ARMENOCIDE
Armenocide - this was how the known Arab historian Musa Pren characterized the tragedy that occurred 93 years ago in the Ottoman Empire. By creating the word "genocide" through uniting the Latin-Greek "race" and "murder" words, Famous Polish attorney Rafael Lemken wanted to show the whole horror that threatens peoples subject to mass assassinations, while Pren's "Armenocide" concretizes and gives an ethnic characteristic of the matter.
According to Pr. Nikolay Hovhannissian, the word "Armenocide" "has not only a linguistic but also a political side that has a concrete ethno-political content that clearly mentions annihilation of Armens - Armenians as an ethnos. The word is so lucid and concrete that cannot give rise to alternative interpretation.
At the start of the 20th century, the tragedy that happened in Western Armenia, on the territory of Ottoman Empire, changed the fate of a whole nation, and penetrating into the memory of peoples, it turned into a desire to live and to strive.
The tragedy left a fatal spot, making a whole people suffer a complex. Such complexes, however, are not cured through short memory or through the loss of the latter. These are cured to spite the organizers of the Genocide, due to life, development and victory. To exclude repetition of similar tragedies it is important to understand the historic and political motivations of it. Historic and Political Reasons of the Armenocide If we speak about the history of the Armenian nation, we can divide it into two parts - before and after the Genocide. This watershed, which we call genocide, assassination, Armenian massacres and at last Armenocide, needs serious study and analysis, particularly from the point of view of developing security of the second independent Republic of Armenia.
Turning to the - the Armenocide - we should note that it became possible because of a number of historic events: it occurred under the conditions of collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the World War Two and the strengthening of the idea of creating the state of Turan. We can state that these events, however, came to complete the policy the Ottoman Empire was executing against Armenians since the day of its creation. Generally, turning to the history of creation and existence of the Ottoman Empire, we should mention that it was some kind of totalitarian Empire. Preceding that or in that period similar empires were being created not only owing to military power, but also due to economic and cultural expansion.
Before, the metropolises forming the Empire were superior over the peoples under their domination in regard to the level of economic, military and cultural development, which allowed them to actively influence these people and keep them under their domination. Different from this, from the above-mentioned economic, military and cultural factors only the military one was vital in Turkey. That is to say that being on a lower level of development, the people forming the Empire - the Turks - could control other peoples of the Empire only with the military force. Thus, there was no ideological, political, ethnic or cultural unity within the Empire. It was solely the power of arms that provided the opportunity to retain the Empire for centuries. Being on a lower level of economic, cultural and political development than other peoples of the Empire, Turks could only grab.
This found its expression also in the fact that the nomadic tribe that penetrated into Small Asia from Central Asia aimed at evading also these territories to make these a permanent place of their inhabitance. There were only two ways to do this, either by assimilating the local nations or by annihilating them. The first one seemed to be a rather complex problem, since, as it was mentioned, the nations living here - the Armenians, Greeks, Arabs and Syrians were ahead of dominant Turks in regard to the level of their development. While the second way was rather simple and dear to them, considering also that the latter had great experience of it, since they were keeping the Empire only with the military force and cruelty. However, if in the period of power and flourishing of the Ottoman Empire the idea of having a homeland was not primary, then in the 19th century it turned essential for the founders of the collapsing Empire - the Turks. We can say that this was also one of the peculiarities of this Empire. Other Empires - the Roman, the Russian or the British - had their original motherland, a historic land, where they could continue to live after the collapse of the Empire. The homeland of Turks was Central Asia and Siberia, where they were not going to return. Therefore, an own motherland - the metropolis - had to be created. Small Asia could become such motherland for Turks, since it had strategic importance both due to its geographical position and in respect to the possibility of establishing a new Empire in the future. However, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians had been living here for centuries. And because Armenians occupied the heart of this territory, they became the primary targets of attack.
We should note that to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, in the 19th century Turks tried to suggest different ideologies, which, according to them, could unite the peoples of the Empire. The idea of New Osmanism that emerged in the second half of the 19th century aimed at uniting the nations of the Empire notwithstanding their religious or ethnic belongingness. According to ideologists of New Osmanism, this national ideology could be attractive for other nations of the Empire and would create the opportunity to prevent the separatist dispositions of the peoples under Turkish domination. However, from the very beginning the artificialness and bareness of this ideology was apparent. Therefore, it could not become the force that would unite the peoples of the Ottoman Empire. The idea of Islamism or Pan Islamism suggested by Abdul Hamid Second did not justify itself, either. The aim of this ideology was to unite Turks with the Muslim peoples comprising majority in the Empire, particularly Arabs - the founders of Islam. However, for Arabs Turkish Sultans could not become founders of a new Caliphate, therefore the unification on the ground of Islam did not succeed, either. Different from their predecessors, these aimed at creating a new Empire, the heart of which had to be the Small Asia. Different from the collapsing Empire, it had to stretch to Caucasus, to Central Asia and Siberia, i.e. those territories where Turkic nations lived. In fact, being deeply nationalistic, this ideology targeted at returning to own roots and uniting all Turkic nations. Armenians were standing across this route; they stood between the Turkic tribes of Small Asia and Caucasus. The latter intended to lead an active policy of "Turkisation," and it is not in vain that after gaining power, the Young Turks, preaching the ideology of Pan Turkism, prohibited all national unions - the Armenian, Greek, Arabic ones, etc.
Thus, judging from the above we can conclude that all attempts to preserve the Ottoman Empire had failed, so had the policies of Osmanism and Islamism. There was no time for implementing the policy of "Turkisation." Therefore, Turks had put an aim to create a purely Turkic state, annihilating all non-Turkic peoples. The largest Christian nation of the Empire - the Armenians - was hindering the accomplishment of these programs. Thus, in this period it was already clear that the destiny of Armenians was predetermined. The Armenocide and the Islam We should mention that Armenian and foreign historians have written much about the Islamic factor in the . The opinions here are unequivocal - although the Turks tried to use the religious factor to organize the massacre of Armenians, it was not a success. The people comprising majority in the Ottoman Empire - the Arabs - did not back the idea, therefore, it became impossible to escalate large-scale interreligious clashes. Nevertheless, despite these facts, the idea dominates among the Armenian society that the occurred just on the religious ground, and that being surrounded with Muslims, Armenians are doomed. From time to time, this idea, having nothing to do with reality, is being articulated by interior and exterior political circles to show the fact of lack of alternative in foreign policy. However, in reality the holy war - the Jihad - declared by the last Sultan Sehmed Fifth against Christians was targeted at justifying the brutalities and mass assassination of Armenians, as well as the involvement of all Muslims in this. However, the Arab theologians and religious leaders, who enjoyed great respect in the Muslim world, did not back the idea of Jihad. The Governor of Hijaz and the Sheriff of Mecca Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashemi, who was considered the greatest authority in the Muslim word, did not only refuse to support the Sultan's decision, but also urged all Orthodox Muslims to help Armenians and defend them. Many Arab leaders and the Arab people were assisting the Armenians in the desert of Der Zor. Arab divisions of the Turkish army were refusing to fight against Armenians. The attempts of Turks to use the Arabs to suppress the self-defense struggle of Armenians failed. Arab Governors of a number of Turkish provinces were just refusing to execute the orders from Constantinople to displace and massacre Armenians. However, Turks could not keep from noting all this, and many Arabs suffered for protecting Armenians. It is important to mention here that Sultan Mehmed Fifth declared the holy war against the Christian population of the Empire only after getting the "blessing" of allied Christian Germany. Generally, it should be said that at the time when Muslim Arabs were sacrificing their lives to help Armenians, the Christian Europe was either supporting Turkey or was pretending not to see the mass assassinations in Western Armenia. Generally, turning to the position of European powers, we should note that on one hand they were using the Armenian Question to interfere with the interior affairs of the Empire, thus causing the discontent of Turkey, on the other hand many times the activeness of Europeans was preventing or suspending the massacre of Armenians in this or that Province. Nevertheless, to say that during the war the European countries were unable to influence the policy of Young Turks would be incorrect, either. Rather, the factor of political appropriateness played its decisive role here, i.e. the fact of the massacre of Armenians would later enable the European powers to present accusations on Turkey to seize additional concessions from the latter. Historic lessons of the Armenocide To exclude reoccurrence of the and provide for the security of the nation it is necessary to seriously investigate the historic and political reasons of the events.
The study of the policy of the most dreadful crime against humanity - the genocide - is of great importance not only for contemporary generations but also for current politicians and for all those who determine or somehow influence the directions of Armenia's interior and foreign policies. It is essential to understand the most crucial - the fact that contemporary Turkey has been formed in the result of the , the Armenocide. If not the , there would be no Turkey, either. This is the truth, which the former and current authorities in Ankara understand pretty well, and it is this fact that explains the denunciation that they demonstrate towards the fact of Genocide recognition. It can be asserted even that contemporary Turkey avoids recognition of the Genocide not as much because of the fear of material or territorial demands, rather it is concerned with the moral side of the question. Kemal Turkey was built on the basis of a fault value system, where people carrying the burden of executing the Genocide were considered divine. In reality, the heroes and famous political figures of this nation resembled a butcher, whose hands are foul with the blood of millions of innocent people. Such findings can become the moral blow and loss of faith for the contemporary Turkish generation, which is not even aware of the events in the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 20th century, which can in its turn lead to the collapse of the country. It is a historic truth that the flattening of own power and moral characteristics can be destructive for any state and nation.
It needs to be mentioned that regardless of our will the fact is that the historic memory of the Armenocide will always endure in the fate of the Armenian nation, shaping and directing its policy not only toward neighboring Turkey, but also towards those countries, which somehow contributed to the execution of the . At the same time, this memory provides the opportunity to exclude reoccurrence of the Armenocide in the future and to build the national security system proceeding from the principle of excluding similar tragedies.
- By Armen Manvelian
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- 1879 Death of Stepanos Nazaryan (public figure) in Moscow (Russia). He published the "Hyusisapail" (Aurora Borealis) monthly.
- 1904 The great battle of Semal (the Sassoon rebellion) took place under the leadership of General Andraneek. Hrair (Armenak Ghazarian) was killed in the fighting. He was born in 1864.
- 1920 Death of Vrtanes Papazyan (writer) in Yerevan. He was born in 1866.
- 1921 The "Self-government of Syunik" is re-organized by the Dashnaks, as the "Government of Mountainous Armenia".
- 1953 Completion of the first stage of construction of the Gyumush hydroelectric power station.
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