LEBANON TO HOST CONFERENCE ON ADANA MASSACRE

PanARMENIAN.Net
05.02.2009 12:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the
massacres of Adana (1909-2009), Catholicosate of Cilicia will organize
a conference, an exhibition, and will oversee the publication of
books and documents related to those tragic events.

"This sad page in the contemporary history of the Armenian nation
should be remembered with due importance and seriousness," Catholicos
of Cilicia, His Holiness Aram I said.

Based on this decision, the Catholicosate has informed the community
organizations, academic institutions, scholars and the general public
of the following plans:

On October 29-30, 2009, a conference, dedicated to the Adana
massacres under the leadership of His Holiness Aram I will be held in
Antelias. All those interested in participating in the event should
contact the Catholicosate of Cilicia.

A Special Committee, in cooperation with The Department of Armenian
Studies of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, will screen and sponsor
publications related to the Adana massacres. The Catholicosate invites
researchers, scholars, writers and all those who possess relevant
works are invited to submit their proposals to the Catholicosate.

We invite all Armenians in the community who own valuable artefacts,
photos and archive documents that relate to the Armenians of Adana
and their massacre, to make them available to the Catholicosate for
the planned exhibition.

Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres
of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities
committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the
counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid II
(1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution
as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the Committee
of Union and Progress (CUP). A prosperous region on the Mediterranean
coast encompassing the old principality of Cilicia, once an independent
Armenian state between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries,
the province of Adana had been spared the 1890’s massacres. The
disturbances were most severe in the city of Adana where a reported
4,437 Armenian dwellings were torched, resulting in the razing of
nearly half the town and prompting some to describe the resulting
inferno as a "holocaust." The outbreaks spread throughout the district
and an estimated 30,000 Armenians were reported killed. While attempts
at resistance in Adana proved futile, and Armenians in smaller
outlying villages were brutally slaughtered, two towns inhabited
mostly by Armenians organized a successful defense. Hadjin (Hajen
in Armenian) in the Cilician Mountains withstood a siege, while the
10,000 Armenians of Dortyol (Chorkmarzban in Armenian) held off 7,000
Turks who had surrounded their town and cut off its water supply.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress