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Re: notes / comments
Thursday, March 29, 2007
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Victor Hugo: “The smallest animals are the greatest vermin, and the smallest minds have the greatest number of prejudices.”
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Keith Duckworth: “It is better to be un-informed than ill-informed.”
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We like to forget that the Armenian elite at the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire was divided between the optimists and the realists. The optimists (i.e. the revolutionaries) prevailed and survived to write their version of the story. What happened to the realists? I suspect they became so disgusted with their adversaries and their campaign of deception that they went underground where they or their offspring continue to live, unlike the offspring of our “heroes” and “statesmen” who carry on their campaign of deception. In this connection it is worth mentioning that General Antranik shared the disgust of the realists and at one point he went as far as declaring the revolutionaries to be war criminals who deserved to be hanged.
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For more on this subject see Pars Tuglaci, THE ROLE OF THE DADIAN FAMILY IN OTTOMAN, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL LIFE (Istanbul, 1993); and the second volume of Gourgen Mahari’s memoirs titled MANGOUTIUN (Childhood), (Yerevan, 1967, page 228).
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For a more panoramic view of events under discussion see also Philip Mansel’s CONSTANTINOPLE: CITY OF THE WORLD’S DESIRE, 1453-1924 (London, 1995).
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A typical passage in Mansel’s book reads: “In 1914 some Armenians helped Russian troops in Anatolia against Ottoman Forces. There was an Armenian rising in Van. In Constantinople itself some Armenians were seen gloating over the first Russian victories. The Committee [of the Young Turks] decided on a policy of extermination. In Anatolia, between sex and eight hundred thousand Armenian men, women and children died during deportations, epidemics and massacres (many thousands of Turks and Kurds also died in the same region during the war). From Constantinople itself 2,432 men, the elite of the Armenian community, were deported. Among them Krikor Zohrab, deputy for Constantinople, who had given shelter to Talaat during the counter-revolution in April 1909. Few were seen again.”
Elsewhere we read: “Some Armenians hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the great powers.”
And: “In 1895-6 both the Sultan and the Armenian revolutionaries treated the Armenians of Constantinople as pawns, without regard for human life.”
#
Thursday, March 29, 2007
*******************************************
Victor Hugo: “The smallest animals are the greatest vermin, and the smallest minds have the greatest number of prejudices.”
*
Keith Duckworth: “It is better to be un-informed than ill-informed.”
*
We like to forget that the Armenian elite at the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire was divided between the optimists and the realists. The optimists (i.e. the revolutionaries) prevailed and survived to write their version of the story. What happened to the realists? I suspect they became so disgusted with their adversaries and their campaign of deception that they went underground where they or their offspring continue to live, unlike the offspring of our “heroes” and “statesmen” who carry on their campaign of deception. In this connection it is worth mentioning that General Antranik shared the disgust of the realists and at one point he went as far as declaring the revolutionaries to be war criminals who deserved to be hanged.
*
For more on this subject see Pars Tuglaci, THE ROLE OF THE DADIAN FAMILY IN OTTOMAN, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL LIFE (Istanbul, 1993); and the second volume of Gourgen Mahari’s memoirs titled MANGOUTIUN (Childhood), (Yerevan, 1967, page 228).
*
For a more panoramic view of events under discussion see also Philip Mansel’s CONSTANTINOPLE: CITY OF THE WORLD’S DESIRE, 1453-1924 (London, 1995).
*
A typical passage in Mansel’s book reads: “In 1914 some Armenians helped Russian troops in Anatolia against Ottoman Forces. There was an Armenian rising in Van. In Constantinople itself some Armenians were seen gloating over the first Russian victories. The Committee [of the Young Turks] decided on a policy of extermination. In Anatolia, between sex and eight hundred thousand Armenian men, women and children died during deportations, epidemics and massacres (many thousands of Turks and Kurds also died in the same region during the war). From Constantinople itself 2,432 men, the elite of the Armenian community, were deported. Among them Krikor Zohrab, deputy for Constantinople, who had given shelter to Talaat during the counter-revolution in April 1909. Few were seen again.”
Elsewhere we read: “Some Armenians hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the great powers.”
And: “In 1895-6 both the Sultan and the Armenian revolutionaries treated the Armenians of Constantinople as pawns, without regard for human life.”
#
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