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In Yerevan,
locals can gaze at Mount Ararat but can’t go there. |
The Mount Ararat, where the bible says Noah’s
ark came to rest after the flood, is the national icon of Armenians as the
Mount Fujiyama (3,776 m) for Japanese. It’s a pair of volcanic peaks. The
higher peak rises to 5,165 m (16,946 ft) and the lower to 3896 m (12782 ft). In 3000 years of Armenian history, Ararat has always been the symbol of resistance and steadiness. But today this
national icon isn’t in Armenia.It's
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in eastern Turkey, near the borders with
Armenia and Iran. Everyday in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, locals can
gaze at Mount Ararat but can’t go there. Since 1920 Turks have
controlled this national icon of Armenians on the other side of a border
officially closed to Armenians.
This website investigates the events which happened from
the middle of 19th century until the year 1923 in the Ottoman Turkish empire
against Armenian nation. Up to the present day, these issues have not been
confronted and thus have not gained suitable universal reaction. Even they have been little discussed among the general population of Iran. Our
efforts have been based on stating the events of those periods briefly and
expressively. Because if we want to enter into details of this massacre
which actually was a genocide of a race and a nation, probably hundreds of books wouldn't be sufficient for the
reflection of those events. although the words are unable to state and
express the depth of this disaster and
intensity of the crimes.
Armenians ever had been subsisting in very deplorable conditions in Ottoman
empire; since the middle of the 19th century, this deplorable condition came
to a head. When the Sultan Abdul Hamid II became the sultan (king) of the
Ottoman empire, dark clouds made shadows on the lives of Armenians. Every
day till the night passed in fear and fright. He pushed to the death 300,000
Armenians in the years 1894-1896 alone.
In 1908, Armenian groups and parties, under the hope of escaping from Sultan
Abdul Hamid's oppressions, ran to help the Turkish revolutionists, who were
called Young Turks; The Armenians, however, were unaware of the destiny the
Young Turks were preparing for themselves. And at last, When the
first shots of World War 1 were fired, the government
of Young Turks found the suitable opportunity to solve the Armenian problem
forever, what Sultan Abdul Hamid never succeeded doing.
In 1915 they performed such a terrible genocide, that up till that time, the
world had never seen the like.
The
massacres
of 1915, contrary to the massacres of Sultan Abdul Hamid, were very
programmed and systematic and carried out in extremely large numbers in the
most savage form possible. It was performed under the goal of exterminating
whole the Armenian race, that in the course of it , over 1,500,000 innocent
people were murdered.
After end of the WW1, when the Axis powers (Germany and the Ottomans) were
defeated, Ataturk followed in the footsteps of his predecessors and at last
a land in the name of Western Armenia disappeared from geographical maps; a
land which one day had about 2,5 million Armenian residents but today it's
empty of Armenian inhabitants.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915, is known as the first genocide in the 20th
century. The efforts and ambitions of Armenians have been channeled into
making the events of that genocide known to the other nations, in order to
restore their trampled rights , and to prevent future massacres of other
nations.
The recognition and official condemnation of this genocide is the duty of
every nation and government. |
