Demographic engineering in the late Ottoman empire and the Armenians

Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 43, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 461-474

  Seker, Nesim ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOGRAPHIC HISTORY; OTTOMAN EMPIRE;

ARMENIA; ASIA; EURASIA; WEST ASIA;

EID: 34247391146     PISSN: 00263206     EISSN: 17437881     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00263200701246157     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. For motives of deliberate demographic alterations and tools employed in the process see M.Z. Bookman, The Demographic Struggle for Power: The Political Economy of Demographic Engineering in the Modern World (London: Frank Cass, 1997)
2. and M. Weiner and M.S. Teitelbaum, Political Demography, Demographic Engineering (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001).
3. For the relationship between dissolution of empires, forced migration and ethnic cleansing see R. Brubaker, 'Aftermaths of Empire and the Unmixing of Peoples', in K. Barkey and M. von Hagen (eds.), After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), pp.155-80.
4. I. Tekeli, 'Osmanli Imparatorluǧu'ndan Günümü ze Nüfusun Zorunlu Yer Deǧiştirmesi ve İskan Sorunu', Toplum ve Bilim, Vol.50 (Summer 1990), pp.50-4.
5. K.H. Karpat, Ottoman Population: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp.60-77 and
6. A.C. Eren, Türkiye'de Göv̧e Göçmen Meseleleri: Tanzimat Devri, İlk Kurulan Göm̧en Komisyonu, Çikarilan Tüzükler (Istanbul: Nurgök Matbaasi,1966).
7. N. Ipek, Rumeli'den Anadolu'ya Türk Göçleri (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1994), pp.155-9
8. and A. Sofuoǧlu, 'Osmanli Devletinde Ortaya Çikan Göç Problemleri ve Türk Göçlerinin Bir Safhasi: 1903-1904 (Rumî 1319) Yilinda Meydana Gelen Gö çler', Türk Kültürü Vol.XXXIII, No.383 (March 1995), pp.177-8.
9. From George Horton to the Secretary of State, 21 Feb. 1914, United States-National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/606.
10. R. Davison, 'Nationalism as an Ottoman Problem and the Ottoman Response', in W.W. Haddad and W. Ochenswald (eds.), Nationalism in a Non-National State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1977), pp.25-56.
11. D. Kushner, The Rise of Turkish Nationalism 1876-1908 (London: Frank Cass, 1977), pp.51-4.
12. Ş. Hanioǧlu, The Young Turks in Opposition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.169-70.
13. E.J. Zürcher, Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement, 1905-1926 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984), pp.22-3.
14. For a convincing argument see A. Kansu, The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp.157-92.
15. K.H. Karpat, 'The Memoirs of N. Batzaria. The Young Turks and Nationalism', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.6 (1975), pp.276-99;
16. S. Akşin, Jön Türkler ve İttihat ve Terakki (İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1987), pp.103-4.
17. U. Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp (London: Luzac & Company Ltd and the Harvill Press, 1950), p.73.
18. H.C. Yalç in, Siyasal Anilar (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankasi Kültür Yayinlari, 2000), p.73.
19. Z. Gökalp, Principles of Turkism, trans. R. Devereux (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968), p.8.
20. T.Z. Tunaya, Türkiye'de Siyasal Partiler, Vol.III (İstanbul: İletişim Yayinlari, 2000), p.295.
21. N.D. Harris, 'The Effect of the Balkan Wars on European Alliances and the Future of the Ottoman Empire', Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, Vol.10, Tenth Annual Meeting (1913), p.111;
22. R.H. Davison, 'The Armenian Crisis, 1912-1914', The American Historical Review, Vol.53, No.3 (April 1948), pp.481-505.
23. H. Edib, Turkey Faces West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1930), p.115.
24. F. Dündar, İttihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanlari İskân Politikasi (1913-1918) (İstanbul: İletişim Yayinlari, 2001).
25. Ziya Gökalp's words criticizing Ottomanism demonstrate well the recently developed nationalist economic outlook. He claims that it was the Turks who had su.ered most from Ottomanism since the Christians and Jews had occupied economic key positions in commerce, industry and the crafts while Muslims who were the ruling millet in the Ottoman Empire remained as peasants, government o.cials and soldiers. As a result, 'while the poor Turks inherited from the Ottoman Empire nothing but a broken sword and an old-fashioned plough, there arose among the non-Muslim communities, which had no part in the Government, a wealthy bourgeoisie with European education. The Muslims produced no such class possessing the qualifications required of rulers, notably education, initiative and organizing abilities'. Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism, pp.73-4.
26. N. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal:MCGill University Press, 1964), p.335.
27. N. Taçalan, Ege'de Kurtuluş Savaşi Başlarken (İstanbul: Aksoy Yayincilik, 1998), p.44.
28. R.P. Adalian, 'Comparative Policy and Differential Practice in the Treatment of Minorities in Wartime: The United States Archival Evidence on the Armenians and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire', Journal of Genocide Research, Vol.3, No.1 (2001), pp.31-48.
29. Given the politicization of this issue, consider recent parliamentary decisions in several countries, it might be useful to remember an article published 30 years ago giving the essence of controversy as emanating from the approach of both the Turkish and Armenian historians. It is no exaggeration to point out that the claims presented in the article are still valid. G. Dyer, 'Turkish "Falsifiers" and Armenian "Deceivers": Historiography and the Armenian Massacres', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.12 (Jan. 1976), pp.99-110.
30. F.M. Göçek, 'Reconstructing the Turkish Historiography on the Armenian Massacres and Deaths of 1915', in R.G. Hovannisian (ed.), Looking Backward, Moving Forward (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2003), p.211.
31. A Circassian by origin, Dr. Reş it is one of the founders of the Ottoman Union Society (İttihad-i Osmani Cemiyeti), the nucleus of the CUP that had appeared in 1889. When most of the leading members of the CUP were exiled by Abdülhamit II in1895, he was enrolled in the Fourth Army which was situated in the eastern provinces where the Armenian events took place. In 1897, he was exiled to Tripoli where he stayed until the 1908 Revolution. When the Great War broke out, he was appointed governor of the Diyarbekir province. He implemented the deportation law of 1915 in the region and he was arrested due to his responsibility for the Armenian massacres at the end of the war. Before being court-martialled, he escaped from prison and committed suicide on 6 Feb. 1919. Part of his memoirs relating to the Armenian deportation and massacres were serialized between 10 Feb. and 14 March 1919 in a daily newspaper named Memleket. Its transcription was published as Sürgünden Intihara Dr. Reşit Bey'in Hatiiralari [From Exile to Suicide: Dr. Reşit Bey's Memoirs], ed. Ahmet Mehmetefendioǧlu (İzmir: Tükelmat A.Ş., 1992), pp.19-43.
32. His accounts appeared in a daily under the title, 'Ermeni Vakayi ve Esbab ve Tesirleri I-III' [Armenian Events and Their Causes and Effects], Vakit, 10, 12 and 13 Dec. 1918.
33. Davison, 'Nationalism as an Ottoman Problem', p.45.
34. H. Nezir, 'Aspects of the Social and Political Thought of the Ottoman Military, 1908-1914' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 2001).
35. G.W. Gawrych, 'The Culture and Politics of Violence in Turkish Society, 1903-14', Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.22, No.3 (July 1986), pp.307-30.
36. F. Ahmad, 'Unionist Relations with the Greek, Armenian and Jewish Communities of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914', in B. Braude and B. Lewis (eds.), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire (London: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1982), pp.420, 423.
37. The National Congress of Turkey, The Turco-Armenian Question: The Turkish Point of View (Constantinople: Société Anonyme de Papeterie et d'Imprimerie, 1919), pp.79-80. Cf. 'And as they could not reach the guilty ones, they punished all those that were left, irrespective of age or sex; and as Enver put it, they had no time to discriminate and settle this matter, while war was pending, in a "platonic" way, but had to resort to drastic measures, no matter who might be hurt thereby. Enver has told me repeatedly that he warned the Armenian Patriarch that if the Armenians made any attack on the Turks or rendered any assistance to the Russians while this war was pending, he will be compelled to use extreme measures against them.' From Morgenthau to Lansing, 18 Nov. 1915, United States- National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/798 1/2.
38. From George Horton to the Secretary of State, 16 Dec. 1918, United States-National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.4016/398.
39. From G. Bie Ravndal to the Secretary of State, 12 Aug. 1919, United States-National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/923.
40. Sabah [Morning], 21 Nov. 1918.
41. Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 21 Dec. 1918, Meclis-i Mebusan Zabit Ceridesi [Minutes of the Ottoman Assembly].
42. S. Akş in, İstanbul Hükümetleri ve Milliiî Mücadele Vol.I (İstanbul: Cem Yayinevi, 1992), p.32.
43. From J.B. Jackson to Secretary of State, 31 May 1919, United States-National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/897.
44. Also É. Brémond, La Cilicie en 1919-1920 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1921), pp.11-12.
45. General Sta. Archive, Ankara, 27 Nov. 1919, 270/196.
46. From Bristol to Secretary of State, 14 Feb. 1920, United States-National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/1112 and 23 March 1920, 867.00/1179.
47. Also S.E. Kerr, The Lions of Marash (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1973).
48. C. Price, 'Present Turkish Rule in Cilicia', Current History, Vol.16 (May 1922), pp.216-20.
49. In the light of these facts, the insistence of the Turkish delegation during the Lausanne Peace negotiations for a compulsory and undefined exchange of populations with Greece, and its refusal to accept the repatriation of the Armenian refugees, become comprehensible. B.N. Şimşir, Lozan Telgraflari [Lausanne Telegrams], Vol.II (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1992), p.581.