PRELUDE: First of all, Happy Ramadan Mubarak to all those who observe the holiday. As a man of half Armenian descent, I'd also like to observe that today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. I had ancestors who survived the brutal genocide and an ancestor who died from it. In this very long post, I will summarize Armenian oppression in the Ottoman Empire, and the massacres that took place preluding to the eventual genocide. If you don't want to/don't feel comfortable reading a lot about it, I will put a TL;DR at the end. I also fear that the post may stir up drama amongst people who may not recognize the genocide, if this is the case, please lock the post, but do not remove it. The Armenian Genocide is something that should be remembered, not deleted because of obnoxious trolls. Thank you.


Introduction



The Armenian Genocide (1914-1923) was the systemic mass murder and deportation of around debatably 500,000 to 1,500,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire now known as Turkey. However the day it truly began was about 105 years ago, April 24th, 1915 (Red Sunday), when the Ottomans began to round up many Armenians including intellectuals and moved them to Ankara. To this day, many governments but Turkey recognize the genocide, with some not having dealt with the issue yet. In October 2019, the country I live in, The United States officially recognized the genocide that occurred. The Armenian Genocide has a lot of history spanning decades before it happened. In this post, I will talk about the oppression of Armenians in the 1800s leading up to massacres, and eventually, genocide.

Armenians under Ottoman Rule

The Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire were very Christian compared to the Turks. For a while, the Armenians had a certain degree of autonomy in the Empire, allowing themselves to self govern without a lot of Ottoman influence. However, Armenians still lived mostly poor except for a few known as the "Amira" who were able to climb to the elite. But even the most elite of Armenians were still treated awfully by the Turks/Muslims who would sometimes subject them to over-taxation, forced conversion to Islam, and brigading. While the Armenians had a certain degree of freedom in the empire, they were treated as second class citizens for the most part. However, this would soon change a little when Britain, France, and Russia pressured the Ottoman Empire to give more freedom to its second class Christians. Those Christians included groups like European Christians, Greeks, Armenians, and so forth. The Ottoman Empire soon made the Tanzimat which would somewhat modernize standards for its non-Muslim ethnic groups, and also modernize a lot of other things in the Empire).

In the 1860s and 70s, while Armenians stayed mostly passive during this period, though they were also witnessing an empire soon to be in decline. Armenians in the 1880s and 90s began to demand more freedom and autonomy in the Empire. This led to the formation of political parties such as the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party and the Dashnaktsutiun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation). These groups, although somewhat loyal to the Empire, sought to gain their autonomy rights in the Empire through self-defense and other revolutionary activities. This put some fear into the Muslim majority.

Violence Begins

Anti-Armenian sentiment grew large and soon, in turn, led to violence. In 1894, the Hamidian Massacres begun when Ottoman officials heavily raised taxes on the Armenians which they refused to pay. Ottoman troops alongside some Kurds decided to march in and kill thousands of Armenians. This led to another way in 1895 when a protest was brought down brutally by the Ottomans, some were burned alive. The same would repeat in 1896.

In 1908, the Young Turks Revolution came about and this group sought to modernize the Empire further. This pleased some Armenians who thought that the Young Turks would give them more rights. Soon after a counter-revolution happened in 1909 against the Young Turks which killed a few more Armenians. Years later, the First Balkan War would begin in which Christian Balkan Slavic groups like Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Montenegrins would break free form the Empire. The war led to a series of refugees settling in areas that Christians were settled in as well, which stoked even more resentment between the two groups. Armenia sought to capitalize on the defeat by demanding more autonomy, whilst appealing to European powers to press the government into doing so. A few more years went by and the first World War began. Armenians were split on it, so when the Young Turks asked the ruling Dashnaktsutiun Party for help, they simply said that Ottoman Armenians would fight for the Empire, while Russian Armenians would fight for Russia. The Young Turks were not huge fans of this. Soon the Turks began to blame the Armenians for many of their losses in World War 1, such as in the Battle of Sarikamis. The resentment grew further and propaganda stirred, citing that Armenians were working with the European Powers against the Empire and many other reasons.

Red Sunday, Van and the Armenian Genocide



Before Red Sunday came about, there was a siege of a city called Van. Jedvet Bey, an Ottoman governor, had called for the forced conscription of 4,000 soldiers, though Armenians had resisted this call and were accused of rebellion. He is quoted as saying, "If the rebels fire a single shot", he declared, "I shall kill every Christian man, woman, and" (pointing to his knee) "every child, up to here" according to former US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau in his account of the genocide. A day after he said this, Ottoman forced laid siege to the city and slaughtered many Armenians who defended themselves. Soon after, Red Sunday came about on April 24th, 1915, where many Armenian skill laborers, intellectuals, and politicians were arrested en masse from Eastern Anatolia. They marched onward toward concentration camps. This led to even more death marches, deportation, confiscation of property, mass starvation, burnings, forced conversion, etc.

Aftermath



The Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War 1, and after more fighting (which is a story for another time) became the Republic of Turkey. The Armenian Genocide soon ended and Turkey attempted to cover it up. Turkey to this day still denies the Armenian Genocide. The number of Armenians who died during the genocide is still disputed but most historians put it somewhere around 500K to 1.5 million, with fewer than 100K surviving the genocide, one of those my great grandmother.

There is so much in this post that I didn't quite get into, either because I found it irrelevant or just wanted to save time. But the forced genocide upon Armenians happened and is recognized by the UN's definition as a genocide. Unfortunately, as history repeats itself, many more ethnic groups went through some of their own genocides after Armenia's. Some genocides still happen today. These cannot go unrecognized and ignored, and we need global cooperation to bring those who kill innocents to justice.

I'll never forget what happened to Armenia, and you shouldn't either.

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