The Real Number of Victims of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. The Armenian Genocide: Chronology and Memoirs of Eyewitnesses . According to history, the Turkish people deny the genocide, saying: "Armenians were an enemy force... and their slaughter was a necessary military measure"

In 1915-16, 1.5 million Armenian civilians living in their historical homeland became victims of genocide. The Armenian Genocide is an unprecedented monstrous atrocity in the world history of mankind, which was organized and carried out with critical cruelty by the Turks.

The Day of Remembrance of the Innocent Victims is April 24th. It was on this day in 1915, in Constantinople (Istanbul), that the main part of the intelligentsia of the Armenian population was taken out of their homes and brutally massacred in the streets of the city. The dead included well-known writers, composers, scientists, businessmen and other members of the high society - individuals most likely to rally the Armenians and organize resistance.

By 1915, the most intensive period of the process of extermination of the Armenian population belongs, which gained momentum after April 24th. In general, the Armenian genocide refers to the period from 1894-1916, during which 2.5 million Armenians were killed.

Causes: Ever since the time of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the Turkish government had a plan to seize the territory from Asia Minor to Siberia. Despite the revolutions, this plan was inherited from one government to another and exists to this day. The cherished dream of the Turks turned out to be impossible without the complete annihilation of the Armenian people, which was the reason for the genocide.

Despite the absolute victory over the Turks in the First World War, in which Armenian soldiers and generals played a large role, tsarist Russia suddenly withdraws its troops from the region. Taking with it all weapons, ammunition, military equipment and the bulk of the army, Russia leaves the front, leaving the small and unorganized Armenian population alone with the brutal Turkish army. Having reached their finest hour, the Turks begin their business ...

Process: The Turks had enough fantasies for cruel methods of painful death. Women who did not have time to commit suicide were raped in front of their children. In the squares, the soldiers stood close with their sabers stretched upwards, and from the stands they threw babies onto these sabers. Turkish children enjoyed the pleasant sound of the crackling of the head skull, which their fathers brought to them in bags. Only those who managed to escape from their native village and home managed to escape.

During the genocide, there was absolutely no attempt on the part of the developed countries to prevent the catastrophe. Defensive battles were organized in Armenian cities, which, however, were doomed to failure in advance. Each of the defensive battles was a special heroic deed. Both women, and children, and the elderly, and the disabled took part in the battles. The organized Turkish army was opposed by a crowd armed with pitchforks, axes and everything that came to hand. The distraught poor fellows did not throw this parody of a weapon from their hands to the last drop of blood.

The complete annihilation of the Armenians in the region was prevented in 1918 on May 26 by the heroic battle of Sardarapat (not far from Yerevan). From all areas of the country, people converged on the destination of the battle. Regardless of the type of activity and social status, starting from writers, cultural figures, ending with merchants and vagabonds, the Armenians stood in a military formation to meet a cruel and powerful enemy. Despite the sharp lack of numbers and weapons, the defenders won a "victory over evil" and saved themselves and their descendants from non-existence...

Result: As a result of the genocide, the main part of the Armenian population of the world suffered. Most of the Armenians living in Western Armenia (on the territory of the Ottoman Empire) were killed, the smaller part scattered around the world. Most of the population of present-day Armenia are immigrants from Western Armenia. Today there is not a single Armenian who did not have an ancestor who suffered from the genocide.

Dönme - a crypto-Jewish sect brought Atatürk to power

One of the most destructive factors that largely determines the political situation in the Middle East and Transcaucasia for 100 years is the genocide of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, during which, according to various sources, from 664 thousand to 1.5 million people were killed. And given that the genocide of the Pontic Greeks, which began in Izmir, was almost simultaneously taking place, during which from 350 thousand to 1.2 million people were destroyed, and the Assyrians, in which the Kurds took part, which claimed from 275 to 750 thousand people, this factor is already For more than 100 years, it has kept the whole region in suspense, constantly fueling enmity between the peoples inhabiting it. Moreover, as soon as even a slight rapprochement between neighbors is planned, giving hope for their reconciliation and further peaceful coexistence, an external factor, a third party, immediately intervenes in the situation, and a bloody event occurs that further warms up mutual hatred.

“In the history of Turkey there was no “genocide” against Armenians” Erdogan said.

No one will dare to suspect the inadequacy of the Turkish president. Erdogan, the leader of a great Islamic country, heir to one of the greatest empires, by definition cannot be like, say, the president of Ukraine. And the president of any country will not dare to go for a frank and open lie. So really, Erdogan knows something that is unknown to most people in other countries, or is carefully hidden from the world community. And such a factor really exists. It does not concern the genocide event itself, it concerns the one who produced this inhuman cruelty and is really responsible for it.

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In February 2018, on the portal of the Turkish "electronic government" (www.turkiye.gov.tr ) an online service was launched where any citizen of Turkey could trace their genealogy, learn about their ancestors in a few clicks. The records available were limited to the early 19th century, during the Ottoman Empire. The service almost instantly became so popular that it soon collapsed due to millions of requests. The results obtained shocked a huge number of Turks. It turns out that many people who considered themselves Turks, in reality, have ancestors of Armenian, Jewish, Greek, Bulgarian, and even Macedonian and Romanian origin. This fact, by default, only confirmed what everyone in Turkey knows, but no one likes to mention, especially in front of foreigners. Speaking aloud about this in Turkey is considered bad form, but it is this factor that now determines the entire domestic and foreign policy, Erdogan's entire struggle for power within the country.

The Ottoman Empire, by the standards of its time, pursued a relatively tolerant policy towards national and religious minorities, preferring, again, by the standards of that time, non-violent methods of assimilation. To some extent, she repeated the methods of the Byzantine Empire she defeated. The Armenians traditionally led the financial area of ​​the empire. Most of the bankers in Constantinople were Armenians. Very many finance ministers were Armenians, just remember the brilliant Hakob Kazazyan Pasha, who was considered the best finance minister in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Of course, throughout history there have been inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts that have even led to the shedding of blood. But nothing like the genocides of the Christian population in the 20th century happened in the Empire. And suddenly a tragedy happens. Any sane person will understand that out of the blue this does not happen. So why and who carried out these bloody genocides? The answer to this question lies in the history of the Ottoman Empire itself.

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As I wrote in the article"Island of the Antichrist: a springboard for Armageddon" , Dönme, or Sabbatians are followers and students of the Jewish rabbi Shabbtai Zvi, who in 1665 was proclaimed the Jewish messiah and brought the biggest split in Judaism in almost 2 millennia of its official existence. Avoiding execution by the Sultan, together with his numerous followers, Shabbtai Zvi converted to Islam in 1666. Despite this, many Sabbatians are still members of three religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The Turkish dönme were originally founded in Greek Thessaloniki by Jacob Kerido and his son Berahio (Baruch) Russo (Osman Baba). Subsequently, the dönme spread throughout Turkey, where they were called, depending on the direction in Sabbatianism, izmirlars, karakashlars (black-browed) and kapanjilars (owners of scales). The main place of concentration of the dönme in the Asian part of the Empire was the city of Izmir. The Young Turk movement was largely made up of Dönmeh. Kemal Atatürk, the first President of Turkey, was a Dönmeh and a member of the Veritas Masonic Lodge, a division of the Grand Orient de France lodge.

Throughout their history, the Dönme have repeatedly turned to rabbis, representatives of traditional Judaism, with requests to recognize them as Jews, like the Karaites who deny the Talmud (oral Torah). However, they always received a refusal, which in most cases was of a political nature, not a religious one. Kemalist Turkey has always been an ally of Israel, which was not politically advantageous to admit that this state is actually run by Jews. For the same reasons, Israel categorically refused and still refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emanuel Nahshon recently said Israel's official position has not changed.

“We are very sensitive and responsive to the terrible tragedy of the Armenian people during the First World War. The historical debate about how to regard this tragedy is one thing, but the recognition that something terrible happened to the Armenian people is quite another, and this is much more important.”

Initially, in the Greek Thessaloniki, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time, the Dönme community consisted of 200 families. In secret, they practiced their own form of Judaism based on the "18 Commandments" supposedly left by Shabbtai Zevi, along with a ban on intermarriages with true Muslims. The Dönme never integrated into Muslim society and continued to believe that Shabbtai Zvi would one day return and lead them to redemption.

According to very low estimates of the dönme themselves, now in Turkey their number is 15-20 thousand people. Alternative sources speak of millions of dönme in Turkey. The entire officer and general staff of the Turkish army, bankers, financiers, judges, journalists, policemen, lawyers, lawyers, preachers throughout the 20th century were dönme. But this phenomenon began in 1891 with the creation of the political organization of the Donme - the Committee "Unity and Progress", later called the "Young Turks", responsible for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the genocide of the Christian peoples of Turkey.

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The notorious "evil genius of the Russian revolution" Alexander Parvus was the financial adviser to the Young Turks, and the first Bolshevik government of Russia allocated Ataturk 10 million rubles in gold, 45 thousand rifles and 300 machine guns with ammunition. One of the main, sacred, causes of the Armenian genocide was the fact that the Jews considered Armenians to be Amalekites, descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau. Esau himself was the elder twin brother of the founder of Israel, Jacob, who, taking advantage of the blindness of their father, Isaac, stole the birthright from his older brother. Throughout history, the Amalekites were the main enemies of Israel, with whom David fought during the reign of Saul, who was killed by the Amalekite.

The head of the Young Turks was Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who was a donme and a direct descendant of the Jewish messiah Shabbtai Zvi. The Jewish writer and rabbi Joachim Prinz confirms this fact in his book The secret Jews on page 122:

“The Young Turk uprising in 1908 against the authoritarian regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid began among the intelligentsia of Thessaloniki. It was there that the need for a constitutional regime arose. Among the leaders of the revolution that led to a more modern government in Turkey were Javid Bey and Mustafa Kemal. Both were ardent dönmeh. Javid Bey became finance minister, Mustafa Kemal became the leader of the new regime and took the name Atatürk. His opponents tried to use his dönme affiliation to discredit him, but without success. Too many of the Young Turks in the newly formed revolutionary cabinet prayed to Allah, but their real prophet was Shabbtai Zvi, the Messiah of Smyrna (Izmir - author's note)."

October 14, 1922TheThe Literary Digest published an article titled "The Sort of Mustafa Kemal is" which stated:

A Spanish Jew by birth, an orthodox Muslim by birth, trained at a German military college, a patriot who has studied the campaigns of the world's great generals, including Napoleon, Grant, and Lee—these are said to be just a few of the outstanding personality traits of the new Man on Horseback, who appeared in the Middle East. He is a real dictator, reporters testify, a man of the type who immediately becomes the hope and fear of peoples torn to pieces by unsuccessful wars. Unity and power returned to Turkey largely due to the will of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Apparently no one has yet called him the "Napoleon of the Middle East", but probably some enterprising journalist will sooner or later; for Kemal's path to power, his methods are autocratic and elaborate, even his military tactics are said to be reminiscent of Napoleon."

In an article entitled "When Kemal Ataturk Recited Shema Yisrael", Jewish author Hillel Halkin quoted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk:

“I am a descendant of Shabbtai Zvi - no longer a Jew, but an ardent admirer of this prophet. I think every Jew in this country would do well to join his camp."

Gershom Scholem wrote in his book "Kabbalah" on pp. 330-331:

“Their liturgies were written in a very small format so that they could be easily hidden. All sects so successfully concealed their internal affairs from Jews and Turks that for a long time knowledge about them was based only on rumors and reports from outsiders. The Dönme manuscripts revealing the details of their Sabbatian ideas were only presented and examined after several Dönme families decided to fully assimilate into Turkish society and handed over their documents to Jewish friends in Thessaloniki and Izmir. As long as the Dönme were concentrated in Thessaloniki, the institutional framework of the sects remained intact, although a few members of the Dönme were active in the Young Turk movement that arose in that city. The first administration that came to power after the Young Turk revolution in 1909 included three Dönme ministers, including Finance Minister Javid Bek, who was a descendant of the Baruch Russo family and was one of the leaders of his sect. One of the claims commonly made by many of the Jews of Thessaloniki (denied, however, by the Turkish government), was that Kemal Atatürk was of Dönmeh origin. This view was eagerly supported by many of Atatürk's religious opponents in Anatolia."

Inspector General of the Turkish Army in Armenia and military governor of the Egyptian Sinai during World War I, Rafael de Nogales, wrote in his Four Years Beneath the Crescent on pages 26-27 that the chief architect of the Armenian Genocide, Osman Talaat (Talaat), was dönme:

“He was a renegade Hebrew (Dönme) from Thessaloniki, Talaat, the main organizer of massacres and deportations, who, fishing in troubled waters, succeeded in a career from a postal clerk humble rank to Grand Vizier of the Empire."

In one of Marcel Tinaire's articles in L "Illustration in December 1923, which was translated into English and published as "Saloniki", it is written:

“Today's Free Masonry-affiliated dönmeh, educated in Western universities, often professing total atheism, have become the leaders of the Young Turk revolution. Talaat Bek, Javid Bek and many other members of the Unity and Progress Committee were donme from Thessaloniki.

The London Times on July 11, 1911, in the article "The Jews and the situation in Albania" wrote:

“It is generally known that under Masonic patronage, the Thessaloniki Committee was formed with the help of the Jews and Dönmeh or Crypto-Jews of Turkey, whose headquarters are in Thessaloniki, and whose organization, even under Sultan Abdul Hamid, took on a Masonic form. Jews such as Emmanuel Carasso, Salem, Sassoun, Farji, Meslach and Dönme, or crypto-Jews such as Javid Bek and the Balji family, took an influential part both in the organization of the Committee and in the work of its central body in Thessaloniki. These facts, which are known to every government in Europe, are also known throughout Turkey and the Balkans, where there is an increasing trend to hold the Jews and the Dönme responsible for the bloody blunders committed by the Committee».

On August 9, 1911, the same newspaper published a letter to its editors in Constantinople, in which there were comments on the situation from the chief rabbis. In particular, it was written:

“I will simply note that, according to the information that I have received from genuine Freemasons, most of the lodges founded under the auspices of the Grand Orient of Turkey since the Revolution were from the very beginning the face of the Unity and Progress Committee, and they were not then recognized by British Freemasons. . The first "Supreme Council" of Turkey, appointed in 1909, contained three Jews - Caronry, Cohen and Fari, and three Dönme - Djavidaso, Kibarasso and Osman Talaat (the main leader and organizer of the Armenian genocide - author's note)."

To be continued…

Alexander Nikishin for

In the history of the genocide, some historians distinguish two periods. If at the first stage (1878-1914) the task was to hold the territory of the enslaved people and organize a mass exodus, then in 1915-1922 the destruction of the ethnic and political Armenian clan, which prevented the implementation of the pan-Turkism program, was put at the forefront. Before the First World War, the destruction of the Armenian national group was carried out in the form of a system of widespread single killings, combined with periodic massacres of Armenians in certain areas where they constituted an absolute majority (the massacre in Sasun, murders throughout the empire in the autumn and winter of 1895, the massacre in Istanbul in Van area).

The original number of the people who lived in this territory is a moot point, since a significant part of the archives was destroyed. It is known that in the middle of the XIX century in the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslims made up about 56% of the population.

According to the Armenian Patriarchate, in 1878, three million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. In 1914, the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey estimated the number of Armenians in the country at 1,845,450. The Armenian population decreased by more than a million due to the massacre in 1894-1896, the flight of Armenians from Turkey and forced conversion to Islam.

The Young Turks, who came to power after the revolution of 1908, continued the policy of brutally suppressing the national liberation movement. In ideology, the old doctrine of Ottomanism was replaced by no less rigid concepts of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism. A campaign of forcible Turkification of the population was launched, and non-Turkish organizations were banned.

In April 1909, the Cilician massacre took place, the massacre of the Armenians of the vilayets of Adana and Allepo. The victims of the massacre were about 30 thousand people, among whom were not only Armenians, but also Greeks, Syrians and Chaldeans. In general, during these years, the Young Turks paved the way for a complete solution of the "Armenian issue".

In February 1915, at a special meeting of the government, the Young Turk ideologist Dr. Nazim Bey outlined a plan for the complete and widespread annihilation of the Armenian people: “It is necessary to completely exterminate the Armenian nation, leaving not a single living Armenian on our land. memory..."

On April 24, 1915, the day now celebrated as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide, mass arrests of the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and political elite began in Constantinople, which led to the complete destruction of a whole galaxy of prominent figures of Armenian culture. More than 800 representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently killed, including writers Grigor Zohrab, Daniel Varuzhan, Siamanto, Ruben Sevak. Unable to bear the death of his friends, the great composer Komitas lost his mind.

In May-June 1915, a massacre and deportation of Armenians began in Western Armenia.

The general and systematic campaign against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire consisted in the expulsion of Armenians into the desert and subsequent executions, death by bands of marauders or from hunger or thirst. Deportations were subjected to Armenians from almost all the main centers of the empire.

On June 21, 1915, during the final act of the deportation, its main mastermind, Minister of the Interior Talaat Pasha, ordered the deportation of "all Armenians without exception" living in ten provinces of the eastern region of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of those who were deemed useful to the state. Under this new directive, the deportation was carried out on the "ten percent principle", according to which Armenians should not exceed 10% of the Muslims in the region.

The process of expulsion and extermination of the Turkish Armenians culminated in a series of military campaigns in 1920 against the refugees who had returned to Cilicia and during the massacre in Smyrna (modern Izmir) in September 1922, when troops under the command of Mustafa Kemal slaughtered the Armenian quarter in Smyrna, and then, under pressure from the Western powers, the survivors were allowed to evacuate. With the destruction of the Armenians of Smyrna, the last surviving compact community, the Armenian population of Turkey practically ceased to exist in their historical homeland. The surviving refugees scattered around the world, forming diasporas in several dozen countries.

Modern estimates of the number of victims of the genocide vary from 200,000 (some Turkish sources) to more than 2 million Armenians. Most historians estimate the number of victims between 1 and 1.5 million people. Over 800 thousand became refugees.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of victims and survivors, since since 1915, fleeing murders and pogroms, many Armenian families have changed their religion (according to some sources - from 250 thousand to 300 thousand people).

For many years, Armenians around the world have been striving for the international community to officially and unconditionally recognize the fact of the genocide. The first special decree recognizing and condemning the terrible tragedy of 1915 was adopted by the Parliament of Uruguay (April 20, 1965). Laws, resolutions and decisions on the Armenian Genocide were subsequently adopted by the European Parliament, the State Duma of Russia, the parliaments of other countries, in particular Cyprus, Argentina, Canada, Greece, Lebanon, Belgium, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Venezuela, Lithuania, Chile, Bolivia, and the Vatican.

The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by over 40 US states, the Australian state of New South Wales, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario (including the city of Toronto), the Swiss cantons of Geneva and Vaud, Wales (Great Britain), about 40 Italian communes, dozens of international and national organizations, including including the World Council of Churches, the Human Rights League, the Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Foundation, the Union of Jewish Communities of America.

On April 14, 1995, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a statement "On the condemnation of the genocide of the Armenian people in 1915-1922."

The US government massacred 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, but refuses to call it a genocide.

The Armenian community of the United States has long adopted a resolution recognizing the fact of the genocide of the Armenian people by Congress.

Attempts to carry out this legislative initiative have been made in Congress more than once, but they have not been crowned with success.

The issue of recognition of the genocide in the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey.

Armenia and Turkey have not yet established diplomatic relations, and the Armenian-Turkish border has been closed since 1993 at the initiative of official Ankara.

Turkey traditionally rejects accusations of the Armenian genocide, arguing that the victims of the 1915 tragedy were both Armenians and Turks, and reacts extremely painfully to the process of international recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1965, a monument to the victims of the genocide was erected on the territory of the Catholicosate in Etchmiadzin. In 1967, the construction of a memorial complex was completed in Yerevan on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd (Swallow Fortress). In 1995, the Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide was built near the memorial complex.

The motto of Armenians around the world for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide is the words "I remember and I demand", and the symbol is a forget-me-not. This flower in all languages ​​has a symbolic meaning - to remember, not to forget and remind. The memorial in Tsitserkaberd with its 12 pylons is graphically depicted in the cup of the flower. This symbol will be actively used throughout 2015.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Genocide(from the Greek genos - clan, tribe and lat. caedo - I kill), an international crime expressed in actions committed with the aim of destroying, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Actions qualified by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as acts of Genocide have been committed repeatedly in the history of mankind since ancient times, especially during wars of extermination and devastating invasions and campaigns of conquerors, internal ethnic and religious clashes, during the period of partition peace and the formation of colonial empires of European powers, in the process of a fierce struggle for the redivision of the divided world, which led to two world wars and in the colonial wars after the Second World War of 1939 - 1945.

However, the term "genocide" was first introduced into use in the early 30s. XX century by a Polish lawyer, a Jew by origin Rafael Lemkin, and after the Second World War received international legal status as a concept that defines the gravest crime against humanity. R. Lemkin under the Genocide meant the massacre of Armenians in Turkey during the First World War (1914 - 1918), and then the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany in the period preceding the Second World War, and in the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis during the war years.

The destruction of more than 1.5 million Armenians during 1915-1923 is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. in Western Armenia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, organized and systematically carried out by the Young Turk rulers.

The Armenian Genocide should also include the massacres of the Armenian population in Eastern Armenia and in Transcaucasia as a whole, committed by the Turks, who invaded Transcaucasia in 1918, and by the Kemalists during the aggression against the Armenian Republic in September-December 1920, as well as the pogroms of Armenians organized by the Musavatists. in Baku and Shushi in 1918 and 1920 respectively. Taking into account those who perished as a result of periodic pogroms of Armenians perpetrated by the Turkish authorities, since the end of the 19th century, the number of victims of the Armenian Genocide exceeds 2 million.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 - 1916 - the mass destruction and deportation of the Armenian population of Western Armenia, Cilicia and other provinces of the Ottoman Empire, carried out by the ruling circles of Turkey during the First World War (1914 - 1918). The policy of genocide against Armenians was conditioned by a number of factors.

Leading among them was the ideology of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism, which since the middle of the XIX century. professed by the ruling circles of the Ottoman Empire. The militant ideology of pan-Islamism was distinguished by intolerance towards non-Muslims, preached outright chauvinism, and called for the Turkification of all non-Turkish peoples. Entering the war, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire made far-reaching plans for the creation of the "Big Turan". These plans implied the accession to the empire of the Transcaucasus, the North Caucasus, the Crimea, the Volga region, and Central Asia.

On the way to this goal, the aggressors had to put an end, first of all, to the Armenian people, who opposed the aggressive plans of the Pan-Turkists. The Young Turks began to develop plans for the extermination of the Armenian population even before the start of the World War. The decisions of the congress of the "Unity and Progress" party, held in October 1911 in Thessaloniki, contained a demand for the Turkification of the non-Turkish peoples of the empire.

At the beginning of 1914, a special order was sent to the local authorities regarding the measures to be taken against the Armenians. The fact that the order was sent before the start of the war irrefutably testifies that the extermination of the Armenians was a planned action, not at all due to a specific military situation. The leadership of the "Unity and Progress" party has repeatedly discussed the issue of mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population.

In October 1914, at a meeting chaired by Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat, a special body was formed - the Executive Committee of the Three, which was entrusted with organizing the extermination of the Armenian population; it included the leaders of the Young Turks Nazim, Behaetdin Shakir and Shukri. Plotting a monstrous crime, the leaders of the Young Turks took into account that the war provided an opportunity for its implementation. Nazim bluntly stated that such an opportunity may no longer be, "the intervention of the great powers and the protest of the newspapers will have no consequences, because they will face a fait accompli, and thus the issue will be resolved ... Our actions must be directed to annihilate the Armenians so that not a single one of them remains alive."

Undertaking the destruction of the Armenian population, the Turkish ruling circles intended to achieve several goals:

• liquidation of the Armenian Question, which would put an end to the intervention of the European powers;
• the Turks were getting rid of economic competition, all the property of the Armenian people would have passed into their hands;
• the elimination of the Armenian people will help pave the way to the capture of the Caucasus, to the achievement of the great ideal of Turanism.

The executive committee of the three received wide powers, weapons, money. The authorities organized “Teshkilati and Makhsuse” special detachments, which consisted mainly of criminals released from prisons and other criminal elements, who were supposed to take part in the mass extermination of Armenians.

From the very first days of the war, a frenzied anti-Armenian propaganda unfolded in Turkey. The Turkish people were inspired that the Armenians did not want to serve in the Turkish army, that they were ready to cooperate with the enemy. There were rumors about the mass desertion of Armenians from the Turkish army, about Armenian uprisings that threatened the rear of the Turkish troops, etc. Anti-Armenian propaganda especially intensified after the first serious defeats of the Turkish troops on the Caucasian front. In February 1915, Minister of War Enver ordered the extermination of Armenians serving in the Turkish army (at the beginning of the war, about 60 thousand Armenians aged 18-45 were drafted into the Turkish army, i.e. the most combat-ready part of the male population). This order was carried out with unparalleled cruelty.

On the night of April 24, 1915, representatives of the police department of Constantinople broke into the homes of the most prominent Armenians in the capital and arrested them. Over the next few days, eight hundred people - writers, poets, journalists, politicians, doctors, lawyers, lawyers, scientists, teachers, priests, teachers, artists - were sent to the central prison.

Two months later, on June 15, 1915, 20 intellectuals - Armenians - members of the Hnchak party, were executed on one of the squares of the capital, who were trumped-up charges of organizing terror against the authorities and striving to create an autonomous Armenia.

The same thing happened in all vilayets (regions): within a few days, thousands of people were arrested, including all famous cultural figures, politicians, people of mental labor. The deportation to the desert regions of the Empire was planned in advance. And this was a deliberate deception: as soon as people moved away from their native places, they were ruthlessly killed by those who were supposed to accompany them and ensure their safety. The Armenians who worked in government bodies were fired one by one; all military doctors were thrown into prisons.
The great powers were completely involved in the global confrontation, and they put their geopolitical interests above the fate of two million Armenians...

From May - June 1915, mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population of Western Armenia (vilayets of Van, Erzrum, Bitlis, Kharberd, Sebastia, Diyarbekir), Cilicia, Western Anatolia and other areas began. The ongoing deportation of the Armenian population in fact pursued the goal of its destruction. US Ambassador to Turkey G. Morgenthau noted: "The true purpose of the deportation was robbery and destruction; this is indeed a new method of massacre. When the Turkish authorities ordered these deportations, they actually pronounced the death sentence of an entire nation."

The real purpose of the deportation was also known to Germany, an ally of Turkey. In June 1915, the German ambassador to Turkey, Wangenheim, informed his government that if at first the expulsion of the Armenian population was limited to the provinces close to the Caucasian front, now the Turkish authorities extended these actions to those parts of the country that were not under the threat of enemy invasion. These actions, the ambassador concluded, the way in which the deportation is carried out, testify to the fact that the Turkish government has as its goal the destruction of the Armenian nation in the Turkish state. The same assessment of the deportation was contained in the reports of the German consuls from the vilayets of Turkey. In July 1915, the German vice-consul in Samsun reported that the deportation carried out in the vilayets of Anatolia was aimed at either destroying or converting the entire Armenian people to Islam. The German consul in Trebizond at the same time reported on the deportation of Armenians in this vilayet and noted that the Young Turks intended to put an end to the Armenian question in this way.

The Armenians who left their places of permanent residence were reduced to caravans that went deep into the empire, to Mesopotamia and Syria, where special camps were created for them. Armenians were exterminated both in their places of residence and on their way to exile; their caravans were attacked by Turkish rabble, Kurdish robber bands, hungry for prey. As a result, a small part of the deported Armenians reached their destinations. But even those who reached the deserts of Mesopotamia were not safe; there are cases when deported Armenians were taken out of the camps and massacred by the thousands in the desert. Lack of basic sanitary conditions, famine, epidemics caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

The actions of the Turkish rioters were distinguished by unprecedented cruelty. This was demanded by the leaders of the Young Turks. Thus, Minister of the Interior Talaat, in a secret telegram sent to the governor of Aleppo, demanded to put an end to the existence of Armenians, not to pay any attention to age, gender, or remorse. This requirement was strictly observed. Eyewitnesses of the events, Armenians who survived the horrors of deportation and genocide, left numerous descriptions of the incredible suffering that befell the Armenian population. A correspondent for the English newspaper The Times reported in September 1915: “From Sasun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Eintab, from Marash and Erzurum, the same reports of atrocities are received: about men mercilessly shot, crucified, mutilated or taken away to labor battalions, about children abducted and forcibly converted to the Mohammedan faith, about women raped and sold into slavery in the rear, shot on the spot or sent with their children to the desert west of Mosul, where there is neither food nor water ... Many of these unfortunate victims did not reach their destination... and their corpses clearly indicated the path they followed."

In October 1916, the newspaper "Caucasian Word" published a report about the massacre of Armenians in the village of Baskan (Vardo Valley); the author cited an eyewitness account: “We saw how everything valuable was first torn off the unfortunate; then they undressed, and others were killed right there on the spot, and others were taken away from the road, into dead corners, and then finished off. We saw a group of three women who embraced in mortal fear. And it was impossible to separate them, to separate them. All three were killed ... The scream and scream were unimaginable, our hair stood on end, the blood ran cold in the veins ... "The majority of the Armenian population was also subjected to barbaric extermination Cilicia.

The massacre of Armenians continued in subsequent years. Thousands of Armenians were exterminated, driven to the southern regions of the Ottoman Empire and kept in the camps of Rasul-Aina, Deir-Zora and others. The Young Turks also sought to carry out the Armenian genocide in Eastern Armenia, where, in addition to the local population, large masses of refugees from Western Armenia accumulated. Having committed aggression against Transcaucasia in 1918, Turkish troops carried out pogroms and massacres of Armenians in many areas of Eastern Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Having occupied Baku in September 1918, the Turkish invaders, together with the Azerbaijani nationalists, organized a terrible massacre of the local Armenian population, killing 30,000 people.

As a result of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Young Turks in 1915-1916, more than 1.5 million people died, about 600 thousand Armenians became refugees; they scattered over many countries of the world, replenishing the existing ones and forming new Armenian communities. An Armenian diaspora was formed (“diaspora” - Armenian).

As a result of the genocide, Western Armenia lost its original population. The leaders of the Young Turks did not hide their satisfaction with the successful implementation of the planned atrocity: German diplomats in Turkey informed their government that already in August 1915, Minister of the Interior Talaat cynically declared that "the actions against the Armenians were basically carried out and the Armenian question no longer exists."

The relative ease with which the Turkish pogromists managed to carry out the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire is partly due to the unpreparedness of the Armenian population, as well as the Armenian political parties, for the impending threat of extermination. In many respects, the actions of the pogromists were facilitated by the mobilization of the most combat-ready part of the Armenian population - men, into the Turkish army, as well as the liquidation of the Armenian intelligentsia of Constantinople. A certain role was also played by the fact that in some public and clerical circles of Western Armenians they believed that disobedience to the Turkish authorities, who ordered the deportation, could only lead to an increase in the number of victims.

The Armenian genocide carried out in Turkey caused enormous damage to the spiritual and material culture of the Armenian people. In 1915-1916 and subsequent years, thousands of Armenian manuscripts kept in Armenian monasteries were destroyed, hundreds of historical and architectural monuments were destroyed, and the shrines of the people were desecrated. The destruction of historical and architectural monuments on the territory of Turkey, the appropriation of many cultural values ​​of the Armenian people continues to the present. The tragedy experienced by the Armenian people was reflected in all aspects of the life and social behavior of the Armenian people, firmly settled in their historical memory.

The progressive public opinion of the world condemned the villainous crime of the Turkish rioters who tried to destroy the Armenian people. Public and political figures, scientists, cultural figures of many countries branded the genocide, qualifying it as the gravest crime against humanity, took part in the implementation of humanitarian assistance to the Armenian people, in particular to refugees who found refuge in many countries of the world.

After Turkey's defeat in the First World War, the leaders of the Young Turks were accused of dragging Turkey into a disastrous war for her and put on trial. Among the charges brought against the war criminals was the charge of organizing and carrying out the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. However, the verdict against a number of leaders of the Young Turks was passed in absentia, because. after the defeat of Turkey, they managed to flee the country. The death sentence against some of them (Talaat, Behaetdin Shakir, Jemal Pasha, Said Halim, etc.) was subsequently carried out by the Armenian people's avengers.

After the Second World War, genocide was qualified as the gravest crime against humanity. The legal documents on the genocide were based on the basic principles developed by the international military tribunal in Nuremberg, which tried the main war criminals of Nazi Germany. Subsequently, the UN adopted a number of decisions regarding genocide, the main of which are the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and the Convention on the non-applicability of the statute of limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity, adopted in 1968.

Karen Vrtanesyan

HISTORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 1853-1923

The date of April 24, 1915 occupies a special place not only in the history of the Armenian genocide, but also in the history of the Armenian people as a whole. It was on this day that mass arrests of the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and political elite began in Constantinople, which led to the complete destruction of a whole galaxy of prominent figures of Armenian culture. The lists of those subject to arrest included people of different political views and professions: writers, artists, musicians, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, businessmen, political and religious leaders; the only thing they had in common was their nationality and position in society. Arrests of prominent figures of the Armenian community continued in the Turkish capital with short breaks until the end of May, while no charges were brought against the detainees.

Back in February-March, information began to come from the provinces about the arrests and murders of Armenian leaders, but it was with the arrests in Constantinople that the full-scale annihilation of the Armenian elite throughout the country began. Thus, according to the Americans, in April-May, Armenian professors and cultural figures were arrested in Van; in Harput, the first (in June-July of the same year) were the representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia who fell under the blow of the genocidal machine. The purpose of the action was to decapitate the Armenians, to deprive the people of even the slightest chance to organize themselves in the face of the danger of complete extermination. The scheme was simple but effective: the representatives of the elite were liquidated first, after that the destruction of the rest began.

In Constantinople, they tried to carry out arrests without too much fuss: a policeman in civilian clothes usually came and asked the owner of the house to go to the police station “literally for five minutes to answer a few questions.” Others were visited at night, lifted out of bed and taken straight in their pajamas and slippers to the central prison of the city. Many people who had nothing to do with politics and who considered themselves loyal subjects of the Ottoman Empire could not even imagine what awaited them in the very near future. There were cases when those whom the police did not find at home came to the police themselves, wondering what the authorities suddenly needed from them.

Arrested on April 24, Dr. Tigran Allahverdi, for example, was himself a member of the Young Turks party. He repeatedly organized fundraising actions and transferred large sums of money to the party fund. Among those arrested was also Professor Tiran Kelejyan, who taught all his life in Turkish educational institutions and published the Turkish-language newspaper Sabah. Being taken to the internment camp, Kelejyan recognized the head of the camp as one of his former students. He secretly warned the professor that an order had been received signed by Talaat to exterminate the prisoners, and advised him to get out of the camp at any cost. Later, Kelejyan, who failed to do anything to save himself, was killed on the way to Sivas, where he was allegedly sent to face a military tribunal. Of the 291 prisoners of the camp, only forty people survived.

Among these forty was the great Armenian composer and musicologist Komitas. According to rumors, after his arrest, he was allowed to return to Constantinople due to the personal intervention of Prince Majid, whose wife he once taught music. However, the shocks he experienced during his exile were not in vain: uncertainty about the future, the atmosphere of constant fear that filled the city in those days, an involuntary feeling of guilt for friends who remained in the camp for certain death, loneliness - all this soon caused Komitas to become clouded. reason. He died in 1935 in Paris, having spent the last nineteen years of his life in psychiatric clinics.

In just a few weeks, about 800 prominent Armenians were arrested in Constantinople alone, of which, by the end of the summer, few were left alive. Writers Daniel Varuzhan, Siamanto, Ruben Zardaryan, Ruben Sevak, Artashes Harutyunyan, Tlkatintsi, Yerukhan, Tigran Chekuryan, Levon Shant and dozens of others became victims of the Young Turk terror.

A little later, deputies from the Dashnaktsutyun party in the Ottoman parliament were arrested and killed: Vardges, Khazhak, writer and publicist Grigor Zohrab... The Armenians, who sacrificed so many lives on the altar of liberating Turkey from the sultan's despotism, were now mercilessly exterminated by yesterday's comrades-in-arms in the revolutionary struggle.

Thousands of clergy perished in the flames of the genocide: from simple priests to archbishops. “... Bishop Smbat Saadetyan from Karin, driven away with his flock towards Mesopotamia, was killed by robbers near Kamakh. Archimandrite Gevorg Turyan of Trebizond, exiled by the military court of Karin, was killed on the way; ... Archimandrite Bayberd Anania Azarapetyan was hanged by decision of the local authorities; Archimandrite Musha Vartan Hakobyan died in prison, beaten with sticks; Archimandrite of Tigranakert Mkrtich Chlkhatyan died in prison from torture ... ”- reports on December 28, 1915, the Patriarch of Western Armenians, Archbishop Zaven, to the head of the diocese in America, Archimandrite Veguni.

The blow inflicted on the Armenian people by the Young Turk regime in the spring and summer of 1915 was unprecedented in its destructiveness. That is why Armenians scattered all over the world today celebrate April 24 as the day of commemoration of the victims of the genocide. In Armenia, on this day, tens of thousands of people ascend to the Genocide Memorial on Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan, mourning services are held in Armenian churches around the world.

List of used literature:

“The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire” - a collection of documents and materials edited by M. G. Nersisyan, 2nd edition. Yerevan: "Hayastan", 1983.
Kirakosyan John, “The Young Turks before the Judgment of History” . Yerevan: "Hayastan", 1989.
Balakian, P., The Burning Tigris. The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
Soulahian Kuyumjian, R., Archeology of Madness. Komitas. second edition. Princeton, NJ: Gomidas Institute, 2001.