About the Student Curator
My name is Fedor, and I am a postgraduate Public History student at the University of York.
Prior to my MA degree, I completed a BA (HONS) History degree at York, my main research interest being the history of Russia, Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, as well as histories of commemoration and ethnic conflict.
This guide will seek to enrich the collections of the University of York’s library with sources on the Armenian Genocide, as well as the history of Armenians as an ethnic minority in the Ottoman Turkey and beyond, parts of my own family originally coming from Armenia, this is a very personal topic.
About the Armenian Genocide
The Genocide of Armenian People of 1915-1923 is the established culmination of centuries of inequality and oppression of an ethnic minority under Ottoman rule, resulting in deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians across the Ottoman Empire and in displacement and deportation of millions. Other ethnicities have also been affected by the massacres and deportations, like Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds. The Genocide resulted in the de-armenisation of Turkish lands, and the destruction of Armenian cultural and spiritual heritage. The Genocide of 1915-1923 is largely considered the first genocide of the modern era and is believed to have the very term ‘genocide’ coined after it. The purpose of my curation will be to expand the University’s collections on the topic of the Armenian Genocide and raise awareness of the how the Genocide is viewed worldwide.
Armenian refugee family that has reached safety in Beirut, Lebanon.(Collection of Bodil Bjorn, via AGMI, http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/bodil_biorn.php)
Armenians in the Ottoman society before 1915
As a minority ethnicity in the broader Ottoman Empire, Armenians were well-integrated into society, despite their unequal treatment – as non-Muslims, they had to pay higher taxes and were not allowed to own weapons. They ran businesses, built churches and had schools that taught in Armenian. Despite the majority (up to 70%) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman empire consisting of poor peasants, the Ottoman stereotype of a greedy, well-off Armenian evading taxes persisted, those Armenians who managed to run a successful business faced hatred and xenophobia. For the brief time of 1908-1909, several Armenian parties were represented in the Ottoman senate.
Armenian-owned Tokatlian Hotel in Pera, Constantinople, c. 1900. (Photo 136, R. H. Kevorkian, P.B. Paboudjian, Les Armeniens Dans l’Empire Ottoman a La Veille Du Genocide. Editions d’Art et d’Histoire ARHIS, Paris, 1992)
Prior to the Genocide of 1915-1923, several Armenian pogroms took place across the six Vilayets (regions) with Armenian ethnic majority – Van, Erzerum, Sivas, Diyarbekir, Bitlis and Kharpout. Particularly notable were the massacres of 1894-96, that gave rise to the Ottoman resettlement of de-Armenised lands with Turks, Circassians and Caucasus muslims.
Burned ruins of Armenian quarter in Adana, following the 1909 pogrom. (Archive of the German Assistance Association, Public Domain Image)
Reactions, Trials, Justice?
Armenians formed resistance groups and parties to defend their villages and settlements from genocidal Turkish forces and auxiliaries. While not always successful at stopping the better-equipped soldiers, this resistance saved many lives during the genocide. Particularly notable is the forty-days long defence of Musa Dagh mountain in 1915, that saved the population of neighbouring villages from being massacred. Thanks to the heroism of the resistance fighters, the village of Vakוflו stands to this day as the last remaining Armenian village in Turkey.
Armenian resistance fighters (Fidayiner) in Musa-Dagh, 1915, Public Domain Image
I think it may be said, without the least fear of exaggeration, that no more horrible crime has been committed in the history of the world…. this is a premeditative crime determined on long ago…. it was a long-considered, deliberate policy to destroy and wipe out of existence the Armenians in Turkey. It was systematically carried out. it was ordered from above…
Lord Robert Cecil, the Under-Secretary of State for foreign Affairs.
House Of Commons, Hansard (5th Series), Vol. LXXV, 16 November 1915, Cols. 1770-1776.
Britain, France and the United States knew of the genocide, and condemned it, offering little assistance to Armenians on the ground, but helping refugees and survivors of the deportations after the First World War. War crime tribunals were set up for the leaders of the Young Turks directly responsible for the massacres and deportations. However, by the time of the start of the hearings, some of the architects of the Genocide, including Talaat-pasha, Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire in 1917-1919 and the minister of internal affairs in 1913-1917 managed to escape Turkey and avoid the tribunal. In absentia, the escaped Young Turks were sentenced to death.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party, not satisfied with the escape of the leaders of the Young Turks from the tribunal, ordered their assassination. The order was carried out by Armenian freedom fighters who lost their families in the genocide. Talaat-Pasha, the architect of the genocide was shot in the street in Berlin in 1921 by Soghomon Tehleryan, who surrendered himself to authorities minutes after the assassination and was acquitted by the court. While Dashnaktsutyun claimed that the purpose of these assassinations was not terror or eradication of the Turkish population, but rather carrying out the sentence of the military tribunal, this revenge operation remains a morally questionable act.
The Genocide today
The Genocide remains relevant for Armenians all around the world to this day. The Genocide Memorial day, April 24th, sees mass manifestations in Armenia and across the global Armenian Diaspora,from the United States to Lebanon, urging people not to forget the horrors of 1915-1923.
The events of 1915-1923 have been a staple part of the Armenian culture, resurging particularly around the centenary of the genocide, with songs, films and book dedicated to the Genocide frequently published, and a pushing a revived interest in family history and pilgrimages to the former sites of genocide.
In diversifying the University of York’s library collections, I am hoping to raise awareness of the Genocide, and provide resources for scholarly research of the Genocide at the University of York.