User:Seyhan668/Adana Armenians

The Adana region had been inhabited by Armenians since the 4th century. As Adana was one of the first regions in the Ottoman Empire to integrate with the world economy through cotton production, it presented a great location for the Armenian community to prosper. This prosperity was reflected in the number of schools, monasteries, and churches functioning in the region. Armenians occupied with trade and artisanship actively participated in the public life of the city. Apart from the central district of Adana, Tarsus, Hadjin, Sis, and Cebel-i Bereket were the four major areas in the Adana province that had a considerable Armenian presence. As the administrative structure of the Ottoman state was based on the millet system, Armenians were given representation on the administrative council on the basis of religious difference. The Apostolic, Catholic, and Protestant communities were represented by their religious leaders in this council. The Armenians of Adana mostly lived in the Khidir-Ilyas neighborhood, around the Notre Dame church, and in the city center, around the Saint-Etienne parish. Reflecting the size and prosperity of the community in the province was the dynamic intellectual and educational community life present. [ii] There were 1,500 students at the Abkarian, Ashkhenian, and Aramian colleges in 1913. There was also a girl’s school that had more than 500 students. According to the statistics of the Patriarchate, there were 25 schools with 1,947 male students, 808 female students, and 69 teachers in the province. Seven of these schools were in Sis, and provided an education to 476 boys and 165 girls, with 19 teachers.[iii]

Genocide and Armenian properties

Following the deportation decision, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) carefully controlled the state of Armenian properties. There were two parallel processes regarding the Armenian properties: one legal and one illegal. The legal process began with the cabinet decision to protect the Armenian properties left behind and allocate them to immigrants from the Balkans and Caucasus.[iv] Another legal decision was a secret order to inform local governments about the management of the Armenian properties. This secret order included the establishment of liquidation commissions to manage the properties, including the sale of movable properties and the distribution of land, houses, and crops to the immigrants and tribes.[v] Finally, on Sept. 27, 1915, the CUP adopted a law regarding the abandoned Armenian properties; it was defined as a temporary law: “the law about the abandoned properties, debts, and credits of the population who were sent elsewhere.”[vi] While it did not include any articles different from the secret order, it served to legalize the aims of the order. In a practical sense, the CUP used the properties for different aims: the settlement of immigrants,[vii] the establishment of a national economy,[viii] and the provision of the needs of the state, people, and military.[ix] Sacred places like churches and monasteries were excluded from the expropriation and appropriation practices. It was declared that they would be protected and taken care of. Existing goods, pictures, and holy books from the churches were to be registered and preserved. In a new regulation adopted in November1915 defining the procedures of liquidation, usage rights of the materials from the schools and monasteries were transferred to the Ministry of Education.[x] This declaration, however, stayed on paper and the properties that were declared protected were also confiscated by the state.

Confiscation in Adana

The CUP aimed to de-Armenize the Adana province—which included the plain of Adana, Mersin, Sis, and Tarsus—and fill them with Muslim immigrants from the Balkans and Caucasus. The genocide struck Adana in the summer of 1915, when the CUP ordered the deportation of Armenians from the villages of Adana province. In this order, the government also requested the names of the villages and number of deportees. [xi] The CUP government then targeted the provincial towns. The complete deportation of the Armenians of Sis was ordered on June 17, 1915. [xii] Other towns followed one by one. In October 1915, 9,000 Armenians were deported from Dörtyol. With the exception of Baghdad Railway employees and military staff, Armenians were to be “deported without exception” (bilâ-istisna teb’id).[xiii] The Abandoned Properties Commission of Dörtyol was authorized to proceed with the liquidation of Armenian immovable property and its transfer to the Muslim population.[xiv] The immovable properties were used for various, multifaceted aims, including fostering Turkish business in Adana and resettling the now-empty villages and towns with Muslim immigrants from the Balkans.

According to Talat Pasha’s own notebook, 699 buildings were confiscated in Adana province:

Table 1: Confiscated buildings in Adana

Name of district Number Tarsus 9 Cebel-i Bereket 5 Kozan (Sis) 229 Kars 22 Hadjin 50 Hadjin Shar 25 Hadjin Rumlar 25 Feke 30 Feke Karadere 25 Feke Karaköy 130 Feke Yerebakan 30 Feke Dikme 30 Ceyhan 86 Total 699 Source: Bardakçı, 2008, p.93.

These buildings ranged from individual houses to large farms and estates. The losses in Sis/Kozan are striking: They add up to one-third of all the buildings confiscated in the entire province of Adana.

The Ottoman state also confiscated properties belonging to the community: Eight schools and churches, covering a territory of 14,400 m2 with an estimated value of 46,400 Turkish gold liras, were seized by the state. Fifty-six community buildings and plots, covering 16,488 m2 and worth 43,785 Turkish gold liras, were also seized.[xv]

The Catholicosate of Sis overlooked the town and was a large building—constructed on 1,250,000 m2—with 50 rooms and halls. The building was coated with high-quality earthenware Kütahya tile and housed a library of 4,000 books and 400 manuscripts, along with an antique art museum. The tax the Catholicosate paid was roughly 100,000 Turkish gold liras. The diocese was also in possession of a historical church and residential buildings covering 14,500 m2 and worth 2,000 Turkish gold liras. The Catholicosate also owned several houses and shops, two water mills, a 10,000 m2 garden, a 30,000 m2 field, and a 10,000,000 m2 farm with depots, stables, plots, 130 cows, 30 muzzles, and flocks of goats and sheep. The properties of the Catholicosate of Sis covered a total of 11,687,100 m2 and were worth 167,520 Turkish gold liras.[xvi]

The churches in the provinces and neighborhoods also experienced astronomical losses. These losses were counted and documented in the archives of the Armenian Catholicosate in Antelias, Lebanon:[xvii]

—Surp Asdvadzadzin in the Hidir Ilyas neighbourhood;

—A school in the compound of that church (Ferman of February 1816): 6,000 m2, 25,000 Turkish gold lira (TL);

—Surp Stepanos and school in the Bucak neighborhood, burned in 1909 (Ferman lost): 5,000 m2, 18,000 TL;

—Church in Hiristiyanköy (Ferman of March 1848): 1,000 m2, 1,000 TL;

—Church in İncirlik (Ferman lost): 800 m2, 800 TL;

—Church in Sheikh Murad (Ferman lost): 1,000 m2, 1,000 TL;

—Church in Abdo-oghlu, burned during the French occupation (Ferman lost): 200 m2, 200 TL;

—Church in Missis, burned during the French occupation (Ferman lost): 400 m2, 400 TL.

The state used the Armenian properties for its various interests. Some were transferred to Turkish firms. Others were shared among local officials and citizens. Big buildings like churches were converted into prisons. The local authorities in Adana offered the conversion of six buildings in the province into prisons. Reporting to the Interior Ministry, the governor of Adana claimed Adana was in serious need of a new prison and offered to transform a church—and the school next to the church—into a prison with some refurbishing.[xviii] The Interior Ministry accepted the offer and authorized the governor to put the plan into practice. In the end, those holy places that had been declared “protected” were converted into prisons.[xix] Before this change, the prison was a room in an old police station. Not by chance, this police station was also moved to a different building—one on Armenian property.[xx] Church buildings and fields were also used for different purposes. According to the memoirs of Damar Arıkoğlu, who was a CUP representative for Adana and represented the province as a parliamentarian from 1920-46, an apprentice school was established in the yard of an Armenian church in the province.[xxi]

After 1918, surviving Adana Armenians attempted to return to their homes. Restitution soon became an obstacle. The heirs of murdered and deceased deportees encountered difficulties when trying to reclaim property. The principle of “appearance in person” (isbât-ı vücud) was in force, and only the person registered on the property could claim it back. Many of those people had, of course, been killed, and their documentation often lost.

A few dozen Maronites, Greek Catholics, and Armenian Catholics stayed in the region. These communities were also dispossessed in Adana, Mersin, and Tarsus. The state confiscated storehouses, rectories, churches, gardens, farms, houses, and convents, and used them for its own purposes. As the Treaty of Lausanne did not name any specific groups that were guaranteed minority status, the government declared that these communities were not covered under the Treaty of Lausanne, and thus did not have the rights guaranteed for minority communities. The government ordered the seizure of all properties belonging to these communities on Jan. 21, 1926. The bell tower of the Maronite church in Tarsus was demolished and was converted into the district governorship in 1928. Maronite and Greek Catholic properties in Mersin were given to the Ministry of Education.[xxii]

Young Turk officials also bullied Father Ignace Terzian out of Tarsus, then terrorized the priest Jean Khalkovian in Mersin. Local newspapers participated in this pressure policy by launching a campaign of defamation against Khalkovian, claiming he had cooperated with the occupying French forces. Khalkovian was deported to Kastamonu and in 1926 was expelled from Turkey. Removing such an important community figure from the scene, the authorities were even more free in confiscating the properties of the Armenian Catholic community—18 hectares of agricultural land, a storehouse, shops, and many other belongings. The community was stripped to such an extent that the last Catholic Armenian in Adana, Msgr. Pascal Keklikian, was renting the Catholic community’s own property from the government. Although he tried to improve the conditions of his community, his efforts proved to be unsuccessful; the state was determined to destroy the same community he was trying to protect. In January 1927, the governor of Adana, Reşat Mimaroğlu (1880-1953), ordered the categorical confiscation of all Catholic Armenian properties in that province. The community had now lost everything: its church, rectory, schools, shops, land, houses. The dispirited and defeated Keklikian had no other option than to depart for Syria.[xxiii]

It is a widely reproduced myth that the Ottoman and Turkish states protected Armenian properties, especially its holy places. It is so popular that one can find this historically ungrounded myth in the declarations of state officials, not only those from Turkey but also from the U.S. However, one should look at the history without political bias to see the difference between myth and reality. This short article attempted to do this, sharing a motivation with other ongoing efforts to look at the history of the Armenian Genocide from a purely academic point of view free from politics.

Adana Armenians

Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral in Buenos Aires
Total population
70,000–80,000 up to 130,000 (estimate)
Regions with significant populations
Adana, smaller numbers in Hadjin, Sis, Dörtyol and Tarsus Cebeli-bereket
Languages
Turkish, Armenian
Religion
Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic and Protestant
Related ethnic groups
Cilician Armenians

Armenian Argentines are ethnic Armenians who live in Argentina. Between 70,000 and 135,000 people of Armenian ancestry live in the country, forming one of the largest groups in the Armenian diaspora worldwide. The core of the population came from Cilicia, Syria and Lebanon. In Buenos Aires, the Armenian community is known to share their common culture with the Basque community through musical events and cultural activities.

History

According to researcher Kim Hekimian, the majority of Armenians arriving in the 1920s originated from the province of Adana in Cilicia of the Ottoman Empire. Most of these Armenians left their homelands either because of the deportations and massacres of the Armenian genocide. Immigrants from the cities of Marash, Hadjin, and Antep together accounted for approximately 60 percents of all incoming Cilician Armenians. The large number of immigrants from these cities was a result of Armenians following their friends and relatives who had emigrated earlier.

Chancellor Héctor Timerman with the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

Once in Argentina, Armenians from the same city or town in Cilicia were inclined to group together and maintain their regional customs. The informal census taken by Ohannes Der Jachadurian in 1941 demonstrates that approximately 70 percent of the Armenians in Argentina originating from Hadjin resided in the southern neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, including Flores, Nueva Pompeya, and Villa Soldati. Some of these regional ties promoted the creation of at least twenty organizations in the 1930s. Of these organizations, only the Society of Hadjin, Society of Antep and Society of Marash are still in operation.

In addition to the arrival of Armenians from Cilicia, between 1917 and 1921, during the Russian Civil War, many Armenians from Russia escaped to avoid religious persecution. Between 1947 and 1954 many Armenians from the Soviet Union, Syria and Lebanon came to Argentina as a consequence of the Second World War, and from Iran because of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

The Armenian community of Argentina has maintained its identity due to focus on the church, school and the family structure. Most of those who came in the mid-1920s escaped the Armenian Genocide and Adana massacres. The first Armenians came in 1908 and some came in 1915, but it was not until 1924-1930 that the community took shape when some 10,000 people settled in Buenos Aires. Subsequent waves of immigrants came from Russia, Romania and Greece. The influx dried up in the early 1950s. Today, the community is estimated to number 380,000. While survival was of paramount importance, education was also high on the agenda of the early immigrants. They had no money and few of them spoke a foreign language, therefore they gave a great deal of attention to education. Much of the Armenian community of Buenos Aires can be found in the Palermo neighborhood.

Religious life

Prior to the establishment of the church, the Armenians of Buenos Aires congregated on Sunday afternoons at a coffee shop on 25 de Mayo Street which was owned by a Jewish man from Smyrna. The coffee shop became such an established "center" for the Armenians that they used its address to receive mail from their family and friends from abroad. When more Armenian refugees arrived in Buenos Aires, the community managed to rent the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, an Anglican church which was near the coffee shop. Two Englishmen delivered sermons translated from Armenian by Haig Moscofian.

After the arrival of the first priest of the community Der Hayr Barasatian, the community became more religiously organized. After the Armenian community in Buenos Aires faced numerous financial crises, it constructed its first Armenian church in 1938.

Currently, the Armenian community of Argentina has nine Armenian churches.

Notable Armenian Argentines

Armenian Argentines in Oberá, Misiones.

• Martín Adjemián, actor
• León Arslanián, former Federal Judge and former Minister of Security of the Buenos Aires Province
• Esteban Becker, football coach
• José Andrés Bilibio, professional footballer
• Efrain Chacurian, former professional footballer
• János Czetz, a military commander during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and the organizer of Argentina's first national military academy
• Eduardo Eurnekian, businessman
• Pampero Firpo, professional wrestler
• Bedros Hadjian, journalist, writer and educator
• Martín Karadagian, wrestler and actor
• Paz Lenchantin, bass player
• David Nalbandian, tennis player
• Alicia Terzian, conductor, musicologist and composer
• Alex Yemenidjian, the former President of MGM
• Fernando Zagharian, professional footballer

See also

• Argentina–Armenia relations
• Armenian diaspora
• Centro Armenio de la República Argentina
• Club Deportivo Armenio
• Sardarabad (weekly)

External links

• (in Spanish) Sardarabad - Armenian Spanish Newspaper
• (in Spanish) IAN - Spanish speaking armenians around the world
• (in Spanish) Armenios online
• (in Spanish) Armenian Institute
• (in Spanish) Diario Armenia
• (in Spanish) Cámara Argentino - Armenia
• Tigran Ghanalanyan, Armenian Protestant communities in South America, http://noravank.am/eng/issues/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5722

Argentine Category:Ethnic groups in Argentina