MUSEUM OPENS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ONLINE EXHIBITION
HULIQ
eum-opens-armenian-genocide-online-exhibition
Apri l 15 2009
SC
How does anyone deny the existence of a systematic killings of the
Armenians as a genocide in the early 20th century after looking these
documents presented online by the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute
on the occasion of Adana Massacres of 1909.
The 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
(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 1890s 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.
The intensity of the carnage prompted the government to open
an investigation, but the failure to prosecute dashed Armenian
expectations of liberal reforms by the new regime. The reactionary
elements of the Ottoman Empire were suspected of instigating the
massacres to discredit the CUP, but the Young Turks were also
implicated. The Adana Massacre exposed the twin composition of the
Young Turk Movement, which consisted of both liberal and radical
nationalist elements. It also demonstrated the convergent interests
of the nationalists with the reactionary and conservative elements
of Ottoman state in their policies toward a progressive-minded
minority. For the Young Turks, the Adana Massacre proved a rehearsal
for gauging the depth of Turkish animosity in the Ottoman Empire toward
Christian minorities and for testing their skills in marshaling those
forces for political ends. Despite the restoration of a constitutional
government, the specter of mass violence was reintroduced as a
mechanism of state power.
Two commissions were set up after the massacres. One of them was
formed by the Ottoman Parliament (members of the commission were
Hayk Papikyan, Harutyun Mostichyan, Yusuf Kemal, Fayid Bey), the
second was formed by the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. The
commissions investigated the causes and consequences of massacres and
submitted the official reports. In those reports the Governor Jevad
Bey, the Commander Mustafa Remzi Pasha and the local authorities
that implemented their orders at the local levels, were mentioned
as responsible for massacres. The investigations revealed that more
than 30.000 Armenians fell victim to massacres. The total damage of
the Armenians was equal to 20 million Turkish Liras. 24 churches, 16
schools, 232 houses, 30 hotels, 2 plants, 1429 cottages, 253 farms,
523 shops, 23 mills and many other public buildings were burnt.
The Young Turks launched formal investigation trying to evade the
responsibility for the massacres. However the organizers and the
figures responsible for the massacres remained unpunished. The original
photos included in the on line exhibition are from the recently found
collection comprising more than 70 mostlyunpublished pictures taken
in April and May of 1909 in Adana and it’s contiguous districts.
Adapted from: ‘Adana Massacre’ by Rouben Paul Adalian ‘Encyclopedia
of genocide’