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30.11.2009

ON THE MANIFESTATION OF TURKISH STATE POLICY IN REGARD TO THE ARMENIANS

   

Ruben Melkonyan

Armenia Survival of a Nation (original)The theme of the splinters of the Armeniancy (both Islamized and Christian) which still exist in Turkey is one of the insufficiently explored and studied issues. The researches devoted to their current conditions are rather rare. The problem of assimilated or crypto-Armenians living in various regions of Turkey remained unknown not only in the scholastic circles but also among the Armenians of Istanbul and in consequence of various processes going on in present the Armenians of Istanbul discover a lot of interesting. One of the factors boosting that process is that there are many Armenian children from provinces who are on different levels of assimilation coming to study in the Armenian schools of Istanbul. According to the competent people the Armenians from provinces are zealous for the issues that their children should study in the Armenian schools. They face different obstacles which, anyway, do not affect seriously their will. The interest in their mother tongue and thus in their roots is observable phenomenon especially in the context of the current educational situation in the Istanbul community when the number of pupils attending Armenian schools is decreasing.

Lately there has been “9th Mndzurian Festival” arranged in Dersim in which song and dance companies participated. An Armenian from Istanbul Bagrat Esdugian (“Akos” contributor) while speaking about the presence of the Armenians in Dersim brings remarkable facts which come to prove that there are still various undiscovered layers of the converted and crypto-Armenians problem and, besides, the Amreniancy in Turkey faces the problems of self-awareness: “I already felt like family to the people of the city. I knew from what I had read before that there were many people among them who were of the Armenian origin. But I have never thought that there were so many of them. It was surprising that nobody tried to hide their identity. The people were adapted to present the integrity of Alevi religion, Kurdish political movements and Armenian identity. For us, the Armenians in Istanbul, it was difficult to understand but it was rather natural for the people of Dersim. The “splinters” of the Armeniancy can be met on the territory of Anatolia. And in Dersim one can meet Armenians. They are neither crypto, nor apostate; they are just special, unusual” 1.

This ongoing process reveals more and more new pages in the history of the Armenians who survived the Genocide and the gathering and systematization of those pages will allow forming the integral impression about the problems. But all these ask time, skills and come to prove the groundlessness of the standpoint of those people who try to make untimely or groundless analyses and conclusions, which are at the best based on one or two outdated facts.

One of such close or dark pages is the policy of forced Islamization of the Armenians who in the republican Turkey some episodes of which have leaked to the pages of the press but we would like to specify the geography and present some elements of the Islamization policy carried out in regard to the Armenians in the half of the last century in Sasun. Let us mention that we wrote down the facts regarding this personally during the field researches and conversations with people. But before turning to the definite problem it is necessary to give general outlines of the repressions and violence in regard to the Armenians in the Republic of Turkey.

It is known that during the first decades of the existence of the Republic of Turkey there was a number of Armenians living in the eastern parts of the country and in Istanbul (according to different sources 250-300 thousand). The facts show that particularly in the eastern regions, i.e. on the territory of historical Armenia, the government of the republican Turkey carried out the policy in regard to the Armenians which did not differ much from the policy implemented by the Ottoman Empire and contained the manifestations of the deportation, exile, forced Islamization. E.g. in summer 1929 and following months about 30 thousand were exiled from Kharberd, Diyarbekir and Mardin provinces2. The US ambassador to Turkey Robert Skinner in his March 3, 1934 report to the US State Secretary, which was classified top secret, brought the facts about the deportations of the Armenians from the eastern regions of Turkey. Thus, it was mentioned that since the beginning of 1934 the Turkish government had moved the Armenians from “Anatolia” to Istanbul. Those Armenians were compelled to sell their property on a very low price which was regarded by the ambassador as equal to leaving their property, and move to Istanbul where Armenian patriarchate and different beneficial organizations tried to help them. One of the main reasons for the deportations of the Armenians is supposed to be the fact that they were successful entrepreneurs, they had good job and they could earn much which caused Turk’s envy. But the main and important reason was considered to be the purpose of the Turks to Turkishize “Anatolia” fully3. The report, prepared by the 9th bureau (which was responsible for the issues regarding minorities) of the ruling in the 1940s Democratic-Republican Party, where the attitude of the state machine towards non-Muslims can be vividly seen, cast light upon all that4. The following views concerning Armenians were found in that report: “Armenians: In Anatolia they have turned into a depleted small in number community and through some political ways they try to increase their number. We firstly need to “clean” Anatolia of them and move them to Istanbul thus we will also be able to keep under the control the population upsurge”. In the report we can find grounding for the deportation of the Armenians to Istanbul based on the historical experience: “Thereby the growth of their population will be suppressed and later, if necessary, they all together will be before the eyes of the state”.

Thus, we can see that the state policy tended to resettle the Armenians from the territory of the historical Armenia as the Armenians who lived there constituted potential menace to the Turkish state and resettling them to Istanbul they had neutralized that threat. This policy worked in a complex and the forced Islamization of the Armenians living in the territory of historical Armenia was one of component parts of that policy but in this direction various means were used.

While speaking about the survived Armenians from Sasun it should be mentioned that there is poor information about them in different sources which proves that there are Armenians in Sasun who were forcedly Islamized during the Genocide and part of those Armenians is crypto-Christians. But there is also information that there are still Armenians in Sasun who do not hide that they are Christians and the ways of their survival differed. It is known that the Armenian Genocide was accompanied with the destruction of the Armenian historical monuments (Cultural Genocide) and after 1915 the presence of the Armenian priests in the tumbledown or demolished Armenian churches was impossible. Under such conditions the Christian Armenians in Sasun faced serious difficulties in the issue of churching. But even under the absence of the Armenian priests the Sasunians managed to retain a number of Christian elements through the centuries and pass it to the generations. The most vivid example is the pilgrimage to the ruins of St. Mother of God monastery at the mount of Maruta, lighting candles, sacrificial offering and etc. Of coarse, it would be naïve to suppose that in the years following the Genocide the absence of the priests in Sasun was because of the “indifference” on behalf of the Armenian patriarchate. It is clear that serious state control did not allow the visit of the Armenian priests to the territories of the historical Armenia and some frequent secret visits were followed by the pressure and repressions.

Back in 1950s under such conditions the wave of Islamization was initiated in regard to the Christian Sasunians. At the end of 1950s offices of state appealed to the Armenians in the form of demand to convert to Islam but a part of the Sasunians opposed to that decision and refused forced conversion to Islam. But they continued to exert the pressure involving power structures. As a consequence some Christian Armenians, though in some cases outwardly, yielded and converted to Islam. Alongside with the forcible methods Turkish state also used other ways and the Armenian villages which were left without priests were visited by the Muslim preachers, sheikhs who tried to convince the local population to convert to Islam willfully in order to be able to carry out ceremonies, such as marriages, christening, funerals and etc. This method also had his effect because Armenians, having no priest, were forced to do it. It is remarkable that according to our interlocutors the conversion of their relatives was not taken unambiguously by the surrounding Armenians who openly criticized the apostates and sometimes it promoted the stopping of the Islamization or its reductions. According to some sources the cases of Islamization of the Armenians had also been recorded later in 1980s. The continuing repressions made the part of the survived Sasunians move to Istanbul, part of them to convert to the religion of the Turkish state and the other became crypto-Christians.

All this comes to prove that the Republic of Turkey continued the policy of forced Islamization adopted by the Ottoman Empire which in the end had its results and today in the territory of the historical Armenia, apart from some separate islands, there are almost no Armenians who do not hide that they are Christians.

1Էսդուգեան Բ., Մնձուրի լեռները պար բռնեցին, Ակօս, 07.08.09, թիվ 697:

2Walker Christophor, Armenia: The survival of a nation, London, 1980, p.348, նույնը տե՛ս նաև Hofmann Tessa, Armenians in Turkey today, (second edition) Uppsala, 2003, p. 15.

3Records of the Department of state Relating to the Internal Affairs of Turkey, 1930-1944. ամերիկյան դես¬պան Ռոբերտ Սքիներից ԱՄՆ արտգործնախարարին, 867.4016 հայերը/11, Aktar A., Varlık vergisi ve “Türkleştirme” politikaları, İstanbul, 2000, s. 93.

4Akar R., Aşkale yolcuları (Varlık vergisi ve çalışma kampları), İstanbul, 2006, s. 190.


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