Expropriation of the Armenians in Turkey

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Auction of confiscated Armenian goods in an Armenian church in Trabzon in 1918 after the genocide.

The expropriation of the Armenians in Turkey was a process in the course of which, in addition to the complete deportation of the Armenian population of Anatolia in 1915, the property, property and lands of Armenians and other Christian minorities were confiscated by the Ottoman and Turkish government. The confiscated property of the non-Muslim minority represented the economic basis of the Turkish Republic . The appropriation and plundering of the Armenian, but also Greek, Syrian-Christian and Jewish property also served as the basis for the creation of a new Turkish bourgeoisie.

Numerous people and Turkish companies, including the industrial families Sabancı and Koç , benefited directly or indirectly from the eviction and elimination of the Armenians and the confiscation of their property.

history

Order of June 22, 1915 on the confiscation of Armenian schools and their allocation to Muslim muhajir ( Ottoman archive of the Prime Minister's Office )

Expropriation in the course of the genocide

On May 16, 1915, during the genocide of the Armenians, an edict was issued to expropriate the Armenians. The law provided for the establishment of special committees to draw up lists and reports of all “abandoned” Armenian property and to place the goods and merchandise in safe custody “on behalf of the deportees”. Perishable goods and animals should be sold and the proceeds deposited on behalf of the owners. Farms, olive groves, houses, wineries were distributed among the Turkish refugees. Buildings that the Turkish newcomers did not accept were publicly auctioned .

On May 29, 1915, the Committee on Unity and Progress passed the Tehcir Act , which authorized the deportation of persons believed to be a threat to public safety.

The "Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation" was published on October 23, 1915 in the English-language Ottoman newspaper The Orient , which published all eleven articles.

Another law was passed on September 13, 1915, called the Temporary Expropriation and Confiscation Act, which stated that Armenian property, including land, livestock and houses, could be confiscated by the authorities without compensation. Legal experts describe the law as "legalizing robbery". The law regulated in detail how claims could be registered. This law was rejected by the Ottoman MP Ahmed Rızâ :

"It is unlawful to designate the Armenian assets as" abandoned goods "for the Armenians, the proprietors, did not abandon their properties voluntarily; They were forcibly, compulsorily removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its efforts is selling their goods ... If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can't do this. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it. "

“It is against the law to classify the Armenian property as“ abandoned goods ”for the Armenians; the owners did not voluntarily give up their property; they have been forcibly and forcibly removed from their homes and evicted. Now, in its effort, the government is selling their goods ... If we were a constitutional regime operating in accordance with constitutional law, we cannot do this. It's horrible. Take me by the arm, throw me out of my village, then sell my goods and property, that's never allowed. This allows neither the Ottoman conscience nor the law. "

The Turkish historian Uğur Ümit Üngör explains in his article Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey, 1913–50 :

“The elimination of the Armenian population left the state an infrastructure of Armenian property, which was used for the progress of Turkish (settler) communities. In other words: the construction of an étatist Turkish 'national economy' was unthinkable without the destruction and expropriation of Armenians. "

“The elimination of the Armenian population left the state with an infrastructure of Armenian property that was used for the continuation of the Turkish (settler) communities. In other words: the establishment of a statistic Turkish 'national economy' was unthinkable without the annihilation and expropriation of the Armenians. "

Confiscation in Turkey

On April 15, 1923, shortly before the signing of the Lausanne Treaty , the state confiscated the possessions of all Armenians who were no longer present through a law called the "Abandoned Owners Law" in the course of the Turkish Liberation War .

After the signing of the German-Turkish friendship treaty with the Nazi German Reich in 1941 , the Turkish government imposed a capital tax , the Varlık Vergisi , which hit the non-Muslim citizens of Turkey disproportionately hard. As a result of the non-payment of the tax, the Turkish government raised 324 million liras ( $ 270 million at the time) from confiscating non-Muslim property.

In 1974 a new law was passed stating that non-Muslim trusts were not allowed to own more than what was registered under their name in 1936. As a result, more than 1,400 properties from foundations of the Istanbul Armenian community were retrospectively declared illegal acquisition from 1936 and confiscated by the state. This included churches, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, summer camps, cemeteries and orphanages.

As an attempt to bring Turkey into line with EU standards , the Democratic Left Party (DSP) under Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit considered disclosing the Ottoman land registry, documents and documents. This was rejected by the ruling Islamic AKP on August 26, 2005 following a warning from the National Security Council of the Turkish Armed Forces :

“The Ottoman records kept at the Land Register and Cadaster Surveys General Directorate offices must be sealed and not available to the public, as they have the potential to be exploited by alleged genocide claims and property claims against the State Charitable Foundation assets. Opening them to general public use is against state interests. "

"The Ottoman records, which are kept in the General Directorate Offices of the Land Registry and Cadastral Survey, must be locked and not made available to the public as they have the potential to be exploited by allegations of alleged genocide and property claims against the State Charitable Foundation's assets . The opening of these for general public use is against the interests of the state. "

On June 15, 2011, the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 43-1 in support of a resolution (House Resolution 306) calling on the Republic of Turkey to " protect its Christian heritage and return the confiscated church property."

Today's assessment

The Hrant Dink Foundation states that 661 owners in Istanbul alone were expropriated by the Ottoman and the later Turkish government, leaving only 580 of the 1,328 owners used and operated by the 53 Armenian foundations (schools, churches , Hospitals etc.). The fate of the remaining 87 could not be determined. Of the 661 expropriated owners, only 143 (21.6%) have so far been returned to the foundations.

The Hrant Dink Foundation researched the expropriations for a long time and today offers descriptions, photographs and boundary lines on its interactive map source.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ugur Üngör, Mehmet Polatel: Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property . Ed .: Continuum International Publishing Group. 2011, ISBN 1-4411-3055-1 , pp. 224 ( online [accessed December 22, 2012]).
  2. ^ Samuel Totten: Impediments to the Prevention and Intervention of Genocide. Transaction Publishers, 2013. p. 55
  3. ↑ a b Kamil Taylan : Türkiye - Turkey - The divided republic. ARTE , 2013
  4. ↑ Fatma Müge Göke: The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. Tauris Academic Studies, 2011. p. 119
  5. ^ Richard G. Hovannisian: Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide. Wayne State University Press, 1998. p. 37
  6. ↑ Andreas Bähr, Peter Burschel, Gabriele Jancke: Spaces of the Self. Transcultural self-testimony research. Böhlau, 2007. p. 165
  7. ^ Metin Heper, Sabri Sayari: The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey. Routledge, 2012. p. 284
  8. ↑ Sidney EP Nowill: Constantinople and Istanbul: 72 Years of Life in Turkey. Troubador Publishing, 2011. p. 77
  9. ^ Ayşe Buğra: State and Business in Modern Turkey. A Comparative Study. SUNY Press, 1994. p. 82
  10. ↑ Uğur Üngör, Mehmet Polatel: Confiscation and Destruction. The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. p. 132
  11. ^ Geoffrey Jones: Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World. Edward Elgar Pub, 2013. p. 35
  12. ↑ a b Shavarsh Toriguian: The Armenian question and international law . Ed .: ULV Press. 2nd Edition. La Verne, Calif., USA 1988, ISBN 978-0-911707-13-7 .
  13. ^ Armenian Genocide Timeline. Retrieved February 22, 2013 .
  14. ↑ St. Vartan Press (Ed.): The Armenian Genocide: Facts and Documents . New York City, New York 1985, pp. 11 .
  15. ↑ Articles 2, 3, 6, 11 and 22 of the governmental order of May 16, 1915, from Talaat, head of the Ministry of Interior, in Constantinople directing the seizure and confiscation of Armenian buildings apply, also, to church buildings and their property. . In: Hairenik Association (ed.): The Armenian Review . 18, 1965, p. 3.
  16. ^ Peter Balakian : The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response . Ed .: HarperCollins. New York 2003, ISBN 0-06-019840-0 .
  17. ^ Vahakn N. Dadrian : The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus . Ed .: Berghahn Books. Oxford 1995, ISBN 1-57181-666-6 .
  18. ^ "Abandoned Properties" Law . In: The Orient , October 13, 1915, p. 1. 
  19. ↑ Y. Bayur , Turk Inkilabi , Vol. III, Part 3, Dadrian, History of the Armenian Genocide .
  20. ↑ Ungor, UU (2008). Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey , 1913–50. Journal of Genocide Research, 10 (1), 15-39.
  21. ↑ Gidel, Lapradelle (1929). Le Fur . Confiscation des Biens des Refugies Armeniens par le Gouvernement Turc, pp. 87–90 (French).
  22. ↑ a b Varlik vergisi (asset tax) - one of the many black chapters of Turkish history ... In: Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Association. Retrieved October 14, 2011 .
  23. ^ Yasemin Varlık: Tuzla Ermeni Çocuk Kampı'nın İzleri. In: BİAnet. July 2, 2001, archived from the original on December 6, 2006 ; Retrieved March 20, 2007 .
  24. ↑ a b Rubina Peroomian: And those who continued living in Turkey after 1915: the metamorphosis of the post-genocide Armenian identity as reflected in artistic literature . Ed .: Armenian Genocide Museum Institute . Yerevan 2008, ISBN 978-99941-963-2-6 , p. 277 ( online [accessed December 22, 2012]).
  25. ^ Fraser Susan: Turkey to return confiscated property. Guardian, August 28, 2011, accessed December 22, 2012 .
  26. ↑ a b Raffi Bedrosyan: Revisiting the Turkification of Confiscated Armenian Assets. Armenian Weekly, April 17, 2012, accessed December 22, 2012 .
  27. ^ Tierney Smith: House Panel Approves Resolution Calling on Turkey to Return Confiscated Christian Churches. CNS News, August 5, 2011, accessed December 24, 2012 .
  28. ^ US Congress House Resolution 306. Retrieved December 24, 2012 .
  29. ↑ a b Raffi Bedrosyan: '2012 Declaration': A History of Seized Armenian Properties in Istanbul. Armenian Weekly, December 6, 2012, accessed December 22, 2012 .
  30. ↑ a b Vercihan Ziflioğlu: Dink Foundation urges further steps for seized Armenian properties. Hürriyet , December 14, 2012, accessed December 22, 2012 .
  31. ↑ a b General Overview. Hrant Dink Foundation, accessed December 27, 2012 (Turkish).
  32. ↑ Devlet tarafından yağmalanan Ermeni mallarının tam dökümü yayımlandı. Haberlink, December 2, 2012, accessed December 27, 2012 (Turkish).
  33. ↑ Interactive map of the confiscated Armenian proprieties in Istanbul