The Thirty-Year Genocide
Page 6
was due in part to interaction with missionaries, who helped to inculcate lib-
eral and demo cratic values. Exposure to Western ideas was also facilitated by
the Ottoman government itself, which, during the reform- minded 1830s,
began sending batches of hand- picked students, including Christians, to
France for schooling. Two de cades later, under Sultan Abdülmecid, an
Ottoman school was established in Paris to prepare the future elite to meet
the challenges of the modern world. The government also revamped Con-
stantinople’s Galatasaray School, which educated the empire’s bureau-
crats. The curriculum was “modernized” to match Eu ro pean standards, with
French installed as the language of instruction.51 In 1863 a new American
missionary institution, Robert College, was established in the heights over
the Bosporus. The college soon developed into one of the city’s first univer-
sities, accepting students of all denominations.52
The first Christian students to go west were Catholic Armenians who
studied medicine in Italy. Gregorian Armenians preferred France and
Switzerland, where many studied science or engineering. Others focused
on architecture, banking, and economics. Almost all were influenced by
Auguste Comte’s new, quasi- scientific ideas of positivism; by the human-
istic concepts espoused by Alphonse de Lamartine and Victor Hugo; and
by Jules Michelet’s history of France, which emphasized nationalism. In
the intellectual ferment leading up to the revolution of 1848 in France, the
sons of amiras, guild members, and clerics of multiple Christian denomina-
tions studied together, breaching traditional social bound aries and creating
a new type of bond based on ethnicity and language.53 Young Armenians—
and Greeks— learnt ancient history and debated constitutionalism and
popu lar repre sen ta tion.
Abdülhamid
II
On returning home from the Sorbonne, Rusinian sought to spread the idea
of nationhood in his own society. Although professionally a medical man—in
1851 he became the personal physician of future- Grand Vizier Mehmed Fuad
Pasha—he also published nationalist poems, essays on language, and Arme-
nian translations of Eu ro pean classics.54 In one poem, paraphrasing Frederic
Berat’s “My Normandy,” Rusinian pined for the ancient Armenian Kingdom
of Cilicia, which he equated with a modern homeland:
When the gates of hope are opened
And winter takes leave of our homeland,
When our beauteous land of Armenia
Beams its euphoric, delightful days;
When the swallow returns to its nest;
When the trees are clothed in leaves;
I yearn to see my Cilicia,
World that deluged me in eternal sun.55
As educated Armenians began to think more in terms of national unity and
a national home, they also started taking greater interest in the status of the
fellow Armenians who would be their compatriots—in par tic u lar, those suf-
fering in rural Anatolia. An impor tant force in this regard was the Araratian
Enkerutiun, or Ararat Society, a nonsectarian student organ ization founded
in Paris in April 1849. Calling themselves the Young Armenians, they estab-
lished the journal Hayastan— a medieval name for Armenia— which later be-
came Masis, the Armenian name for Mount Ararat. The journal was the main
mouthpiece of the Armenian cause from 1852 to 1907. The Ararat Society
focused less on in de pen dence than on national identity, and much of its en-
ergy was spent on pan- Armenian efforts, crossing over urban- rural divides.
In par tic u lar, the group hoped to bring education to Armenians and modern
agricultural techniques to the peasants.56
In June 1855 members of the Ararat Society— most had returned from
Eu rope and were employed by the government— proposed that the Arme-
nian assembly formulate a constitution. After debate, the assembly appointed a
constitutional committee composed of members of the Young Armenian
movement, lay leaders, and clergymen.57 The first draft, completed in 1857,
Nationalist Awakenings
was rejected by the Ottoman government, which claimed that it set the stage
for a state within a state. A final draft, endorsed by the Armenian community
and the Ottoman government, was approved in 1860 and ratified in 1863.58 It
provided for a refurbished 140- seat assembly with 80 members from Con-
stantinople and its environs, 20 from the clergy, and 40 from the provinces.
Although rural areas were grossly under- represented, they did at least have
some presence, demonstrating the growing recognition of their membership
alongside urbanites in an Armenian community whose bound aries extended
across Anatolia. The patriarch was designated head of the community but in
effect stripped of his lay powers, emphasizing the distinctively national, as
opposed to religious, quality of the emerging Armenian people.59 The Jewish
and Greek communities also formulated constitutions, but with the chief
rabbi left in charge of his people and the Greek clergy retaining many of the
sorts of privileges that the Armenian Patriarchate lost.60
In Armenian the document was entitled The National Constitution of the
Armenians; in Turkish, The Regulations of the Armenian Millet. In the
Armenian text, the assembly was referred to as the National General Assembly;
the word “National” was omitted from the Turkish version. Nonetheless, as
Kamuran Gurun, a Turkish diplomat and historian of the early republic put it,
the document was designed to create a “landless autonomy.” 61 But the Arme-
nian nation had not yet fully coalesced. For, as we have seen, rural communities,
though recognized, were not totally embraced. And while the constitutional
system enabled further autonomy and opportunity for minority communities in
the capital, it had little impact on the beleaguered peasants.
A Rural Community under Siege
During the 1860s the situation of the peasants in the east deteriorated fur-
ther. For roughly a century, more and more Muslim groups from outside the
empire had settled the region, leading to tensions with Christians. The gov-
ernment established an Immigration Commission (Muhâcirin Komisyonu) to
try to resolve prob lems, but to little avail.
Many of the Muslim settlers had been nomads, but during the eigh teenth
and nineteenth centuries, they gradually became sedentary. Circassians and
Chechens arrived from the Caucasus, where they were fleeing Rus sian armies.
Abdülhamid
II
Muhacirs— Muslim refugees— from the Balkans. Thousands flocked to western Anatolia in the wake of the Russo- Turkish war of 1877–1878.
Kurds and Turkmen were driven by po liti cal instability and government pres-
sure in northern Iran. It has been estimated that during the “long nineteenth
century” (1789–1914), five to seven million people immigrated to the empire
and settled mainly in eastern and central Anatolia. They were joined also by
thousands of Muslim refugees, known as muhacirs, from the Balkan wars.62
As the population in the eastern and central regions grew, arable land be-
/>
came scarce, leading to disputes. Power ful clans took over cultivated fields and
extorted tribute and bribes from local communities. The Christian peasantry
were easy marks because the government had little interest in protecting them.63
In some cases, clans bought from each other the right to tax Christian villages.64
In the early 1860s a British consul traveling through eastern Anatolia sent
London this grim description:
The Kochers and Koords are under very imperfect subjection, and it is
only by satisfying all demands, however outrageous, that the Christian
agriculturists can maintain their position. One unbearable custom, that
Nationalist Awakenings
of kishlak, has done more than anything else to contribute to their pres ent paucity and decay. That custom, originating some years ago in the
weakness of the Government and growing power of the Koords, en-
abled the latter to exercise the extraordinary right of quartering
themselves and their flocks during winter in and about the Christian
villages, entailing upon the inhabitants large expenses, not only for
fodder for their animals, but also food and fuel for themselves, during at
least four months.65
Clashes erupted. In one instance in 1862, the government suppressed a brief
rebellion in the mountainous region of Zeytun, whose Armenian peasants had
a reputation for steadfastness.66
As word of the injustices in the east flowed into a Constantinople commu-
nity that increasingly saw itself as not just Gregorian but Armenian, the Ararat
Society and its allies were moved to action. In 1870 they convinced the
National General Assembly to appoint a commission to investigate the peas-
ants’ plight. But the commission would have little impact, as its interim re-
port, submitted two years later to the Ottoman leadership, fell largely on deaf
ears. The report mentioned illegal taxes but was carefully worded to over-
look other injustices for fear of antagonizing the government, which was al-
ready annoyed by Eu ro pean demands to improve conditions in the east.67
In 1876, during the government crisis in Constantinople, the assembly
submitted a second report. This time, the commission was more thorough,
detailing 320 cases of maladministration and oppression in the east. Most
cases dealt with land seizures by local strongmen and tribal leaders. Many
of the seizures were ascribed to recent Circassian arrivals; others were trig-
gered by Kurdish, Afshar, and Turkmen tribes from Iran and Syria. In al-
most all instances, local authorities ignored or rejected Armenians’ proofs
of owner ship. Provincial courts, disregarding the legal reforms prescribed
by Constantinople, arbitrarily dismissed appeals. Even in cases where Ar-
menian peasants produced solid documentary evidence, courts tended to
rule in favor of Muslim expropriators.68 The report also cited numerous
incidents of extortion, theft, cattle rustling, and sexual assault on women.
One of Britain’s consular representatives in Van, a Mr. Rassam, wrote on
October 15, 1877:
Abdülhamid
II
After making some allowance for the exaggerated reports regarding the
sufferings of the Christian population in the vilayets of Diarbekir and
Van, it cannot be denied that a good deal of misery has been caused in
these parts from want of proper protection to life and property. The ap-
athy and weakness of the local authorities, and the corruption of the
collectors of taxes in the districts, have been the main cause of the pres ent
trou bles. It seems that the [nomadic] Kurds . . . have never been prop-
erly brought under subjection, and as a matter of course, as soon as they
found they could exact what they liked with impunity from those Chris-
tians who are in their power, they did so. . . . The highland Kurdish
tribes from Diarbekir to Solaimania, are more or less unmanageable.
They not only refuse to pay any taxes, or conform to the law of conscrip-
tion, but they plunder and kill at their plea sure, and anyone who dares
to deny them anything, he is sure to lose his life and property. . . . In
many instances . . . Mahommedans suffered as well as Christians from
the ravages of the Kurd.69
Abdülhamid, newly installed as sultan, was perturbed by the details
emerging from the far- flung provinces, where marauding tribes appeared to
threaten his own power. He sent new governors, judges, tax collectors, and
troops to reinforce his authority in the eastern vilayets, but not to improve the
lot of the Christian peasants. Indeed, the effect was the opposite, as the cen-
tral government added a new layer of misery. Now peasants would be fleeced
three or four times: by the tribal overlords and local officials who “protected”
them, mafia- style; by new tribes moving into the area; and by military and
civilian agents from the center.
The peasants gained little from their many payments. In the east trans-
portation, communication, agricultural, and security infrastructure all were
underdeveloped. What the state did invest in— railways, roads, telegraph
technology, and water proj ects— seldom benefited the peasants directly. To
the contrary, peasants were forced to leave their homes unguarded and
fields unworked while they were conscripted to take part in construction. In
some areas, such as around Lake Van, the situation became so unbearable
that thousands of Christian peasants abandoned their lands and migrated to
Rus sia.70
Nationalist Awakenings
Throughout the late 1870s, further appeals forwarded to the government
by the patriarchate and assembly were largely ignored.71 Instead the authorities
and banks confiscated land from peasants who failed to pay off debts. These
lands were often given to the Circassian and Kurdish immigrants who, being
Muslim, were considered more loyal to the state. Kurdish notables, appointed
to advisory committees of local and regional councils as part of the Tanzimat
reforms, subverted even the few and half- hearted government efforts to im-
prove the Armenians’ circumstances.72
All this was coupled with a religious awakening among Kurdish and other
Sunni tribesmen, inspired by government- backed clerics. As part of its strug gle
against missionary activity, and in order to strengthen its base in the south-
east, Constantinople sent religious scholars to preach “true” Islam to the
tribes.73 The government also increased investments in religious education
in primary and secondary schools and established religious schools (ma-
drassa). One result was a new generation of militant Kurdish preachers who
saw Christians, at home and abroad, as eternal enemies of Islam. The tribal
chiefs thereby gained divine justification for their persecution.74
The Sublime Porte, of course, knew what was happening in the East and
exploited matters to its own advantage—to impose its authority or at least
garner additional taxes for its own coffers. In the pedantic Ottoman bureau-
cratic tradition, officials, police, and army units in the provinces reported every incident. Abdülhamid’s military aides followed the situation closely, the peasants sent co
untless complaints, and Eu ro pean ambassadors constantly pro-
tested. But the sultan was unmoved. From his vantage point, the Armenians
were part of a much larger prob lem: rebellion among subjects throughout the
empire, encouraged by foreigners. What began with the Greeks had continued
with the Serbs, who sought and won in de pen dence between the 1830s and
1860s. Rebellion continued as well in Lebanon in 1860, where agitating
Christians won special autonomy, practically detaching their enclave from
the empire. The late 1860s saw further uprisings in Herzegovina, Bosnia, and
Crete. Revolution was also afoot in Bulgaria. The Armenian provinces to the
east seemed no diff er ent, especially in light of the patriarch’s treasonous out-
reach to Rus sia, the reforms promised the Armenian vilayets in the 1878 Berlin
Treaty, and an Armenian National General Assembly pleading the peasantry’s
case.
Abdülhamid
II
For the ambitious and somewhat paranoid Abdülhamid, the creeping di-
visions and revolts proved that the Tanzimat reforms, tilted as they were
toward ideas of equality and cultural autonomy, had been misguided. Their
consequence was greater Christian influence in the empire and the empow-
erment of secessionist minorities. Abdülhamid therefore renounced many of
the reforms and refused to make good on liberalizing promises to outside
powers.
But, to appease the powers, Abdülhamid played the diplomatic game. In
1879, after it became clear that the Ottoman government was not introducing
the reforms agreed to in the Treaty of Berlin, the British threatened war and
sent a flotilla to the entrance of the Dardanelles. The Porte agreed to dispatch
a commission of inquiry to the east. But nothing changed. Constantinople
dragged its feet, arguing that, as a minority group, the Christians should not
be given special status— and that, in any case, they were a source of instability.
The government also contended that it could do little for Christians because
Kurdish rights had to be protected.75
The Reverend Herbert M. Allen, a missionary in Van vilayet, offers a good
snapshot of conditions in the east. By his count, in the districts of Shadakh
and Norduz alone, between eighty and one hundred Armenian villa gers were