#armgenocide100

April 24th Marks the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

What is the Armenian Genocide?

The extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding regions during 1915-1923 is called the Armenian Genocide.

Those massacres were masterminded and perpetrated by the government of Young Turks and were later finalized by the Kemalist government.

The First World War gave the Young Turks the opportunity to settle accounts with Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, thus implementing the decision of the secret meeting of 1911 in Thessaloniki. The plan was to tukify the Muslims and to exterminate the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Talaat Pasha (Interior Minister), Enver Pasha (Minister of Military Affairs), Djemal Pasha (commander of the Palestinian Front), Behaeddin Shakir Bey (Young Turk Central Committee member) and others were among the orchestrators of the project.

Intending to annihilate Armenians, they wanted to eliminate the Armenian Question. Armenia and Armenians were an obstacle on the way of the project of the Yong Turks. Their dream of “Great Turan” was to stretch from the Bosphorus to Altai. During the First World War the Young Turks perpetrated massacres against Assyrians, Greeks and Arabs living in the Ottoman Empire.

In February 1915 the military minister Enver Pasha ordered to eliminate the Armenian soldiers serving in the Army. On April 24 and the following days 800 Armenians were arrested in Constantinople and exiled to the depths of Anatolia. Armenian writers, journalists, doctors, scientists, clergymen, intellectuals including Armenian members of the parliament were among them. A part of them died on the way of the exile, while others died after reaching there.

The first international response to the violence resulted in a joint statement by France, Russia and the Great Britain in May 1915, where the Turkish atrocities against the Armenians were defined as “a crime against humanity and civilization”. According to them, Turkish government was responsible for the implementation of the crime.

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Approximately one and a half million Armenians were killed from 1915-1923. The remaining part was either islamized or exiled.

By Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier

TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN GHOST, an English translation of the award-winning book La Turquie et le fantôme arménien, is a compelling portrait of the aftermath of the Armenian genocide and the enduring struggle to have it officially recognized.

Taking the reader into remote mountain regions, tiny hamlets, and the homes of traumatized victims of a deadly persecution that continues to this day, authors Laure Marchand and Guillaume Perrier reveal little-known aspects of the history and culture of a people who have been rendered invisible in their ancient homeland.

The remains of the Church of the Holy Redeemer (built about 1035) in Ani, a ruined Armenian city in the eastern Turkish province of Kars. (Copyright Witr/Dreamstime.com)

Monument to Humanity, under construction. The Turkish artist Mehmet Aksoy created it in Kars, near the Armenian border, as a symbol of friendship and reconciliation. Turkey’s prime minister called it a “monstrosity” and ordered its demolition in April 2011, five years after it was commissioned. (Photograph by Ggia–Own Work)

A crowd gathers outside the Agos newspaper offices in Istanbul on 19 January 2008, in memory of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. He had been assassinated one year earlier. (Copyright Petitfrere/Dreamstime.com)