INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE DEDICATED TO THE ADANA MASSACRE 1909 TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN

ArmInfo
2009-04-17 14:25:00

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute organizes an international
conference on April 20-21, 2009 dedicated to the centennial anniversary
of the Armenian massacres in Adana district of the Ottoman Empire.

As the Museum-Institute told ArmInfo, historians from Armenia, Italy,
Hungary, Austria, France, USA and Sweden specialized on these issues
will make speeches at the conference. The speakers will have the
opportunity to present their papers and share their knowledge about
the massacre in Adana district and in the city of Adana itself in
spring 1909 in the main reverting on the motives of massacres as well
as international responses.

The Adana massacres of April 1909 became a symbolic prelude for the
state orchestrated and executed policy of genocide against the Armenian
population of the Ottoman Empire. Ethnical cleansings and large-scale
massacres were carried out even earlier; during the Hamidian massacres
in 1894-1896 about 300.000 Armenians were annihilated and evicted.

The study of Adana massacre reveals several important issues,
particularly in terms of crime investigation, reparation and
involvement of Turkish regular army in the massacre. These tragic
events resonated with the events of the earlier attacks on the
Armenians and brought back the feeling of the coming catastrophe. The
Adana massacres heralded a large-scale extermination policy, which was
implemented shortly after the breakout of the WWI. This resulted in the
genocide of Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during 1915-1922,
and expulsion of several hundred thousand people from their homeland.