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The Condition Of Christians And Armenians in Ottoman Empire
What all the Ottoman kings
concurred in, was the policy and ideology of Pan-Turkism. The idea of being
one nation, one religion, one language, ... and unifying Turkey had been
rigidly followed in Ottoman Turkey. Even nowadays, Pan-Turkism is followed
in other forms in Turkey, such we see against Kurds. |
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Armenian Villayets (Provinces) In Ottoman Empire |
Since beginning of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire was set in the way
of failure and toppling. The Ottoman government were stuck in severe
financial and economical problems; so that it was unable to pay the salary
of its employees and servants. Racial distinctions between Turks and
non-Turks including Armenians, Greeks, Kurds, Bulgarians and Slavians, Arabs...
and also religious distinctions between |
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Muslims
and Christians in that Christians were named pagan, raised disturbance in
the country. Taxes were too heavy for Christian citizens and Ottoman
officials did everything in their power to misuse and rob the Christians. In
every court of justice, the Muslim was right and the pagan was guilty. In
justice between Turk and non-Turk, always Turks were right. Superiority
feelings in Turks caused a brashness in their dealings with other nations,
esp. Armenians, in so much that they weren't even afraid of killing the
opposite side. at that time the Ottoman Empire began to bring a tidy sum of
money for big European powers such as England, France and Russia;
occasionally under the pretext of supporting the Christian minority, these
nations interfered in the internal affairs of Turkey and obtained some
concessions, but then they left that
poor minority alone.
At last, as a result of interventions of Europeans and Russia, the European
and Mediterranean regions, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina,
Lebanon, Kuwait, Macedonia, Albania, Egypt and Tunisia were separated from
the empire. But when would the time of the separation of Armenia and eastern
Anatolia come!? This question, before occurring to the Armenian minds, had
occurred to the minds of courtiers and made them fear and seek remedy.
In 1861 a perspicacious measure, under the cover of reforms, was taken in
order to weaken the position of Armenians: the big states of the empire (Eyallet)
were divided into several small provinces (Vilayet). Up to that time Ottoman
Armenia Armenia had been called " Armenia state" or, as the Turks said,
provincial Armenia. Thus the state of Armenia was divided into 4 provinces
and the four cities of Van, Diyarbakir, Erzurum and Harput (kharbert) were
appointed as the capital cities of those provinces. Then later on, two new
vilayets, Bitlis and Sivas were added and so thus the name of Armenia
disappeared from official and national geography of Ottoman empire. |
