ARMENOCIDE: HISTORICAL PRECEDENT OF THE CLASH OF THE CIVILIZATIONS (genesis, evolution, outcome)
which was offered long ago,
correctly defines the place of the Armenian people in our world.
The historical mission of the Armenian nation,
prompted by the whole course of its development,
is to seek and find the synthesis of the East and West”.
In our days it is popular to speak about the dialogue of the civilizations but one should not forget about the incompatibility of the cultures and civilizations which often causes conflicts with tragic consequences.
One of such facts is the Armenocide among many causes of which the cultural factor was also present. In fact it was a consequence of the long-term ethnic conflict between Christian Armenians and Sunni Turks from the Balkans to Anatolia and the Caucasus. Being unable to absorb the alien culture, the nationalist Turkish top headed for its annihilation and eradication.
So, on April 24, 1915 in Western Armenia, Armenian Cilicia and the other regions of the Ottoman Empire, by the decision of the government of the country and on the will of the Turkish people the events took place which were aimed to the final solution of the Armenian Question, i.e. the total extermination of the disarmed and defenceless people, the events which were characterized in the May 24, 1915 Declaration of the ally powers – Russia, Great Britain and France, as a crime “before humanity and civilization”.
The actions of the Turks were premeditated and planned in details, their aim was clear: “to exterminate the entire nation” fully, once and forever and to put an end to the very name of “Armenia”, to wipe its civilization from the face of the earth, to turn Western Armenia in logical absurdity – “Eastern Anatolia”, to appropriate its culture [1], to cease through the pillage and violence huge material wealth of the Armenians of the Empire1.
The perverted Turkish mind had nurtured that evil deed for decades and began from the deliberate change of the place names of the country and the distortion of the demography. In 1862 the fundamental re-organization of the provinces was carried out. Consequently, the province “Ermenistan eyalet” was divided into Erzurum, Bitlis and Van provinces and to each of them, in order to change the demography; the districts with Muslim population were added “by crooked, artificially drawn boundaries”. Then, in 1878, two years after the Berlin congress, in order to reduce the specific weight of the native population, in Western Armenia new administrative and territorial divisions were made. And in 1880s the usage of word “Hayastan” (Armenia) was banned. Until a certain time such actions were aimed to dissolve the Armenians living on their native land in the alien environment, among the rabble of different tribes called “the Muslims”.
The cause for “adjustment” of the Turkish stance on that issue was the evident economic and civilizational upturn of the Armenians which had begun since the middle of the 19th century. English priest B. Barail mentioned that the adoption of the National Constitution of the Western Armenians (1860) “marked the revolution in the habits and customs of the East”. That is why, “soon Armenians turned into a suspicious element both for Turkey and for Russia, and since that day they have had no restful life”.
Indeed the well-known Turkish envy and bile played an exceptional role in the preparation of ethno-psychological ground for the Armenocide [3]. The “main argument” was the irrepressible desire of the Turks to “appropriate” the motherland of the Armenians – Armenia, to take it away from its legal proprietors. The general extermination of the Armenian population was clearly shown: in Turkey sultans and rulers, their political affiliation, sex, religion or nationality may change but their main aim was the annihilation of Armenia.
And during the collaboration of Lenin and Ataturk the prospects of the real annihilation of Armenia were clearly outlined and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kemalist Turkey Ahmed Mukhtar “explained” to the commander of the east front Kazim Karabekir (now they spoke about Eastern Armenia): “Armenia is situated at the vast Muslim territories (can you imagine that?) and, that’s why, it should be exterminated both politically and physically. It should be taken into consideration that the general political situation and our power favour to the realization of that plan [4]”.
It should be mentioned that the plan of extermination of Armenia was formulated and began to be implemented by Abdul Hamid. His associates and followers, up to Kemal, simply continued the things he started. The process of stabilization and integration of the Empire, which was bulging at the seams under the pressure of the European powers (the policy of the great powers, the national-liberating movements), was “directed” by Hamid to the east. His aim was to gain access to Western Arabia, Muslim shrines and Armenia [5]. The Balkan wars made his intentions firmer. “I will not regret about losing the Balkans which suck our powers dry”, said Abdul Hamid. “We want to stay in Anatolia and live separately”, stated the “the bloody sultan” [6].
Hamid’s idea was welcomed in Europe. In this aspect the address of Baron Hans von Wangenheim, to the central committee of “Ittihata” (at the eve of the 1914 war), the “proclaimer” of German national-socialism, is rather conspicuous: “The alliance with Bulgaria is advantageous for you. It is necessary to get access to Berlin-Istanbul line, to arm the Straits, deprive Russia of the help from abroad and to crush it with joint efforts. Giving to you the Caucasus we want to open to you the access to Turan. You have to destroy the element which is in the way of Turkey’s unity (Armenians – L. Sh.), and then to seize Persia…” [7].
Thus, in 1914 the German ambassador spoke about the things which two years before had been foreseen by the great Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan (…Armenian Question is one of Turkey’s headaches and with the apse of time it will get even stronger till the Turks are retreating to this lands”). And the European powers all together squeezed out from the Old World civilizationaly alien element – the Medieval Turkish janissary. They directed him to the East. And on that way Armenia lay. And that was the reason why the help of the Christian Europe to the biblical country, the “cradle of civilization” (David Leng) – Armenia, was temperate.
Meanwhile, the Turk who was out for blood obtained appropriate tactics and carried it out in three stages:
1. 1876-1915 – the local but tending to broadening and development policy of the deportation of the Armenians, their forcible Islamization and killings.
2. 1915-1918 – the comprehensive process of the final solution of the Armenian Question. The Turks did not succeed partially due to the resistance of the rest of the Armenians (solders and officers of the voluntary regiments tried and tasted in many battles; almost eight-month-long fights of the Armenian detachments from Erznka (Erzindjan) to Sardarapat and Baku, the breakthrough of the Syrian-Palestine front by the “Armenian Legion” on September 19, 1918), and partially due to the international situation.
3. 1919-1923 – on the one hand the Kemalist policy of annihilation of the Greeks, continuation of the unfinished Armenocide in Eastern Armenian and Transcaucasia and seizing of the new lands, and on the other hand the denial of the fault and responsibility of the Turkish state and nation.
Henceforth, according to the plan of the Genocidal Turkish state, “the purpose was to try to achieve the acceptance of the factual situation by the Armenians. They had to make Armenians refuse from the territorial claims in exchange for the recognition of their diminutive state (i.e. the 1918 Republic of Armenia– L. Sh.). Thus, the almost full debellation and annexing could be presented as a cession – the volunteer concession of the territory and the Genocide of the Armenian population of those districts as regrettable events of the past” (Yu. Barsegov) [8].
Nevertheless, the Genocide caused the issue of the responsibility of Turkey and Turks:
a) the criminal penalty of the physical persons who elaborated and carried out this shocking crime. They carried punishment only partly (operation “Nemesis”, Armenian Nurnberg, which was implemented under the active resistance of the Soviet government);
b) the political responsibility of the Turkish state and the creation of Armenia in accordance with the arbitral decision of Woodrow Wilson);
c) material responsibility in the form of restitution (the restoration of the rights of the Armenians, the return of the forcibly taken property and etc.) [9].
It is clear that the further struggle of the Armenians will be mostly conditioned by the second and the third points. This will bring to the liquidation of the effects of the first Genocide in the world – Armenocide [10] and once and for all will avert the repetition of such crimes.
The words of Woodrow Wilson, which sound like a precept are remarkable “Armenia should get all it is historically eligible for. It has more rights to live than Turkey… Sooner or later Turkey will face the tribunal and give an account and then it will be demanded to return all it had robbed to the real owner” [11].
1The general cost of the pillige by the Turks in the years of the Genocide was about $5 billion in gold. A part of that wealth was pocketed by the robbers and top, while the “lion’s share” was used for the necessity of the Kemalist movement, particularlly, for the war against Eastern Armenia.
LITERATURE
- Немецкий искусствовед Эрнст Диц считает, что искусство сельджуков – продолжение армянского. См. Dietz Ernst, Сельджукское искусство (на немецком языке), Константинополь, 1948.
- Магакия Орманьян, Армянская церковь. Константинополь, 1911, с. 15-16.
- Впервые этот термин ввел в научный оборот сирийско-арабский ученый-историк Муса Принс (Moussa Prince) в 1967 г.
- Саркисян Е., За кулисами: как рождался Московский договор 1921 г., «Литературная Армения», 1991, N1, с.76-77.
- Раздел Азиатской Турции по секретным документам бывшего Министерства иностранных дел. Под редакцией Е.А.Адамова, М.,1924, с.29.
- Язычян Г., Кровавый султан Абдул Гамид II: Бейрут: 1980, с. 812, 827.
- Рифат Мевлан заде, Темные страницы османской революции и программы Иттихата по уничтожению армян: Ереван, 1990, с.18.
- Геноцид армян: ответственность Турции и объязательства мирового сообщества. Документы и комментарий. В 2-х т. М; 2005, т. 2, ч. 2, с. 215.
- Подробнее см. Барсегов Ю.Г., Геноцид армян – преступление по международному праву. М., 2000.
- It is remarkable that “in the hot persuit” of the mass massacre the civilized world began to speak about the Armenian Genocide and characterized it as a holocoust, “ghastly holocost”. See: Hocking Joseph, The path of glory («Путь к славе»), London, New York, Toronto, 1918, с.216, 240 .
- Чалхушьян Г., Красная книга. Ростов-на-Дону, 2008, с. 186-187.
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