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“The Armenian Question Is Finally Closed”: Mass Conversions of Armenians in Anatolia during the Hamidian Massacres of 1895–1897

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2009

Selim Deringil
Selim Deringil
Affiliation:
History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
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Extract

Few issues in late-nineteenth-century Armenian/Turkish history straddle so many of the “questions” of the period as does the mass conversion of Armenians in the 1890s. The topic is enmeshed in the much-contested “Armenian Question,” the birth of Armenian nationalism, the so-called “Eastern Question,” and the rise of Turkish nationalism. This article will deal with these conversions by situating them within the larger context of the “Armenian Question” generally. Although important research has been done on the mass conversions during the genocide of 1915, surprisingly little has focused on the massacres of 1894–1897. Even more surprising is the lack of research to date into the issue of mass conversions during the latter period, and nothing has been written based on Ottoman archives. My aim here is to make a contribution towards filling this lacuna.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 344 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2009

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References

1 The quote in the title is from Abdülhamid II to British Ambassador Sir Philip Currie, cited in Douglas, Roy, “Britain and the Armenian Question, 1894–7,” The Historical Journal 19 (1976): 113–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; quote p. 132.

2 The most recent important contribution to Armenian history is: Akçam, Taner, A Shameful Act. The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York, 2006)Google Scholar. By the same author, ‘Ermeni Meselesi Hallolunmuştur’ Osmanlı Belgelerine Göre Savaş Yıllarında Ermenilere Yönelik Politikalar (“The Armenian affair has been settled”: Policies directed at Armenians in the war years according to Ottoman documents) (Istanbul, 2008) is a remarkable contribution since it is the first such work based almost entirely on Ottoman archives. Kévorkian's, RaymondLe Genocide des Armeniens (Paris, 2007)Google Scholar is possibly the most solid and detailed work on the genocide to date. It makes extensive use of the Istanbul and Jerusalem Patriarchate archives.

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9 Deringil, Selim “‘There Is No Compulsion in Religion’: Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1839–1856,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40 (2000): 547–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 The Ottoman administrative grid was a direct adaptation of the French departements of the Code Napoleon. It consisted of the vilayet (province), kaza (prefecture of sub district), nahiye (commune), and köy or kır'a (village). There were also districts organized as independent sancak. On the Ottoman administrative reform, see Ortaylı, İlber, Tanzimattan Sonra Mahalli İdareler (Local administration after the Tanzimat) (Ankara, 1974)Google Scholar.

13 I am grateful to an anonymous CSSH reviewer for the suggestion of “the climate of conversion.”

14 On the Armenian revolutionary organizations, the seminal works are still: Nalbandian, Louise, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Berkeley, 1963)Google Scholar; and Terminassian, Anahide, Nationalism and Socialism in the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Cambridge Mass., 1984)Google Scholar.

15 Suny, Looking toward Ararat, 101.

16 Walker, Christopher, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation (Chatham, Kent, 1991), 137Google Scholar. Walker is still the most detailed study on the massacres of the 1890s.

17 Ibid.

18 Van Bruinessen, Martin, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan (London, 1992), 107Google Scholar.

19 Nalbandian, Armenian Revolutionary Movement, 7. Nalbandian notes that on some occasions like the 1862 risings in Van and Zeytun, Armenian and Kurdish peasants had fought together against their oppressors.

20 Janet Klein, Power in the Periphery: The Hamidiye Light Cavalry and the Struggle over Ottoman Kurdistan, Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2002, 116.

21 Dadrian, Vahakn, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Providence, R.I. and Oxford, 1995), 114Google Scholar.

22 Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, 181–82: “The denser the administrative network of the state became, the smaller and simpler the tribes.”

23 Klein, Power in the Periphery, 118.

24 Deringil, Selim, “Ottoman to Turk: Minority-Majority Relations in the Late Ottoman Empire,” in Gladney, Dru, ed., Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey and the U.S. (Stanford, 1998), 217–26Google Scholar.

25 Ibid.,” 220.

26 Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, 186.

27 On Zeki Paşa and the Hamidiye Regiments, see Deringil, “Ottoman to Turk,” 222, 223; Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, 187; Klein, Power in the Periphery, 162.

28 Duguid, Stephen, “The Politics of Unity: Hamidian Policy in Eastern Anatolia,” Middle Eastern Studies 9 (1973): 130–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (Prime Ministry, Ottoman Archives, Istanbul [henceforth BOA]) Y.PRK. 32/94, 3 Sept. 1893.

30 Deringil, Selim, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Late Ottoman Empire 1876–1909 (Oxford and London, 2000), ch. 2Google Scholar.

31 I should note that this is only a sample of documents dealing with the conversions of Armenians and other Christians during this period.

32 BOA A.MKT MHM 637/16, 14 Mart. 1312/27 Mar. 1896, vilayet of Diyarbekir to Sublime Porte.

33 Paşa, Hüseyin Nazım, Ermeni Olayları Tarihi (The history of the Armenian events) (Ankara, 1998), vol. 1, 94, doc. 45Google Scholar. This is a two-volume compilation of documents selected with the aim of showing the alleged primary responsibility of the Armenian revolutionary committees in the outbreak of the “troubles.”

34 BOA A.MKT 660/35 4, Teşrin-i Sani 1311/17 Nov. 1895, vali of Sivas Halil Paşa to Sublime Porte.

35 BOA Y.A HUS 362/35 31, Teşrin-I Evvel 1316/13 Nov. 1896. On the motif of “uniform sticks,” see Eldem, Edhem, “26 Ağustos 1896 ‘Banka Vak'ası’ ve 1896 ‘Ermeni Olayları’” (The Ottoman Bank incident of 26 August and the 1896 Armenian incidents), Tarih ve Toplum 5 (2007): 113–46Google Scholar. On 26 August 1896 a group of Armenian revolutionaries staged a raid on the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul hoping to attract the attention of the Great Powers to their cause. This event has been extensively covered in the literature. See for example, Christopher Walker, Armenia, 167, who refers to the mob bearing “clubs, similar, carefully shaped.”

36 Kırmızı, Abdülhamid, Abdülhamid'in Valileri: Osmanlı Vilayet İdaresi, 1895–1908 (Abdülhamid's governors: Provincial administration in the Hamidian state) (Istanbul, 2007), 105–9Google Scholar.

37 Dadrian, History of the Armenian Genocide, 113–31.

38 The sheer discrepancy in the number of Muslim and Armenian dead could not be hidden even by those official documents carefully chosen to make the Turkish case that what happened was legitimate self-defense against Armenian “terrorism.” In this I follow the method used by Edhem Eldem in his, “26 Ağustos 1896 ‘Banka Vakası’ ve 1896 ‘Ermeni Olayları.”

39 Hüseyin Nazım Paşa, Ermeni Olayları Tarihi, vol. 1, 94.

40 Ibid., 98–99.

41 Ibid., 102.

42 Ibid., 103.

43 Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir, 85 (my translation).

44 BOA A.MKT MHM 636/25 29, Teşrin-i Evvel 1311/10 Nov. 1895, Governor of Diyarbekir Enis Paşa to Grand Vizier's Office.

45 Ibid. The term used in all the official correspondence is “tedabir-i hakimane ile işin geçiştirilmesi.”

46 Ibid. This last sentence in the draft memo was crossed out. These cancelled sentences in draft memos provide interesting insights into the official mind.

47 BOA A.MKT MHM 638/32, 23 Teşrin-i Evvel 1311/5 Nov. 1895; 27, Teşrin-I Evvel 1311/9 Nov. 1895, Governor of Erzurum Rauf Paşa, reply by Special Commission of Ministers. Tercan is today a sub-prefecture of Erzincan province. Hınzıri (or Hınzoru) is today a village in Erzincan called Tanyeri/Pınarlıkaya. See, Nuri Akbayar, Osmanlı Yer Adları Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Ottoman place names).

48 BOA A.MKT MHM 660/35 4, Teşrin-I Sani 1311/17 Nov. 1895, telegram from Governor of Sıvas Halil Paşa to Grand Vezirate.

49 Ibid., Sublime Porte to vilayet of Sıvas, 5, Tesrin-i Sani 1311/18 Nov. 1895.

50 Ibid., vilayet of Sıvas to Sublime Porte, 7, Teşrin-i Sani 1311/20 Nov. 1895.

51 BOA A.MKT MHM 657/24 30, Teşrin-i Evvel 1311/12 Nov. 1895, Governor of Mamuretülaziz, Amiri to Sublime Porte; 31, Teşrin-i Evvel 1311/13 Nov. 1895, Sublime Porte to Governor of Mamüretülaziz. Mamüretülaziz is present-day Elazığ. Perri is the present-day bucak (district) of Akpazar. See Tahir Sezen, Osmanlı Yer Adları (Ottoman place names publication of the BOA).

52 BOA A.MKT MHM 619/24, Deputy Governor of Bitlis Ömer Paşa to Sublime Porte; 14, Teşrin-i Sani 1311/27 Nov. 1895, Sublime Porte to Bitlis Province. Today Genc is a kaza of Bingöl. It is almost impossible to discern today just which villages are being referred to. Almost all have either had their names changed, been combined with other villages and given a new name, or have simply ceased to exist. Name changing has been official policy as part of the effort to wipe out the historical memory of non-Muslims inhabiting Anatolia. On this see Dündar, Fuat, İttihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanları İskan Politikası 1913–1918 (The Committee of Union and Progress and its policy of Muslim resettlement) (Istanbul, 2001), 81–84Google Scholar.

53 BOA A.MKT MHM 658/10 10 Receb 1313/27 Dec. 1895, Vilayet of Mamüretülaziz Secretariat, no. 409, forwarding copy of report from the mutasarrıf of Dersim, “Mahza hidayet-i rabbani üzerine kabul-ü Islamiyet etmiş oldukları.”

54 BOA A.MKT 661/34 11 Mart 1312/24 Mar. 1896, vilayet of Sıvas to Sublime Porte, encl., petition signed by eleven residents of Koyulhisar, Turkish written in Armenian characters. My thanks to Rober Koptaş for reading the original. Koyulhisar is today a kaza by the same name in the vilayet of Sıvas. See Osmanlı Yer Adları.

55 Ibid., 20 Nisan 1312/3 May 1896, Vali of Sıvas, Halil Paşa to Sublime Porte.

56 Ibid., 19 Kanun-u Evvel 1311/31 Dec. 1895, vilayet of Mamüretülaziz forwarding report from the kaza of Pütürge (today a municipality [ilçe] of the city of Malatya).

57 BOA A.MKT MHM 658/10 23 Receb 1313/9 Jan. 1896, Governor of Mamüretülaziz Rauf Paşa to Sublime Porte.

58 Ibid., 29 Receb 1313/15 Jan. 1896, memo from the Patriarch of the Armenian millet Mağakya Ormanyan to Sublime Porte, no. 255.

59 Ibid., 3 Kanun-u Sani 1311/16 Jan. 1896, cipher telegram from Sublime Porte to vilayet of Mamüretülaziz; 12 Kanun-u Sani 1312/25 Jan. 1896.

60 Ibid., 10 Şubat 1312/23 Feb. 1896.

61 BOA Y.A RES. 85/12 2 Şubat 1312/15 Feb. 1896, Governor of Van, Şemseddin Paşa to Yıldız Palace.

62 Ibid., 13 Ramazan 1314/3 Şubat 1312/16 Feb. 1896, minutes of meeting of Special Commission of the Council of Ministers.

63 BOA A.MKT MHM 619/35 20 Kanun-u Evvel 1311, 20 Kanun-u Evvel 1311/2 Jan. 1896, trans. of memo of British Embassy. Ispayrıt is today the village of Sürücüler in the vilayet of Bitlis. Hizan is today the kaza of Aşağıkarasu in Bitlis. See, Osmanlı Yer Adları.

64 Ibid., 21 Kanun-u Evvel 1311/3 Jan. 1896, cipher telegram from Governor of Van to the Sublime Porte.

65 BOA A.MKT MHM 619/35 22 Kanun-u Evvel 1311/4 Jan. 1896, cipher telegram from Governor of Van Nazım Paşa to Sublime Porte.

66 Ibid. “Dilboş” is evidently a corruption of “dilbo,” meaning “liar” in Armenian, and, as an anonymous reviewer observed, “is obviously an insult conjured by the Ottoman authorities.” My thanks to this reviewer.

67 Ibid., 24 Kanun-u Sani 1311/6 Jan. 1896. Also, it seems that the Paşa could not add.

68 Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir; Gustave Meyrier to Paul Cambon, 12 Mar. 1896, 85 (my translation).

69 Ibid., 175. It is interesting that Enis Paşa should bring up the famous “Salonica incident” of May 1876, where the conversion of a Bulgarian girl and her subsequent abduction by the Christians of that city caused a full-blown riot and the French and German consuls were murdered by the mobs. Here Enis Paşa may well have been subtly threatening Meyrier. On the Salonica Incident, see Mazower, Mark, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430–1950 (London, 2004), 170–75Google Scholar.

70 BOA A.MKT MHM 637/16 13 Mart 1312/26 Mar. 1896, cipher telegram from Sublime Porte to vilayet of Diyarbekir. “Sızıldı” (murmuring, lamentation) was one of the most common Ottoman euphemisms for “trouble from foreigners.”

71 Ibid. 14 Mart 1312/ 27 Mar. 1896, vali of Diyarbekir Enis Paşa to Sublime Porte.

72 Ibid.

73 For a discussion of “sexual humiliation used to intimidate the Armenian community” during the genocide of 1915, see, Derderian, Katherine, “Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19 (2005): 1–25CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Although this article deals with a later period, the experiences of Armenian women in the 1890s must have been very similar.

74 Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir. Meyrier was not present when the conversation took place, but had the account from the bishop. Nonetheless, it is possible that Enis Paşa mentioned the Salonica incident because he was from that city.

75 Ibid., 28 Mart 1896/10 Apr. 1896, Foreign Minister Tevfik Paşa to Sublime Porte, Foreign Ministry Chancery, no. 292.

76 Ibid., 16 Mart 1312/29 Mar. 1896, Foreign Minister Tevfik Paşa to Sublime Porte, Foreign Ministry Chancery, no. 117.

77 Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir, 175–79, 20 Mar. 1896.

78 Ibid., 21 Mar. 1896, 179.

79 Vice-Consul Hallward to Consul Cumberlach, 17 Mar. 1896; British Blue Book: Turkey, 1896, as cited in Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir, 215–16.

80 Walker, Armenia, 147. Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy Adam Block referred to Abdullah Paşa as “a fairly straight man.”

81 Meyrier, Les Masacres de Diarbekir, 171.

82 BOA Y.A HUS 347/58 23 Şubat 1311/8 Mar. 1895, Committee of Inspection to Sublime Porte.

83 Ibid., 23 Ramazan 1311/10 Mar. 1896, Sublime Porte Receiver's Office, Grand Vizier Rıfat Paşa.

84 BOA Y.A HUS 348/52 11 Mart 1312/24 Mar. 1896, Committee of Inspection to Sublime Porte.

85 Meyrier, Les Massacres de Diarbekir, 183.

86 Ibid., Jules de La Bouliere to Gustave Meyrier, 27 Feb. 1896, 184.

87 BOA A.MKT MHM 637/19 4 Nisan 1312/17 Apr. 1896, Enis Paşa to Sublime Porte. That this particular woman had a six-year-old child shows that she had “married” some six years previously, probably making it impossible to return even if she wanted to. The child would have been born some years before the massacres. Abduction of Armenian women by the Kurds was a common complaint throughout the period. See Arménouhie Kévonian, Les Noces Noires de Gulizar (Paris, 1993).

88 BOA A.MKT MHM 637/33 1 Temmuz 1312/14 July 1896, Enis Paşa to Sublime Porte.

89 BOA Y.A.HUS 352/1, 18 Şubat 1311/3 Mar. 1895, Sublime Porte, Office of the Grand Vizier, report prepared by accountant of the evkaf of Aleppo Ali Rıza, President of the Court of Aleppo Mustafa, Dragoman of the British Embassy Fitzmaurice.

90 Ibid., 88.

91 Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice to Sir P. Currie, 5 Mar. 1896, Turkey, no. 5 (1896), Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 4–5.

92 Berridge, , Gerald Fitzmaurice (1865–1939): Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy in Turkey (Leiden, 2007), 27Google Scholar.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid., 28–30.

95 BOA Y.A HUS 359/6 28 Ağustos 1312/10 Sept. 1896, vilayet of Aleppo to Sublime Porte.

96 BOA A.MKT MHM 620/50 29 Temmuz 1313/11 Aug. 1897, Foreign Minister Tevfik Paşa to Sublime Porte, Foreign Ministry Secretariat, no. 1969. The nahiye in question were Paçar, Zeyr, Morvarik, İzmunağ, Herpersehur, Zihten, Darbuğ, Dareyeni, Karpar, Çananleşiye, Valber, and Gurnus. I have been unable to determine what these localities are called today. None of them appears in Osmanlı Yer Adları or Osmanlı Yer Adları Sözlüğü. It is highly possible that they no longer exist as distinct entities.

97 BOA A.MKT MHM 620/50 29 Temmuz 1313/11 Aug. 1897, Foreign Minister Tevfik Paşa to Sublime Porte, Foreign Ministry Secretariat, no. 1969. “Nüfus-u Mektume” was an official category of people who had not been counted in the 1882–1885 census. I thank Cem Behar for this information. On the Ottoman censuses, see, Behar, Cem and Duben, Alan, Istanbul Households (Cambridge, UK, 1991), 15–20Google Scholar.

98 Ibid. Vali of Bitlis Ömer Paşa to Sublime Porte. 5 Ağustos 1313/18 Aug. 1897, “Hıristiyan kalmak veya Islam olmak her kesin ihtiyarında olduğu….”

99 Ibid., 26, Teşrin-i Evvel 1313/8 Nov. 1897, Foreign Ministry to Sublime Porte, no. 2931.

100 BOA A.MKT MHM 654/10 13 Nisan 1318/26 Apr. 1902, Sublime Porte to Ministry of Interior. Andırın is today the sub-prefecture of Göksun in the vilayet of Muş. See Osmanlı Yer Adları Sözlüğü.

101 Georgeon, François, Abdülhamid II: Le sultan calife (Paris, 2003), 293Google Scholar.

102 Ibid., 294.

103 Hüseyin Nazım Paşa, Ermeni Olayları Tarihi, vol. 1, 94, 100.

104 Georgeon, Abdülhamid II, 294–95.

105 Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, 25.

106 Taner Akçam, Shameful Act, 42.

107 Melson, Robert, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago, 1992), 69Google Scholar.

108 Hüseyin Nazım Paşa, Hatıralarım, 49.

109 Georgeon, Abdülhamid II, 295.

110 Douglas, “Britain and the Armenian Question,” 125. Douglas cites: Salisbury Papers, Christ Church, Oxford, Currie to Salisbury, 11 Dec. 1895 (Salisbury, A/135, fols. 249–56).

111 Ibid., 132. Douglas cites: Salisbury Papers, Christ Church, Oxford, Currie to Salisbury, 28 Oct 1897 (Salisbury, A/137, fols. 145–49)

112 Vice Consul Fitzmaurice to Sir P. Currie Birejik, 5 Mar. 1896, Turkey, no. 5 (1896), 3.

113 BOA. A.MKT 86/42 15 Receb 1263/24 June 1847, fetva from the Shaikh ul-Islam's office regarding the breach in the procedure of conversion on the part of the kaza council of Sehirkoy and the eyalet of Niş.