziya
Gökalp, who was also one of the founders of the CUP. He was the identity entrepreneur who
156
Deringil, S., The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 71.
157
Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains, 11.
158
Koroglu, E., Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity: Literature in Turkey During World War I (London
2007) 24.
159
Hanioglu, S.M., ‘The Second Constitutional Period, 1908–1918’. In: Kasaba, R., The Cambridge History of
Turkey Volume 4. Turkey in the Modern World (2008) 83.
32
formulated many of the principles of the CUP in its early stages. Gökalp believed that in order
to survive, the Empire had to develop a strong and centralized state founded on nationalism.
To achieve this, Islam had to be ‘Turkified’, which meant that a specific type of Islam had to
be adopted which inextricably bound religion to the Turkish race.160 In summary, inclusion
and exclusion were at the very core of the ideology of the CUP.
While the CUP believed in the subordination of the individual to the state, there were
intellectuals with other ideas as well. An important literary movement in this period was the
Fecr-i Ati, or the ‘Dawn of the Future’ community (1909-13) which operated under the motto
of creating ‘art for art’s sake’.161 The writers who belonged to this movement believed in
critical and autonomous thought, which is why the Fecr-i Ati should be considered a counterCUP movement.162 The Dawn of the Future movement would cease to exist in 1913, upon
which the CUP would largely implement the theories of Gökalp. Therefore, Gökalp and his
ideas on how the Empire had to deal with minorities in its transformation will now be
discussed to illustrate how Ottoman public discourse changed after 1908.
In 1911, Gökalp wrote that the non-Muslim communities within the Empire, such as
the Armenians, had been able to attain greater wealth than Muslim Ottomans, because nonMuslims did not have to participate in the military apparatus or in politics. Their economic
advantage was also the supposed result of the large measure of autonomy granted to them by
Ottoman authorities.163 This assertion was not new, since Ziya Pasha had already criticized
Ali Pasha for granting too much self-government to the Armenians during the Tanzimat era.
Moreover, this idea was false, or at least a misinterpretation of the truth as demonstrated
earlier in this thesis. The lack of Armenians participating in politics and the army was -at least
in part- because this was simply forbidden before the Islâhat Hatt-I Hümâyûnu act of 1856,
and longstanding traditions prevented true participation of Armenians even after this act was
passed.
The assertion that Armenians had an unfair economic advantage over Muslim
Ottomans might have caused interreligious tensions, but is still relatively harmless. However,
Gökalp not only commented on the current state of interreligious relations within the Empire,
but also made a prediction for the future which is worth to be quoted here at length.
‘…we are going to benefit from the achievements of modern science and philosophy
in our search for a New Life, the methods we shall follow in every aspect of life will
be more up-to-date…our non-Muslim compatriots are only anxious imitators of
European life…We shall create a genuine civilization, a Turkish civilization, which
will follow the growth of a New Life. The Turkish race has not been degenerated like
160
Kevorkian, R.H., The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London 2011) 195-196.
Inci, H., ‘Literature in the Late Ottoman.’ In: Ágoston, Gábor, and Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman
Empire (New York 2009)
162
Koroglu, E., Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity: Literature in Turkey During World War I (London
2007) 112.
163
Heyd, U., Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp (Westport 1979) 130131.
161
33
some other races by alcohol and debauchery. Turkish blood has remained rejuvenated
and hardened like steel with the glories of the battlefield.’164
By applying the aforementioned principles of Critical Discourse Analysis, this quote can be
interpreted through the eyes of the contemporary reader. This reveals the importance of this
quote for two reasons. Firstly, it shows that for the Young Turks, the in-group in Ottoman
society had been narrowed down to a very specific group in 1911. The term ‘we’ could have
referred to Muslims in writings from the Hamidian era, or even to Ottomans in general -both
Muslim and non-Muslim- in discourse from the Tanzimat era. Gökalp, however, uses ‘we’ in
a very specific sense, referring to Muslim Ottoman Turks. The period between 1908 and 1913
was a period of relative freedom of speech, which means that other -more moderate- voices
could also be heard. For example, there were some who wanted to restore the old regime of
the Sultan. They believed that Christian and Muslims had to be treated unequal, but could
coexist within the Empire nonetheless.165Another voice came from intellectuals belonging to
the aforementioned ‘Dawn of the Future’ community, who opposed the ideas of the CUP
movement. All opposition to the CUP would be silenced through censorship in 1913 though,
making the CUP discourse the overwhelmingly dominant voice in public discourse.
The second reason why this quote is important is because it is perhaps one of the first
unambiguous threats at the address of the Armenians, and it came from a well-respected and
highly influential sociologist who participated in Ottoman mainstream discourse. Gökalp did
not preach the direct destruction of the Armenians, but he did proclaim the primacy of the
Turkish race and a future of New Life which belonged to the Turks. This would mean following the logic of Gökalp- that the Christian Ottomans either had to be excluded or
destroyed. Unfortunately, the latter scenario proved to become reality in the years to follow.
Genocidal Rhetoric in Late Ottoman Discourse
This chapter has shown a gradual radicalization in Ottoman public discourse between 1853
and 1913, a period which I have divided into three phases. At the beginning of this chapter I
argued that genocidal rhetoric is made up of three elements: exclusion, a perceived and
irrational fear of the victim group, and the dehumanization of the victim group. These three
elements roughly match the three phases, as I will now demonstrate.
The first phase ran from 1853 to 1875, during which writers expressed some criticism
over the old millet-system and social relations. Some traces of the first element of genocidal
rhetoric, exclusion of the other, can be found in discourse from this phase. The other two
elements were absent though, and criticism or calls for violence from Ottoman writers was
directed at Armenian rebels, not the Armenian people. This is why overall, this first phase
was characterized by the inclusion of all ethnic and social groups in public discourse.
The year 1876 was a turning point, marking the enthronement of Sultan Abdülhamid
II. A combination of censorship and a purposeful campaign by the Sultan resulted in
polarizing relations between Ottoman Muslims and non-Muslim Ottomans. The importance of
Islam became more and more pronounced in Ottoman discourse between 1876 and 1907,
164
Gökalp, Z., ‘Yeni Hayat ve Yeni Krymetler’ (1911). In: Berkes, N., Turkish Nationalism and Western
Civilization(New York 1959) 59-60.
165
Kévorkian, R.H., The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History (London 2011) 71-72.
34
while Ottoman authorities feared and actively prevented the conversion of Ottoman Muslims
to Christianity. Therefore, the second element of genocidal rhetoric -a perceived and irrational
fear- was a recurring elements in this second phase.
The third phase started with the rise of the CUP in 1908, and ended with their
definitive control over the Empire in 1913. Ziya Gökalp, who formulated many of the ideas
behind the CUP movement, was the most important literary and political figure in this period.
In his writings, all three elements of genocidal rhetoric have merged. They reveal that public
discourse of the Young Turks had become truly discriminatory at this point, as Gökalp
explicitly proclaimed that Muslims were destined to prosper. Moreover, he put forward the
idea of the primacy of the Turkish race, therefore dehumanizing the Armenians and other
non-Muslim Ottomans.
35
Explaining the Victimization of the Armenians
At this point, it has been demonstrated what events and processes between 1853 and 1913
caused the treatment of the Armenians within the Ottoman Empire to radicalize. In the
previous chapters, the position of the Armenians -and Christian minorities in general- in
Ottoman public discourse have been discussed. Some important questions have still remained
unanswered that help explain the process of victimization of the Armenians between 1853 and
1913. Who read the discourse that was under review in the previous chapter? Which people
were affected by it? And, most difficult of all, why were the Armenians victimized? In this
chapter, findings from previous chapters will be brought together to not only discuss, but to
also explain how the Armenians could have become victims of genocide in 1915-16.
My argument below is threefold. Firstly, I will argue that the public discourse that has
been reviewed in this thesis had an especially large impact due to pre-existing tendencies and
an advanced literary culture in nineteenth century Ottoman society. Secondly, I will explain
how Turkish Nationalism, World War I, and the internationalization of the ‘Armenian
question’ were the three primary causes of the Armenian genocide between 1853 and 1913.
Thirdly, I will argue that despite the early warning signals -the Hamidian massacres of 189496 for example-, the fate of the Armenians was still undecided before the rise of the CUP. In
other words, the terrible fate of the Armenians was not predetermined, but primarily the result
of a brief and swift process initiated by the CUP after 1908.
This chapter is structured as follows. In the first paragraph I will discuss the
effectiveness of public discourse in nineteenth century Ottoman society. In the second
paragraph, I will answer the central question of this thesis: ‘How were the Armenians within
the Ottoman Empire victimized between 1853 and 1913?’. In the third and last paragraph, I
will place my findings within the scholarly debate on the origins of the Armenian genocide.
The Impact of Late Ottoman Public Discourse
As shown earlier, the Armenians were gradually removed from the in-group through public
discourse between 1853 and 1913. The next step is to assess what the overall impact of this
discourse was. The effectiveness, and therefore the overall importance for my purposes, of
these writings is dependent upon two factors: who read these texts, and how did these texts
impact the Ottoman reader.
The first factor pertains to the literary culture of late Ottoman society. Julia Pardoe, a
British writer and poet, wrote already in 1837 after visiting the Ottoman Empire that ‘Perhaps,
with the single exception of Great Britain, there exists not in the world a more reading nation
than Turkey… Nearly every man throughout the Empire can read and write.’166 Although
Pardoe exaggerates here, her statement reveals that in the early nineteenth century, the
Ottoman Empire was a reading nation. Before I discuss specific events and developments
between 1853 and 1913 regarding Ottoman literary culture, a more general remark is in order
here. Earlier in this thesis, I argued against the existence of a homogeneous ’Ottoman culture’
in the same sense as most people now believe in a national culture. The Ottoman literary
culture in the nineteenth century was no exception. This culture was complex, and by no
166
Strauss, J., ‘Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th Centuries)?’ In: Middle Eastern Literatures:
Incorporating Edebiyat vol. 6 no. 1 (2010) 39.
36
means exclusively Turkish. In fact, many of the early novels which were considered Turkish,
had in fact Armenian or Greek origins. Also, Istanbul was a center for printing and
publishing, which is why the production there was not only limited to Turkish works.167
Simply referring to ‘Ottoman works’ or ‘the Ottoman reader’ will therefore not suffice.
Within the Empire, Turkish and Armenian literary culture shared some traits, but also
differences. That is why I will explain what literary developments emerged from the 1850s
onwards, and for whom they applied.
An important development started in the middle of the nineteenth century, which
encouraged a literary culture within the Empire. In the 1850s, the gap between written
language based on the Ottoman script -used by the literary elite- and spoken language -used
by the Turkish mass- had become huge. This encouraged the reform of the Ottoman script to
the Turkish language based on the alphabet, which would make written texts more accessible
to the general public.168 Benedict Anderson has explained how the emergence of a ‘printinglanguage’ encourages national consciousness. Firstly, it creates unified fields of exchange and
communication, other than the ones used by the literary elite and the vernacular used by the
mass.169 In the Ottoman Empire, this meant that those who commanded the Turkish language
no longer only had to rely on spoken communication. As a result, newspapers became a daily
tradition from the 1860s onwards, especially in Istanbul.170 Secondly, the development of a
printing-language gives a fixity to language which is important for the idea of a nation.171 In
other words, the transformation of Ottoman script to Turkish script not only spread, but also
legitimized Turkish writings, and gave it a sense of historical belonging. This is especially
important since Turkish nationalism was largely based on a glorified past.
In the1880s and 1890s, European missionaries become increasingly active within the
Empire. Sultan Abdülhamid II, who constantly feared outside intervention and Muslim
conversions, distrusted the missionaries and aggressively promoted Islamic studies. An
example that illustrates this tendency is an Imperial decree of 1892 that ordered all Muslim
children within the Empire to be taken from non-Muslim schools, and be educated by village
Imams.172 Although Abdülhamid II vigorously controlled the tone of Ottoman discourse, he
did encouraged the spread of education and literacy this way. The measures taken by
Abdülhamid II influenced the generation of Ottoman Turks that would reach adolescence at
the turn of the century. This was also the generation that would play a pivotal role in the rise
of the CUP, and the spread of its radical ideas and genocidal policies. Although there is
perhaps no direct correlation between the measures taken by Abdülhamid II and the
Armenian genocide, it is safe to say that Abdülhamid II encouraged values such as obedience
and conformity over critical and independent thought.
While Turkish Ottomans increasingly learned to read and write in the second half of
167
Strauss, J., ‘Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th Centuries)?’ In: Middle Eastern Literatures:
Incorporating Edebiyat vol. 6 no. 1 (2010) 39-40.
168
Zürcher, E.J., Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993) 189.
169
Anderson, B., Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London 1983) 44.
170
Koroglu, E., Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity: Literature in Turkey During World War I (London
2007) 25.
171
Anderson, Imagined Communities, 44-45.
172
Deringil, S., ‘The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1808 to 1908’. In:
Comparative Studies in Society and History vol. 35 no. 1 (1993) 12-17.
37
the nineteenth century, another interesting development was unfolding amongst the Armenian
population within the Empire. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the ‘classical’
variant of Armenian language was replaced almost completely by Armeno-Turkish and
Turkish by Armenian writers. Some Armenian writers started writing in Turkish out of
respect for the majority, as historian Johan Strauss argues.173 While this might have been true
in some cases, it is not the only explanation. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Sultan
Abdülhamid II imposed a normative order on all Ottoman subjects during his reign, and
demanded their obedience. A more plausible explanation for the development above is that
Armenians increasingly wrote in Turkish as a direct result of the measures of Abdülhamid II.
In summary, an advanced literary culture emerged in the Ottoman Empire in the
second half of the nineteenth century. Periodicals and newspapers were published in Turkish,
and from 1876 onwards Ottoman Turks were increasingly educated in Islamic studies.
Armenian writers, meanwhile, assimilated to the Turkish language in the same period, causing
the Armenian language to become almost obsolete. Although numbers on literacy are not
available, it is likely that the discourse under review in the previous chapter reached a broad
audience, not just the literary elite.
The second factor to determine the overall impact of discourse and -more generallyideology, is to assess how writings affects people in any given society. The way people react
to ideology is dependent upon a number of factors, such as age, religion, gender, and culture.
Since a heterogeneous group of Ottoman Turks is under review in this thesis, I will focus on
what they had in common: culture. Psychologist and genocide scholar Ervin Staub has
discerned two cultural characteristics which play a role in the effectiveness of ideology in a
given society. The first characteristic is historical, and refers to the treatment of minorities in
the past. According to Staub, ‘a crucial [characteristic] is a history of devaluation of a group
of people. The more this is maintained by societal structure, in the form of discrimination or
persecution, the more dangerous it is.’174 The treatment of minorities, and of Armenians in
particular, was ambivalent at best in the Ottoman Empire. Although Armenians had
historically been respected as a millet, relations between Armenians and Turkish Ottomans
had always been based on inequality. Moreover, the treatment of Armenians worsened
considerably in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Armenians were exposed to
violence and outright massacre, for instance in Damascus in 1860, in the Hamidian massacres
in 1894-96, and in the Adana massacres in 1909. Not only their lives were at stake in this
period, since sizable amounts of property were also forcefully taken from Armenians between
1848 and 1915 by their Ottoman rulers.175
The second characteristic covers leadership. Staub argues that when ‘accustomed to
being led, people will turn to new leaders in difficult times, often to those who propagate
destructive ideologies. They will be less likely to oppose the actions of leaders and the group,
including harmful acts toward a victim group. They will be more likely to obey direct orders
173
Strauss, J., ‘Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th Centuries)?’ In: Middle Eastern Literatures:
Incorporating Edebiyat vol. 6 no. 1 (2010) 41.
174
Staub, E., ‘Genocide and Mass Killing: Origins, Prevention, Healing and Reconciliation’. In: Political
Psychology vol.21 no. 2 (2000) 370.
175
Üngör, U.U. and Potatel, M., Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property
(2011) 173-174.
38
for violence.’176 If there is indeed a correlation between strong leadership and susceptibility to
ideology, then this second characteristic certainly applies to the late Ottoman Empire as well.
Historically, the Sultan has had virtually unlimited power within Ottoman borders. Under the
millet-system, the allegiance of Ottoman subjects was based primarily on their religious
identity and local ties though, as was stated in earlier chapters. This situation changed in the
1870s and 1880s as a result of the rise of nationalism. Abdülhamid II centralized power
around him, and a sense of belonging to a nation and serving the Sultan became of primary
importance for Ottoman subjects.
A combination of an advanced literary culture and the cultural characteristics of Staub
shows that the discourse that was reviewed in the previous chapter not only reached a large
audience, but that it also had a large impact on its readers. The historical characteristics of the
Ottoman Empire and the leadership cult around the Sultan -especially Abdülhamid II- made
discriminatory rhetoric very effective.
Why the Armenians?
In this paragraph, I set out to answer the research question of this thesis, based on a synthesis
of all information and findings from previous chapters. The causes of the Armenian genocide
were numerous, overlapping and not always clearly distinguishable. Nonetheless, I will argue
here that two factors were decisive for the process of victimization of the Armenians, more so
than other: Turkish nationalism and the Internationalization of the ‘Armenian Question’. I will
also discuss the importance of World War I as a direct cause for the Armenian genocide in
this paragraph.
The first -and perhaps most important- cause of victimization was the rise of Turkish
nationalism. Sociologist scholar Alex Alvarez has described the connection between
nationalism and genocide, and he states that:
‘In short, nationalism exacerbates differences, sometimes to an extreme degree. Some
forms of nationalism, for example, preach a spirit of elitism and exclusiveness that
teaches that one’s own people are not only different, but superior to other groups as
well. In these situations national identity becomes conflated with ethnic and racial
hatreds. These antipathies often verge on the xenophobic’.177
This was exactly the case in the late Ottoman Empire. Turkish nationalism problematized two
key aspects of what it meant to be Armenian: Christian religion and Armenian ethnicity. As I
have shown in previous chapters, ethnicity in the late Ottoman Empire was a fluent concept.
Nationalism, however, construed and enforced the concept of a Turkish race, which was
primarily founded on a mythical and glorified Turkish past. This meant that the Armenian
ethnicity was necessarily not a part of this narrative. One could argue that religious motives
were the primary cause of the victimization and the subsequent genocide of the Armenians,
but this argument cannot account for hundreds of years of relative interreligious peace within
the Ottoman Empire. Although Ottoman Christians had always been treated unequal, even
with contempt, interreligious relations problematized radically only after 1876 as shown in
176
Staub, E., ‘Genocide and Mass Killing: Origins, Prevention, Healing and Reconciliation’. In: Political
Psychology vol.21 no. 2 (2000) 370-371.
177
Alvarez, A., Governments, Citizens, and Genocide (Indiana 2001) 64.
39
previous chapters. Like religion, racism was also a cause of the genocide. Although this
phenomenon certainly existed before the beginning of the twentieth century, ethnic purity
only became a public issue after the rise of the CUP in 1908. The rise of Turkish nationalism
after 1876 created strong feelings of belonging to an exclusive in-group amongst the Ottoman
subjects, both Turkish and non-Turkish. Moreover, it provided the binary conditions that
made mutual existence not only undesirable, but intolerable.
The second cause of victimization of the Armenians is the internationalization of the
Armenian Question. After the Russo-Ottoman war ended in 1878, the aforementioned treaty
of Berlin was signed. The Ottoman Empire, the losing party, was forced to agree with the
terms which were dictated by the European powers. This meant that the wellbeing of the
Armenians within the Empire needed to be guaranteed, if necessary through outside
intervention. Bloxham explains that the treaty succeeded in making the Armenian Question
an international issue, but that it failed to actually create a body or mode of defense to prevent
the Armenians from being harmed in years to follow.178 The internationalization of the
Armenian Question was worrisome for the Ottoman government for a few reasons. Firstly,
after the Russo-Ottoman war ended, many Armenians in Anatolia feared further oppression
from their Ottoman rulers, and welcomed Russian intervention.179 Secondly, Armenian
nationalism and calls for independence spread through Anatolia in the 1870s and 1880s,
further threatening the already fragmented Ottoman Empire.180 The third, and most important
reason why the internationalization of the Armenian Question was so important, was the
Ottoman fear of outside intervention. The very existence of Armenians within Ottoman
borders meant that, given the treaty of Berlin, the thriving European Powers could use any
serious incident of maltreatment of Ottoman Armenians to intervene in internal Ottoman
matters. The internationalization of the Armenian question is also reflected in the discourse
from the previous chapter. Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan wrote that ‘[The Armenians] are all fools
of English vice and disorder.’181, while Gökalp stated that ‘…our non-Muslim compatriots are
only anxious imitators of European life.’182 These examples show that between 1876 and
1913, the Armenians were accused of cooperating with enemies from outside borders against
the Ottoman government. The external enemy, in other words, was equated with the internal
enemy.
The two previous factors explain the process of victimization of the Armenians
between 1853-1913, yet they do not sufficiently explain how this process could have spilled
over in extreme violence causing over one million Armenian deaths in 1915-16. Not every
multi-ethnic nation or Empire that has adopted nationalism or suffered a severe crisis resorted
to genocide, and the Armenian genocide was not the result of a preconceived long-term plan.
How, then, can the extreme violence against the Armenians in 1915-16 be explained? Again,
178
Bloxham, D., The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman
Armenians (Oxford 2005) 44-45.
179
Bloxham, D., The Great Game of Genocide, 45.
180
Poulton, H., Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (London 1997)
63.
181
Mardin, Abdülhak Hamid’in Londrasi (Istanbul 1976) 188. In: De Bruijn, P., The Two Worlds of Eşber: Western
Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman Turkish Poetry by Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997) 101.
182
Gökalp, Z., ‘Yeni Hayat ve Yeni Krymetler’ (1911). In: Berkes, N., Turkish Nationalism and Western
Civilization(New York 1959) 59-60.
40
the answer to this question is complicated and manifold, so I will limit myself here to one of
the primary causes: war. As historian Omer Bartov explains: ‘In all major cases of stateorganized murder in [the twentieth] century, the rhetoric of the past has legitimized the horror
of the present, technology has facilitated mass killing, war has provided a convenient
psychological and organizational context.’183 In other words, despite the uniqueness of each
historical event and its outcome, an important and direct cause for all major twentieth century
genocides is war.
After it had ended, World War I had proven to be by far the most widespread and
destructive war the Western world had ever witnessed. Despite a shared optimism -even lust
for war- on the part of the European powers on the eve of war, it soon became clear that its
sheer scale and the use of new technology would cause the death of millions of people,
reducing them to mere cannon fodder. Not only did the first World War cause aggression
among the states, but it also radicalized the modes of violence within them. It is against this
background that the mass deportations, starvation and massacre of the Armenians in 1915-16
must be explained. An additional aspect of World War I was that the European powers -which
had already failed to come to the aid of the Armenians in 1894-96-184 were too preoccupied
with their own warfare to take a stance against the Ottoman Empire when reports of mass
deportation and massacre came in May 1915.185
One could argue that World War I was not a direct cause of the Armenian genocide,
since it does not explain the massacres of Armenians in earlier decades. The Ottoman Turks,
however, considered these events legitimate battles against Armenian rebels and nationalists,
at least to a certain extent. The Armenian genocide differed from earlier massacres in terms of
both scale and intention: this was the first effort to destroy the Armenian as a whole,
indiscriminate of gender, position or age.
Ongoing Debate on the Origins of the Armenian Genocide
This thesis has reached its conclusion, and in this last paragraph I will place my thesis and
core arguments within the scholarly debate. Almost a century has passed since the Armenian
genocide, and scholars are still debating over its origins. To what degree do my findings
support or clash with existing views?
Political scientist Robert Melson has described recent developments in Armenian
genocide studies,186 and he argues that early scholars with key publications on the Armenian
genocide such as Vahakn Dadrian and Peter Balakian have stressed the importance of Islam
and Ottoman culture in the process of victimization of the Armenians prior to the genocide of
1915.187 A nationalist Turkish version of the events, in contrast, argues that the decision to
deport the Armenians was a result of nationalist Armenian parties threatening the existence of
183
Bartov, O., Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford, 2000) 162.
Rodogno, D., Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire 1815-1914 (Princeton
2012) 196-200.
185
Kevorkian, R.H., The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London 2011) 763.
186
Melson, R., ‘Recent Developments in the Study of the Armenian Genocide’. In: Holocaust and Genocide
Studies vol. 27 No. 2 (2013) 313-321.
187
Dadrian, V.N., The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia, to the
Caucasus (Oxford 1995) and Balakian, P. The Burning Tigris (New York 2003).
184
41
the future of the Empire.188 Both views are mutually exclusive, and both are not supported by
the findings in this thesis. While the cultural motives of the Turkish Ottomans for the
destruction of the Armenians should not be ignored, I have argued that Ottoman culture, nor
Islam was the primary cause for the victimization of the Armenians. The Armenian genocide
was the result of both long-term processes as situational factors, and dehumanizing,
expropriating and killing were not inherent traits of the Ottoman Turks.
The Turkish nationalist view, on the other hand, borders on justifying the Armenian
genocide. Nationalist tendencies amongst Armenians have posed a threat to the Ottoman state
at times, for example after the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78. It should also be
acknowledged that not only Armenians, but also Ottoman Turks, Kurds, Greeks and
Assyrians have been subjected to violence and mass murder in the late stages of the Ottoman
Empire. This discussion should not cloud the fact that the Armenians fell victim to genocide
though, largely at the hand of the Ottoman Turks.
In more recent years, the debate on the origins of the Armenians has normalized
somewhat, and common ground has been found amongst scholars. For example, there is
widespread agreement amongst scholars that the Young Turks did not have a policy of
genocide in place before the war.189 Melson argues that the thesis that World War I created
the conditions for a cumulative radicalization of Young Turk policy into genocide, put
forward by Ronald Suny amongst others, is convincing. Although I have not dealt specifically
with Ottoman government policy, my thesis also rejects a deterministic argument.
In 2011, Kevorkian put forward the argument of ‘destruction as self-construction’.
He argues that ‘the physical destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire
has, in its turn, a singular feature: it was conceived as a necessary condition for the
construction of a Turkish nation state - the supreme objective of the Young Turks. The two
phenomena, in other words, are indissolubly linked: we cannot understand the one if we
ignore the other.’190 This view is not necessarily conflicting with my findings. While
Kevorkian has focused on the motives of the Young Turks in their destruction of the
Armenians, I have focused on how Turkish nationalism construed the idea of inclusion and
exclusion in the decades preceding the rise of the Young Turks. However, Kevorkian implies
that the Armenian genocide was inevitable. While this might have been true in 1914, even
1913, previous chapters in this thesis have shown no long-standing tradition of
dehumanization, let alone genocidal rhetoric, within Ottoman public discourse between 1853
and 1907. Also, it is important to keep in mind that up till 1913, dissenting voices could be
heard. While some preached hatred, others preached tolerance. The Armenian genocide was
not the result of an Empire which subjects uniformly wished the destruction of the Armenian
people. Instead, the path to the Armenian genocide -perhaps like any genocide- was crooked,
full of uncertainties, yet extremely destructive.
188
Melson, R., ‘Recent Developments in the Study of the Armenian Genocide’. In: Holocaust and Genocide
Studies vol. 27 No. 2 (2013) 314.
189
Melson, R., ‘Recent Developments’, 315.
190
Kevorkian, R.H., The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London 2011) 1.
42
Conclusion
The Armenian genocide was carried out a long time ago, but has thankfully not been long
forgotten. While the first-, second- and third-generation survivors of the genocide will soon
commemorate that a century has passed since the genocide, the government of Turkey is
struggling with its own historical account on the events of 1915-16. Unlike popular belief,
scholars, politicians and others with an interest in the Armenian genocide are not simply
divided between those who acknowledge the genocide and those who deny it. Like any other
significant historical event, the debate is more nuanced and sophisticated. It not only revolves
around the question ‘was it a genocide?’, but also about causes, intentions, conflicting
accounts and consequences of the events of 1915-16.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this debate, by researching the period
preceding the Armenian genocide. I have set out to answer the following research question:
‘How were the Armenians within the Ottoman Empire victimized between 1853 and 1913?’ I
have done so by including both the victims and the perpetrators of the genocide in my
narrative, while focusing on historical events, developments, and public discourse on a
national level in the late Ottoman Empire.
To reach a conclusion below, I will first offer an overview of Ottoman history and the
position of the Armenians within Ottoman borders before 1853, based on the findings from
the first two chapters. Secondly, the rise of Turkish nationalism in the second half of the
nineteenth century will be discussed. Thirdly, I will explain Ottoman public discourse
between 1853 and 1913, and how the position of the Armenian gradually shifted within the
discourse in this period. Finally, I will answer the research question of this thesis, and offer
the causes for the victimization of the Armenians which I argue were key.
Armenians and the Ottoman Empire Before 1853
The origins of the Armenian people can be traced back to the sixth century B.C., when most
Armenians were active as farmers and herders in rural areas. A key event in the early history
of the Armenians, one that would be emblematic for the Armenian identity in centuries to
follow, was their conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century. In subsequent
centuries, the Armenians retained both their political autonomy and their Christian faith,
despite violent Persian efforts to impose Zoroastrianism on the Armenians. In the twelfth and
thirteenth century, the Armenians would prosper under Islamic rule, both religiously as
literary.
The turn of the fourteenth century witnessed the birth of the Ottoman Empire out of a
principality in Anatolia. The Ottomans quickly expanded their territory through battle, most
importantly the battles at Mankizert in 1071 and at Constantinople in 1453. In the latter, the
Byzantine Empire was defeated permanently. In late medieval times, the Ottomans
successfully formed a multi-ethnic Empire, which arguably reached its pinnacle between 1520
and 1566 under the rule of Suleyman I. The Armenians, like so many others, were
incorporated in the Ottoman Empire after 1300, after which they dispersed to Cilicia,
(Eastern) Anatolia and Syria. Under Ottoman rule, the Armenians were considered secondclass citizens, but allowed to retain their faith and a certain degree of independence.
Late sixteenth century marked the beginning of two diverging trends: the decline of
43
the Ottoman Empire, and the blooming of the Armenians within the Empire. In 1589, the
Ottoman Sultan faced a major rebellion within Ottoman borders as a result of a political and
economic crisis. This rebellion marked the beginning of a downward spiral for the Ottoman
Empire, one that would carry into the nineteenth century. Early modern Armenian history, on
the other hand, was characterized by modernism and renaissance, caused primarily by
capitalism and the spread of print. In 1853, the starting point of the period under review in this
thesis, the Armenians had changed rulers many times, and their past was characterized by an
interaction between repression and rebellion. They had nonetheless managed to retain their
own cultural identity, and were active in many segments of Ottoman society. The Ottoman
Empire, meanwhile, was in a deep state of crisis. It had suffered great territorial losses, and
was threatened by both the European powers and -most importantly- Russia.
Turkish Nationalism
in the second chapter, I have explained the rise of Turkish Nationalism. Before Turkish
nationalism can be explained though, it is important to understand how pre-nationalist
Ottoman society functioned. Ottoman society was a patrimonial society, and the Sultan had
virtually unlimited power. He could take arbitrary measures, and had to answer to no one but
Allah. Ottoman society was based on the millet-system, which mean that minority groups such as the Armenians- could practice their faith and government themselves in exchange for
certain taxes and a vow to the Sultan. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the
conservative order of the Sultan tried to solve the crisis within the Empire through reform
measures. These measures proved insufficient. This is the main reason that nationalism, which
had remarkable success in Europe, could get hold of the Ottoman Empire.
Under the rule of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1908), Turkish nationalism evolved
rapidly. There were multiple reasons for the Ottoman Sultan and his order to adopt
nationalism. Firstly, it was a means to mobilize the Ottoman Turks, and to shift their
allegiance from local ties to the Sultan and the Empire. Secondly, it was a means to
effectively centralize power. A third reason for the emergence of Turkish nationalism were
European interventionist policies, which fueled nationalist tendencies within the Empire.
Although Turkish nationalism was partly based on nationalism from Europe, it had a few
distinct characteristics. Turkish nationalism -perhaps like any form of nationalism- leaned
heavily on myth-making, and it created a narrative that glorified a mythical Turkish past.
Turkish nationalism also utilized religion, and Islam was ‘Turkified’. This meant that a
specific Turkish adaption of Islam was created. Lastly, Turkish nationalism included a racial
element, meaning that the idea of the primacy of the Turkish ‘race’ became part of the
nationalist narrative in the late Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman Public Discourse Between 1853 and 1913
In the third chapter, Ottoman public discourse between 1853 and 1913 was reviewed. I have
focused on how Ottoman writers, poets and politicians wrote about the Armenians and -more
generally- interethnic and interreligious relations within Ottoman borders. I have divided
Ottoman public discourse of the second half of the nineteenth century into three phases: the
late Tanzimat era (1853-1875), the Hamidian era (1876-1907) and the rise of the CUP (19081913).
44
In the first phase, writers were generally concerned with religious motives and transcendent
matters, not with the concept of ethnicity or nationalism. While some criticism on social
relations can already be uncovered, the first phase was overall characterized by the inclusion
of all social and ethnic groups. In the second phase, under the rule of Sultan Abdülhamid II,
the tone of discourse became more polarizing. Ottoman identity assumed an increasingly
Turkish character, and the issue of religion and interreligious conversions became a pressing
issue. The problems the Empire was facing best explain these trends, most importantly the
dwindling population and increasing fears of outside intervention. The rise of the CUP in
1908 marks the beginning of the third phase, and the writings of Ziya Gökalp reveal a truly
discriminatory stance. He wrote of the purity of the Turkish race, and predicted the downfall
of Christian minorities within Ottoman borders.
After establishing how the position of the Armenians shifted in late Ottoman
discourse, I have asked myself how to determine the effectiveness of public discourse in the
late Ottoman Empire. This was dependent upon two developments: Ottoman literary culture,
and Ottoman societal characteristics. I have argued that from the 1850s onwards, an advanced
literary culture emerged in Ottoman society. This was caused by the transformation of
Ottoman script to Turkish script, which made public discourse available to a wider audience
instead of just the literary elite. Also, the measures taken by Abdülhamid II increased the level
of literary -which was already relatively high- amongst Ottoman subjects.
Not only was Ottoman public discourse available to a wide public, some specific
Ottoman characteristics have likely increased the effectiveness of radical ideology in the late
nineteenth century. The enlightenment and the importance of equality had hardly reached the
Ottoman Empire, and inequality amongst Ottoman subjects was still the status quo in the
nineteenth century. Also, a strong leadership cult -partly as a result of nationalism- caused a
more receptive stance amongst Ottoman subjects regarding ideology.
Victimization of the Armenians
How were the Armenians within the Ottoman Empire victimized between 1853 and 1913?
Based on a synthesis of the findings from my first three chapters, I have distilled two causes
which I argue are key in the process of victimization of the Armenians: Turkish nationalism
and the internationalizing of the Armenian question.
The first cause for the process of victimization of the Armenians was Turkish
nationalism. This current emerged around 1876, and it propagated a future for the Ottoman
Empire with a single religion and ethnicity. Racial and religious motives were certainly
important as well, but Turkish nationalism explains why these concepts had suddenly become
problematic in an Empire with a history of multi-ethnicity and tolerance of minorities. The
second cause is the internationalization of the Armenian question. The Armenian question
essentially revolved around the protection and sovereignty of the Armenians within the
Ottoman Empire. After the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78 ended with the treaty of Berlin,
the Armenian question had become an international issue. Paradoxically, the
internationalization of the Armenian question did not help the Armenians, but further aided
their victimization. The existence of Armenians within Ottoman borders had become a
worrisome issue for the Ottoman government after the Russo-Ottoman war, since European
powers could intervene on the behalf of the Armenians as provided in the treaty of Berlin.
45
This explains how the external enemies of the Empire, Russia in particular, could be equated
with the internal enemy, the Armenian people.
The two causes above explain how the Armenians gradually turned into the enemy, or
‘the other’, between 1853 and 1913. They do not explain how this process could have spilled
over into extreme violence, however. While some scholars argue that the Armenian genocide
was the result of a preconceived plan by the Young Turk movement, I have argued that a
primary cause of the Armenian genocide was the outbreak of World War I. My findings do
not support the notion of a genocidal intention by the Ottoman government, at least not before
1913. Rather, the first World War caused the modes of violence to radicalize outside of and
within the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, it prevented the European nations to come to the aid
of the Armenians.
The debate on the origins of the Armenian genocide covers a wide spectrum of
opinions. Some argue that it was the inevitable result of a Turkish aggressor that had decided
to destroy all Armenians long before the first World War, while others argue that the
Armenian deaths were collateral damage in a necessary war of self-defense. Both of these
narratives do not do justice to the complex conditions surrounding the early stages of the
Armenian genocide. I have put forward a more functionalist approach that factors in both
ideology, as well as internal and external events that have led to the victimization of the
Armenians between 1853 and 1913. While this thesis offers by no means a complete
explanation, I hope it has brought some nuance to the discussion on the origins of the
Armenian genocide.
46
Acknowledgements
The following people helped me realize this thesis.
First, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör for his guidance and
invaluable advice. Also, I owe my gratitude to Peter, Gerry and Judith Tak and my partner
Manouk Urannie for their enduring support and patience. I would like to thank Drs. Anthonie
Holslag as well, for helping me shape my ideas and fuel my interest in the Armenian
genocide. Lastly, I want to thank my friends Koen Lucassen, Jasper Haagsma and Eldad Ben
Aharon. They have challenged my work and suggested many improvements which helped me
write a better thesis.
47
Bibliography
Literature
Feroz Ahmad, ‘The Young Turk Revolution’. In: Journal of Contemporary History vol. 3 no.
3 (1968)
Alex Alvarez, Governments, Citizens, and Genocide (Indiana 2001)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London 1983)
Aram Arkun, ‘Into the Modern Age: 1800-1913’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The
Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity (2005)
Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide (London 2003)
Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Social Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture
Difference (Boston 1969)
Omer Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford, 2000)
Jan Blommaert, Discourse: a Critical Introduction (Cambridge 2005)
Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the
Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford 2005)
Donald Bloxham, ‘Determinants of the Armenian Genocide’. In: Hovannisian, R.G., Looking
Backward, Moving Forward. Confronting the Armenian Genocide (New jersey 2003)
Petra de Bruijn, The Two Worlds of Eşber: Western Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman
Turkish Poetry by Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997)
Vahakn N. Dadrian, V.N., The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the
Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Oxford 1995)
Vahakn N. Dadrian, Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of the Turko-Armenian Conflict
(New Brunswick 1999)
Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains. Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the
Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (Oxford 1999) 167.
Selim Deringil, ‘The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire,
1808 to 1908’. In: Comparative Studies in Society and History vol. 35 no. 1 (1993) 12-17.
Nicholas Doumanis, Before the Nation. Muslim-Christian Coexistence and its Destruction in
Late Ottoman Anatolia (Oxford 2013)
Suraiya Faroqhi, ‘Crisis and Change, 1590-1699’. In: Inalcik, H. and Quataert, D., An
Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire vol. 2: 1600-1914 (Cambridge 1994)
48
Azar Gat, Nations. The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism
(Cambridge 2013)
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York 1973)
Şükrü Hanioğlu, ‘Turkism and the Young Turks, 1889-1908’. In: Turkey Beyond
Nationalism: Towards Postnationalist Identities (New York 2006)
Adrian Hastings, A World History of Christianity (2000)
Şükrü M. Hanioglu, S.M., ‘The Second Constitutional Period, 1908–1918’. In: Kasaba, R.,
The Cambridge History of Turkey Volume 4. Turkey in the Modern World (2008)
Ultich Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: the Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp
(Westport 1979) 130-131.
Anthonie Holslag, In Het Gesteente van Ararat (Soesterberg 2010)
Richard G. Hovanissian, Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkeley 1967)
Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (2002)
Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire
vol. 1: 1300-1600 (Cambridge 1994)
Handan Inci, ‘Literature in the Late Ottoman.’ In: Ágoston, Gábor, and
Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire (New York 2009)
Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith (Cambridge 2007)
Raymond H. Kevorkian, The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London 2011) 195196.
Raymond H. Kevorkian, Paboudjian, P.B., Les Armeniens dans I'Empire ottoman a la veille
du genocide (Paris 1992)
Erol Koroglu, Ottoman Propaganda and Turkish Identity: Literature in Turkey During World
War I (London 2007)
Mark K. Krikorian, Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire 1860-1900 (London
1977)
David Kushner, The Rise of Turkish Nationalism, 1876–1908 (London 1977)
Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in Turkey (London 1981)
Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End
of the Empire (New York 1983)
Bruce McGowan, ‘The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812’. In: Inalcik, H. and Quataert, D., An
Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire vol. 2: 1600-1914 (Cambridge 1994)
49
Robert Melson, ‘Recent Developments in the Study of the Armenian Genocide’. In:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol. 27 No. 2 (2013) 313-321.
Thomas F.X. Noble et al., Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries Volume 2: since 1560
(Wadsworth 2008)
Razmik Panossian, The Armenians From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars
(London 2006)
Hugh Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish
Republic (London 1997)
Anne E. Redgate, ‘Myth and Reality: Armenian Identity in the Early Middle Ages’. In:
National Identities vol. 9 no. 4 (2007) 281-306.
Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire
1815-1914 (Princeton 2012) 185-186.
James R. Russell, ‘The Formation of the Armenian Nation’. In: The Armenian People From
Ancient to Modern Times, Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth
Century (2004)
Henry J. Sarkiss, ‘The Armenian Renaissance, 1500-1863’, in: Journal of Modern History
vol.9 no.4. (1937)
Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey Volume 1, Empire of
the Gazis The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808 (Los Angeles 1976)
Ervin Staub, ‘Genocide and Mass Killing: Origins, Prevention, Healing and Reconciliation’.
In: Political Psychology vol.21 no. 2 (2000)
Johan Strauss, ‘Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th–20th Centuries)?’ In: Middle
Eastern Literatures: Incorporating Edebiyat vol. 6 no. 1 (2010)
Istvan G. Toth, ‘Between Islam and Orthodoxy: Protestants and Catholics in south-eastern
Europe’. In: Po-Chia Hsia, R., The Cambridge History of Christianity: Reform and Expansion
1500-1660 (New York 2007)
Hannibal Travis, ‘Did the Armenian Genocide Inspire Hitler?’. In: Middle East Quarterly
(Winter 2013) 27-35.
Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom (1871)
Uğur Ümit Üngör and Mehmet Potatel, Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk
Seizure of Armenian Property (2011)
Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey (Oxford 2011)
50
Uğur Ümit Üngör, ‘Fresh Understandings of the Armenian Genocide: Mapping New
Terrain with Old Questions.’ In: Jones, A., New Directions in Genocide Research (London
2011)
Bert Vaux, Hemshinli: The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians (Harvard 2001)
Eric D. Weitz, ‘Utopian Ideologies as Motives for Genocide’. In: Shelton, D.L., Encyclopedia
of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (Detroit 2005)
Boghos L. Zekiyan, ‘Christianity to Modernity’. In: Herzig, E. and Kurkchiyan, M, The
Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity (2005)
Erik-Jan Zürcher, Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993)
Ton Zwaan, ‘De vervolging van de Armeniërs in het Ottomaans-Turkse rijk, 1894-1922’. In:
Civilisering en decivilisering : studies over staatsvorming en geweld, nationalisme en
vervolging (Amsterdam 2010)
51
Sources
Elias J.W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909)
Ziya Gökalp, ‘Yeni Hayat ve Yeni Krymetler’ (1911). In: Berkes, N., Turkish Nationalism
and Western Civilization(New York 1959)
Namiq Kémal, ‘Quatrains’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978)
Yusuf Mardin, Abdülhak Hamid’in Londrasi (Istanbul 1976). In: De Bruijn, P., The Two
Worlds of Eşber: Western Orientated Verse Drama and Ottoman Turkish Poetry by Abdülhak
Hamid Tarhan (Leiden 1997)
Ziya Pasha, ‘Gazel’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978)
Ziya Pasha, ‘From the Terkib-i Bend’. In Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978)
Ziya Pasha, From the Zafer-Namé. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5
(London 1909)
Ziya Pasha, Zafer-Namé. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909)
Ibrahim Şinasi, I, ‘Prayer’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978)
Ibrahm Şinasi, ‘Hymn’. In: Gibb, E.J.W., A History of Ottoman Poetry Vol. 5 (London 1909)
Abdülhak H. Tarhan, ‘Auteuil’. In: Menemencioğlu, N., Turkish Verse (London 1978)
52