Six vilayets
The Six Armenian Vilayets or Six Provinces ( Ottoman ولايت سته İA Vilâyat-ı , German 'custom' ; Armenian Վեց հայկական վիլայեթներ Wez 'hajkakan wilajet'ner ; modern Turkish Altı vilâyet, Altı Ermeni ili ) were the Armenian populated provinces ( Vilâyets ) of the Ottoman Empire :
The term Six Armenian Provinces was first used at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Even if the Armenians no longer made up the majority of the population in any vilayet by the 20th century at the latest , this region as western Armenia was the main settlement area of the Armenians next to eastern Armenia (the area of today's republics of Armenia and Arzach in Nagorno-Karabakh ) until the Armenian genocide in 1915 .
population
Ethnic groups
Different versions of the population statistics are shown below.
Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople 1912 :
The analysis excludes certain parts of this province in which the Armenians were only a very small proportion. These parts were as follows: um Hakkâri in the Vilâyet Van; southeast of Siirt in the Vilâyet Bitlis; the south of the Vilayets Diyarbakır; the south of Malatya in the Vilayet Mamuretül-Aziz; the northwest and west of the Vilâyets Sivas.
Ethnicity | Bitlis | Diyarbakır | Erzerum | Mamuretül-Aziz | Sivas | Van | total | proportion of |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Armenians | 180,000 | 105,000 | 215,000 | 168,000 | 165,000 | 185,000 | 1,018,000 | 38.9% |
Turks 1 | 48,000 | 72,000 | 265,000 | 182,000 | 192,000 | 47,000 | 806,000 | 30.8% |
Kurds 2 | 77,000 | 55,000 | 75,000 | 95,000 | 50,000 | 72,000 | 499,000 | 19.1% |
Others 3 | 30,000 | 64,000 | 48,000 | 5,000 | 100,000 | 43,000 | 290,000 | 11.1% |
total | 382,000 | 296,000 | 630,000 | 450,000 | 507,000 | 350,000 | 2,615,000 | 100% |
1 without Kizilbasch |
Official Ottoman Census 1914 :
The Ottoman census gives no information about different Muslim ethnic groups such as Turks, Kurds, Circassians etc.
Most Western scholars agree that the official Ottoman census underestimates the number of ethnic minorities, including the number of Armenians. In fact, the Ottoman census did not define a single ethnic group, only religious groups. So meant Armenians, followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnic Armenians who identified themselves as Muslims were counted as Muslims, and Armenian Protestants as others.
Ethnicity | Bitlis | Diyarbakır | Erzerum | Mamuretül-Aziz | Sivas | Van | total | proportion of |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Muslims | 309,999 | 492.101 | 673.297 | 446.376 | 939.735 | 179,380 | 3,040,888 | 79.6% |
Armenians | 119.132 | 65,850 | 136,618 | 87,862 | 151,674 | 67,792 | 628.928 | 16.5% |
Other | 44,348 | 4,020 | 5,797 | 4,047 | 78.173 | 11,969 | 148.354 | 3.9% |
total | 473.479 | 561,971 | 815.712 | 538.285 | 1,169,582 | 259.141 | 3,818,170 | 100% |
Ethnic map of the Six Vilayets (Western Armenia) according to the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople 1912
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ismail Soysal: Türkiye'nin Siyasal Andlaşmaları . I. Cilt (1920-1945), Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983, p. 14 (Turkish).
- ↑ James Viscount Bryce: The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916 . T. Fisher Unwin, London 1916.
- ^ Justin McCarthy : Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire . New York University Press, 1983, ISBN 0-87150-963-6 , pp. 56-59 .
- ^ Servet Mutlu: Late Ottoman Population And Its Ethnic Distribution . (PDF) In: Nüfusbilim Dergisi (Ed.): Turkish Journal of Population Studies . 25, No. 1, 2003, p. 21. Retrieved November 3, 2011. “There is no evidence supporting the Patriarch's numbers. Conceivably they could have been based on church registers. But to date, neither any local church register nor any document showing the summation of local registers at the Patriarchate in İstanbul has been produced as proof (McCarthy, 1998a, pp.56- 59). More important, even if such records of the Armenian population existed, how could the local priests, and hence the Patriarch who would be getting his numbers from them, ever know how many Muslims existed short of a census. Yet, the census figures believes the Patriarch's. Hence, the Patriarch's figures were nothing but politically motivated constructions. "
- ↑ TC Genelkurmay Baskanligi, Ankara. ( Memento of October 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) Arşiv Belgeleriyle Ermeni Faaliyetleri 1914–1918, Cilt I. Armenian Activities in the Archive Documents 1914–1918, Volume I, pp. 603–628. (1914 census statistics, publisher: General Staff of Turkey )
- ↑ "[...] indicates (based on 1919 British estimates) that though Ottoman data were generally reliable they did underestimate the Armenian population in 1914 [...]". Steven T. Katz: The Holocaust in Historical Context . Vol. 1: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age . Oxford University Press, New York / Oxford 1994, ISBN 0-19-507220-0 , p. 86.