The Armenian Genocide – The First Genocide of The Twentieth Century

Armenia is a small country located in the south Caucasus and is the smallest of the former Soviet republics. Armenia is bounded by Georgia in the north, Azerbaijan in the east, Iran on the south and Turkey in the west.It is a land of rugged mountains and extinct volcanos. It is a Christian dominant country, and has the population of around 3 million. Armenia is one of the world’s oldest civilisations, leaving it as a country full of culture, history, and art. However, there is also a dark side to its history; a genocide. Sometimes called the first genocide of the twentieth century, Armenian’s will never forget those horrific years.

Armenian culture is a rich mixture of flavors, colors, plus outside influences and things that are uniquely Armenian. The culture in Armenia represents its history, lifestyle, and aspirations of this unique country. In Armenia, the symbol “khachkar” is an important and unique symbol that is a big part of their culture. The khachkar is also known as the “Armenian cross stone” because it looks like a cross that we see in modern day Christianity, except however that it is only located in Armenia. Khachkars originated in the beginning of the 4th century right after the adoption of Christianity. It is a symbol of new eternal life.

Armenian music has its own special melodic pattern, and it is rich in sound. This originality is reached due to the use of original Armenian instruments which have survived from the early Middle Ages. Many of the songs are created by people, about love and marriage amongst other things. These songs are usually sung by folk singers, also known as gusans.The songs that were written for choirs are called sharakans and they were sang during masses and celebrations.

Armenian cuisine is closely related to eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. Various spices, vegetables, fish and fruits are used to create any ordinary Arminian dish. The main aspects of the dishes are the quality of the food being used, not how heavily spiced they are. The use of legumes, nuts, fruits and the stuffing of a wide variety of leaves is also an important part of Armenian cuisine. The pomegranate, with its symbolic association with fertility, represents that nation. The apricot is the national fruit. Every year, there are many festivals held in the many corners of Armenia. These festivals include a wide variety of Armenian foods, products, symbols, crafts, and music. One of these festivals is called Yerevan Wine Days. It is half from May 3rd to May 4th, and it is when cheese and wine producers show off their products in the streets for you to buy. On July 6th, there is the Mulberry Festival. This festival is accompanied by Armenian music and dances.

Now, the Armenian genocide, sometimes referred to as the “first genocide of the twentieth century,” is one of the most famous genocides to go down in history. It was the physical annihilation of Armenian Christians who were living in the Ottoman Empire. Before the genocide occurred, there were approximately 1.5 million Armenian Christians living in the Ottoman Empire. However, after the war, around 664,000 and possibly 1.2 millions deaths occurred during the various battles and killings, which resulted in around 388,000 Armenians remaining. Some of the causes of death included many massacres, individual killings, and ill treatment, such as starvation, dehydration, and exposure to gasses and diseases. Tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their Christian families and were converted to Islam.

Armenian Christians were one of the many ethnic groups resided under the Ottoman Empire. The rulers of the Ottoman Empire at the time, like their subjects, were Muslim. They allowed religious minorities like the Armenians to maintain some autonomy, but they also suppressed Armenians, calling them “infidels” and treated them unequally to Muslims. The Christians had to pay higher taxes than the Muslims, and had very few political and legal rights. You can see that the pattern of “suppressing” and “taking away the rights of a subclass of people” is also shown during the early years of the holocaust, which was also a mass genocide of a nation. In spite of these rules set in place against the Armenians, they seemed to thrive under it. They got a better education, and most of them ended up even wealthier than their Turkish neighbours, to which the Turkish grew to resent their success. Later, Armenians formed political organisations seeking greater autonomy, which only increased the Ottoman Empires doubts about the loyalty of the Armenian community within its borders.

The first registered Armenian massacre occurred between 1894 and 1896, in which there was a state sanctioned pogrom, to which the Armenians protested against. In response to these large scale protests, Turkish military officials, soldiers, and ordinary men, ransacked Armenian villages and cities and massacred their citizens. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed.

In 1908, a new government came to power in Turkey. A group of reformers who called themselves the “Young Turks” overthrew Sultan Abdul Hamid and established a more modern constitutional government. At first, the Armenians were hopeful that they would have an equal place in this new state, but they soon learned that what the nationalistic Young Turks wanted most of all was to “Turkify” the empire. According to this way of thinking, non- Turks, and especially Christian non-Turks, were a grave threat to the new state.

On April 24th, 1915, the Armenian Genocide began. On that day, the Turkish government arrested and executed hundreds of Armenians. Ordinary Armenians were turned out from their homes, and sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert with no food or water. Again, you can see a pattern here that is also seen during the holocaust against the Jews. They too were turned from their homes and forced to take “death walks” in severe conditions. Frequently, the marchers were stripped naked and forced to walk under the scorching sun until they dropped dead, and people who stopped to rest were shot. At the same time, the Young Turks created a “Special Organisation,” which in turn organized “killing squads” to carry out, as one officer put it, “the liquidation of the Christian elements.”

These killing squads were often made up of murderers and other ex-convicts. They drowned people in rivers, threw them off cliffs, crucified them and burned them alive. Government squads also kidnapped children, forced them into being a Muslim, and then gave them to Turkish families. Women were also raped and forced to join Turkish “harems” or serve as slaves. After the Ottomans surrendered in 1918, the leaders of the Young Turks fled to Germany, which promised not to prosecute them for the genocide. Ever since then, the Turkish government has denied that a genocide took place. They say that the Armenians were and enemy force, and that their slaughter was a necessary war measure. It is also illegal to speak of the massacres, and anything about what happened to the Armenians during that era in Turkey.

In conclusion, the Armenian Genocide was quite like the holocaust, and they both followed the same pattern. The discrimination of a smaller religious group within another countries borders, and the plan to annihilate that entire group because they were seen as a “threat”.

Sources:

1. Editors, H. (2010, October 01). Armenian Genocide. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/armenian-genocide
2. The Armenian Genocide. (n.d.). http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-armenian-genocide/
3. Armenia. (n.d.). https://www.infoplease.com/world/countries/armenia
4. Culture of Armenia. (n.d.). https://www.advantour.com/armenia/culture.htm
5. Armenia. (2019, May 06). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia#Culture