Genocide against the Syrian Christians

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The genocide of the Syrian Christians describes events from 1915 to 1917 during the First World War under the rule of the Young Turks who came to power in 1908 in the then Ottoman Empire and the Iranian border region, which happened at the same time as the genocide of the Armenians and the persecution of the Greeks . The genocide is called Sayfo or Seyfo ("sword", Syriac-Aramaic : ܣܝܦܐ) in Aramaic .

Places of genocide: affected cities red; Cities that hosted refugees are green

Affected ethnic group

The indigenous Syrian Christians of northern Mesopotamia were affected by the massacres . The term “Syriac” does not refer to today's Syrian Republic, but to the Syrian tradition of Christianity. Specifically, the followers of the following Oriental Orthodox Churches were victims of systematic persecution:

West Syrian churches (goes back to the Patriarchate of Antioch, hence the Antiochene rite ):

East Syrian churches (goes back to the Catholic Seleukia Ctesiphon, hence the East Syrian rite ):

But also evangelical and Protestant Assyrians / Arameans were victims of these crimes against humanity.

What these communities had in common was the Syriac cult language , whereas today they spoke dialects of this language, Arabic or Kurdish, called “neo-Aramaic” . Also affected were the congregations that had formed among these communities through the activities of Protestant missionaries, which was particularly the case in the Urmia area . At the present time, the terms Assyrians and Arameans are used for these groups , also across denominational boundaries, although the names in the groups, especially among the Syrian Orthodox as the largest group, are heavily disputed. Their current name is Suryoye , while in German they are called Syrian Christians.

These ethnic groups were religiously and ethnically heterogeneous, with no uniform cultural and national identity. The religious diversity and competition among the oriental churches promoted by the Ottoman administration prevented Panassyrian endeavors from succeeding .

Other Christian residents in the east of the empire were also affected by the massacres of the Armenians in 1894–1896 . Up to 55,000 Arameans / Assyrians died in anti-Christian pogroms in Diyarbakır or Urfa , and around 100,000 were forced to convert to Islam.

course

Historic headlines from 1915

As early as October 26, 1914, Interior Minister Talât Bey , concerned about Russian advances to the Eastern Christians, ordered the deportation of the Nestorians from Hakkari to the Ottoman western provinces, where they were to be distributed among Muslims. Just three days later, on the grounds that the necessary troops were lacking, the deportation was postponed and shortly afterwards, after the intervention of the Patriarch, it was canceled entirely.

The devastating Ottoman defeat on the Caucasus Front against Russia in the Battle of Sarıkamış at the turn of the year ultimately triggered action by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, as they were viewed as allies and supporters of the Christian Orthodox Tsarist Empire. In the wake of what has become known as the Armenian Genocide, the Syrian Christians were also persecuted. In contrast to the case of the Armenians, the massacres of the Syrian Orthodox Christians are unlikely to have been part of a central government policy, but were provoked or supported by the governors of the Van and Diyarbakır provinces. Rather, the latter was instructed by the Minister of the Interior, Talât Bey, not to treat them like the Armenians - an instruction which, however, had no consequences.

The governor of Van carried out an invasion of neighboring Iran with Kurdish tribal warriors after the battle of Sarıkamış. The area there had been occupied by Russian troops, but the Russians had largely withdrawn their troops because of the battle at Sarıkamış. A large number of Christians lived in the Urmia area, mainly under the Nestorian Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun , who resided in Hakkâri . The Russians had recruited auxiliary troops from these Nestorians during the occupation. During the advance of the Ottoman army into Urmia in 1915, tens of thousands of these Christians were expelled or killed. Around 47,000 Christians, Heinsohn calls them Assyro-Chaldeans, were killed.

Hakkâri was then part of the Van Province. The relationship between the governor and the Nestorian patriarch deteriorated more and more as a result of the governor's distrust and hostility and requisitions perceived as unjustified, until in June 1915 the patriarch declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The patriarch was the head of the so-called mountain nestorians, who had a social tribal structure and way of life similar to their Kurdish neighbors. The patriarch and his people had to flee to Persia as early as September. There he was murdered in March 1918 in an ambush by the Kurdish leader Simko Schikak . His successor led the approximately 60,000 survivors to Baquba in Iraq, from where the British settled in the north of their mandate Mesopotamia. They recruited auxiliary troops from them again. After independence, a large number of these so-called Assyrians fell victim to renewed massacres. Some of the survivors went to Syria, where they, now also known as the Chabur Assyrians , founded 36 villages on the Chabur .

In the province of Diyarbakır was the Tur Abdin , a main settlement area of ​​the West Syrian Christians, the followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church , whose patriarch resided in Mardin . There, too, the social structure and way of life was comparable to that of the neighboring Kurds. Until the 19th century, the tribally organized Christians there were almost independent and paid no taxes to the Ottoman state. But they were exposed to constant attacks by the Kurdish emirs of Cizre , which they tried to subdue. In church terms, the Christians there were divided into numerous patriarchates and counter-patriarchates; the establishment of a single patriarchate recognized by the Ottoman government marked the beginning of state control over the area. Tolerated and incited by the governor, there were attacks, looting and expulsions by Kurdish militias, and the regular army was also used to break the resistance.

The group of members of the Chaldean Catholic Church was less affected . The seat of their patriarch and their main settlement area was in the province of Mosul .

There are no reliable numbers of victims. The figures for the Assyrian-Aramaic victims fluctuate strongly, similar to the Armenian genocide, and range from 100,000 to 250,000. Above and beyond this, the number of victims is based on the unreflected adoption of information from the delegations of the ethnic groups concerned at the Paris peace negotiations .

The number of victims among Assyrian / Aramaic Syrian Orthodox Christians in Syria is estimated at 90,000 for the entire period from 1914 to 1918 , over 25,000 Assyrians / Arameans were murdered in Midyat alone .

Like the Armenians, many of the victims died on death marches into the Syrian desert of thirst, hunger, exhaustion or abuse. Some Christians have been saved with the help of foreign missionaries or their Turkish or Kurdish friends and neighbors.

reception

The genocide of the Aramaeans, Assyrians and Chaldeans is one of the least known in modern history. The heterogeneity of the ethnic groups affected in economically insignificant border regions led to a multitude of local experiences and selective memories. The whole genocide event thus splintered into individual, regional narratives in the shadow of the far greater genocide of the Armenians. Survivors often only reported local conflicts with nomads or Muslim fanatics. The reasons and connections for the displacement and massacre remained hidden in this local dimension.

The Turkish government denies the genocide, as in the case of the Armenians . International recognition of what happened, comparable to the genocide of the Armenians, has not yet been achieved. This is due to several factors: the lower number and the rather small influence of the community in the world, the lack of its own state, the repression in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, but also the lack of sources about the events that otherwise almost all of them are of Turkish or Armenian origin.

Monuments

Web links

Commons : Genocide of the Syrian Christians  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A major ecumenical event from November 26th in Vienna. Archdiocese of Vienna
  2. ↑ Svante Lundgren: The Assyrians. From Ninive to Gütersloh. Lit, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3643132567 , p. 175
  3. ↑ Helga Anschütz: Christian Groups in Turkey in: Peter A. Andrews (Ed.): Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey Ludwig Reichert, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89500-297-6 , Volume 1, 454 ff., P 462-464.
  4. ^ A b David Gaunt: Failed Identity and the Assyrian Genocide. In: Omer Bartov , Eric D. Weitz (Eds.): Shatterzone of Empires. Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2013, ISBN 978-0-253-00635-6 , pp. 317-333, here: p. 317.
  5. ↑ Anahit Khosroeva: The Assyrian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and Adjacent Territories. In: Richard G. Hovannisian (Ed.): The Armenian Genocide. Cultural and Ethical Legacies (=  Armenian Studies, Volume 1). Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick 2011, ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3 , pp. 267-274.
  6. ^ Hilmar Kaiser: Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire. In: Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (Eds.): The Oxford handbook of genocide studies. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6 , pp. 365-385, here: p. 371.
  7. ^ Hilmar Kaiser: Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire. In: Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (Eds.): The Oxford handbook of genocide studies. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6 , pp. 365-385, here: p. 372.
  8. ↑ Tessa Hofmann (ed.): Persecution, expulsion and annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. 1912-1922. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7823-6 , p. 48.
    Joachim Jakob: East Syrian Christians and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lit, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-50616-0 , p. 138 f.
  9. ↑ Gunnar Heinsohn : Lexicon of Genocides. rororo, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-22338-4 , p. 83 (keyword Assyro-Chaldäer ).
    Rudolph J. Rummel : "Demozid" - the commanded death. Mass murders in the 20th century. With a foreword by Yehuda Bauer , Yad Vashem, Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 978-3-8258-3469-2 . P. 191.
  10. ↑ Shabo Talay : The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria Introduction, Phonology and Morphology Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05702-8 , Introduction, pp. 15-18.
  11. ↑ Shabo Talay : Political and social developments in Turabdin of the 19th century: Role and meaning of the Syrian Christians in: Martin Tamcke and Sven Grebenstein (eds.): History, theology and culture of Syrian Christianity. Contributions to the 7th German Syrology Symposium in Göttingen, December 2011. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 3-447-10280-2 , pp. 343–361.
  12. ↑ Martin Tamcke: The genocide of the Assyrians / Nestorians. In: Tessa Hofmann (ed.): Persecution, expulsion and annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. 1912-1922. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7823-6 . Pp. 103-118, here: pp. 110 f. ( PDF ).
  13. ↑ a b Hannibal Travis: The Assyrian Genocide. A Tale of Oblivion and Denial. In: Rene Lemarchand (Ed.): Forgotten Genocides. Oblivion, Denial, and Memory. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2011, ISBN 978-0-8122-0438-4 , pp. 123-136, here: p. 127.
  14. ↑ Roland Banken: The Treaties of Sèvres 1920 and Lausanne 1923. An international legal study on the end of the First World War and on the resolution of the so-called "Oriental Question" through the peace treaties between the Allied powers and Turkey (= history of international relations in the 20th century , Volume 5). Lit, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12541-5 , p. 86.
  15. ↑ Amill Gorgis: The genocide of the Syro-Aramaeans. In: Tessa Hofmann (ed.): Persecution, expulsion and annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. 1912-1922. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7823-6 , pp. 119–128, here p. 122.
  16. ^ Samuel Totten, Paul R. Bartrop , Steven Leonard Jacobs: Dictionary of Genocide. Greenwood Press, Westport (Connecticut) 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-32967-8 , p. 26.
  17. ^ Joseph Yacoub: Qui s'en souviendra? 1915 - le genocide assyro-Chaldéo-syriaque. éditions du Cerf, Paris 2014, p.
    Joseph Yacoub: Year of the Sword. The Assyrian Christian Genocide. A history. Hurst Publishers, London 2016, pp.?
  18. ↑ Anahit Khosroeva: The Assyrian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and Adjacent Territories. In: Richard G. Hovannisian (Ed.): The Armenian Genocide. Cultural and Ethical Legacies (= Armenian Studies , Volume 1). Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick 2011, ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3 , pp. 267-274, p. 272.
  19. ^ Hannibal Travis: The Assyrian Genocide. A Tale of Oblivion and Denial. In: Rene Lemarchand (Ed.): Forgotten Genocides. Oblivion, Denial, and Memory. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2011, ISBN 978-0-8122-0438-4 , pp. 123-136.
  20. ^ Assyrian Genocide Monument Erected in Athens. Retrieved May 21, 2020 .
  21. ^ Assyrian Genocide monument unveiled in Fairfield. Retrieved May 21, 2020 (English).