The Ottomans

[ArmSurvival]

Re: The Ottomans

You are correct, lampron. The Ottomans couldn't understand that Armenians did not want to destroy the Turks, they simply wanted their traditional homeland as either an autonomous region or an independent state. When the Ottoman authorities began exiling all Armenians, they realized that independence was the only option.

[lampron]

Re: The Ottomans

Yea, but when a couple of thousand Ottoman-Armenians defected to the Russian side, they decided to punish every Armenian they could get their hands on, which was in the millions, most of which were women, children and the elderly. So its too bad the loyalty wasn't mutual.

of course it wasn't an arangement between more or less equal partners. The Ottomans found the Armenians the most accomodating of the subject peoples. But after losing territories in the Balkans, they became very paranoid. The slightest sign of 'disloyalty' by Armenians was seen as a serious threat

[ArmSurvival]

Re: The Ottomans

Yea, but when a couple of thousand Ottoman-Armenians defected to the Russian side, they decided to punish every Armenian they could get their hands on, which was in the millions, most of which were women, children and the elderly. So its too bad the loyalty wasn't mutual.

[lampron]

Re: The Ottomans

The Ottomans called the Armenians the "loyal" millet or community.

[ArmSurvival]

Re: The Ottomans

" I dont care if any one understands the "gods judgments"...

My point is that if God is omnipotent, a mere human would not be able to comprehend his master-plan for the universe, and this includes you. To try and claim that you know or understand God's judgement is nonsensical.


And originally, I was only trying to point out that your claim of "God's judgement" as the cause of the Armenian genocide is about as rational as radical evangelical preachers who claim that 9/11 was caused by homosexuals and abortionists, rather than by people flying planes into buildings. You are just shifting the blame of the genocide from Turks onto something unexplainable, which is asinine and regressive.


But anyways, we are not going to make any progress if we continue discussing the supernatural, you can open a separate thread if you want to discuss it. Lets just stick with the Ottomans here.

[ArmSurvival]

Re: The Ottomans

I think the majority of the guys here are jumping to conclusions without balancing the facts.
1.- ofcourse the christian minority was paing more/higher taxes than the rest of muslim ottomans because they weren angaged directly with "long lasting millitary obligations" .The armenians were exempt of millitary duty(depending time section this could lasted 4-6 years of duration), finally the armenians were concentrated in their business activities from where they had the opportunity to gain more money than the rest of the muslims..so they may pay higher taxes obviously.

Even if you don't count all the Turks/Muslims that were in the army, they still outnumbered Armenians by a large margin, so what excuse do you have for all those Muslims that were not in the army? That is a very moot point. They simply were not educated at nearly the same level that Armenians were (proportionally speaking, of course).

2.- the the beginning of XX century is obviously different than pre-ottoman era....when you look 1880 onwards the Otto. empaire had nothing left but national debths to pay..there were no money left to pay to the western countries to close Ottomans debths....this was the correct time to take the famous SILK ROAD COMMERCIAL BENEFIT from the armenians and give to the ottoman financers....".Who were the banckers of the empair "the bodies that financed during the Ottoman high time now wanted ALL THE MONEY BACK....logicly for the cost of armenians ofcourse..who else??..the ones who had the money in the first place ...since the rest of muslims were engaged with warfare ,were low income stock....ofcourse the debth of Ottoman empair had no justification of looting armenians belongings.....the looters mad a plan to control the silk road business venture...and they did it....finally "the banckers" had to pay a heavy ransom in 1930-45 in other part of the world....this was perhaps Gods mighty judgment..DO YOU THINK ANY ONE WHO STARTED THIS GREATE POLITICAL PROBLEM WILL NOT HAVE PEACFUL REST IN THIS WORLD...I SAY IF WE ALL BELIVE IN GOD WE OLSO BELIVE TO HIS JUDGMENT WHICH NO ANY BODY CAN ESCAPE IT.....ANY ONE IN THIS WORLD SHOULD RESPECT THE OTHER AND IF NECESSARY SHOULD PAY APPOLOGY TO SAVE ITS FUTURE.....

Its true that the Ottomans of the early 20th century might have thought they were inheriting a rich trade route by killing the Armenians, but they were blind to see that they were also killing their most talented businessmen and a large part of their professionals, and Anatolia's economy basically collapsed because of it. They are still barely recovering from this massive blunder.


And if you keep bringing up "God's judgement" then I'm going to have to respectfully stop conversing with you. I don't want to open this large can of worms, but lets just say that I don't share your views about the universe, and it is absurd to come to conclusions based on such vague reasoning.

[ArmSurvival]

Re: The Ottomans

Iam sure you dont even know who helped Alpaslan in Malazgird battle to defeat the Bizantian empaire.....well ofcourse the armenians done it (have they done an error ) I thing no...and the Ottoman sultan called armenians ever since "milleti sadika" if you dont know turkish you should learn it......Armenians have done great works in Ottoman empair ..even the leading architect SINAN was armenian origin who build mighty mosques in ottoman empair the armenians were in caucasian region for about 3800 years with the persians.....and the rest.. they are the new comers to wait their turn to talk...

These good relations in the past are completely irrelevant to the situation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which was a much different time. I don't see what Armenians' relations with an 11th century conquerer have to do with Turkish treatment of Armenians in the 20th century.

because the armenians had in born ability to commercilazation entities

No, they simply worked harder. Armenians paid much higher taxes than Turks just because of their Christianity, and despite this they still had a much higher proportion of literate, educated and professional people in the Ottoman Empire.

Of all of Armenia's neighbors and occupying powers, the Ottomans have probably had the greatest effect on Armenian mentality, psychology, way of life etc. Even now, on a given day, thousands of Armenians all over the world will tell each other 14th century Turkish folk philospher/homorist Nasreddin Hodja's wisecrack stories

Can you please share some of these world-famous wisecrack stories with us, since they are in such abundance?

Armenian government has followed the Persian model more or less since antiquity. Even today Armenian lands are split into Marz. As for Armenian literature and intellectual thought, it was mostly influenced by the Hellenistic thinkers and writers, as well as their own local innovations and traditions. It was also to a lesser extent influenced by Persian, and later European and Russian thinkers/writers. Can you please name some Ottoman/Turkish thinkers and/or writers which, as you claim, have made a major impact on Armenians?

[lampron]

Re: The Ottomans

Historically the Ottomans controlled the bulk of the Armenian nation. The Ottoman rule lasted much longer than the Persian or Russian. From 1870s onwards Armenian-Ottoman relations grew bad, but in the early days things were much better. The Sultan Mehmed II encouraged Armenians to move into Constantinople (Istanbul). I read that Armenians and Greeks were among physicians (doctors) of Ottoman Sultans and Pashas.
More research is needed on the centuries of Ottoman rule.

[satyagraha]

Re: The Ottomans

both armenians and turks raised a common culture for several hundreds of years. notice the similarities between our music, cuisine etc. this doesn't mean that armenians were affected by turks or vice versa. it is a common culture to which both nations contributed.

[KarotheGreat]

Re: The Ottomans

Iam sure you dont even know who helped Alpaslan in Malazgird battle to defeat the Bizantian empaire.....well ofcourse the armenians done it (have they done an error ) I thing no...and the Ottoman sultan called armenians ever since "milleti sadika" if you dont know turkish you should learn it......Armenians have done great works in Ottoman empair ..even the leading architect SINAN was armenian origin who build mighty mosques in ottoman empair the armenians were in caucasian region for about 3800 years with the persians.....and the rest.. they are the new comers to wait their turn to talk...

my friend at Malzagird it was byzantium vs the seljuk forces the Ottomans are a diffrent brand of turks. And Armenians have build the xxxxing empire, we controled like 90% of the banks.