Tuesday, September 27, 2011

From “Hidden Armenians” to “Hidden Jews” to Primary Sources On Ottoman Reforms, and from Armenian Ethnographies to “Genocide Studies” and Beyond:  A Review Essay On Contemporary Turkish Publications

By Garabet K. Moumdjian


Rfiat N. Bali, A Scapegoat for All Seasons: the Dönmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey, Isis Publications, Istanbul, 2008, 416 pages.

Arslan Bulut, Gizli Ermeniler [Hidden Armenians], (Bilgeoğuz Publishing), Istanbul, 2010, 380 pages.

Adem Ölmez, İstanbul Ermeni Olayları ve Yahudiler [The Istanbul Armenian Events and the Jews], Kurtuba Publishing, Istanbul, 2010, 272 pages.

Mustafa Armağan, Abdulhamid’in Kurtlarla Dansı [Abdulhamid’s Dance With the Wolves], Tımaş Printing, Istanbul, 2009, 326 pages.

Ahmed Cevdet, Sultan Abdulham’de Arzlar (Ma’ruzat) [Exposes Presented to Sultan Abdulhamid], Transcribed from the original Ottoman into Modern Turkish and prepared for publication by Yusuf Halacoğlu, Babiali Cultural Press, January 2010, 292 pages.

Ramazan Erhan Güllü, Antep Ermenileri:  Sosyal-Siyasi ve kültürel Hayatı [Ainteb Armenians:  Their Socio-Political and Cultural Life], Istanbul, IQ Kultur Publishing, 2010, 512 pages.

Necla Gunay, Maraş’ta Ermeniler ve Zeytun İsyanları [Marash Armenians and the Zeytun Rebellions], Istanbul, IQ Kultur Publishing, 2007.

İbrahim Ethem Atnur, Türkiye’de Ermeni Kadınları ve Çocukları Meselesi: 1915-1923 [The issue of Armenian Women and Children in Turkey: 1915-1923], Babil Publishing, 2005, 360 pages.


Every year, scores of books related to the Armenian case, the Armenian Genocide, and other related subjects are printed in Turkey.  Some of these are in translation— poor translations at that—while the majority of this corpus is only available in Turkish, which makes it nearly inaccessible, save to those scholars versed in the language.  This review essay focuses on several contemporary publications to provide a preliminary assessment on what Turkish writers are composing on Armenian issues.

***

With an advanced degree in History from the University of Sorbonne and a printing enterprise of his own, Libra Kitapcilik ve Yayincilik, Rfiat N. Bali is well positioned to produce several books per annum.  Since 1996, his research has focused on non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, the social and cultural transformation of Turkish society and Dönmes (Crypto Jews).  Bali is a research fellow at the Alberto Benveniste Center for Sephardic Studies and Culture, based in the Religious Studies Department of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, in Paris, and is a member of Ottoman-Turkish Sephardic Cultural Research Center.

With A Scapegoat for All Seasons:  the Dönmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey, Bali presents us with yet another intriguing study, though this monograph is not the classical treatise it aspires to be.  Rather, it is devoted to prove wrong a conspiracy theory, which condemns Jews.  Allegedly, and under the disguise of an assumed Turkish identity, Jews were the architects of the construction of the Modern Turkish Republic, and, hence, concentrated power in their hands.  The world is full of Yellow Journalism and this cannot be truer than in the case of Turkey, whose media apparatus is maligned with obsequious charlatans.  Nonetheless, to prove a conspiracy theory wrong, an academician has to keep some semblance of professionalism and, most importantly, an unbiased attitude.  Otherwise, he might plummet into the same pitfalls, as those whom he may try to inculpate.

The heroes of Bali’s volume are Sabbatean Jews, more generally referred to as Selanıklı (Salonicans) in Turkey.  These are Jews who converted to Islam and bore the moniker Dönme as they were part of the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece after 1923.  While the Selanıklı “repatriated” to Turkey and established themselves in major metropolitan areas like Istanbul and Izmir, Turkey deported the Karamanlı (Christian Turks) to Greece.  The famous Kostantin Karamanlis—four times Prime Minister and then President of Greece—was one such Karamanli.  There were also Greek speaking Pontic Karamanli populations that were deported to Greece as well.  It is interesting to note that Greek-speaking Cretian Turks were resettled in the coastal city of Hamidiyye in Syria, where their descendents continue to live today.

The whole exchange of populations that occurred over a relatively short period of time is interesting.  For while millions of Balkan Turks were deported en masse from their homes over a 500-years period, it may be accurate to state that in the aftermath of the 1877-1878 Russo-Ottoman War, these movements were viewed as some sort of repatriation.  Furthermore, it may also be correct to conclude that such population exchanges benefited Turkey, as they led to a sharp increase in the number of Turks in the decades that followed.  Still, people like the Selanıklı retained strong nostalgic attitudes toward their old dwellings.

Before delving into the particulars of Bali’s book, a further explanation as to the origins of these Sabbateans is in order.  Who were these people if not the followers of a young Jew, Sabbatai Zevi, from Salonica (Selanık in Turkish).  Zevi was born in Smyrna in 1626.  His family was Romaniotes from Patras in present-day Greece; his father, Mordecai, was a poultry dealer from Morea.  During the war between Turkey and Venice, Smyrna became the center of Levantine trade, and Mordecai succeeded as the Smyrnan agent of an English trading house.  He managed to achieve some wealth in this role.  In fact, during the first half of the 17th century, millenarian ideas of the approach of the Messianic time were popular. In 1648, and barely 22, Zevi started declaring to his followers in Smyrna that he was the true Messianic Redeemer.  About 1651 (1654 according to other accounts), local rabbis banished Sabbatai and his disciples from Smyrna, and it is not entirely clear where he went.  By 1658, Zevi surfaced in Constantinople, where he met a preacher, Abraham ha-Yakini, who confirmed Sabbatai's messianic mission.  After wandering, he settled in Cairo, where he resided between 1660 and 1662.  About 1663, Sabbatai moved on to Jerusalem, with many additional followers, which allowed him to triumphantly return to Palestine, passing through the city of Gaza, which at the time had also an important Jewish community.  In Gaza, Zevi met Nathan Benjamin Levi, known ever since under the name of Nathan of Gaza.  Nathan was to become very active in Sabbatai’s subsequent messianic career, as he assumed a right-hand man position, witnessing the rise of Elijah, the precursor of the awaited Messaiah, Zevi.  At the beginning of the year 1666, Zevi arrived in Istanbul, where the grand vizier, Ahmed Köprülü, ordered Sabbatai’s immediate arrest and imprisonment.  After two months in jail, Sabbatai was taken to the state prison at Abydos within the environs of Constantinople.  On 16 September 1666 he was brought before the Sultan.  Zevi cast off his Jewish garb and put a Turkish turban on his head.  Thus his conversion to Islam was accomplished.  The Sultan was much pleased and rewarded Sabbatai by conferring on him the title Mehmet Effendi and appointed him as his doorkeeper with a high salary.  An additional 300 families converted simultaneously and became known as the Dönme.

Inasmuch as Sabbatai’s conversion was devastating to his followers, even more noteworthy was the criticisms emanating from both Muslim and Christian quarters alike, ostensibly for lack of principle.  Nevertheless, despite Sabbatai’s apostasy, many of his adherents still tenaciously clung to him, claiming that his conversion was a part of the Messianic scheme.  By the 1680s, the Dönme had congregated in Salonica, a cosmopolitan city in Ottoman Greece with a Jewish majority.  For the next 250 years, they would lead an independent communal life–intermarrying, doing business together, maintaining their own shrines, and handing down their secret traditions.  By the 19th century, the Dönme played prominent roles in the tobacco and textile trades, as they established progressive schools while some members of the community became politically active.  Several joined the Committee on Union and Progress (CUP), the revolutionary party known as the Young Turks.  With independence in the 1910s, Greece expelled Muslims from its territory, including the Dönme.  Most migrated to Turkey, where by mid-century they were highly assimilated (pages 21-23).[1]

Fittingly, the conspiracy theory Bali attempts to refute, claims that the Dönme were/are a secret, select and extremely powerful branch of Judaism that controlled Turkey.  The conspiracy theory asserts that

“…it was not the Turks, but the Sabbateans, who both planned and implemented the 1915 Deportation resulting in the mass slaughter and death of most of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.  According to this view the idea of mass deportation and slaughter emerged because the country’s Jewish bourgeoisie wished to take control of the empire’s economic life, and, since many of the leaders of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress were of Dönme origin (e.g. Talât and Dr. Nâzım), they proposed this plan to the committee as a way of eliminating their Armenian competitors.”[2]

Returning back to the issue of the Hidden Jews’ conspiracy theory, Bali explains that, those who espouse such a view in Turkey “…can be classified into three main groups: a) numerous columnists from the Islamist press; b) a group of Turkish-Armenian journalists, most notably the recently assassinated Editor-in-Chief of the Armenian community’s semi-official organ Agos, Hrant Dink, the paper’s columnist Markar Esayan and Levon Panos Dabağyan, a writer for the Turkish nationalist paper Önce Vatan; c) Ilgaz Zorlu, a young Turk who, after ‘going public’ with an admission of his Dönme origins in the late 1990s, received widespread media attention and whose every public statement enjoyed an extraordinary level of credibility; and, finally, d) the Marxist Economics Professor Yalçın Küçük, whose fame has spread in recent years as a result of his numerous publications on the Sabateans (page 12).”[3]

Even though this “Hidden Jew” conspiracy theory has made its rounds in the Turkish media since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, according to Bali, the latest “whistle blower” in this case was Ilgaz Zorlu, himself a Dönme who has come out of the closet in the beginning of the 1990’s.  Bali pours his outrage at Zorlu, who had reignited the conspiracy theory—and hence the hostility against Dönmes—through his essays in the journals Tarih ve Toplum (History and Society) and Toplumsal Tarih (Social History) in 1994, which were later augmented in Zorlu’s book “Evet, Ben Selanıklıyım” (Yes, I am a from Salonica) in 1998.

The problematic issue with this conspiracy theory is that it goes deeper into the roots of the formation of the Turkish Republic itself.  Aside from the remnants of the Young Turks, who attained high positions within the fledgling state, the central topic in this plot revolves around the subject of the origins of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state, who was also from Salonika.  The most damaging proof about Kemal’s Dönme origins remains his encounter with Itimar Ben-Avi, in Palestine, most probably in 1918, where, according to Ben-Avi, Kemal had recited a prayer in Hebrew, which he had learned during his childhood in Salonika.[4]  Bali devotes page after page in an effort to discredit the Ben-Avi account.[5]  Naturally, the subject of Kemal’s Sabbatean origins remains a volatile issue in Turkey.  So much so, that the current Islamist government of the AK Party seems to be more than content with the subject being a daily staple of Turkish media for its own advantage as it attempts to replace the nationalist-Kemalist-secular forces in the country with its own brand.  This also feeds well into the anti-Israeli sentiments that have been growing in Turkey during the last few years.  According to Bali, “Turkish intellectuals have always taken a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli stance.  Islamists associate the ‘Palestine question’ with alleged Jewish involvement in the rise of Turkish secularism.  Leftists see Israel as an imperialist state and an extension of American hegemony in the Middle East.  Comparable themes are found among nationalist intellectuals.”[6]

This anti-Israel sentiment among Islamist intellectuals is more vividly described by Bali in the following paragraph:

“For much of the Islamist intelligentsia, references to Palestine, a former Ottoman province, bring to mind events from the last—and in their minds, darkest—years of the empire.  These include Zionist leader Theodor Herzl’s request in 1901 from Sultan Abdulhamid II for permission to settle Jewish immigrants in this territory and the Sultan’s refusal; and, about a decade later, the presence of the Salonican Jew Emmanuel Carasso, a member of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), in the delegation notifying the Sultan of his removal and exile to Salonica, where he would live out his remaining years in the villa of the Jewish family Allatini.”[7]

Admittedly, Rifat Bali is a prolific writer, an intellectual who stands tall against the taboo of the Armenian Genocide, which has maligned Turkish republican politics since the inception of the state.  However, this latest contribution cannot be considered a scholarly endeavor, as it contains several journalistic essays that appeared previously in Turkish newspapers.  Nevertheless, this in itself makes the book more of a repository of opinion pieces, which will be used by “scholars” dealing with the subject matter.  Moreover, the problem is that the premise for writing this book seems to be to defend the Dönmes against the conspiracy theory, and the condemnation for being a sect that centered political and economic power in its hands.  One such example was the shroud of secrecy regarding Turkey’s former Foreign Minister, Ismail Cem, whose Dönme origins were questioned in the 1990s.  The issue exploded when Cem was nominated to the presidency of the republic.  One can only imagine the “scandalous” nature of such a nomination and the ripples it would have created within the country’s political elite, if a Sabbatean assumed the highest leadership post in Turkey!  The same can be said about Ejavit’s wife, Rahşan, and Turkey’s former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller.  Collective criticisms regardless of party affiliation meant that the Dönme factor had simultaneously infiltrated Turkey’s leftist as well as rightist parties, which revealed far more than many assumed in theoretically republican institutions.

Did Bali succeed in his endeavor to sweep aside the conspiracy he vehemently opposes?  The answer is no, since the Sabbatean element is still a major staple in the Turkish media today.  This is more so since the AK Party has now assumed a more pro-Palestinian, perhaps even a more pro-Arab, stance than many wish, to the detriment of Turkey’s long-time ally, Israel.  Lastly, it may be useful to state that Bali did not manage to distance himself from the debate, and to present the subject as an impartial individual.  Hence, the book is at best considered a prelude to his “Present-Day Anti-Semitism in Turkey,” which was published in 2009.

If Bali’s study on the Dönme focused on one conspiracy theory, Arslan Bulut’s Gizli Ermeniler: Bilgeoğuz Yayınları/Araştırma Dizisi addresses an equally troubling speculative plot.  Although the subject of “Hidden Armenians” in Turkey was first brought forth by the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was an outspoken vanguard of Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and who was assassinated for his beliefs by an ultra nationalist cabal known as Ergenokon, the issue has now morphed into yet another conspiracy theory that is vigorously making the rounds in Turkish society.

To be sure, Dink’s intentions were compassionate and intended to magnify the harm that was inflicted upon the remnants of the Armenian population in Turkey, which somehow managed to escape the 1915 Genocide by converting to Islam and attaining a Turkish identity.  Such stratagems allowed some to stay away from the limelight to survive, an issue that was politicized by figures such as Yusuf Halacoğlu, who concocted a new conspiracy theory regarding the same “Hidden Armenians” by presenting them as the masterminds behind the 1930’s Kurdish revolts, as well as the “architects” of the formation of the Kurdish PKK.[8]

Inasmuch as the subject of Turkey’s “Hidden Armenians” has yet to find its proper scholar who would conduct extensive research with the intent of discovering the plight of the initial survivors of the Armenian Genocide and those of their offspring,[9] Arslan Bulut offers his services under the guise of an “honest” academic endeavor.  Regrettably, his approach cheats the reader by presenting nothing more than propaganda material, which is best used for inter-party election campaigns.

Who are these “Hidden Armenians” Bulut refers to?  It turns out that his book has nothing to do with the subject matter for according to the author; the leaders of the AK Party are the Hidden Armenians, who, by compromising the secular, Kemalist state, are showing their real anti-nationalist faces.  Moreover, Bulut goes as far as to insinuate that the whole conspiracy is concocted by the “Armenian Lobby” to destroy the Turkish Republic.

Sadly, this effort gives yellow journalism a bad reputation, as little of what is reported here can withstand the scrutiny of scientific investigation.  Bulut is the author of many such books where he deals primarily with conspiracy theories.  The genre is favored in Turkey, brings its authors “fame” and monetary rewards, but which sullies scholarly reputations and denies the public honest discussions and debates.

Deceitful methodologies are not limited to yellow journalists in Turkey.  In a widely read recent book, İstanbul Ermeni Olayları ve Yahudiler [The Istanbul Armenian Events and the Jews], Adem Ölmez sets out to further instigate prejudices against Armenians.  As the book’s sub-title states, “İstanbul’da Sosyal Barışın Bozulması” [The Break-Down of Social Peace in Istanbul], it is apparent that the subject matter are the events that took place in Istanbul starting with the 1890 Kum-Kapu demonstration and ending with the 1905 assassination attempt of Sultan Abdulhamid II.

There is nothing new in the book for the informed reader. The material is nothing more than a replication from Turkish narratives regarding Armenians and the Armenian Question since the 1950’s.  However, the book’s publication, if it illustrates any trend, is that there are still Turkish “circles” that wish to propagate bigotry against Armenians by stereotyping them as dreadful, deceitful, and ungrateful people.

This linear approach aims at presenting Armenian political parties as provocateurs that altered the life of the Armenian community throughout the Ottoman Empire.  Thus, it was the Armenian revolutionaries, after the 1878 Berlin Convention, and in collusion with Western powers, which instigated their people into revolt against the government that protected them and even given them the means to prosper and to accumulate wealth and prestige in Istanbul.  It follows that Armenians, who were given the moniker “Milleti Sadika,”[10] were now transformed into a “Milleti Asiya,”[11] resembling and even mimicking their Christian counterparts in the Balkans.[12]

The only interesting chapter in this otherwise mundane book is the one devoted to the way Istanbul Jews perceived and treated this so-called Armenian transformation.  This section covers barely 15 pages (223-238) out of a total of 272 pages, and concludes that Jews saw how ungrateful Armenians were and, allegedly, aided Turks in their barbarity against Armenians every time there was an Armenian “event” in the city.[13]  With what does the author back such wild accusations?  Only a few secondary Turkish sources that stand out for being tangential, irrelevant, and finicky.[14]

If several of these recent publications are arcane, excelling in nothing more than stale sophistry and pedantic narratives, the focus on Abdulhamid and his reign gained added interest during the last decade.  Accordingly, a “phenomenon” fueled mainly by the Islamist government and its media outlets emerged, which is intriguing to say the least.  What is being done here is to present Sultan Abdulhamid as the last strong Ottoman monarch, who stood adamantly in the face of Western penetration into the internal affairs of the Empire.[15]  If this were comical enough, there is an even funnier aspect since the ruler is portrayed as a victim of a “Jewish Conspiracy” represented by the Young Turks, who were allegedly nothing more than lackeys of the same Western powers that wished to topple his regime.  Even worse, there is also a tendency in Turkish historiography to present the “Red Sultan” as an enlightened “reformer” who, if left intact on the throne, would have saved the 13 centuries old Caliphate from doom.[16]

In Abdulhamid’in Kurtlarla Dansı [Abdulhamid’s Dance With the Wolves], Mustafa Armağan, presents the wily Abdulhamid as a shrewd politician who capably maneuvered Ottoman politics so as to pit one Western power against another, thus leaving his domains intact.  Even though Abdulhamid’s reign started with the catastrophic 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish war and resulted in losses on the Western and Eastern peripheries of the Empire, the Sultan used the conflict to do away with the newly established constitutional monarchy and saw to it that no major conflagration would occur during his 33 years reign.  Nevertheless, presenting Abdulhamid as a reformer is hard to swallow, given the undeniable fact that the man was an autocrat who instituted an extremely centralized governmental apparatus, which dealt with every minutia that weakened his rule.  The famous institution of the “eyes and ears of the sultan”[17] was Abdulhamid’s brilliant instrument in this regard, a mind-boggling exercise in futility that added psychological tensions amongst a population wallowing in paranoia, and which in the end did not serve the Empire well.  Some Western scholars have argued that major powers and especially Great Britain, forced Abdulhamid to carry promised reforms in Armenian inhabited areas of the Empire that, apparently, was a cynical scheme on a Sultan to further weaken him given that his coffers were nearly empty.  Moreover, the argumentation posited, whoever was serious about reforms could not but volunteer to allocate financial resources, which could have produced positive results.[18]

One wonders, however, how can a bankrupt Sultan built splendid and magnificent governmental dwellings (Konaks) in almost all major cities of the Empire, let alone the mosques, parks, fountains, and similar urban fixtures.  If, in Armağan’s view, these are the tell-tale monuments of Abdulhamid’s “reformist” accomplishments, then one has to re-evaluate Armağan’s scholarly conclusions.  Moreover, if the whole basis of the Ottoman reform project was the establishment of a secularized form of government, how could Abdulhamid, who championed a Pan-Islamist ideology, be considered a reformist sovereign?[19]

This brings us to the crux of the issue that is being advocated in Armağan’s book.  To present Abdulhamid as a benevolent reformist head of state, one would need more than sloppy research, buttressed by solid documentary evidence.  Armağan’s argument that all the maladies of minorities (Armenians, Balkan Christians, etc…) were due to archaic European intrigues are not backed by facts.  Still, by not dealing with the issue of reforms in the Balkans and the Eastern provinces of the Empire, Armağan sabotages the very premise of his argument, namely that Abdulhamid was a munificent ruler with compassion and vision.

A word on the reforms within the Ottoman armed forces is in order here, since Armağan devotes a huge part of his book to this subject.  It seems that Abdulhamid spent a lot of money on the  army to the detriment of naval forces.  Armağan quotes several documents to water-down this perception and states that the Ottoman Empire became the second state in the world (ironically after Greece) to aqcuire a submarine.  Whatever military preparations Abdulhamid endeavored to accomplish, one thing remains clear:  Ottoman forces, which Abdulhamid so dearly supported, proved patheticly fragile in the face of Western forces  during the 1911-1912 Balkan Wars and beyond.

An entirely different product, one that will soon become a classic is Ahmed Cevdet’s Sultan Abdulham’de Arzlar (Ma’ruzat) [Exposes Presented to Sultan Abdulhamid].  Transcribed from the original Ottoman into Modern Turkish and prepared for publication by Yusuf Halacoğlu, a historian of some importance, this work must be assessed along Halacoğlu’s other publications of value.

Although one might have differences with Yusuf Halacoğlu regarding his position regarding his denial of the Armenian Genocide, in this case, one must applaud his bringing such a manuscript to light.  Halacoğlu’s extenssive knowledge of the Ottoman language gives him an advantage in such an endeavor.  Moreover, the book begs to be translated into European languages, since it is one of the most important primary sources regarding the Tanzimat period in Ottoman History.

Ahmed Cevdet is better known for his 13 volume monumental work, Tarihi Cevdet, which is considered one of the most important secondary sources on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Ironically, Cevdet’s manuscript was only lately discovered within the Ottoman State Archives Directorate in  Istanbul, [20] and should be read by Ottomanists dealing with the Reform Period.  What makes Cevdet’s work even more valuble is the fact that he was an eyewitness to many of the events he transcribed.  It is through his account that historians can now have a better understanding of the intricate state mechanisms of reformist Prime Ministers Ali and Fuad, who assumed power intermittently for several decades.  Moreover, as a pious person and an honest official, Cevdet had the courage to write about the corruption that existed during the reign of the Ali-Fuad duo, as well as their disastrous policies that rendered the Ottoman government and the Sultan’s palace bankrupt and insolvent, thus reluctantly compelling the Sublime Porte to print paper money.  This corrosive move brought about the financial ruin of the Empire and enslaved it to the whims of Western powers.  Cevdet further presents intriguing new information about the reforming leader of the Young Ottomans, Midhat, and his not so virtuous maneuvers to attain power under any circumstances.

Ahmed Cevdet, consequently, became one of the most prominent advocates of this corrosive process albeit within the shadows.  His service encompassed over 50 years of the scheme, and when Abdulhamid II asked him to write a history of the Reform Projects for the period before his reign, Cevdet wrote what in Ottoman Turkish became known as the “Ma’ruzat.”  That Abdulhamid II ordered the writing of the book illustrated, above all else, his keen interest in o the reforms themselves.  Moreover, by reading such a manuscript, the ruler became well versed in the progress achieved by his predecessors, which would serve him well as he contemplated fresh policies.

To be sure, all reforms in the Ottoman Empire were arduous to undertake as is now well understood from Ahmet Cevdet’s writings.  As a matter of fact, transformations within areas inhabited primarily by Armenians were part and parcel of the general reorganization process, which had been in the works since the 1830’s.  One such example was the work accomplished by a special Firka’I Islahiyye,[21] commanded by Cevdet in Cilicia, which worked intermittently between the years 1861-1864.  Importantly, we now know that the Cilician reforms (pages 129-205) were initiated under the leadership of Ahmet Cevdet himself, which the author describes in some detail.  During his travels in the area, Cevdet elaborates on his meeting with the Armenian Catholicos of Sis, Giragos II Achabahian (1855-1866), which took place in the summer of 1864, at the height of a serious wave of cholera.  Cevdet provides additional details on the many changes involved.  Among these were the transfers of mobile ashirets (tribes) of Turkmens, Circassians, Kurds, and even Armenians, to the Gavur Dağı (literally, Infidel Mountain, which was later renamed Jabali Bereket) as well as the Kurd Dağı (literally, Kurdish Mountain),[22] where these individuals were subjected to sedentary life in cities and hamlets.  An equally intriguing development was the incorporation of new towns like Islahiye (literally meaning Reformed Town), Kars Pazar, Zulkadiriyye and others, to further settle mobile tribes.

As Cevdet was the central figure in the reform project for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which must have been accomplished between the years 1863-1864,[23] we have further confirmation of how a Firka’i Islahiye under his command was put into action.  From reading Cevdet’s account one understands that the reformist agenda was put into action much easier here.  This is due in part to the geographic easiness of the terrain and the short distances involved, as opposed to the vast territories to be subdued in Cilicia, for example.[24]  Interestingly enough, in accomplishing his tedious efforts, Cevdet entrusted some of the tasks to a local translator of the Ottoman inspectorate, Vaso Effendi.[25]

It is noteworthy that Cevdet devotes several pages to Dawoud the Armenian, also known as Garabet Artin.  Dawoud, a Catholic Armenian, was to become the first Mutasarrif of Mt. Lebanon (1861-1864), and served as Ottoman Ambassador to Vienna from 1856 to 1857.  Cevdet reveals that Dawoud, known to Ottoman officials at the Sublime Porte by the moniker “Deli Davut” (Crazy Dawoud), abused his official capacity as Ottoman negotiator with the Austrian Hirsch Company during the 1870’s, and accepted a huge bribe in order to finalize the Rumelia railroad project with terms that were beneficial to the Austrian company.  Apparently, he then left with his family to Vienna, where he lived as a very rich man.[26]

There is a lot more in Cevdet, but one can conclude that what the author could not have realized that his reforms in Cilicia would backfire.  By relocating Kurdish and other tribal elements into the plains, ostensibly to impose upon them a sedentary way of life, Cevdet and his superiors failed to appreciate the costs of such steps.  This was especially the case as “older” villagers of the plains, both Armenian and Turkish, where forced to compete with the “newcomers” for scarce arable lands and other natural resources.

Unlike most of the Turkish fare that passes for analysis on Armenian affairs, Ramazan Erhan Güllü’s, Antep Ermenileri: Sosyal-Siyasi ve kültürel Hayatı [Ainteb Armenians: Their Socio-Political and Cultural Life], and Necla Gunay’s, Maraş’ta Ermeniler ve Zeytun İsyanları [Marash Armenians and the Zeytun Rebellions], must be perceived as genuinely braking established monolithic historiographies.  The political and military actions of Armenians notwithstanding,[27] these two volumes inaugurate a new path in Turkish historical research, which has been a long time in coming.  Still, a word of caution is in order.

The problem with Turkish historians writing about Armenian ethnography is that these efforts face a subtle hurdle in terms of the absence of primary and even secondary sources relating to the subject in Turkish.  Moreover, Ottoman archives seem to be of no use since the vast majority of all documents cover diplomatic and military issues, with few if any concentrating on providing accurate ethnographic data.  The only exceptions to these are Western scholarly studies that were researched and published in the form of travel accounts, memoirs, consular reports, and most importantly, missionary archival materials.  Here too Turkish historians face a dilemma, since many do not seem qualified to handle key Western languages, although a new generation may certainly present a different perspective in the future.  Hence, both Güllü and Gunay maximize the meager arsenal of Western and Armenian sources at their disposal, trying to present the ethnographic elements of the Armenian populations under discussion.  One can only imagine the many hurdles that must cross their respective desks, as bits of information are painstakingly assembled through various translations.  In fact, herein may well lie an opportunity for joint efforts or even academic “joint-ventures” between Armenian and Turkish historians, if the genre is to flourish.  Regardless, the two authors attempt to represent Armenian ethnographic elements and compare them to their Turkish counterparts, to identify precious similarities in the communal life of both societies.[28]

Having enumerated all of the “positive” elements above, one has to be cautious in oversimplifying the issue at hand, for there can be a tacit motive in presenting such a category of research especially within the volatile atmosphere of Armenian-Turkish relations today.[29]

In the opening pages of Türkiye’de Ermeni Kadınları ve Çocukları Meselesi: 1915-1923 [The issue of Armenian Women and Children in Turkey: 1915-1923], Ethem Atnur subscribes to the never-changing Turkish argument of:

“…As the Armenian Question entailed, the aim [of Armenians] was the establishment of an independent Armenia.  This opened the path to much catastrophic events between people who had lived side by side for centuries.  The project of the Western Powers to make a minority victorious over a majority became bankrupt with WWI and later.  However, the issue of Armenian women and children during the deportations became a matter of propaganda tool, which, until now, has not been studied in a scholarly manner.”[30]

It seems that the author is more inclined to believe that those who propagandized the issue of Armenian women and children were Armenians themselves, aided once again by mischievous Western powers and their missionary establishments, while the Turkish side did everything to preserve those devastated.  What emerges, therefore, is nothing short of a duty for the author to bring the truth forth.  And the truth, according to Ethem Atnur, is that, after much work, he single-handedly researched and brought to light a corpus of archival documentation (both Ottoman and Western) on how the government dealt “compassionately” with Armenian women and children.

Remarkably, this was done by “putting some of the children in orphanages, and placing the rest with Muslim families.  In the case of the women, and in order not to exploit them, the government encouraged them to marry voluntarily.”[31]  The author further asserts:

“…by neglecting the needs of the Turkish refugees and orphans [from the Balkans], the Ottoman Directorate of Refugees devoted all its efforts and spent its meager budget on the placement of Armenian children.  While the Ottoman Government spent 1,150,000 Liras on Armenian children and women, the Americans spent 20,000,000 dollars.  Therefore, why would the side that permitted the opening of orphanages, commit genocide?”[32]

Besides the caricature of these tangential assertions, how did the Ottoman Government disburse these allocated sums, which Ethem Atnur claims were spend?  It turns out that the government paid a sum to each Muslim family that sheltered an Armenian orphan, or arranged for the marriage of an Armenian woman, but this is the extent of Turkish altruism in this matter.  One must still speculate about what percentage of the sum spent by the Ottoman government did go to “projects” like those orphanages operated by individuals like Halide Edib, with the total support of Cemal pasha, where the institutions under question where geared toward the Turkification of Armenian children.  A momentous example of this was her orphanage in Aintura,[33] in Mt. Lebanon, where a mass grave of Armenian orphans was lately discovered by Maurice Missak Keleshian.  Suffice it to say that nearly a century after the Armenian Holocaust, a special memorial requiem was held on 22 September 2010 at the site and a Khatchkar as well as a special bronze state placed in memory of the orphans buried there.[34]

It is only now that descendants of those “rescued” Armenian orphans and women are becoming aware of their true identities.  Such are the accounts of Fethiye Çetin (“Anneannem),” [My (Maternal) Grandmother] and İrfan Palali (“Tehcir Cocuklari: Nenem Bir Ermeniymis,” [Children of Deportations:  My Grandmother Was an Armenian]).  If forcing someone to forget his identity is not tantamount to obliterating him, one wonders what might be worth saving the physical existence of such a person for?  Remarkably, these recent Turkish publications illustrate how far the road may be for Turkish historiography, even if progress is also noticeable.  Many are mired in perpetual denial though a few seem to have matured enough to tackle taboo subjects.

Consequently, while the Turkish historiography machine is churning books related to Armenian issues en masse every year, as several of the titles reviewed here attest to, it behooves Armenologists to examine and digest them carefully for what they truly are.  While scholars are amply aware that a substantial chunk of these products tend to be propaganda materials, which pompously display the Turkish point of view vis-à-vis the Armenian Question, these ought to be identified as such and brought to the purview of worldwide academic attention.  Simultaneously, it behooves us to acknowledge those that break new ground, given the possibilities to engage in mutually beneficial research efforts.  Although language barriers exist on both sides, these should not prevent joint activities, especially as the need for a new generation of Armenian scholars well versed in Modern and, eventually, in Ottoman Turkish ought to be a top priority.  Simply stated, we have to read and study what is being written about us, our history and, presumably, our long-term relationships throughout the Caucasus region, if we are to make sound decisions.


[1] See also: Marc David Baer, The Dönme:  Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks, Stanford University Press, 2009.  Further details on the Dönme may be accessed at:  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=531&letter=S

[2] The Armenian Weekly:  http://www.armenianweekly.com/2009/12/07/a-recent-anti-semitic-theme-the-sabbatean-role-in-the-armenian-genocide/. It must be noted, however, that the Armenian side does not take this “allegation” seriously.  Khachik Mouradian, the editor of the Armenian Weekly has written: “…While no professional historian of the Armenian genocide has taken this conspiracy theory seriously, there has unfortunately been no separate academic analysis as well to expose its origins and the reasons of its persistence, making it possible for this theory to survive on the margins of Armenian life.”
[4] The account of the meeting was first published in the autobiography of the Zionist activist, Itamar Ben-Avi.
[5] In fact, the chapter About Ataturk’s Jewish/Dönme origins cover pages 223-248 of the book.  There are many other pages devoted to the subject in other parts of the book as well.
[6] Rifat Bali, Present-Day Anti-Semitism in Turkey, Institute for Global Jewish Affairs, cited from: http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=610&FID=624&PID=0&IID=1500,
[8] Halacoğlu is the former president of the “Turk Tarih Kurumu” (Turkish Historical Society). He was the one who announced that he possessed full lists of Hidden Armenians who instigated the revolts in Tunceli (Dersim) in the 1930’s. Halacoğlu’s intent was to discredit the benign Hrant Dink approach and to present these “Hidden Armenians” as agent provocateurs and an extension of Diaspora Armenian political organizations, which, led by certain Western circles, were instruments in yet another conspiracy to weaken Turkey.
[9] It must be underlined that during the last decade there has been a great awareness regarding the plight of Hidden Armenians in Turkey. Aside from numerous published memoirs by Turks who had found that they were the offspring of Islamized Armenians, there have been a growing number of Turkish scholars, both within and outside Turkey, who have written about the subject.  For an in depth discussion of Armenians within the Republic of Turkey,See also:  Garen Hranti Khanlarian, Hay Pnagchutyan Etnogronagan Veragerbu,nere Turkyayi hanrabedutyunum, 1923-2005 [The Ethno-Religious transformation of  Armenians in the Republic of Turkey], Khatchig Babikian Literary Fund, No. 1, Antelias, Lebanon, 2009.
[10] The Loyal Community.
[11] The Insurgent Community.
[12] Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, etc…
[13] Page 238. According to the author, the news that Jews have even killed Armenians is quoted from Alkan Necmettin’s book about the Ottoman bank event, which the latter had supposedly quoted from the Frankfurter Zeitung.
[14] Aside from about 30 archival documents from the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA, Ottoman Archives Directorate) the whole book is based on secondary sources, consisting mostly of Turkish books. The author even mentions Armen Garo’s “Bank Ottoman: Armen Garo’s Memoires” Operation book (Osmanlı Bankası: Armen Garonun Anıları [The Ottoman bank: Memoirs of Armen Karo]), which, fortunately for the author, was lately translated into Turkish.
[15] This can be considered as the most important statement that Armağan tirelessly repeats over and over in his book.
[16] Notice the inclination toward the reinvigoration the Caliphate as a penchant to  “reach out” to the Arab masses of the defunct Ottoman Empire. This tendency is an important policy of the ruling AK Party.
[17] This comprised a system consisting of thousands of Abdulhamid’s spies, scattered all over the empire, who regularly sent intelligence reports to him. Abdulhamid used people from all ethnic elements as spies within their communities.
[18] See, for example, Yasamee, F[eroze]. A. K., Ottoman Diplomacy:  Abdulhamid II and the Great Powers, 1878–1888, Istanbul, ISIS Publishing, 1996. Feroze Yasemee is an ardent supporter of the idea that no reforms, that Balkan Christians and Armenians aspired towards, could be accomplished, since the Ottoman government had no monetary means to accomplish them.
[19] Countering the Pan-Slavic movement in the Balkans and Armenian agitation in Eastern Anatolia, Abdulhamid realized that the Ottomanist ideology imbued in the reformist agenda of his predecessors was insufficient to hold the empire intact.  He thus adhered to the tenets of Pan-Islamism as an alternative ideology.  However, in so doing, he further alienated Christian minorities.  This could also explain his unwavering attitude toward squashing any rebellious acts by Macedonians and Armenians alike. 
[20] Interestingly, this manuscript was hidden within the archives of the Istanbul municipality.  It was later brought to the BOA.
[21] Literally meaning the Reform Expedition.
[22] Both mountain ranges are known in Armenian and Turkish historiographies as the Amanos Mountain, although the Gavur Dağı and Kurd Dağı appellations are also used until today.
[23] This means that the reform projects in both Cilicia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were being conducted intermittently.
[24] This also indicates why the system of Firka’I Islahiyye could not have been utilized in the Eastern Provinces of the Empire—the ones inhabited by Armenians.
[25] Vaso, better known as Wasa (sometimes referred to as Vasa), was later to be appointed as the 4th Mutassarif of Mt. Lebanon.  Cevdet states that at the time he was writing his Ma’ruzat, Wasa was still the Mutassarif of Mt. Lebanon.  This creates an interesting question regarding as to when the Ma’ruzat were written.  If the general assumption is that Abdulhamid asked Cevdet to write the narrative as soon as he ascended the throne, the date would be as early as 1876.  However, since Wasa was Mutasarrif of Lebanon from 1883 to1892, this means that the earliest Cevdet could have written his Ma’ruzat would be in 1883.
[26] Cevdet writes as follows: “…after he settled in Vienna as a rich man, Davut sent us word telling us:  “you called me ‘crazy Davut’.  Who is the crazy among us now?”
[27] This review does not deal with the sections of the two volumes devoted to the Armenian Revolutionary Movement within the Ottoman Empire, since the authors bring nothing new in that regard, except the verbatim repetition of conclusions by Turkish historiography since the 1950’s.
[28] These include: marriages, funerals, cuisine, artisans, daily customs, cultural elements, etc. This reviewer personally knows Necla Gunay, whose family hails from Marash, the same ancestral city as that of the reviewer. Both of us had, on different occasions, been able to speak together about our people’s customs and traditions and were amazed at the similarities, especially since Marash Armenians still keep intact some of their traditions in Diaspora communities, as opposed to Turks in Kahraman Marash itself, who had lost most of that through a concerted effort of decades of imposed secularization.
[29] This is so, since the genre is new and it could be misused for other aims. One such possibility is that by presenting Armenians as a loyal element that had coexisted with their Turkish counterparts for centuries; the whole debacle could be manipulated to serve the aims of one side (Turkey) against the other (Armenian).  What is needed in such studies is to make them as benign, unbiased, and sympathetic as possible and to really advocate the mutuality of coexistence, rather than politicizing the endeavor for implicit motives.
[30] Does this imply that the author will now, for the first time, deal with the issue in a scholarly manner?  This is the “million dollar question,” whose answer will either validate or debunk the author.
[31] The quotation is from an interview with the author on the “Ermeni Mezalimi” (Armenian Cruelty) Webpage at: http://ermenimezalimi.atauniv.com/kitaplar/turkiyede-ermeni-kadinlari-ve-cocuklari-meselesi.html.
[32] Ibid.
[33] The orphanage now houses the St. Joseph Aintoura French College, whose director, Abbot Antoine Nakad, whose assistance was instrumental in establishing the shrine that housed the mass-grave (see photo).
[34] See the article about the requiem ceremony at: http://www.azad-hye.net/news/viewnews.asp?newsId=876adah95
Posted by at

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)