Adana massacre

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A street in the Christian quarter of Adana, June 1909.
A destroyed Armenian city.

The Adana massacre (in Turkish / Ottoman: Adana İğtişaşı = Adana riots, Adana Vakası = Adana incident) occurred in April 1909 in the Turkish Vilâyet Adana and was perpetrated on the Armenian population of Adana . The massacre, which killed 20,000 to 30,000 Armenians victim was from the conservative - Islamic government of the Ottoman Empire led and aimed to the presence of a non-Muslim population to eliminate in the Adana Vilayet.

background

Armenian Christians settled in Adana, formerly Cilicia, since 1132 . This minority enjoyed the protection of the armed forces of the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia - until 1360 Adana remained part of Lesser Armenia. Even after the Islamic conquest, the Christian Armenians lived in peaceful neighborhood with the new rulers for centuries and, as a minority with their own cultural background, formed an important trading partner, with the cotton trade in particular being dominated by Armenians. At that time, Adana had a population of more than 550,000. In addition to the Turks, the population consisted of around 60,000 Armenians, 10–15,000 Greeks and 25,000 Arabs.

In 1876 Abdülhamid II became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was supporters of pan-Islamism and hostile to the Christian minority in his empire. In 1896 he ordered his armed forces to take action against the Armenians with the intention of destroying the Armenian population. As a result of this order, over 200,000 Armenians were murdered, including numerous women and children. However, the background to the massacre was to resolve the so-called “ Armenian Question ” by decimating and intimidating those affected.

These massacres from 1894–1896 received little attention in Europe. The Armenians of the empire and the diaspora judged the seizure of power by the “ Committee for Unity and Progress ” in 1908 as positive, as the committee promised reconciliation between the religions and ethnic groups of the empire. Turkish and Armenian revolution groups worked together to restore the Second Constitutional Period. The “ April 13 coup ” in 1909 against the Young Turkish government led to massacres of the Armenians in Vilayet Adana the following day after their protest movements were suppressed.

The causes are political, economic and religious differences between the population groups involved. The Armenian part of the population of Adana was denounced as "rich" and "prosperous" by religious fanatics and Muslim fellow citizens, which led to attacks against Armenians and violent expropriations of Armenian property. The awakening of Islamic nationalism and the new classification of the Armenians as a "separatist, European-controlled" entity also led to this act of violence.

Corpses of massacred Armenians in Adana

As a result, there were further massacres organized by the Young Turks Movement , which killed between 20,000 and 30,000 Armenians. While the Young Turks' revolt lasted only ten days, their massacres of the Armenian civilian population dragged on for over a month. Organized a few years after the massacres from 1894 to 1896, they were at the same time a first step towards the genocide of the Armenians in the years 1915 to 1917 during the First World War . In the Adana massacres, not only the Armenians but also other Christian minorities were persecuted (see table below).

procedure

In March 1909, Kurdish and Armenian seasonal workers arrived in Adana for the annual cotton and oat harvest. From April 13, riots took place in Adana and surrounding towns in the region. A task force marched into Adana on April 23 to counter the unrest. After an attack by the Armenians on the local barracks on April 25, violence flared up again. The government then dismissed the governor, sent an embassy of several Ottoman MPs to the region, and set up two courts-martial in Adana and Osmaniye . Judicial statements by Armenians indicated that Bağdadizade Abdülkadir had incited the Muslim population against the Armenians. Turkish witnesses accused the Armenian clergyman and member of the Hunchak party, Museg Seropyan, as the instigator for the re-establishment of an independent Armenia. The courts sentenced 9 Muslims and 6 Armenians to death and executed them on June 10, 1909. Meanwhile, the unrest continued and only came to a standstill in August when the new governor Cemal Pasha had 47 other Muslims and one Armenian executed.

Prolonged unrest, murders and looting ultimately led to a break between the Committee for Unity and Progress and the Armenian Dashnakzutjun ; together they had campaigned for the Ottoman constitution to be reinstated.

One of the eyewitnesses who also processed the Armenian massacre at Adana in literary terms was Hagop Terzian ( Cilician catastrophe ; 1912).

Loss of life

There are no consistent figures about the number of victims. The Ottoman government commissioned MPs Yusuf Kemal Bey and Hagop Babikyan to prepare an investigation report. But they couldn't reach a consensus. According to Babikyan's research, 21,000 Armenians died. The local Armenian Church spoke of 17,844 victims and, according to a report by the Patriarchate in Istanbul, 21,236 dead. In his memoirs, Cemal Pasha names 17,000 dead Armenians and 1,850 dead Muslims. The New York Times wrote in an April 25, 1909 article that 20,000 to 30,000 Armenians were murdered in the Adana massacre. The historian Taner Akçam puts the number of victims of the Armenians at 15,000 to 20,000.

These photos from a 1911 publication demonstrated the bloodbath in the Armenian quarter of Adana, juxtaposed with the "Peace in the Turkish District".

Official loss list for the Vilâyet Adana by ethno-religious groups :

Adana city losses
Armenians 2,093
Greeks 33
Chaldeans 132
Syrian Jacobites 418
Assyrians 63
Muslims 782
total 3521

Official Ottoman loss information by city:

place Christians Muslims total
Adana 2739 782 3521
Bahçe 752 9 761
Ceyhan 378 175 553
tarsus 463 45 508
Osmaniye 372 66 438
Ore 208 12 220
Kozan 114 1 115
Saimbeyli 15th 78 93
Kadirli 60 17th 77
İslahiye 50 50
Karaisalı 44 44
Hassa 33 33
Elvanlı 13 1 14th
Feke 2 2
total 5243 1186 6429

See also

Web links

Commons : Adana Massacre  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

source

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c 30,000 Killed in Massacres. In: New York Times. April 25, 1909, accessed June 8, 2013 .
  2. ^ A b Samuel Totten, William Spencer Parsons, Israel W. Charny: Century of Genocide: Second Edition - Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts . Routledge, New York 2004, p. 68.
  3. ↑ James Creelman: The Slaughter Of Christians In Asia Minor. The New York Times , August 22, 1909, accessed October 31, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Taner Akçam : A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility . Metropolitan Books, New York 2006, ISBN 0-8050-7932-7 , pp. 69-70.
  5. ↑ 30,000 Killed In Massacres. The New York Times , April 25, 1909, accessed October 31, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Jacques de Morgan (préf. Constant Vautravers et Edmond Khayadjian): Histoire du peuple arménien: depuis les temps les plus reculés des annales jusqu'à nos jours . Académie de Marseille, Venise 1981, p. 269.
  7. ^ Armenian Wealth Caused Massacres. The New York Times , April 25, 1909, accessed October 31, 2016 .
  8. ^ H. Charles Woods: The Danger Zone of Europe. Changes and Problems in the Near East . 1911.
  9. ^ A b Raymond Haroutioun Kévorkian : Les massacres de Cilicie d'avril 1909 ( French )